Giles Foden - Mimi and Toutous Big Adventure

T here was plenty of game in the shooting grounds of German East Africa. That enormous stretch of territory between the Great Lakes of the continent and the Indian Ocean had not been over-shot. As had happened, in the hunters opinion, in the countrys neighbours, Kenya and Uganda. There the noble bongo, finest of African antelopes, was almost extinct, as was the white rhinoceros. These creatures were already entering the world of myth, like the unicorn. The hunter remembered another ge dor, a genuine one. Yesteryear, when the delicate art of reading spoor had not been overtaken by the motor car and the repeating rifle.

Here in German East things were different. On his way to the lakeshore, for instance, the hunter had watched a white rhinoceros trot across the undulating grassy ridge in front of him. Even now, amid some trees nearer the lake, a cow elephant was pulling down ripening palm-fruits for her calf; rearing up and gripping the tree with her front legs, using her trunk like a spoon.

In spite of the reeds around him and the breeze wafting under the brim of his hat, the hunter felt the heat coming off the surface of Lake Tanganyika. On the shore he could see small, brown clusters of antelope dotted about in the haze. There were two types down there, he noted from his prone position: the shy, mysterious Sitatungawhose splayed, webbed hooves kept them from sinking in swampsand the more common Defassa water-buck or Sing-Sing. Cobus defassa was a fine animal with a shaggy coat, good horns and a splendid carriage, but there was no point shooting it. Water-buck meat did not roast well.

The hunter pursued his profession in German East Africa, once known as Tanganyika. He had no hunting licence from the authorities, however, nor did he live there. He was after elephant. Not this gentle she-elephant plucking palm nuts, but one of the big tuskers, 20,000 pounds at least. He shifted in the bed of reeds, feeling the rifles weight in his hand, Old Sols heat through the crown of his hat: waiting, waiting the principal occupation of a big-game hunter. It was not the glamorous career many held it to be. He watched a flock of spur-winged geese rise into the air above the reed-bed. Now they were good eating, but they could not be shot with a .475. His rifle was by no means a fowling piece; it would blow a bird into a thousand feathery fragments.

Why carry such a heavy weapon? he was often asked. They say choice of arms comes down to shock versus easy handling and it was his firm belief that, where elephants were concerned, shock was very much to be preferred, as much to protect oneself as to avoid wounding and slow death.

Watching the geese fall into a V formation in the sky, he reflected that he should have told his Holo-holo bearer to bring up his shotgun as well as the heavy-calibre rifle. Then he could have shot for the pot. His eye drifted down to the lake, so wonderfully calm today. He had known gales rise here many times in the pastheavy storms that ripped up and down the water with terrifying ferocity. Tropical cyclones formed magnificent waterspouts in some seasons, rising miles high.

The lakes headlands and creek-banks were mainly covered with acacia scrubfringed, as here, with reed and papyrus. Elsewhere, there was thick jungle andno less densemiombo forests studded with African teak and rare ebony. In some places along the lake, sheer granite slopes rose from the water up to a thousand feet. Raked by deep gullies, these cliffs were testament to the epic narratives that had formed Lake Tanganyika. It was the longest freshwater lake in the world, more than 400 miles long. Geological timeno longer so fathomless as heretofore, but still a sign of Gods grace: the outward workings of his spiritual perfectionwas the key to this beautiful inland sea.

Geology also explained those other great natural tanks of rainwater that extend down the backbone of the Rift Valley: Lake Albert, Lake Victoria, Lake Nyasa. All along this vital and structural centre of Africa, as a certain missionary had once described the Rift to him, were what were termed foundered valleys: valleys made not by the ground being pushed up, but by it falling away. Into these vast troughsthrough swamp-choked estuaries, through clear, pebble-bottomed creeks, or tumbling down foaming chasmsthe rivers and streams of the surrounding region had flowed for untold years. Once in the lake, the water had many of the characteristics of the sea, able to turn from green to grey to deep blue, its waves cresting white as they broke on the shore. With a surface area of 13,000 square miles, Lake Tanganyika was even large enough to attract the attention of the moon and produce tides.