African Safari-SD
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TVTranscript
00:00:00 [ Music ]
00:00:09 [ Singing ]
00:00:38 [ Music ]
00:00:47 [ Singing ]
00:01:16 >> Africa is a land of vast plains like the Serengeti.
00:01:21 And Africa is a land of delicate beauty with graceful creatures like the flamingos.
00:01:27 And of magnificent mountains like Kirimanjaro in Tanzania.
00:01:32 And colossal cataracts like Victoria Falls on the Zambezi.
00:01:37 Victoria is twice as high as Niagara.
00:01:40 [ Music ]
00:01:46 Some of Africa's birds are so large you can feed a family of ten from a single ostrich egg.
00:01:51 [ Music ]
00:02:02 Africa has its share of weird and wonderful creatures like the chameleon, which has its eyes set in turrets.
00:02:08 While one looks straight up, the other can look straight down all at the same instant.
00:02:12 That's what the boss should have in the office.
00:02:15 [ Music ]
00:02:17 One of the oddest creatures in Africa is the pangolin.
00:02:21 Although it is a mammal, it has scales like a reptile.
00:02:24 [ Music ]
00:02:27 Termites are the wrecking crew of Africa.
00:02:30 In one week, they can completely devour a thatched native hut,
00:02:33 carrying the bits and pieces of grass into their underground fortress.
00:02:37 [ Music ]
00:02:43 Africa has its share of poisonous creatures like the boom slang, a deadly tree snake.
00:02:48 [ Music ]
00:02:53 And there is the puff adder, which literally walks on its ventral muscles.
00:02:57 [ Music ]
00:02:59 And there is the tsetse fly, which transmits the dreaded sleeping sickness.
00:03:04 It feeds solely on blood, which it sucks from the skin of its victim,
00:03:08 in this case, the arm of a Briton in Tanzania.
00:03:11 [ Music ]
00:03:14 After a full meal of blood, his abdomen is so distended he can hardly fly.
00:03:20 Many of Africa's plants are equipped with defensive devices to help them survive.
00:03:25 [ Music ]
00:03:28 But some of Africa's creatures lose in the conflict for survival.
00:03:32 Fish are constantly dying in the jaws of crocodiles.
00:03:36 A turtle dove falls prey to a fast-flying falcon.
00:03:40 [ Music ]
00:03:42 Predators must prey on others, for without death, there would be no life.
00:03:47 And here in Africa, life constantly regenerates itself.
00:03:51 [ Music ]
00:03:57 Young antelope are thrust into a strange and often cruel world.
00:04:03 They are frequently the victims of crocodiles.
00:04:07 [ Music ]
00:04:24 They are also often the victims of lions.
00:04:27 [ Music ]
00:04:53 [ Music ]
00:05:02 But large animals like the Cape buffalo are sometimes, though not always,
00:05:06 successful in beating off an attack by the king of beasts.
00:05:11 [ Music ]
00:05:26 [ Music ]
00:05:41 [ Music ]
00:06:04 The lioness locked her jaws on the throat of this wildebeest in a vice-like grip,
00:06:09 from which it could not escape.
00:06:11 [ Music ]
00:06:16 Newborn crocodiles rarely survive beyond the first week,
00:06:19 falling easy victim to servals, civets, birds of prey, and even their own parents.
00:06:25 [ Music ]
00:06:30 They have much to fear from giant eagles.
00:06:34 [ Music ]
00:06:40 The Marshall eagle is the largest and fiercest eagle on the continent of Africa.
00:06:44 He has a wingspan of about seven feet, and he eats monkeys, snakes, lizards, rabbits, and rodents.
00:06:51 He is a very powerful, very spirited bird.
00:06:55 [ Music ]
00:07:17 Baby leopards have much to fear from other predators
00:07:20 until they grow big and strong enough to defend themselves.
00:07:28 And Africa has its share of large, dangerous animals like the rhinoceros.
00:07:33 The natives of Africa are just as unusual as its wild creatures.
00:07:37 For example, there is the Banyaruanda tribe of the former Belgian Congo,
00:07:41 which has the odd custom of chipping their teeth to points,
00:07:45 because in their estimation, it enhances their beauty.
00:07:48 And besides, they can make out better in a fight.
00:07:52 When this fellow bites, he's going to make a good impression.
00:07:56 They strike the top of a knife blade with a steel rod,
00:07:59 and with each strike, they knock a chip off the tooth.
00:08:02 It's a very painful process, and this man will have great difficulty eating or drinking for about three weeks.
00:08:08 And believe it or not, he actually pays to have this done.
00:08:12 [ Music ]
00:08:19 Now let's see what progress he made with that lower tooth.
00:08:22 [ Music ]
00:08:26 A bit of an argument ensues because the patient, or should I say the victim,
00:08:30 is willing to pay five francs, but the dentist wants ten francs.
00:08:35 This woman is very excited about the whole thing.
00:08:38 [ Foreign Language ]
00:08:45 Some men earn their living by capturing Africa's wild creatures for sale to zoos.
00:08:51 One of them is yours truly, capturing a python in Zambia.
00:08:55 The technique is to stand just outside of striking range.
00:08:58 You have to watch for his teeth. He has long, sharp teeth.
00:09:02 And then at the right moment, you grab him by the head.
00:09:06 I packed this python in a comfortable wooden crate
00:09:11 and sent him by air to my tax collector as a Christmas present.
00:09:14 [ Birds Chirping ]
00:09:19 This python is larger than the first.
00:09:22 The larger they are, the easier they are to catch because the slower they strike.
00:09:26 But of course, the longer their teeth, so you have to exercise a little more care.
00:09:30 [ Birds Chirping ]
00:09:38 This snake weighed more than 100 pounds.
00:09:41 [ Birds Chirping ]
00:09:45 I travel across the vast expanses of Africa in my pickup truck,
00:09:49 and my objectives on this trip, in addition to capturing animals for zoos,
00:09:53 are to bring back specimens of a new subspecies of Egyptian cobra
00:09:57 for the American Museum of Natural History
00:09:59 and to assist Uganda government surveyors
00:10:02 in mapping an unexplored section of the Mountains of the Moon
00:10:05 and to get a taste of high adventure in the years that lay ahead.
00:10:09 [ Music ]
00:10:14 I often travel off the road, and sometimes my only means of navigation is a compass.
00:10:19 [ Music ]
00:10:24 If I head for the ridge in the center, I'll be right on course.
00:10:30 I pitched my camp here in Tanzania, and one day, as I walked to my safari truck,
00:10:35 I saw a startling sight--a full-grown cheetah.
00:10:40 I ran for my rifle because in this district, cheetah are classed as vermin
00:10:44 since they kill so many domestic animals, and the government encouraged me to collect any I found.
00:10:49 Cheetah are the fastest four-legged animals in the world.
00:10:54 [ Music ]
00:11:05 Chances are this fellow is half a mile away by now.
00:11:10 In most countries and colonies of Africa, cheetah are classed as royal game.
00:11:15 That is, you are not permitted to shoot them under any circumstances,
00:11:18 but in this district, it's just the reverse.
00:11:21 Oh, well, it's a nice sunny day, so I think I'll go for a walk to the felt
00:11:24 and see what wildlife this district holds in store for me.
00:11:29 [ Birds Chirping ]
00:11:34 This rhino is standing just about where I have to walk
00:11:37 because there is marshy ground to both left and right.
00:11:41 I'm going to skirt as far to the left as I can,
00:11:44 but I don't want to provoke him if I can help it since I don't have a rhino on my game license.
00:11:49 [ Rhino Roaring ]
00:11:52 This rhino weighs about two tons, so game license or no game license,
00:11:56 I'm going to slip a cartridge into the chamber just in case,
00:12:02 but I'm not going to shoot if I can possibly help it.
00:12:05 [ Music ]
00:12:13 I'd have to get closer, and he would have gotten a bullet.
00:12:16 [ Music ]
00:12:22 Nope, you just can't go for a walk nowadays.
00:12:28 Rubies. Tanzania is rich in minerals, particularly in gemstones,
00:12:34 and practically every rock on this outcropping had about eight or ten rubies in it.
00:12:42 These are genuine rubies, but I didn't have a geologist's hammer or a pick,
00:12:49 and I couldn't very well get them out with my fingernails or my teeth, so they're still there.
00:12:54 [ Birds Chirping ]
00:13:10 I got out my pocket chart and made a notation of exactly where this place is
00:13:14 in case I decide to come back someday and put a road through here.
00:13:21 Here in Tanzania, flies are a scourge to man and beast alike.
00:13:28 Looks like a couple of Thompson's Gazelles squaring off for some sort of match.
00:13:36 Don't look now, but I think there's going to be a fight.
00:13:43 I knew it, I knew it.
00:13:48 I fought like that once, and just look what happened to me.
00:13:58 By George, looks like a fight.
00:14:08 Lions, a pride of six, one hiding up in some rocks and five out in the open.
00:14:14 The best thing to do in a case like this is to walk right on past and show no sign of fear,
00:14:19 because contrary to what most people think, lions do not normally eat people.
00:14:24 If you run from a lion, he's bound to give chase. That is the worst possible thing you could do.
00:14:34 But lions are like people. They all have different personalities.
00:14:37 Where one will decamp, another will stand his ground.
00:14:47 This third fellow seemed even less inclined to move than the first two.
00:14:55 The next two didn't even look friendly. Notice the hair on the back of his neck.
00:15:05 Nope, they're just putting on a performance.
00:15:08 This is simply a demonstration to try to frighten me off. They don't really mean it.
00:15:15 This last fellow was a downright coward.
00:15:31 Guinea fowl are common here on the plains of Central Africa, but they have many natural enemies,
00:15:37 and they must be constantly on the alert because sometimes death stalks just around the corner.
00:15:47 In the uppermost branches of a tree high overhead sits an African hawk eagle,
00:15:51 and he scans these Guinea fowl very intently because he is hungry.
00:16:05 This is how he captures his prey.
00:16:14 Like all birds of prey, he kills with his talons, not with his beak.
00:16:18 Birds of prey use their beaks only for shredding meat into bite-sized pieces
00:16:23 and do not attack or defend themselves with their beaks.
00:16:43 Vultures, hundreds of vultures, and as I look below, I see the cause of it.
00:16:50 A hyena is dragging a wildebeest carcass through the water.
00:16:54 He's got it there so the vultures and jackals can't get to it.
00:16:57 He's been feeding on it for so long he just can't take another bite,
00:17:01 but he'll be darned if he'll let anybody else have any.
00:17:06 Vultures wait patiently.
00:17:09 Others soar overhead.
00:17:21 And the jackals wait patiently.
00:17:35 Well, now it looks like he's had his fill and the vultures wade in.
00:17:54 Vultures spend more time fighting with one another than they do in getting down to eating.
00:17:58 They never do seem to get along with their own kind.
00:18:05 I found a baby chimpanzee, and at first she was trembling with fear,
00:18:09 but in a few minutes she grabbed my jacket with her little fists
00:18:12 as if she was looking for protection from the big, bad world around her.
00:18:15 I guess she thought I looked like a reasonable facsimile of her mother.
00:18:19 I called her Trudy, and she now lives in a zoo in America.
00:18:22 At this point she had a tummy like a beach ball and a face like a dried up prune.
00:18:37 She was a very clever little ape.
00:18:39 Within three or four days I taught her to come to me when I called her by name,
00:18:43 which is pretty good going for a wild creature.
00:18:57 Next day her relatives paid me a social call and stole some food from my truck.
00:19:26 I loaded my truck with animals for the trip to the nearest airport.
00:19:30 This is a cheetah cub.
00:19:38 Next, a large crate of colorful East African lovebirds, also known as fisher's parakeets.
00:19:49 And then we loaded boxes of poisonous snakes.
00:19:57 I extended the range of my truck from the normal 300 miles to better than 1,000 miles
00:20:02 by carrying these spare jerry cans.
00:20:18 Now watch how Trudy grabs my bush jacket with her little fists.
00:20:22 Once she gets hold of me like that you just can't get her off.
00:20:25 If you try she will scream and cry like a little baby,
00:20:28 and it's tough to drive with her between you and the wheel,
00:20:31 but she's just got to sit right there.
00:20:37 On the way I saw some Thompson's gazelles,
00:20:39 which are characterized by their windshield wipers in the rear.
00:20:47 Their chief natural enemy is the wild dog, which gangs up in packs and runs them down.
00:20:54 Another one of their natural enemies is the lion.
00:20:57 It's no secret this fellow just had a full meal.
00:21:00 But their fleet-footedness is the thing that saves them
00:21:03 because they can generally outrun their predators.
00:21:09 I saw many wildebeest, which were having their young about this time of year.
00:21:24 The men of the village don't do this, and they think the women are absolutely mad.
00:21:30 They paint their faces the same way, but this pigment lasts only about three or four days,
00:21:35 and they have to go through this whole process at least twice a week.
00:21:42 Little boys played strange games that I never could quite figure out.
00:21:47 A unique thing about pygmies is that without exception all the women have masculine faces.
00:22:02 Then the chief showed me their favorite musical instrument, which they call a lukambi.
00:22:07 It is a hollow wooden sounding board on which they have mounted flattened steel nails,
00:22:11 and oddly enough it is exactly the same sort of instrument
00:22:14 natives use in widely scattered parts of Africa.
00:22:19 I asked the pygmies if they would like to go for a ride in my truck.
00:22:23 They thought this would be a great and glorious adventure.
00:22:26 The village turned out in single file.
00:22:43 Sixty seconds after I drove up I had 39 pygmies on top of and inside of my truck.
00:22:49 I bet the Ford Motor Company never knew they could carry this many people.
00:22:55 This fellow said he had a spear he would like to trade with me.
00:23:06 I just happened to have a piece of cloth I bought in Nairobi for this purpose.
00:23:11 Aha, that really struck his fancy.
00:23:14 Well, it's a trade. The spear is mine, the cloth is his.
00:23:18 We each thought we got a bargain.
00:23:33 This fellow that made the trade with me is a very bashful pygmy.
00:23:36 He wants to go for a ride in the truck too,
00:23:38 but he doesn't want to brazenly climb aboard without first asking my permission.
00:23:43 I never saw such a polite pygmy before.
00:23:48 And now we're off for an exciting ride at all of two miles per hour.
00:23:53 I was afraid that if I went any faster I'd lose those fellows on top.
00:23:57 After living with these tiny people for a few weeks,
00:24:00 I visited a Bantu village at the edge of the forest.
00:24:12 It was here that I saw how they operate their old-fashioned muzzle loaders.
00:24:17 They pour some black powder down the barrel,
00:24:29 slide in a paper seal,
00:24:38 and then drop in a piece of lead fashioned to the shape of a bullet.
00:24:42 Whoops, time out for snuff. He can't do his work properly without snuff.
00:24:46 He puts as much powder up his nose as he puts down the barrel.
00:24:54 Now he cocks the hammer and puts a percussion cap on the striker base.
00:25:02 Then he slowly closes the hammer down on it.
00:25:05 All he has to do in order to fire is simply cock the hammer.
00:25:09 Now he's going to demonstrate his prowess with this noisy weapon.
00:25:22 Missed by 15 feet.
00:25:26 When I arrived in Uganda, I made arrangements with a game ranger to use the launch
00:25:30 which the government put at his disposal,
00:25:32 because I'm searching for monitor lizards and these four-foot lizards frequent the banks of rivers in central Africa.
00:25:39 I'm now on the Victoria Nile between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert,
00:25:42 and I'm going to scan both banks carefully for these giant monitors.
00:25:59 On the way, I saw many of the colorful birds which are so characteristic of this part of Africa.
00:26:04 Marabou storks, pelicans, Egyptian geese, darters, and cormorants.
00:26:13 This hippo ran along an underwater plateau, and then suddenly, he stepped off the edge.
00:26:21 (music)
00:26:31 A yellow-billed kite spotted a dead fish floating on the surface,
00:26:34 and he swooped down and snatched it up in his talons.
00:26:40 I saw many crocodiles along the banks of this river.
00:26:50 Then I saw some cattle egrets landing on a mud bank.
00:26:57 Ah-ha, it wasn't a mud bank at all.
00:27:00 It was a herd of sleeping hippos.
00:27:02 You get lots of surprises out here.
00:27:13 Crocodiles often wander far from water at night,
00:27:16 but seldom more than eight or ten feet from it during daylight hours.
00:27:24 They have the odd custom of sleeping with their mouths wide open.
00:27:28 Notice all the flies in this fellow's mouth.
00:27:34 Boy, I hope those flies don't drown.
00:27:41 Then I saw some hippos kissing, and a couple play fighting.
00:27:57 Monitor lizards, just what I was looking for.
00:28:00 They're digging in a hole in the sand bank for turtle eggs.
00:28:03 Monitors like eggs of all kinds, bird's eggs, crocodile eggs, and turtle eggs.
00:28:08 And when they find one, they gulp it down voraciously.
00:28:22 I disembarked at a landing that the game ranger had erected nearby,
00:28:26 and I instructed the crew to return before nightfall with my natives and my camping gear.
00:28:31 Meanwhile, I'm going to survey this area for a campsite,
00:28:34 which will serve as a base for capturing these giant lizards.
00:28:46 The next morning, while my camp was under construction, I went out for a walk.
00:28:50 And on what was practically my front lawn, there was a monitor.
00:29:15 I made a rush for him, but he turned the tables on me,
00:29:18 and for a minute I was wondering who was trying to capture whom.
00:29:21 He has very powerful jaws and sharp teeth,
00:29:23 and you must be very careful how you grab him not to lose a finger.
00:29:42 Well, now it's all over but to grab him by the head.
00:29:45 But this is easier said than done, because he's not going to cooperate one bit.
00:29:52 This is what is known as having a lizard by the tail.
00:30:08 I packed him in a comfortable wooden crate and sent him off by air express to my animal agent in America.
00:30:20 I packed my animals and my gear in my truck and I headed for the Serengeti plains of Tanzania.
00:30:40 (Music)
00:31:09 (Music)
00:31:18 At about this time of the year, lionesses are having their young on the Serengeti plains.
00:31:23 They usually have three or four cubs to a litter and stay with them for about two years
00:31:27 to protect them from danger when they're tiny and to teach them the fine art of hunting.
00:31:32 Lion cubs don't know all the fine points of stalking their prey by instinct.
00:31:37 They have to learn these through long, hard hours of instruction from their mother.
00:31:41 If they make a mistake, they get cuffed good and hard and they learn mighty fast.
00:31:51 Lions show real affection for one another, pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:31:56 They have a very closely knit family life.
00:32:03 But when a lioness has her young, she is usually in a very nasty protective disposition
00:32:08 and this is no time to disturb her or to get too close.
00:32:15 But she is very patient and accommodating toward her cubs.
00:32:18 She is literally a mobile milk bar out here in the hot, dusty plains of Tanzania.
00:32:25 A unique thing about lionesses is that they will nurse cubs from another litter besides their own.
00:32:30 They never cared less whose cubs they are.
00:32:33 For example, here you'll see that one cub is much larger than the others,
00:32:37 which shows that this lioness is babysitting for another lioness who's gone off hunting.
00:32:42 Sort of a cooperative society.
00:32:46 Yep, life is one big bowl of cherries when you're a lion cub.
00:32:50 Ma and Pa do all the work and you have all the fun.
00:32:53 These cubs will be full-grown lions in less than three years.
00:32:57 Adult males weigh about 450 pounds, adult females about 350 pounds.
00:33:03 (music)
00:33:31 Animals can tell when lions are out to make a kill.
00:33:34 And when they know that they're not, they will stand by and let one pass very closely.
00:33:39 It's sort of a sixth sense that animals have that lets them know this.
00:33:43 But these wildebeest and zebra know that this old boy is up to no good, so they give him a wide berth.
00:33:48 Actually, he is frightening them to a point downwind where the lionesses are lying in wait with their cubs
00:33:54 because it is the lionesses that usually do the killing for a pride, not the males.
00:33:59 Males will condescend to help, but they leave the dirty work up to the ladies,
00:34:03 pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:34:08 There is not a tree for miles around and it's 110 degrees in the shade.
00:34:13 (music)
00:34:27 Boy, I wish that old man would hurry up and bring home the bacon.
00:34:31 So he accommodates and shifts into second.
00:34:39 Now he shifts into high, and this ostrich decides this is no place for him.
00:34:46 And these two hardebeest say, "Boy, let's get out of here. This is no place for us."
00:34:54 (music)
00:35:10 In less than an hour, there is nothing left but skin and bones.
00:35:14 Lions know what it is to go hungry.
00:35:17 Sometimes they do without meat for four or five days.
00:35:20 So when they have a kill, they make the most of it while it's available.
00:35:23 They literally gorge themselves, leaving nothing behind if they can possibly help it.
00:35:34 Now I headed north, and on the way I crossed an improvised log bridge.
00:35:39 The unsettling thing about these bridges is that you never know what load they're built to withstand
00:35:44 until you get to the other side, and it might be too late.
00:35:49 On the way, I saw one of the most fabulous sights in all of Africa.
00:35:54 Kalambo Falls, the highest waterfall on the continent, twice as high as Victoria, a 720-foot drop.
00:36:01 It's situated way down at the southern tip of Lake Tanzania on the Tanzania-Zambia border.
00:36:18 The waterfall is so high, the entire river atomizes before it strikes bottom,
00:36:23 so it's a perfectly silent waterfall. There's no thunder here whatsoever.
00:36:28 The name Kalambo means "greatest of the great" in the local vernacular.
00:36:48 Zebras have few pleasures in life, but this is one of them.
00:36:58 On the way, I discovered that I had several broken spring blades,
00:37:01 and I took time out to apply homemade steel clamps.
00:37:05 During the years that this safari lasted, I had 19 broken spring blades and 15 flat tires.
00:37:10 I brought this truck to Africa on a freighter and sold it in Cape Town a few years later.
00:37:15 It is now owned by a man in the suburbs who uses it for selling vegetables.
00:37:24 These natives really were a great help. I don't know what I would have done without them.
00:37:30 (children laughing)
00:37:54 I made a base camp here, and one day as I returned from a hunt, I heard a very strange sound.
00:38:05 Two young leopards.
00:38:12 I took a quick look around for mother leopard because she would be very displeased
00:38:16 if she knew I was going to adopt her cubs.
00:38:19 They were about three weeks old and weighed two pounds apiece. I called them Sputnik and Mutnik.
00:38:30 As far as I know, mother leopard never did follow me back to camp. At least, I never saw her.
00:38:37 They were so tiny, they just didn't know what fear was.
00:38:40 They are now full grown and they live in the zoo in Rochester, New York.
00:38:49 I had some dehydrated milk already prepared for my baby antelope,
00:38:53 and of course I always carry baby bottles with me when I'm on safari.
00:38:57 They're one of the most useful items of equipment.
00:39:15 Mother leopard must have been away a long, long time.
00:39:19 I fed them up on calcium gluconate, cod liver oil, vitamins, milk, and meat,
00:39:23 and they doubled their weight in a month.
00:39:26 They're very easy to raise and they make wonderful pets.
00:39:37 One day as they were playing at my feet, one of my natives shouted,
00:39:45 and there he was, a black mamba, the fastest and deadliest snake in Africa.
00:39:52 I ran for my snake stick because these snakes are highly sought after by zoos in America,
00:39:56 and I'm going to try to capture him alive.
00:39:59 The poison of a mamba acts very much like the poison of a cobra,
00:40:03 paralyzing the nerve centers of the body, but it acts much more quickly than cobra venom.
00:40:09 I had no serum for the bite of a mamba, so I had to be very careful how I handled it.
00:40:21 Mambas have the characteristic of traveling with their heads held high above the ground,
00:40:25 which makes it very difficult to pin them down.
00:40:36 When a mamba is angry, he flattens his neck.
00:40:48 There, now I have his head pinned down.
00:40:54 And now it's all over but to pick him up and pop him into a sack and send him by air to America.
00:40:59 He is perfectly uninjured and in excellent condition, and he measured exactly eight feet long.
00:41:07 Mambas are long, thin, graceful snakes, and they have real poise.
00:41:18 But life on safari has its more prosaic moments.
00:41:21 For example, sometimes you have to hang up your pajamas.
00:41:26 And there are camp pets that require attention from time to time.
00:41:30 Natives come to me constantly looking for medical care,
00:41:33 like this Maasai tribesman who has a bad eye infection.
00:41:36 These tribal natives look upon all Europeans camped in remote bush country as doctors.
00:41:43 They believe we all have magical powers,
00:41:46 and every day I have at least three or four natives coming to me looking for medical care.
00:41:55 I gave him some penicillin capsules and a cup of water.
00:41:58 But if you remember, these Maasai drink about as much water as a Frenchman,
00:42:02 so I had a devil of a time getting him to swallow these capsules.
00:42:17 Notice how reluctant he is about the whole thing.
00:42:22 Nope, he doesn't think much of that drink.
00:42:31 I asked this fine-looking tribesman to come back the next morning for some more penicillin.
00:42:35 His trouble was cleared up in one week.
00:42:43 There are lots of chores to take care of around camp.
00:42:46 My baby Reedbuck needed her bottle every four or five hours.
00:42:58 And Trudy whooped and hollered like a little girl looking for attention.
00:43:04 And I had to take time out occasionally for a bath for myself,
00:43:07 and out here there was such a water shortage that I had to bathe in dishwater
00:43:11 and save the water after the bath.
00:43:16 Meanwhile, Sputnik and Mutnik fought over last night's kudu bone.
00:43:25 Leopards grow very fast, and in just seven months, these leopards grew to be a real armful.
00:43:31 But chimps don't grow nearly as fast as leopards,
00:43:33 and every time I took these beasts out of the compound, Trudy ran for the truck.
00:43:43 She wanted no part of these animals anymore.
00:43:48 Old Sputnik loved to play roughhouse, and you just couldn't be too rough with him.
00:43:52 You could drop him and kick him and step on him right up to the point of breaking his ribs,
00:43:56 and he'd come back for more. He loved it.
00:43:59 But the thing he loved the best was to be laid on his back and tickled.
00:44:16 Sputnik had a passion for going for the back of my neck.
00:44:19 After I'd played roughhouse with him, the back of my neck was scratched and bleeding,
00:44:23 but of course it was all in fun.
00:44:38 Sputnik weighed about 75 pounds at this point.
00:44:47 Boy, I wish he'd leave the back of my neck alone.
00:45:03 Sputnik's favorite playmate was Jackie, a dog that belonged to a professional hunter in Livingston.
00:45:08 And although they were about the same size and weight,
00:45:11 you can see that nature intended them for entirely different functions by the difference in the size of their paws.
00:45:18 These two fellas were fast friends. They really loved each other.
00:45:27 These are two lions in the Springs Game Reserve in the Transvaal.
00:45:32 I included these pictures to show that alongside of Sputnik and Mutnik,
00:45:35 these two fellas had absolutely no manners whatsoever.
00:45:38 They are not my lions. I'm just visiting them.
00:45:48 Each time I played with these beasts, it cost me a shirt, a pair of pants, and a bit of hide.
00:46:08 There's the beginning of the end of my shirt.
00:46:24 One day, a little boy came running to my camp and told me that a native in the nearby village
00:46:29 had been bitten by a cobra a few hours before.
00:46:36 I grabbed my hypodermic syringe and serum and I followed him.
00:46:56 But I was too late.
00:47:09 I heard a native woman shout "noha," which in the Sulozi language means snake.
00:47:17 It was an Egyptian cobra.
00:47:19 I couldn't find a stick long enough to pin him down with, so I'll use a twig
00:47:23 and capture him by distracting his attention with the kerchief
00:47:27 while I grab his jaws from behind with the other hand.
00:47:30 He is a very deadly snake, and I've got to be certain of my aim.
00:47:35 This is my helper.
00:47:55 [music]
00:48:18 This is the snake the American Museum of Natural History was looking for.
00:48:22 They believe that Egyptian cobras from this district are a new subspecies,
00:48:26 so I sent him off to the museum by air express.
00:48:39 A couple of months later, I pitched my camp in a village of bushmen
00:48:42 and recorded their strange language for a professor of anthropology in America.
00:48:47 I asked this bushman to tell me how he collected honey in the forest,
00:48:51 and I took it down on my tape recorder.
00:48:59 And then I played it back to him.
00:49:09 He refused to believe that that was his own voice.
00:49:12 When it was all over, he told me that the little man in the black box
00:49:15 said exactly the same thing the same way he did.
00:49:24 After recording his voice for posterity,
00:49:26 I gave him some stainless steel mirrors and inexpensive knives.
00:49:30 Then I had a chat with the induna, or local chief.
00:49:34 He had a sad story to tell me.
00:49:36 He said that a lion had killed their hunting dogs.
00:49:39 This was a real catastrophe for them
00:49:41 because they depended upon their dogs to help them get fresh meat.
00:49:44 He asked me if I would shoot the lion.
00:49:47 I promised I would look for him the next day and shoot him if possible.
00:49:54 I started out the next morning with my two best Bantu trackers
00:49:58 from the carcass of one of the dogs, which showed lots of fresh lion tracks.
00:50:02 Judging by the size of the tracks, he was a very large lion indeed,
00:50:05 and judging by the freshness, he was very close.
00:50:08 We knew we would come upon him in a matter of minutes.
00:50:14 [music]
00:50:39 Must have wounded him badly.
00:50:41 In Diowana, Banduki Piga Simba,
00:50:44 which in Swahili means "Yes, Guana, the gun did strike the lion."
00:50:48 [music]
00:51:17 [music]
00:51:46 [music]
00:52:04 After me, George.
00:52:06 [music]
00:52:18 The third shot went through his spine and he died just as he struck me.
00:52:22 He was a full-grown male that weighed about 450 pounds.
00:52:26 I asked my native to go to the nearest village
00:52:28 and bring back a lot of others to help carry this beast back to the camp for skinning.
00:52:37 That African who is waving his arms in the foreground
00:52:40 was accidentally shot and killed the next day by another native
00:52:43 with the same rifle that shot that lion.
00:52:46 It is a good object lesson in the fact that you can never be too careful
00:52:49 in the handling of firearms.
00:53:00 [music]
00:53:19 Then I headed for Fort Portal, Uganda,
00:53:22 where I had been invited by the government
00:53:24 to witness the rare event of exploration in modern times.
00:53:29 There is a huge marketplace here for natives.
00:53:32 Fort Portal is the traditional jumping off point
00:53:34 for expeditions up the Mountains of the Moon,
00:53:36 otherwise known as the Rwenzori Range.
00:53:39 And it was here that I met with the chief mapper for Uganda.
00:53:42 He explained that the government is sending an expedition
00:53:45 to the top of the Mountains of the Moon
00:53:47 to map the upper reaches of the Nyamagosani River,
00:53:50 which has never been seen or mapped above the 7,000-foot level before.
00:53:54 He explained that the river valley is constantly shrouded in clouds
00:53:58 and aerial photos have shown nothing of it
00:54:01 because of the solid cloud coverage.
00:54:03 According to the government, no one to their knowledge
00:54:06 has ever set foot in that river valley above the 7,000-foot level before.
00:54:12 Three weeks later, we started out at the north end of Lake Edward
00:54:15 with 50 African porters.
00:54:17 The first order of business was a negotiation over wages,
00:54:20 and this consumed exactly two hours.
00:54:33 After compromising on a wage, we got together the food for the porters.
00:54:38 We had 150 pounds of dried hippo meat,
00:54:40 600 pounds of peanuts,
00:54:42 1,200 pounds of cassava flour,
00:54:44 and a live goat and sheep to provide fresh meat.
00:54:49 We had blankets because where we're going,
00:54:51 the altitude is high and the temperature is low.
00:54:54 Rwanzori is higher than any of the Alps in Europe.
00:54:57 The summit is at 16,800 feet above sea level,
00:55:00 and there's ice at the top year-round.
00:55:03 Headloads were weighed out at 50 pounds apiece.
00:55:06 We have a 50-mile walk ahead of us
00:55:08 because we're crossing the range in the long direction from south to north.
00:55:12 (singing)
00:55:23 Now starts a long, hard three-week climb
00:55:26 which cost us the life of one man before it was finished.
00:55:33 Cheetah wandered in off the plains to the foothills of Rwanzori.
00:55:39 And it was here that we saw more than a dozen different kinds of lizards.
00:55:44 The streams were numbingly cold because they were the runoff from glaciers.
00:55:49 (music)
00:55:59 We saw lots of game in the rainforest on the approach.
00:56:07 Even a few pythons.
00:56:12 Soon we left far below us the villages from which our Bokonjo tribesmen came.
00:56:18 We picked these Bokonjo because they live in the foothills
00:56:21 and are accustomed to carrying heavy loads up steep slopes.
00:56:24 They are tough, wiry Africans.
00:56:28 The chimps that we saw along the way were talking to each other in Chimpanese.
00:56:36 We chopped firewood at the end of the seventh day at an elevation of about 7,000 feet.
00:56:43 Some of us camped in a clearing on the right.
00:56:52 And some on the left.
00:56:58 Our men caught a tree hyrax in a snare and they carved it up for supper that night.
00:57:18 It was here that we saw the typical creeping, crawling creatures
00:57:21 so characteristic of this part of Africa.
00:57:24 Including the safari ant, the most insidious insect in all of Africa, bar none.
00:57:30 At the end of the eighth day, our natives collected moss for mattresses.
00:57:36 Then they broke out their cassava flour, which is made by grinding the roots of the manioc tree.
00:57:41 This is their staple diet.
00:57:43 They mix it with water, stir it over a fire, and roll it into little balls and pop it into their mouths.
00:57:49 And it tastes terrible.
00:58:03 But they love it.
00:58:07 They also had mutton for the evening meal.
00:58:13 It didn't go much for the cassava flour, so we broke out some tin goods.
00:58:22 The man on the left is the head of the Department of Lands and Surveys for the Uganda government.
00:58:38 And this is a British mountain climber who was invited to guide us across the ice fields.
00:58:42 He's had considerable experience climbing the Himalayas of Tibet.
00:58:46 And this seedy-looking character is yours truly.
00:58:54 After a satisfying meal, the boys fashioned pipes from long-stemmed jungle plants.
00:59:10 And then the clouds rolled in.
00:59:12 Rwanzori is almost constantly shrouded in clouds.
00:59:21 In a few minutes, the visibility dropped to a few yards and it was cold and clammy.
00:59:25 This is typical Rwanzori weather.
00:59:42 Next morning, we got up early.
00:59:45 We took sightings on the elevations of nearby peaks and found in many instances the latest government charts were in error.
00:59:55 And now the temperature dropped close to the freezing point.
01:00:01 There is the valley through which the government suspects the Nyamagosani River flows.
01:00:06 They're not sure because it has never been seen above the 7,000-foot level before, and we are much higher than that now.
01:00:13 As usual, it is shrouded in heavy mist.
01:00:16 And there is the source of that river at 13,500 feet above sea level.
01:00:21 This is the first time it has ever been seen or filmed.
01:00:25 The river had an eerie appearance because it was so heavily shrouded in mist.
01:00:29 We wanted to map the upper reaches of this river, but we were defeated by logistics
01:00:33 because we had a seven-day march to a point where an advance party had cashed away food for the porters at a forward base
01:00:40 and had only a seven-day supply of porter food remaining,
01:00:43 which meant that we had to start out the very next day if we were to keep from running out of food.
01:00:48 This happened because our porters were eating at a higher rate than we had calculated on.
01:00:53 (music)
01:00:59 The river flowed through a forest which was festooned with hanging moss.
01:01:03 (music)
01:01:14 We saw a placid pool at the 12,000-foot level.
01:01:18 We checked our charts for the best approach to the rock divide which separates us from the snow peaks,
01:01:23 which is where the advance party had cashed away the food,
01:01:26 and now starts the hardest, coldest part of the climb.
01:01:30 (music)
01:01:37 It rained for 17 days out of the three weeks, which made the rocks doubly slippery and treacherous.
01:01:42 (music)
01:01:47 All of our gear was constantly soaking because of the incessant rain
01:01:51 and because the sun never shone long enough for us to dry it out.
01:01:54 When the temperature dropped below freezing, we found we often had ice in the tent in the mornings.
01:01:59 One of the men in the advance party died of pneumonia four days after they crossed the tree line.
01:02:04 He was a 31-year-old Briton.
01:02:06 (music)
01:02:17 This is the first time in my life that I had ever climbed a really big mountain,
01:02:21 and it will probably be the last.
01:02:23 (music)
01:02:29 We saw a lake which was discovered two years previously, but which remained unnamed.
01:02:34 It is the policy of the Uganda government to name new geographical features after local names.
01:02:39 Our guide said he calls it Kachopi.
01:02:42 Henceforth, on all government charts, this will be known as Lake Kachopi.
01:02:46 This is the top of the rock divide which separates us from the snow peaks.
01:02:51 (music)
01:03:11 And there at the foot of this glacier are two tiny huts.
01:03:14 In one of these, the advance party cashed away food
01:03:17 and left behind one of their men who's been awaiting our arrival for one week.
01:03:22 (music)
01:03:30 Needless to say, he was very pleased to see us.
01:03:34 He is a young Oxford graduate who is now in the government service in Tanzania.
01:03:39 (music)
01:03:42 He said that he had taken sightings on the elevation and azimuths of nearby peaks
01:03:46 and found many errors in the latest government charts just as we have.
01:03:50 It's not hard to realize when you consider that Ruanzori was discovered less than 100 years ago,
01:03:55 and a good deal of the upper reaches still remain incompletely mapped.
01:03:59 (music)
01:04:05 After a warm meal in his hut, we started out across the ice fields,
01:04:08 which, believe it or not, are right on the equator.
01:04:11 There is ice up here all year round.
01:04:13 We are at the top of Stanley Mountain, at the very summit of the Mountains of the Moon,
01:04:18 with Uganda on our left and the Congo on our right.
01:04:21 (music)
01:04:26 These glaciers are actually rivers of ice.
01:04:29 (music)
01:04:41 Our progress here dropped to less than one half mile per day,
01:04:44 not only because of the rarefied air,
01:04:46 but because of the steepness of some of the glaciers that we had to cross.
01:04:51 There were huge crevasses which were about 200 feet deep,
01:04:54 covered by a thin crust of ice,
01:04:56 and we had to be very careful how we walked across these areas not to fall through.
01:05:01 These are the very first drops of the White Nile from a glacier melting at the top of Ruanzori.
01:05:06 These drops join together with the drops from other glaciers
01:05:09 to form tiny rivulets which race down the rocky faces.
01:05:13 These rivulets join together to form little streams that run through the vegetation a few thousand feet below,
01:05:18 and the streams combine to form a real river,
01:05:21 which ultimately becomes the mighty Nile of Egypt.
01:05:25 (music)
01:05:29 At this point, the entire volume of the Nile surges through a narrow cleft of rock
01:05:34 only 19 feet wide as it races toward Lake Albert.
01:05:39 There is tremendous thunder and power in this tiny little chasm.
01:05:43 (thunder)
01:05:47 So it is here, on the roof of Africa,
01:05:50 that the Nile is born nearly 4,000 miles from its mouth in the Mediterranean.
01:05:55 (music)
01:05:57 From rivers of ice to mountains of fire.
01:06:00 Less than 100 miles from Ruanzori, a volcano was in full eruption.
01:06:05 I asked the owner of a light plane if he would fly me over it.
01:06:08 He said he would be pleased to as he'd seen the smoke from the eruption a few days before
01:06:12 and was just as curious to see it at close range as I was.
01:06:16 This volcano was born from a perfectly flat forest
01:06:19 when a fissure suddenly opened up in the ground and molten lava flew skyward.
01:06:23 It was one of the rare instances in recorded times
01:06:26 that a volcano was born from a perfectly flat surface.
01:06:30 (music)
01:06:44 We saw great destruction to the forest below us as a result of the lava flows.
01:06:50 A river of molten lava flowed for 16 miles through the forest,
01:06:54 causing the destruction of thousands of acres of woodland.
01:06:57 Those patches of white are steam resulting from the rain that's falling now,
01:07:01 vaporizing when it strikes the hot lava.
01:07:06 (rumbling)
01:07:34 There's intense heat inside the cockpit on the side facing the eruption.
01:07:38 (rumbling)
01:08:01 This is how the sun looked through the column of steam coming out of the crater.
01:08:06 Back down on the ground I hired four Congolese to carry my photo and camping gear
01:08:10 and we went on a foot safari to get a closer look.
01:08:14 The acid fallout from the crater killed all the vegetation for a radius of 20 miles.
01:08:19 The trees are completely denuded of their leaves from the acid fallout.
01:08:26 The fields were very, very hot and we had to step lively.
01:08:31 (rumbling)
01:08:42 It was raining and when the rain struck the hot lava, it vaporized instantly,
01:08:46 cutting our visibility down to a few yards.
01:08:49 At times we didn't know whether we were walking toward the volcano or away from it.
01:08:53 The only way we could tell was by homing in on the tremendous roar
01:08:57 and sometimes this was very deceptive.
01:09:03 We had to call to each other constantly to keep from being separated
01:09:07 and in spite of that, one of my natives was lost for more than an hour.
01:09:14 When the rain stopped, the visibility cleared and we found this kingfisher
01:09:18 which apparently died from the intense gases coming out of the crater.
01:09:22 Now we were walking across scoriaceous lava,
01:09:25 that is, huge blocks of very jagged lava which is sharp as glass
01:09:29 and you must be very careful how you walk across it
01:09:32 not to let the calves of your legs rub against it or it would cut them to ribbons.
01:09:36 (rumbling)
01:09:46 When we were within half a mile of the eruption,
01:09:48 we were walking on about 14 inches of porous black ash
01:09:52 which crunched audibly as we stepped across it.
01:09:55 Some of this light black ash was being carried more than 20 miles away by the winds aloft.
01:10:02 Molten lava flowed around tree trunks and the intense heat consumed the lower part of the trunk,
01:10:07 leaving gaping holes and you had to be very careful not to step in one of these.
01:10:16 The temperature of molten lava is about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit
01:10:20 or about the same as molten steel.
01:10:29 I threw a rock in this river of molten lava and it bounced and floated
01:10:33 because it was the same density as the river itself.
01:10:45 There were huge boulders floating in the river, boulders as large as automobiles.
01:11:13 This lava is coming from about 30 miles below the earth's surface.
01:11:25 This river is 100 feet wide and it is flowing through the west branch of the Great Rift Valley
01:11:30 in the eastern part of the Congo in Kivu Province.
01:11:34 My natives were deathly afraid of this volcano, not only for obvious reasons,
01:11:38 but because they were so steeped in superstition, they thought this was their fire god
01:11:43 and they thought that if they got too close, he would recognize their faces.
01:11:48 So I had to pay them a bonus to get them up this close.
01:12:08 In spite of the bonus, they moaned and groaned and groused like a bunch of G.I.s the whole trip.
01:12:14 You've never heard so many tales of woe from so few men before in your life.
01:12:20 In spots, hydrogen gas seeped to the surface and burned.
01:12:24 And when hydrogen burns, it forms water vapor.
01:12:26 This is one of the rare examples of newborn water on the face of the earth.
01:12:54 [Helicopter]
01:13:05 [Helicopter]
01:13:34 This volcano erupted continuously for five months.
01:13:38 And then, after causing destruction to thousands of acres of woodland, the eruption slackened.
01:13:48 And then I could look right down into the throat and see the boiling, seething lake of molten lava at the very bottom.
01:13:55 I came to Africa in a quest for high adventure.
01:13:58 And now I was leaving it with the feeling that I had found it indeed.
01:14:02 And more than a fair share for one man.
01:14:06 [Music]
01:14:12 (thud)