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Updated: May 25, 2025
The wearing work, under very unhealthy conditions, was beginning to tell on every one. Half of the camaradas had been down with fever and were much weakened; only a few of them retained their original physical and moral strength. Cherrie and Kermit had recovered; but both Kermit and Lyra still had bad sores on their legs, from the bruises received in the water work. I was in worse shape.
It was arranged that he and Mr. Akeley, with Kermit and Tarlton and one tent should start early the next morning on the hunt, trusting to luck in overtaking the herd that he had seen in the morning. The hunt was enormously successful, and the adventures they had were so interesting that they deserve a separate chapter.
Next day Lyra, Kermit, and Cherrie finished their job, and brought the four remaining canoes to camp, one leaking badly from the battering on the rocks. We then went down-stream a few hundred yards, and camped on the opposite side; it was not a good camping-place, but it was better than the one we left. The men were growing constantly weaker under the endless strain of exhausting labor.
At that time the effort was a failure, and the two parties never met; but we might have better luck, and in any event the chance was worth taking. On the morning following our camping by the mouth of the Rio Kermit, Colonel Rondon took a good deal of pains in getting a big post set up at the entry of the smaller river into the Duvida.
He showed us a cake decorated with the image of a frog. "You will get some cake after the meeting," he said, as though addressing a group of children. The decoration reminded me of Kermit. I wondered if he had reincarnated the symbol as part of a spiritual lesson, or if it was just icing on the cake.
As they were drifting into them broadside on, Kermit yelled to the steersman to turn her head, so as to take them in the only way that offered any chance whatever of safety. The water came aboard, wave after wave, as they raced down. They reached the bottom with the canoe upright, but so full as barely to float, and the paddlers urged her toward the shore.
Accordingly we would sit about under trees, or under a shed or lean-to, if there was one, each solemnly reading a volume of Gibbon and no better reading can be found. In my own case, as I had been having rather a steady course of Gibbon, I varied him now and then with a volume of Arsene Lupin lent me by Kermit. There were many swollen rivers to cross at this point of our journey.
They were biggish, nondescript animals, obviously good fighters, and they speedily developed the utmost affection for all the members of the expedition, but especially for Kermit, who took care of them. One we named "Shenzi," the name given the wild bush natives by the Swahili, the semi-civilized African porters. He was good-natured, rough, and stupid hence his name.
Kermit was routed out and again supplied more guides also a compass and also the direction to follow. Unfortunately he made a mistake and said northwest instead of southeast otherwise his directions were perfect. For three hours more Clark and his porters went bumping through the night, stumbling through the long grass and falling into hidden holes.
On March 14th at Khartoum, where Mrs. Roosevelt and their daughter Ethel awaited them, Roosevelt emerged into civilization again. He and Kermit had shot 512 beasts and birds, of which they kept about a dozen for trophies, the rest going to the Smithsonian Institution and to the museums.
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