A compilation of some very interesting links to public domain ebooks and journals with a focus on natural history, hunting, taxidermy, and the curious side of history.
Artist Photographer, Graphic Designer, and researcher focused on the history of taxidermy and natural history collections, with a special interest in 19th century culture.
Please note: Annick @Aldoworkshop is not affiliated with the Royal Museum for Central Africa, rather a natural history enthusiast dedicatedly passionate about the museum and its mission.
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced or transmitted by any means without the prior permission in writing of the artist. All images are the work of AldoWorkshop and are subject to copyright. It is Museum Menagerie's policy to respect the copyright and intellectual property rights of others. Historical images published on this blog are made available for private study, considered to be in public domain or under an open license; the source information is provided in the post's reference list.
Gerald Best's "Guest Book" and Invitation card – courtesy of Ken Everett.
The card, which dates back to October 8, 1958, was discovered whilst separating some stuck together pages from an old book back in 2009, when Mr. Everett had purchased items from the disposal and break up of the amazing Rowland Ward archive.
Ken Everett recounts - “It was a pleasing moment, whilst separating some stuck pages that the card was discovered. It is possibly the only true original artifact that refers to the elusive 'lost' Elephant film.”
One of the treasures thus obtained was the vaunted Zebra Skinned 'guest book' which had belonged to Gerald Best, managing director of Rowland Ward Ltd. Although partly water damaged, the book is interesting with its content of names of some of Europe and the USA's great and good.
The Adventurers Club
The Adventurers Club's Announcement - Invitation to documentary film screening.
The club’s invitation card – “Taxidermy in Piccadilly”, is truly a unique item as it is an announcement for the screening of the film which shows the construction of the full-mount Tervuren elephant. The giant Kasai bull which was set up by Ward’s for display in the Belgian-Congo section – Le Pavillon de la Faune, at the Brussels World's Fair, Expo58.
References
Gerald Best's Guest Book - Collection Archive Ken Everett.
Adventurers Club Chicago, Luncheon Meeting card - Collection Archive Ken Everett.
Tusk Collection of Maurice Calmeyn at Brussels International Exposition of 1910.
“ The wicked sportsman, of whom you read so much in books and newspapers, and who is really a good deal of a myth, is now at least regarded no longer as the sole cause of the disappearance of African fauna, the guilt having brought home at last to the chief-culprits the traders, pseudo-colonists, Boers, Askaris, armed natives and all the other pioneers of civilisation.
For many years a collector of natural history specimens, who went out quite unselfishly on behalf of German museums, and spent £ 5,000 in the colony, was regarded as a very undesirable and unwelcome visitor. Both in German and British East Africa the game was reserved for other kinds of sportsmen. When caravans reached the coast loaded of 500 elephant-tusks, these were “merchandise” ; but if a private traveller killed a few elephants, he was a slaughterer of wild animals ! ”
These are a few lines from the hunter and wildlife protectionist Carl Schillings’ book, ‘Mit Blitzlicht und Büchse'. Like many of his contemporaries, Maurice Calmeyn claimed that colonial administrations in Brussels and Africa could gain benefit from the experience of hunters with regard to wildlife management and conservation policies. At the same time these hunting regulations were intended to protect large mammals for European sport hunters.
At its heart, this book is about elephant hunting, giving an idea of the enormous obstacles, the disappointments, and dangers which daily confront the hunter. But also a book that can not be neglected for the author’s trenchant criticisms with regard to Belgium’s ‘civilising mission’, ‘rubber regime’, ivory trade and wildlife conservation in the Congo colony.
Maurice Calmeyn and his fox-terrier, Dark Patch at the 2nd camp in 1908.
“ From what I have witnessed during my two journeys, I conclude that the Free State has only thought of its immediate self-interest and not of the future of the colony, ... draining the country of all it had to offer and giving it nothing in return.”
“ It is regrettable that the sovereign of the Congo bribed the Belgian and foreign press, but even worse is that he has downgraded certain politicians and others to humble servants of the crown by means of rewards and pressures; these men show on every occasion that they have neither independence nor dignity.”
“ Will I be reproached for lack of loyalty to royalty ? I do not care !”
“ It is largely due to these men that the Belgian people come into possession of a colony with a substantial debt burden, that will not be resolved by general economic neglect, poor infrastructure, a colony whose natural resources, with the exception of its subsoil, are exhausted, and whose indigenous inhabitants, who have long been mistreated, have lost confidence in us, where the diseases of an evil administration, already a force of habit, will not be eradicated any time soon.”
“ We have yet a long struggle ahead to heal the wounds that Leopold II and his handymen have wrought.”
A Hunting Trip on the Uele
Maurice Calmeyn and Dark Patch in 1908, twelfth elephant.
The following notes of his experiences during a couple of short hunting trips to the Upper Nile Valley and the Uele and adjacent basins are taken from the journal of a belgian Sportsman, Maurice Calmeyn. Starting in January, 1907, M. Calmeyn first ascended the Nile to the Egyptian Sudan, whence he travelled to the Lado Enclave and the Uele and Stimbiri basins, returning by way of Boma in August. On the second trip he landed at Boma on April 9, 1908, and having again traversed the basins of the Uele and Stimbiri, as well as that of the Likati, returned early in December.
In both trips the Uele basin yielded nearly all the more interesting game. On the Likati our sportsman sought persistently for the okapi, but, unfortunately, in vain; and like his predecessors, came to the conclusion that for a European the quest is practically hopeless. He states, however, that the natives have no difficulty in capturing calves, and speculates on the practicability of bringing live specimen to Europe.
Camping near the Likati River, Patch, Calmeyn and daughter of Kokolibété chief.
Traveling in this comparatively little-known country is described as not being very difficult, while the number of elephants to be met with render the district attractive to the sportsman. Still, there is a certain risk of serious Illness from the combined effects of climate, fatigue and bad food, although M. Calmeyn himself experienced no serious ill-effects from the trips. Elephant shooting is the sport which appealed most strongly to this traveler, who experienced several exciting adventures, and at least one narrow escape. Throughout his hunting M. Calmeyn relied solely upon his own rifle, and armed none of the natives by whom he was accompanied. During the first trip his weapon a Mauser repeater of 11mm. calibre; but on the second expedition he took with him a pair of Winchesters 405, (the Model of 1895 Winchester was the first lever-action rifle with a box magazine) which he regards as the ideal rifle for penetrating power and force of impact. During his second trip the author of the narrative was accompanied by an English rough-haired fox terrier. Dark Patch, which only ten months old at the time of his master's arrival at Boma on the Uelle, took of his own accord to sport and proved invaluable at the work, fearing nothing and not hesitating to attack and hold even buffaloes. Dark Patch suffered but little from the heat, while his thick coat effectually protected him from the attacks of mosquitoes.
During the 1907 trip M. Calmeyn fired at thirteen elephants, of which nine were killed, two of them being females. One of the latter was fired at solely because it charged. These elephants were killed with an average of three balls each, and at a mean distance of about 36 meters.
In 1908 eight out of thirteen elephants fired at were bagged, all being males, with tusks weighing on an average 19 kg. The average number of shots fired at each elephant was nearly two, and the mean distance about 11 meters. The distance is, however, too short to be safe, from 20 to 25 meters being a more desirable average to back off when an animal makes a charge. The season when the natives burn the grass is the one most favorable in the Uele district, when the elephants come out into the open glades of the forest both before and after the great heat of the day; but hunting is not forbidden to Europeans at this season.
Our sportsman's first introduction to elephants took place in February, 1907, in the Egyptian Sudan, when after a rapid march under native leadership, five or six of the monsters were sighted at a distance of about 200 meters. After vainly trying to get a satisfactory shot at them, the party sighted a herd of 50 elephants of all sizes, from among which a fine bull separated himself and eventually offered a shot at about 25 meters. Aiming between the eyes and the orifice of the ear, Calmeyn fired five shots in succession, after the last of which the huge beast came slowly but steadily out of the marsh in his direction, although without seeing him. Stopping at the spot from which it had first been fired at, the elephant, after a fifth and sixth bullet, finally succumbed. The short, thick tusks of the animal weighed respectively 23 and 21 kg.
The Dinka people with Calmeyn’s first elephant, 1907.
On February 26th, while en route from the Belgian station of Redjaf to Lado, M. Calmeyn and his companion, Ernest Orban, encountered a herd of about a dozen elephants, from among which a bull was brought down at the first shot. Immediately after a herd of about a score of elephants passed close to M. Calmeyn, who had taken shelter behind a tree, from among which a female was dropped, also at the first shot. Search was then made for both animals, which were found to be still alive, but seemingly unable to rise. The narrator decided to finish off the female, which was uttering loud cries and endeavouring to get up, when, to quote his own words, at the same instant “a strident roar is heard, and a female rather larger than the first appears some 80 meters off making its way rapidly down a slope. She looks a splendid beast, with head raised, trunk in the air, and the enormous ears standing out at right angles from the neck. We are in full view to windward of the animal, which comes at a furious rate straight towards the female beside which we are standing, by the path the herd had taken in its flight. Jacques and Karamalla (pisteur), two of the hunters, being unarmed, run twenty meters from the elephant's track. There's not a moment to lose; right in the brute's direction and ten paces from me stands a tree, which I reached at a bound. I carefully fire the first shot at its head from a distance of thirty meters; the elephant quickly steps to the left; immediately firing again at fifteen meters, I hit the animal on the temple, bringing it heavily to the ground stone dead.”
This experience has taught the hunter that by letting a wounded beast moan or scream, one is exposed to the dangerous of being charged, and how courage these animals can be. Even an elephant of very small size can show much courage.
The bull had but one tusk, weighing 6 kg, while each of the tusks of the females were only half that weight. The narrator confesses that, in spite of the danger, he had but little cause to be proud of this episode, these being the only females he ever killed.
Passing on to April 24th, we find the narrator, then on the Upper Uele, photographing a magnificent bull elephant as it stands in a clearing, the hunting season not commencing till May 15th, although no notice of this had been taken while in Lado. Soon after the bull is joined by a cow, when the pair make a striking picture. Temptation eventually proves, however, too strong, and the bull is brought down at the third shot. Soon after a cracking sound is heard in the jungle, and the cow is seen charging in the direction of the party as if to avenge the death of her lord; and, despite his resolution not to fire again at a female, M. Calmeyn pulls the trigger, but misses his aim. The escape from the charge of his infuriated cow was a lucky one; and the narrator takes the opportunity of pointing out that a sportsman ought never to flee from a charging elephant by which he is seen, heard or winded.
Maurice Calmeyn's fifth elephant, Upper Uele, 26 februari 1907.
The narrator next proceeds to relate his experience on the Middle Uele, when, on May 28, a herd of elephants which could not otherwise be approached were headed back by his trackers and a couple of fine bulls bagged. His account of the death of these is as follows:
“So soon as I stop, a passable-looking elephant emerges from the thicket about twenty meters off; as my first shot from between two trees it sways slightly to the right, and falls at the second. At the same moment two others pass on my left, one following the other. I pick out the best, and have time to fire two shots at thirty and forty meters on ground covered with trees and creepers. I finish the first elephant with a couple of bullets, and then follow the trail of the second. I presently find blood, and a hundred yards from the spot where it was hit the elephant had stopped with its back towards me. I am barely fifty meters from the monster, which is the midst of a tangle of low and bushy vegetation; if it had either heard or winded me it would have made off before I could fire. I therefore endeavor to aim amid its thorny surroundings. The bullet strikes a foot below the arch of the back, and the monster falls.”
The author concludes his narrative by referring to May 23, 1908, when he was on the river Api, a tributary to the middle section of the Uele, where he had killed his sixth elephant and first buffalo.
The fresh tracks of buffaloes were encountered early in the morning, and by following these the herd was reached in about an hour. Five constituted the herd, of which the best bull offered a mark and was hit by the first bullet. Staggering forward, it started off in full flight, presenting no chance for a second shot, but was at length bagged, after a tiring chase, by a bullet which struck between the eyes, the position of the shot being shown by a stick in the photograph shown below.
Buffalo and Dark Patch, 1908.
The buffalo, a fully adult bull, is described as being reddish gray in color, and stood 1m42 at the shoulder, with a length of 2m25 from the tip of the muzzle to the root of the tail. The ears are heavily fringed with long hair, while the horns, which are widely sundered on the forehead, are very deep at the base, and curve towards and then inwards in a regular sweep. They measure 0m67 along the outer curve, with interval of 0m32 between their tips.
This buffalo (which head, together with that of a cow subsequently killed by Calmeyn, were of inspecting at Mr. Rowland Ward’s in piccadilly) not improbably indicates an undescribed race of Bos caffer, apparently allied to the Lake Chad race and more remotely to the dwarf red Congo buffaloes.
Maurice Calmeyn
Maurice Calmeyn (Brussel, 1863 - 1934), born into a wealthy Belgian family, was a trained agricultural engineer, Freemason and communist sympathizer.
Calmeyn’s social criticism became more radical and eventually leading towards communism. Just before his death, he contributed 20,000 francs to the production of ‘Misère au Borinage’, by Joris Ivens and Henri Storck. A film with a strongly socialist theme, covering the poor living conditions of the workers and coal miners of the Borinage region of Belgium. Calmeyn apparently died on his way to the premiere.
This spectacular group, showing the moment when a ferocious tiger was in the very act of trying to enter the howdah, was mounted by Rowland Ward and intended as a reconstruction of an incident dating back to March 26, 1888.
That day, during a hunting trip in India, Prince Philippe, Duc d’Orléans was attacked by a wounded tigress, that very nearly ended his life.
It commemorates his defeat of the animal and inaugurates a huge collection of trophies and specimens collected during his multiple expeditions worldwide. It is one of the Duke's most valued trophies and was the starting point for his relationship with Rowland Ward. The elephant is a magnificent animal that he shot in Ceylon; but the tiger was first shown at the Paris Exhibition in 1889.
Prince Philippe, Duc d'Orleans
The eldest son of the Comte de Paris, Philippe d’Orléans, exiled in 1886, by the same law, which banished his father, was excluded from a military career in France, and consequently resolved to enter the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
After a year, he left for India attached for duty with the 4th Battalion of King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Shortly after his arrival at Bombay, on February 13, 1888, he had gone to Calcutta, where, as guests of the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, he was invited to take part in a great tiger hunt.
Philippe, Duc d’Orléans, at 19, in field uniform Lieutenant 'King‘s Royal Rifle Corps'.
A Hunting Trip in Nepal
The hunting party's first tiger. (left-to-right)
Duc d’Orléans, Dr. Forsyth, Marquise de Morès, Mr. de Boissy, Edward Gwatkin-Williams,
Colonel de Parseval , Prince Henri d'Orléans, Jaak Shikarri, hindou.
The tiger-hunt took about six weeks before he journeyed to join the Rifles at Chakrata. This was indeed great luck having time off to do a bit of shooting. Especially since Philippe had been fueled by that ‘natural desire’ to live the thrills and perils of such a magnificent hunt.
A great deal of preparation has to precede a tiger hunt and Philippe was eager to get started. Upon the arrival of his cousin, Henri d’Orléans, the pair devote all their time to shopping. Despite the heat, which had become unbearable, they ran from one store to another to purchases of guns, ammunition, out-fits, and other useful gear.
Finally, on the 29th of February, their little expeditionary force, made up of the Marquess and Marchioness de Mores, and other such nobles left Calcutta, and got underway.
The party hunted the lowland region of Teraï in southern Nepal, from Purnea, which was their base of operations and supplies, up to the foot hills, for about a distance of 170 miles along the banks of the Koshi river. It was a kind of military expedition, their outfit carried, besides the necessary gear for an expedition, sixty-one rifles of different calibers, fourteen revolvers (generally six shots), and thirty-seven thousand cartridges; brought 10 large tents and sixty elephants, 30 of them lent by the Nepalese Government.
As this was Philippe’s first experience with big game, he was keenly observant and took notes. The account of his hunt and number of kills have been written down in his book, “Une Expédition de Chasse au Népaul”. He shot ‘eight’ tigers and for the rest shot everything else to add a few trophies to his collection at Sheen house, his home in England.
Philippe, Duc D’Orléans in the howdah, his first tiger and elephants crossing the river.
Tiger-hunting was one of the most prestigious sports. In his 1924 article ‘Tiger-Hunting in India’, William Mitchell noted that a hunter who bagged a tiger is looked upon as a public benefactor, for the number of people killed each year by wild animals.
The destruction of such a monster raises his conqueror from the rank of sportsman into a hero.
“It was reported that when the Duc d’Orléans succeeded in bagging a tiger he caused a French horn to be sounded so that information of the event may be quickly communicated to the surrounding villages.”
An Anglo-Indian reporter said with regard to the shooting party that the distinguished visitors blew their own trumpets with considerable effect as to the number and size of the tigers they were slaughtering. It was stated that one tiger was ‘perfectly riddled with bullets' before he succumbed, and that another ‘jumped from the jungle right into the howdah occupied by the Duc d’Orléans.’ This must have been an awkward situation for the Duc, and somewhat embarrassing for the tiger too, but the former, with that politeness which is inherent in all Frenchmen vacated his seat in favor of the latter, and according to the report “managed to get clear by sliding down behind the elephant’s tail.”
The reporter adds that “this is an adventure which the Duc will be able to speak of with pride when he returns to Europe.”
And Philippe did...
AT CLOSE QUARTERS
'An Incident of the Duc d’Orléans' Recent Hunting Tour In India'
Philippe's account appeared in The Graphic under the title of “At Close Quarters", from which the following :
Did you find this tiger-hunting exciting ?
"Yes," said the Prince, "exciting enough sometimes when you hunt the tiger, as an Indian Nawab said, and always when the tiger hunts you."
Did this latter often happen ?
"Once a tigress jumped on my howdah. She smashed the front of it in completely, and with one paw she struck my gun out from between my hands, and broke it in two like a pipe-stem. That was rather a near thing."
“ Two cubs of a tigress had been shot, and the mother hemmed in by a line of elephants. There was an idea that she was crouching in a small patch of jungle behind a tree on the bank of a small stream, but none of our elephants could go anywhere near it. After some time my elephant, being pluckier than the others, was induced to move forward and push the tree down. While thus engaged, the tigress sprang out from beside it with a roar and a tremendous leap right on the top of my howdah, smashing in the front of it, breaking my gun with one blow of her paw and exploding the right barrel before I had time to fire. The gun is still in my possession — a double-barrelled rifle broken in two pieces just below the barrels, the trigger-guard and metal plates wrenched off and twisted by the force of the blow, and with one barrel discharged, the other still at half cock. Fortunately for me she then stumbled backwards, possibly startled by the explosion, and made off for the jungle. My elephant, mad with fright, bolted in the opposite direction, and for a considerable distance nothing would stop her. When at length we got back to the others, we found the whole line of elephants so demoralised that we had to give up sport for the day, and return to camp. Next morning we cornered our game in nearly the same spot, and I had the good luck to bring her down just as she was crossing the river. The mahout managed to slip round in some extraordinary way under the elephant's ears, and was unhurt, but lost his head-dress.”
The Graphic, An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, vol. 39 (1889)
Henri d'Orléans' Mémoires
Henri d'Orléans hunting tigers in India, 1888.
Henri d'Orléans (1867-1901), victim alike by law of exile, and thus banned from enrollment, this brave and adventurous spirit was sent on an around-the-world trip sponsored by his father, and accompanied Philippe in Nepal to bag some tigers too.
"La muraille d'éléphants tient ferme. La bête alors se jette de côté ! Elle se retourne et voit l'éléphant du Duc d'Orléans qui marche vers son gîte : on ne se contente pas de l'assiéger, on veut la forcer ! Au moins ne sera-ce pas impunément ; si elle doit mourir, elle vendra chèrement sa vie. Elle s'élance sur l'éléphant de Philippe, saisit la paroi de l'howdah et s'y accroche avec ses griffes... mais tout conspire à la trahir : le côté de l'howdah cède et elle retombe. L'éléphant s'affole et, la trompe tendue en avant, part au galop. Le Duc d'Orléans a son fusil brisé en deux contre une branche. Heureusement, l'éléphant s'arrête en rejoignant les autres et mon cousin glisse à terre. Quant à la tigresse, elle a disparu. Mais le lendemain, elle se laisse abattre à la même place sans opposer la moindre résistance."
“After futile attempts to pass the line of elephants, the tigress galloped round and before Prince Philippe was able to discharge his gun, the tigress alighted on the howdah with a roar and a bound, dashing the firearm out of his hand while he was in the act of taking aim.
The howdah collapsed under the tigress' weight. The elephant panicked, trunk outstretched, and galloped forward. The Duke's rifle was completely severed by the tremendous force of the blow. Fortunately, the elephant halted and rejoined the group, while the Duke dropped to the ground and escaped. As for the tigress, it had vanished. The next day, it was hunted down and killed.”
Rowland Ward
Study group by Rowland Ward for the Duc d'Orléans, A Naturalist's Life Study, 1913.
The young Duc d'Orléans prepared the skin, sent it back to London and entrusted the noted taxidermist, Rowland Ward to immortalize the scene of the attack.
Philippe’s mother, the Comtesse de Paris, who was herself an excellent shot, personally supervise the ‘setting up’ of nine tigers sent home by her son; and Rowland Ward mounted, under her directions, the tigress in the act of springing on the duke's howdah, the side of which it completely crushed in before the youthful sportsman killed his ferocious assailant at close quarters.
These trophies adorned for many years Sheen House, the Twickenham, Philippe's parental home. The Duc’s collection was later moved to a purpose-built ‘private’ museum at Wood Norton, Worcestershire in 1907.
The Royal Museum for Central Africa at Tervuren in Belgium has a giant mounted bull elephant. Prepared by Rowland Ward Ltd. of Piccadilly, London, the giant beast never fails to mesmerize the onlooker and remains one of its most iconic exhibits.
Completed in 1957, the elephant was one of the last full mount elephants prepared by Ward's studio. It was set up in the Belgian Congo Fauna Pavilion at the international exhibition held in Brussels in 1958.
The process of mounting the Tervuren elephant took 12 men and six months to complete. The process was filmed at Rowland Ward's workshop. However, the film is lost, or at least presumed lost, and its existence is only known through publicity stills and written descriptions.
Could it be that this unique bit of Rowland Ward history has vanished without a trace?
Artist Photographer, Graphic Designer, and researcher focused on the history of taxidermy and natural history collections, with a special interest in 19th century culture.
The mounting of the Tervuren elephant took 12 men and six months to complete. The process was filmed at Rowland Ward's workshop. However, the film is lost, or at least presumed lost. Could it be that this unique bit of Rowland Ward history has vanished without a trace ? - Read more Here
Africa Museum Tervuren
Rowland Ward & RMCA
Rowland Ward supplied mountings to museums all over the world, including the Museum of Tervuren, Belgium.
Rowland Ward Taxidermist to the World Author: PA Morris (2003)
Nine chapters describe the man himself and his early days in business, the taxidermy workshops during the 20th century and the principal personalities that worked there. Separate chapters cover big game whole mounts, head mounts and birds, with sections on fish taxidermy and ‘Wardian’ animal furniture. There is also a collation of the many different label types used by Rowland Ward Ltd. for their products. The text, of 55,000 words, is based on more than 20 years research, interviews with former employees and much unpublished material. Over 250 illustrations include line drawings monochrome photographs and copies of old documents.
