Tuesday, February 26, 2013

On Safari With George Eastman: Part 2



From Southampton, George Eastman and his party went to London, where Mr. Eastman had meetings relating to dentistry (making x-rays perhaps?). He did no sightseeing but took time to test British-made, double-barreled elephant guns. He wrote in a letter that, "British workmen have no rivals in gun-making by hand."

Eastman had more business meetings in Paris (though he was retired, he was always interested in new technological developments), and while there, he allowed for one hour to visit the Louvre.

George Eastman visits the Louvre
From Paris the Eastman Party motored to Genoa, opting to ride in a closed car because of all the dust. Eastman wondered why Italian authorities wanting to lure tourists didn't "oil the roads."

In Genoa, they boarded the Llanstephan, and today's cruise passengers might be interested to know that George Eastman found his 6'3"x8'6" cabin "convenient and most satisfactory." That a friend had sent two cases of French and Italian wines was probably also most satisfactory. On board were other hunting parties, including one known as the Chrysler Party.

Mark D. Ruffner


The Llanstephan sailed through the Suez Canal and Red Sea to Mombasa, which Eastman thought lovely, and compared to Coral Gables, Florida. In Mombasa, the Eastman Party was met by Mrs. Carl Akeley, who had secured a house in Nairobi for use as the safari headquarters; the Martin Johnsons, who would be making a documentary of the trip; and the Phil Percivals. Mr. Percival would be Mr. Eastman's "white hunter," while Mr. Pomeroy would have his own guide, Pat Ayre.

Pomeroy, Eastman and Stewart

From Mombasa to Nairobi, the now extended Eastman Party took its own train, which consisted of a passenger car, a dining car and a baggage car. Perhaps you are starting to see that this safari was no small affair.

Martin and Osa Johnson | africaobscura.com      Carl Akeley | wikipedia

While George Eastman was famous for his work with photography, Osa and Martin Johnson were famous as explorers, and for their documentary films. Carl Akeley, who was in his last year, was the father of modern taxidermy. He was a fine sculptor, and so his taxidermied animals had the properly muscled under structures to make them appear very lifelike. For the Eastman Safari, Akeley had hired two taxidermists and two artists who had gone ahead and set up their own camp.

The Eastman Party employed a Boer chauffeur and 30 native Africans, including valets, cooks, porters, gun-bearers, skinners and syces (mule handlers).

The safari headquarters in Nairobi, for which Mrs. Akeley had arranged

  To be continued . . .
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16 comments:

  1. Dear Mark,
    The plot thickens!! This is such an intriguing story-- I can't wait for what might come next! I hope you don't think me cruel, but if I had to guess, judging only by the photo,I would have thought that Mr. Akeley was an undertaker--and taxidermist isn't so far off, I suppose! Suddenly I feel like watching Out of Africa again...
    Warm regards,
    Erika

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    1. Dear Erika,

      I have a sense that the photo I've used of Carl Akeley was taken in the last year of his life. If you go to Google Images and type Akeley's name, you'll see at least one very different image of him in Africa, an image that was clearly taken in the 1800s.

      Best wishes,
      Mark

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  2. Hi, Mark - Just caught up on parts 1 and 2. You are fortunate to inherit this book from your grandfather! Talk about territory: WOW! Very impressive and much responsibility, I'm sure. What an amazing trip. And full of distinguished guests!! Do share more of Eastman's photos from this book. Thanks!

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    1. Hi, Loi - The Internet is really so amazing — I've owned this book (Chronicles of an African Trip) for years, and always thought of it primarily as just George Eastman's "vanity piece," as they call such self-published books. But the more Web research I put into these postings, the more I realize that this 8-month safari was one of the most notable ones, in terms both of scale and who was involved.

      And many more photos to come!

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  3. Hello Mark, It always amazes me how out of touch people can become through their acts of insulation. Imagine traveling through the Africa of 90 years ago, only to compare it to Coral Gables. (Not that there is anything wrong with Coral Gables; here it symbolizes Eastman's terra cognita.) Perhaps with all their luxury and cases of wine, they lost some of their sense of wonder.

    It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, although the presence of those professional taxidermists does not bode well for the wildlife of that era. Perhaps I am thinking of the Teddy Roosevelt-type safaris, with their wholesale slaughter.
    --Road to Parnassus

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    1. Hello, Jim,

      Clearly George Eastman was not going to rough it, and I'm sure that even Teddy Roosevelt got a little closer to the land, so to speak. The book indicates that part of the entourage was always ahead of Mr. Eastman, so that he would arrive at camps that were already set up.

      You are right to guess that these careful plans and the amassing of double-barreled guns does not bode well for anything on four feet!

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  4. Dear Mark - those were the days when the "great" was still relevant to Britain, and the products British workmen turned out were unrivalled. However, H, informs me that we still make the world's best bespoke shotguns manufactured by a company called Purdey. Not for killing tigers, rhinos, and elephants etc but for clay pigeon shooting, and game birds.

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    1. Dear Rosemary -

      I was initially surprised that George Eastman went for British guns rather than American-made, but of course he would have preferred anything made specially to order, and the very best at that.

      I know that Eastman was an INCREDIBLE perfectionist. I have visited his house in Rochester, and it is a huge structure. Eastman installed a fine organ in his music room, only to be disappointed with the acoustics (he liked to have musical gatherings). So he had the whole house split down the middle and through the music room, had the two halves moved about a foot apart, and then had the house all patched up so no one would ever know!

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  5. Second attempt:

    It's interesting how words travel and evolve. The word syce was one used in Malaya (and by my parents) for driver or chauffeur. I knew it came from India, and must have done so through Empire-speak, (and obviously to Africa too). As you suggest, its origins are equine related, (a groom or stableman), but with the advent of the car, transferred.

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    1. Dear Columnist - I had to go to the dictionary for "syce." Your comment regarding syce evolving into chauffeur brought to mind the "iron horse."

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  6. Dear Mark,
    I am enjoying this trip with George but a one hour trip to the Louvre? He should have taken at least a day, even back then! I wonder how large the Louvre collection was, in 1926.
    Travelling with one's own special train sounds as though it is going to be my kind of safari!
    Bye for now
    Kirk

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    1. Dear Kirk,

      I guess it's not too surprising that George Eastman might have been more interested in technology than art, though his work touched on both. His letters reflect as much in subtle ways; as he sailed into ports, he noted cranes and derricks rather than the countryside.

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  7. Dear Mark, This account gets more and more fascinating. I chuckled when I saw your George Eastman visiting the Louvre. You are so clever, it's a wonderfully whimsical and engineered photograph. Every now and then I feel like doing just that, race through an exhibit and get on with more important things that life has to offer.

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    1. Dear Gina,

      Thank you for appreciating my depiction of George Eastman in the Louvre — I had fun doing it. Too many tourists are just like that. A friend of mine visited Florence for one day and reported back that it was all sort of a blur. Well, duh!

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  8. I, too, am taken aback by the one hour 'devoted' to the Louvre. It certainly shows Eastman's priorities. Well, at least he wasn't a hypocrite about it. He probably just wanted to say he'd been there. :)

    Checked out the Martin and Osa Johnson link. Fascinating. 'I Married Adventure' - what a great title.

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    1. Regarding Eastman fessing up to the fact that he alloted only an hour to the Louvre, I should mention that the book, "Chronicles of an African Adventure," is actually the letters he wrote back to a Rochester friend, a Miss Whitney. Whatever his relationship to her, each letter is addressed "Dear Miss Whitney" and each letter is formally signed with his full name.

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