Listen to the Animals

By E. Gordon Dickie M.D

Dr. Dickie is a graduate of Stanford University and McGill Medical School. After an ObGyn residency he was stationed at a large U.S. Army Hospital in Southern Germany and drove throughout Europe which elicited a keen enthusiasm for his extensive world travels.

During his medical practice in Hawaii he was also the Medical Director of the Hawaii Cancer Laboratory.

Dr. Dickie has written several books, screenplays and medical articles and was the first to ski the face of the 14,000 foot volcano Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii.

He now divides his time between winters in Aspen, Colorado, spring and fall in Carmel, California, and summers at his Island in Ontario, Canada.

As an avid and voracious consumer on every conceivable subject he has amassed an immense collection of authoritative books in his personal library in Carmel. For the past several years he has been the CEO of the FIES Brain Research Institute.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 21, 2005
• ISBN: 9781463497163

E. Gordon Dickie M.D

Thousands of books have been written by numerous esteemed political philosophers about the signs and symptoms of the human predicament reiterating the humanistic vindications of provincial thinkers from previous centuries. As a physician (Stanford, BA & McGill, MD) immersed in the rigorous disciplines of twenty first century enlightenment, I believe it is imperative for the preservation of our species that we explore the etiology of Man''s continuous calamitous compulsions utilizing our most recently acquired scientific evidence.

Book preview

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

Chapter I

THE AFRICAN SAFARI

EXPERIENCE

Chapter II

THE GATHERING STORM

Chapter III

STADT

Chapter IV

THE SPOILERS

Chapter V

CONFRONTATION

Chapter VI

AGGRESSION

Chapter VII

THE ANTELOPES

Chapter VIII

THE LIONS

Chapter IX

THE RHINO

Chapter X

WILD DOGS

Chapter XI

THE BIRDS

Chapter XII

THE ELEPHANTS

Chapter XIII

THE APES

Chapter XIV

THE NATIVES

Chapter XV

DISENCHANTMENT

Chapter XVI

SPLINTERING

Chapter XVII

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE

RECAPITULATION

EPILOGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

for

LAURA

my daughter

who loves the animals

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Consummated with;

Neither the succulent nourishment

of generous government grants.

Nor blessed by the fortunate favors

of fickle foundation funding.

Or even the capricious coffers

of capitalistic citadels.

Without the benefit

of prestigious university endorsement and acclaim.

Or the pious passion

of a devout and faithful flock.

Nor exploited by clandestine

and surreptitiously crusading fanatics.

Or even the encouragement

of an occasional sympathetic enthusiast.

Meditatively marooned;

Stoically enduring the contemptuous disdain

for an innocuous paper mistress.

That lay seductively beckoning

to arouse hypothetical suppositions.

Guilelessly relegated to the sequestered recesses

of domicile and consciousness.

While incessantly scheming

to confiscate fleeting moments of precious time.

From the assiduous and relentless taskmaster

of mortal perimeters.

Sincerely motivated

by a tenacious determination and abiding commitment.

To share reasonable reflections

with others similarly inclined and genuinely concerned.

PREFACE

Thousands of books have been written by numerous esteemed political philosophers about the signs and symptoms of the human predicament reiterating the humanistic vindications of provincial thinkers from previous centuries.

Sadly the destructive perplexities of civilized society have continuously intensified and metastasized.

The incentive for this thesis was provoked several years ago because, as a physician, I sincerely wanted to understand the perverse mentality of those who would savagely attack and vehemently discredit anyone who questioned their misguided beliefs and deviant agendas in spite of diametrically, conflicting evidence and overwhelming, authoritative logic.

I believe it is imperative for the preservation of our species that we explore the etiology of Man’s continuous calamitous compulsions utilizing the prodigious amounts of well researched scientific evidence that has accumulated during the last thirty years.

Man is animal and he refuses to admit it.

Unless Man understands and appreciates his innate animal instincts, he will never escape the confines of his malignant rationalizations and suicidal conflicts.

The missing links between apes and the human race are……men.

Konrad Lorenz

We can look to biologists for the analysis of problems and for suggested solutions, but biologists don’t have an adequate way to communicate with the public.

Michael Crichton

Chapter I THE AFRICAN SAFARI EXPERIENCE

Chapter I

THE AFRICAN SAFARI

EXPERIENCE

Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee… or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.

Book of Job (12:7-8)

Teach your children respect for the animals and they will learn to respect each other.

Jack Thropp

Trust the divine animal who carries us through the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man who does not love nature is a disappointment to me. I am liable to mistrust him.

Otto Von Bismarck

A kaleidoscope of iridescent brilliance stealthily shattered the mysterious and clandestine African night, introducing an aura of tranquility that imperceptibly permeated the vast, acacia speckled savannah. Spectacularly and sensationally, a sizzling speck of molten fire germinated and ripened on the prostrate crest of the boundless horizon. It was a preordained signal for a brief interlude of neutrality, a momentary moratorium in the perpetual and punishing struggle for survival to pay homage to the creator on whose presence their very existence depended.

All remained motionless, transfixed with awe at the tumescence of the celestial inferno that had patiently and lovingly observed their inception, evolution and propagation throughout the last two billion years. It was a time when prey and predator alike arbitrarily abandoned their cardinal instincts and stood in anesthetizing amazement and rapturous reverence to honor the source of all life-sustaining forces. Compassionate cognizance enveloped one’s comprehensions and suffocating emotions detonated within the uninitiated throat. Instantaneously, it terminated, and the animals resumed living.

Precipitately punctuating the mesmerizing silence was, The lion, he is there.

Lavuta, our proficient and perceptive Kamban guide, highly skilled and deeply dedicated, studiously gestured to an imperceptible movement in the velvety vegetation some three hundred yards away. Strained scrutinization through twenty power binoculars failed to authenticate his astute and discriminating revelation.

Meticulously and adeptly, the vehicle was maneuvered around the disseminated acacia bushes, proximal and parallel to the broad, marshy stream bed, until we were unexpectedly and stultifyingly confronted with the primeval pride, placidly basking beneath the flaming eye of the early morning sun. Rambunctious and effervescent cubs were frolicking with wild abandon, explosively charged with the envious, inexhaustible exuberance of youth. One provocative lioness was undulating, serpentine fashion, and voluptuously curling her tail, while the lordly, shaggy headed male contemptuously ignored her obviously seductive overtures.

Pursuant to a proper positioning of the Minolta 600mm telescopic lens to capture the integrated intricacies of this pristine scene, hot coffee was poured and passed to generate and activate an accentuated mood of patience, prudence and pragmatism.

Mock attacks by the arrogant cubs exhibited fleeting traces of the deadly efficiency that would one day be their tempestuous trademark, yet an unassuming clumsiness and adolescent awkwardness betrayed a narcissistic naiveté and inexperience that made them more endearing and even cuddlesome.

The flamboyant, hirsute potentate displayed a remarkable degree of tepid tolerance towards their constant, unremitting harassment and hounding behavior, even though notoriously reputed to possess minimal paternal consideration for their welfare. An occasional, reproachful reprimand from their courageous and courtesaneous mother was sufficient to impose order and obedience in the mischievous and impetuous cubs.

As the searing sun phlegmatically ascended to its appointed apogee in the cobalt canopy of this poignant pageant, one lioness became increasingly restless. Lithely, she sprang to her feet and gracefully crouched with twitching tail and strong, sinuous muscles rippling throughout her supple frame, the only evidence of the tremendous and carefully controlled strength that lay deceptively dormant until unleashed. Intensely, she concentrated on the innocent and unsuspecting prey.

The other two felines immediately perceived her perceptions and subtle strategies were empathetically conceived, actuating the conspiratorial connivance with destiny. Cautiously, they negotiated the saturated quagmire to implement their deadly designs.

Obediently, the cubs set off in unison to procure the proper protective asylum and resignedly await a maternal summons after the consummation of her obligations. Abandoned and alone, the indolent male balefully observed the family departing in opposite directions. The placid serenity of this quiescent rendezvous has been inadvertently, but unavoidably, disrupted.

Across the aqueous buffer zone, an anxious mother giraffe had already positioned herself as a vigilant sentinel and, with trembling trepidation, pensively acknowledged the terrible terminality of these grim reapers. Aristocratic, soft, brown, furry protrusions graced the dome of her sculptured, tapering head, bearing large, limpid eyes that exhibited a genuine, paralyzing fear of these intimidating, stalking predators.

Fortitudinously prepared to report any anomalous detour from their intended objective, she resolutely monitored every movement until they eventually disappeared into the concealment of their Tartarean trap. Surreptitiously and delitescently, they would await a negligent wildebeest or zebra to inadvertently and carelessly venture into ambush.

Diligently, Lavuta searched for a satisfactory traversing to reach the antediluvian theater of impending tragedy. With mixed emotions, we awaited the ominous overture to this intriguing, yet calamitous, catastrophe, while the principal participants continued to graze where disaster lay within a few yards.

Reassuringly, Lavuta hypothesized, They know lions in every bush and never go too close.

Within seconds, as if by telepathic awareness or extrasensory perception, a wave of panic rippled throughout the herd, and, simultaneously, they bolted to the palliative patronage of the open savannah.

Ironically, alter a token interlude, they returned, temporarily assured that no danger was imminent. Obviously, this stereotyped and traditional scenario, indelibly etched in the infinite recesses of time, was a protracted conflict with an abundant advantage in favor of the patient predators.

Meandering unpretentiously towards center stage in this gripping melodrama was a lumbering, titanic rhino, an eccentric quadruped that demands a distinctive and deferential respect from all members of the savannah society.

Discretionally, Lavuta started the engine and carefully charted his escape, since this sixty million year old relic is by far the most potentially destructive and capricious of all African animals. His two ton torso could easily catch any safari vehicle within fifty yards, capsize it, and nonchalantly bulldoze it off into the marsh, leaving little possibility of escape.

His monstrous, drooping head with long, protruding horns, highly valued by aging Asiatics as an aphrodisiac, was covered by several brightly colored oxpecker birds, eagerly extracting insects from his crusted, leathery hide. Unwittingly, he ponderously trudged towards the hidden lions, never once disturbing the easily excitable zebras and wildebeests.

Lavuta was amused and said, Lions not like that, probably leave.

Billowing bushes enveloped his Bunyanesque corpulence as he continued his peregrinations, oblivious to the influence that his presence would have on the situation. However, there was no immediate sign of disruption.

Unseen hands of a subtle breeze tenderly rustled the frivolous foliage and invisible thermals began to activate, a salient phenomenon for the patiently awaiting vultures. Without assistance, their heavy, cumbersome and maladroit frames could never achieve the necessary altitudes required for intensive investigation of the penurious landscape.

These grim, grisly, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and grievous scavengers, strutting brazenly in their arid arena, are a paramount prophylaxis in the maintenance of an aseptic and abstergent milieu.

Before midmorning, few vultures contemplate reconnaissance, but with increased savannah calescence, heated ground air levitates, providing an unsurpassable uplift. These thermal elevators are fully appreciated and efficiently utilized, but once aloft, they carefully observe their comrades for any deviation in behavior. Circling indicates a significant discovery, and the others rapidly converge to take advantage of the searcher’s serendipity.

Starkly silhouetted against the scorched savannah was a solitary, sulking hyena, in pursuit of water to quench his uncompromising thirst after a hectic night of mischievous marauding. This gruesome, ghoulish appearing predator, with his luciferous grimacing and blood soaked, matted, yellowish fur, heavily laden with gore, is reputed to be responsible for more exterminations than the prestigious lion. Furthermore, they have the dubious distinction of possessing such incredibly strong jaws that it enables them to pulverize and consume the bones of their unlucky victims.

Unfortunately, they apparently masticated the missing link, much to the chagrin of the passionate fossil proponents, yet inspiring an ecstatic delight in the cynical skeptics who have never truly appreciated the intrinsic value of the human ape’s antiquity.

Alleged accounts of the efficacious amputation of a sleeping safarist’s extremity have also intensified a grudging and healthy respect in the frail impressionable human ape.

Our illustrious luminary had ascended to its esteemed apex, intensifying the stifling heat. Sympathetically sensing the salient significance of shade and siesta, the animals prudently retired until the diurnal insult would dissipate. Only mad dogs and Englishmen with scintillating scotomas would remain, always loyal to their characteristic reputation of being completely out of cadence with nature.

Of the one hundred and fifty mammals in Africa, the majority are nocturnal, a vital vestige from their evolutionary divergence some seven score and ten million years ago and a propitious propensity throughout their precarious existence during the undisputed reign of the huge dinosaurs.

Lavuta, always more sensible and less compulsive, diplomatically suggested a conceptual hiatus and stoically steered our vehicle towards a beckoning oasistic arbor for repose and respite.

Midway to our destination, we encountered a cheetah, regally sauntering in luxuriant leisure through the tall, dry grass, silently surveying his tranquil principality for susceptible sustenance. This sleek, stately, long legged cat, with a disproportionately small head, is restricted to preying on the smaller antelopes, in spite of his incredible bursts of sixty miles per hour speed.

In the distance stood the burlesque and clownish ostrich, perpetually pecking at occult objects in the impoverished terrain and canonized for his endless endurance at forty miles per hour.

The sanctimonious and solicitous solitude of our secluded and shaded sanctuary was shattered by the staccato screeching of long fanged, dog faced baboons. Always orderly and harmonious, their congenial society exudes a tranquility far beyond the wildest expectations of the egalitarian, utopian fantasies envisioned by the eternal optimism of the philosophers. Tribal hierarchies are scrupulously structured; each member recognizing and accepting his own position of dominance, always respecting those above him and ready to reprimand those below him. This enforced stratification ensures persistent peace, order and stability, and leaves little room for possible adverse cultural experimentation.

Grooming and repetitious attention to others in the tribal unit continually creates a sense of camaraderie that perpetually pervades the entire troop. Discipline is immediate and harsh, eliciting loud screams from the admonished, but the offense is quickly forgiven and forgotten exemplifying how constant cultural imprinting impresses the aberrant and delinquent youngsters.

Through a series of cries, gestures, expressions and animations, communication between the baboons is more than adequate to convey any intentions, desires, alarms or emotions. Any of the excessively and irrelevant abstract verbalizations expounded by the human ape would be superfluous and redundant.

Noble and nimble, deer-like impala quietly and unobtrusively browsed nearby, a frequent companion to the baboons for mutual security against predators.

Superb starlings, with their resplendent royal blue backs, gaudy golden breasts and impudent, peppery, potent personalities, chattered vociferously and incessantly amongst the ubiquitous umbrage while hungrily and hopefully hovering around their bipedal intruders for benevolent morsels.

Small, sparrow-like weaver birds agilely darted in and out of their distinctive and picturesque, circumambient thatched nests. Even after several generations of enforced isolation in captivity, instinct still dictates that they immediately construct their labryinthian domiciles when given their freedom.

Subsequent to our postprandial somnolence, the westernized impatience intensified, and it was time to resume the quest for African impressions.

Dust devils, or small whirlwinds, danced whimsically out on the parched plains, while a small, yellowish jackal cautiously circumvented the grove, suspiciously surveying the strange and alien interlopers, his olfactory apparatus triggered by the deadly scent of man.

Dexterously depicting a path between ancient, aphonic boulders, the immortal and impassive custodians of a vast, unspoiled empire, we returned to the formulator’s felicitous forum.

Precariously perched on a sacred sliver of shade stood several stationary elephants, vainly striving to placate their peripheral preceptors and temper the savannah’s severity. Ingeniously, they cooled the blood in their dilated capillaries by oscillating their amplitudinous auricles.

The only other movement was an occasional erotic enticement with a portentous prehensile proboscis. Dwarfed babies serving their apprenticeship acclimating to a hostile environment were protectively sheltered and camouflaged amongst the mammoth adults.

Barely discernible through the flickering convection currents was a huge herd of jet black Cape buffalo, masticating contentedly in their sun ravaged and desiccated domain, their cyclopean carcasses callously indifferent to the caloric insult. Constant interaction between them indicated a comfortable, interpersonal familiarity.

To hunters, these massive, horned trophies are the most dangerous because, if wounded, they will patiently circle behind their tormentor and have their well deserved retribution.

Always an electrifying sight in this empty desolation, miles from any type of human habitation, is the Masai warrior. Long spear in hand, brightly painted, ochra red, shaved head and casually draped, dark maroon toga, he calmly walks without fear. Lions can smell the Masai miles away and will judiciously allow them wide latitude, since manhood initiation rites require a lethal single handed confrontation.

Customarily seen maintaining a lonely vigilance over his precious, cadaverous cattle, this hermitic hominid probably decided to visit a friend or some other quasi-nefarious necessity and thought nothing of ambulating some thirty or forty miles.

The Masai are attentively attuned to the Spartan scarcity of their sterile surroundings and live in comfortable compatibility with the savannah’s meager resources. Totally unimpressed by the tenacious trappings of modern civilization, they would never be so myopic or hebetudinous as to be enticed or encumbered by such fragile frailties on which Europeans have become so hopelessly dependent. Sensibly and perceptively, they realize that cities and civilization inaugurate cultural disruption and destruction.

Consequently, they are probably the most racially prejudiced and condescending community in the world, due to their dedicated and determined assiduity to maintain their independence and self sufficiency which will continue to exist long after our monstrous megalopolises have been vaporized.

The intense heat fractured as our attenuated, subsiding spectator continued his puissant and punctual pilgrimage in the western sky. However, he had extracted a costly tribute on the tenuous fluid balance of his captive congregation. To compensate, they instinctively converged on the only available waterhole, reluctantly sacrificing the visual acuity of the open expanses.

They rendezvoused intermittently from all directions, all wary, all wanting, all willing to chance oblivion for a few mouthfuls of the sweet nectar of life. The one foot dik-dik, the two foot Thomson’s gazelle, the three foot Grant’s gazelle, the four foot impala, the five foot wildebeest and the six loot zebra, all approached with frequent hesitations, backward glances, sudden startlings and deliberate, well conditioned indecisiveness.

Elegantly, a hartebeest quickly knelt at the water’s edge, imbibed a hasty mouthful, then swiftly sprung to his feet and dashed away from the forbidden fruit. The other participants in this perennial performance nervously approached, impetuously plunged, greedily gulped, resourcefully retracted, abruptly retreated, desperately departed and vanished.

Ethereally, the late afternoon sunlight filtered through the wildebeests’ long, grey beards, resembling glistening corn silk, while the black and white zebra stripes rippled on the water’s shimmering skin like flashing strobe lights.

Then, precipitously, a sinister stimulus inoculated their fickle fantasies and sent them stampeding to a reliable refuge. Again, we were alone with the impact of their hazardous existence in which no miscalculations would be tolerated.

Further down the saturated and sodden, circuitous stream bed, several giraffes, after cumbersomely consuming copious quantities of water, leisurely plodded and splashed to the opposite bank leaving an apprehensive youngster hesitant to follow.

Completely ignored, he foolishly and impetuously wandered off by himself anxiously searching for a more accessible crossing. The preoccupied mother continued to nibble the tender, distal green leaves from the proliferous prickly thorn bushes, oblivious to his perilous predicament.

Suddenly, she realized that her baby had disappeared. Hysteria seized and sent her galloping excitedly across the reedy marsh, churning up huge geysers of water with her dinner plate sized hooves. Furtively and frantically searching the empty horizon, she deliriously lunged off in the wrong direction. The others, alerted by the commotion, immediately ceased their foraging and rapidly converged in her direction.

Fortunately, the stray calf was soon located, frightened and alone, allowing mother and child to be reunited before the omnipresent predators could separate them forever.

Anticipatively and expectantly, we returned to investigate the diabolical success of the lions’ satanical excursion before the inaccessible and impenetrable curtain of darkness descended.

Lavuta’s unprecedented visual acuity expeditiously perceived their tawny frames discriminately disguised in their recondite retreat, serenely slumbering and sublimely satiated, with pathgnomonic traces of blood on the fur around their murderous jaws, indicating a successful assassination.

Symbiotically intertwined with the fauna and flora within their environment, they only extracted enough sustenance for survival, never disrupting the delicate balance of nature. Any detrimental deviation in the fortunes of one species would imperceptibly but irrevocably upset the harmonious relationship among all the animals.

Uncomfortably, the human ape stares at this primal scene, subconsciously acquiescing to the actualization that rather recently he was out there as prey and predator. Lamentably, he has forsaken the equanimity of his country cousins for the stultifying confines of the civilized zoo.

Consequently, cybernetic man prefers the surveillance of animals in a cage, because he himself is an eternal prisoner and unfortunately will never again know the dignified freedom in this Garden of Eden. It is a world of peace, order and tranquility unknown to those enmeshed in their hedonistic, gluttonous, sybaritic sensuality.

Watching the animals is a mind boggling experience and with enough patience, man becomes permanently influenced by the prodigious serenity of their blissful Nirvana.

As Robert Ardrey has so eloquently eulogized and poignantly proposed; a good day of animal watching is like a fine vintage wine that should be bottled and preserved to be savored at one’s leisure throughout life.

Because there before you lies the answer to one’s existence. He who has never known the African experience will never understand nor appreciate the true essence of life, and his ephemeral and diminutive duration on this minuscule planet will be in vain.

Majestically phosphorescent, Old Sol remained suspended on the inexhaustible horizon like an orange beach ball, gazing contentedly over his creatures and creation. He hesitated for one last sentimental second, remorsefully adoring the remnants of his diversified progeny, and then reluctantly dipped behind his prestigious pulpit.

Deferentially, Lavuta observed the supine lions in the fading twilight and softly and sagaciously murmured, Wanyama wajua yote. (Animals know all.)

We were alone in the enveloping, enigmatic darkness, lost as its deafening silence shrouded our proliferating perceptions, our thoughts back thousands of years when we understood. It was a time of sobriety, awareness and insight into the beauties of nature, an indescribably moving experience that would remain indelibly imprinted in our cerebral circuitry. We had witnessed nature’s true design, the ultimate purpose of her proud and patient endeavors, and would be forever influenced by the colossal magnitude of her subtle wisdom.

Our ruminations remained with the animals until our meditations were inconsiderately interrupted by the engine’s rude rumble. Remorsefully, we realized that our consecrated appointment had been terminated.

Our mechanized conveyance perniciously wrenched and deported its reluctant passengers back into the constricting and ghettoized harness of the frightening, Orwellian, twentieth century.

Chapter II THE GATHERING STORM

Chapter II

THE GATHERING STORM

How the European has established colonies is explained by his nature, which resembles that of a beast of prey.

Frederich Nietzsche

Before we Christianize Africans, should we not Christianize ourselves?

Dennis Saurat

For better or worse the old Africa is gone. The white races must face the new situation which they have themselves created.

Jan Christiaan Smuts

Ten thousand years ago, there was peace throughout the world. The human ape was still immersed in the daily dilemmas of survival and, therefore, out of necessity reverently respected the wisdom of nature and attentively listened to the animals, since his very existence depended upon it. All life was orderly, well orchestrated, and all followed the primitive instincts that had been carefully evolved over the last two billion years since organic life first appeared on the planet Earth.

Numerous Gardens of Eden existed for the benefit of all species and they all lived in harmony with each other. This Utopia would have persisted indefinitely if it were not for a lethal mutation within the human ape, the hypertrophy of the cerebrum.

Throughout the animal and plant kingdom, nature had been brutally efficient in effectively dealing with such diversions from the norm. If, by chance, mutation or slow genetic drift, the legs of any animal became too short or too long to properly acclimate to the environment, they simply perished and the other species that were more adaptable survived.

Ninety-five percent of all animal species that ever existed have perished because they couldn’t cope with the elements. Only massive subterranean pools of oil along with a few ancient and silent skeletons remain as proof as to their vain attempts to unravel nature’s riddle of the perfect anatomical and physiological structures to sustain any of the innumerable trials and tribulations that were necessary to test the species’ durability.

Unsuspectingly injected into this evolutionary experimentation was a time bomb that threatened the very fabric of nature’s grand design. All of her precious species and laborious efforts would feel the influence of the enlarged human brain which could, within a few short years, eradicate all of her meticulous efforts.

By seven thousand years ago, crops had been planted, cultivated and harvested, in addition to the possession of livestock. The first seeds of civilization had been strewn. No one could have possibly imagined what monstrosities would eventually appear from this innocuous beginning. Cities grew like fungus on ripe cheese and populations spawned more populations. There was no longer any reason to listen to the animals because there was enough food for all. Survival was no longer a daily uncertainty. Only the tiny microbe remained as a threat to the normal, expected longevity of human existence. Life expectancy remained in the twenties, constantly perpetuating a population rich in physical strength and exuberance, yet poor in the conceptual wisdom of accumulated knowledge.

However, the intellect had blossomed, negating the instincts. Instead of adhering to the dictates of the instincts, they were bastardized by the intellect until they acquired a magnitude that bordered on absurdity. More territory, greater dominance and unlimited aggression insidiously crept into the human ape’s mentality, and have since increased in proportion to the population explosion. But, unfortunately, not only has this misguided intellect threatened his own survival, it has driven the world’s animal populations almost to extinction.

Now the only reprieve from the continuous, sadistic destruction of animal life is when the human ape is preoccupied with massacring his own species during his incessant wars for more dominance and territory.

In civilization, wars were rationalized as a necessity since there was the suspected threat to the territorial imperative. Killing defenseless animals was relegated to the innocuous position of being a manly sport benignly occupying the interlude of peace. Weapons were at a premium because they presented a decided advantage in any confrontation and were, therefore, utilized with little mercy for their adversary.

Civilization spread westward around the Mediterranean and up into Europe as well as eastward along the Indian Ocean. Further on, in southeast Asia, there is evidence that agriculturism and pasturalism had been practiced many thousands of years earlier, but for some inexplicable reason, the compulsive desire to kill other humans and animals never seemed to have reached the magnitude of western follies.

Eastern philosophies have always remained more attuned to nature’s wisdom and lived in close harmony with the elements, never allowing themselves to be swayed by the insidious intellect to pursue a course of death and destruction. Even Genghis Khan, in the early thirteenth century, who marauded far and wide across the Asian continent in his mischievous adventures, had an intense loathing for anyone who lived in cities and purposely destroyed all he came into contact with. Cities, to him, represented indolence, sloth, a denial of nature and cesspools of humanity, breeding indiscriminately.

Western civilization has continuously reverberated with the sounds of clashing armor amongst the agonizing screams of the wounded and dying for the last three thousand years. It is certainly not a chronicle to be proud of, but history repetitiously and monotonously repeats itself like the changing seasons, until the entire scenario becomes like a broken record.

The pattern is always identical, first the dominant aggressive male, the collection of fierce and dedicated adherents, the imagined threat, the confrontation, war, slaughter, destruction, subjugation, elimination of dissidents, and then a period of paranoid government. This scenario continues until another aggressive, dominant male appears on the scene and follows the identical script.

Throughout the turmoil of civilization, Africa tenaciously guarded, as the benevolent custodian, the secret to the predicaments of mankind. It lay with the animals, and all attempts to explore, conquer and dominate her interiors were repulsed by the sentinel tsetse fly and treacherous Anopheles mosquito, that decimated the white men by the thousands with their sleeping sickness and malaria.

To these tiny insects, who were here long before we arrived and will remain long after we have perished, we owe a debt of gratitude for delaying African exploration and destruction until the human ape possessed the mentality to appreciate the tremendous wealth of knowledge that lay hidden in this hostile and inaccessible continent.

We have been gone from our African conceptions too long and, in the interim, have lost our immunities, melanin and comprehensions. We accumulated more body fat, excessive body hair and shorter limbs to withstand the bone numbing chill of the northern latitudes.

We left over a million years ago, but why? What insatiable curiosity drew our ancestors down the Nile and northward into Asia and Europe? In their ignorance, did they think that the Garden of Eden existed throughout our small planet and was infinite? Or did they become hopelessly lost while exploring strange territory, never to return to their ancestral home for hundreds of thousands of years?

But, now we have returned a few precious seconds before midnight, and hopefully there is still time to understand and comprehend the true laws of nature and her underlying purpose of peace, order and stability.

Africa remained a remote and isolated sanctuary, guarded by the immense, broiling Sahara, a shimmering, inexhaustible sea of sterile sand that successfully curtailed any exploration until a few thousand years ago.

The camel was the key to its accessibility, and by 700 B.C., the Arabs had penetrated its vast splendor to reach the primitive populations that had blithely assumed that they were immune to all alien influences. But, the Arabs came with a greedy eye for profit and a total disregard for the stability and contentment of the tribal units they encountered. They entered the Garden of Eden with mercenary mindlessness, leaving a trail of destruction that has continued until this day.

The Arabs unlocked the door, but it was the Romans who pillaged and plundered the land on a scale never before seen in the history of this small planet. Slaves were herded like cattle thousands of miles back to Rome, for the added leisure and convenience of the plutocrats. All wild animals were in great demand for the senseless slaughters in the Coliseum. Thousands upon thousands were brought back to perform a few, brief moments before their execution to please the bored and frenzied crowds. The statistics were staggering, considering the primitive means of transportation and communication. It took months before a captive quarry traveled the route from savannah to stage.

With the fall and decline of the Roman Empire, Africa won a short reprieve to adjust to the horrendous insult to her sensitivities. She breathed a well deserved sigh of relief, but it was not long before the Arab countries set out on their presumptuous quest for world domination and to spread the word of their prophet Mohammad.

In the 700’s A.D., half of their force went north into the Balkans and the other half traveled west along North Africa. Their intention was to meet in Europe and annihilate or subjugate the Christian heathens.

If this grand design, conceived by a handful of determined men in their tattered tents amid the howling winds of a Spartan and trackless terrain, had been successful, we would have all been adherents to the Moslem faith. All traces of Christianity would have been obliterated, except possibly for the few dedicated diehards and they would have suffered a similar fate as did their predecessors in another Coliseum or on the cross.

Fortunately or unfortunately as one prefers, the eastern advances were halted in what is now Yugoslavia and Austria, and the western army was halted in Spain, thus ending the megalomaniac ambitions of another impetuous and dominantly aggressive human ape.

Those along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa solidified their position, settled down and intermingled with the local population, and then began to penetrate the vast Sahara in ever increasing numbers. They found the legendary Timbuktu, which became one of the main outposts of their trade routes. Here again, they settled and intermingled. Southwest Africa, which had escaped the earlier onslaughts of the Romans, now began to feel the pressures and influences of this northern human ape that preferred to leave the home of his ancestors and raise havoc with all stable population groups he encountered.

Between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, there were three ruling tribes in the Niger Valley, spread out along the circuitous course of the Niger River. The first was the empire of Ghana in the ninth and tenth centuries; then came the empire of Mali in the thirteenth century; and finally came the empire of Mali and Askia the Great in the sixteenth century. These empires were an amalgamation of tribal units controlled by the strongest and most aggressive tribe even though they never discovered the wheel.

Unfortunately, the Moslems heavily exploited these empires and stripped their territories of gold, ivory, hides, grains, ostrich feathers and kola nuts. In the thirteenth century, Mansa Musa constructed a few mosques with crenellated terraces and pyramidal minarets under Moslem guidance in Timbuktu and Goa on the Niger River, but the vast majority of natives lived under very primitive conditions, as they had done for thousands of years.

One speculates what influence the Moslems had in instigating one tribal domination over other tribes, since there is very little evidence of this type of activity before their arrival. But their influence was miniscule to what followed.

By the 1600’s, navigation had been perfected, America had been discovered and colonized, and the coast of Africa charted. Slaves were needed in the New World to do the manual work in the vast plantations and mines. North American Indians were resistant to enslavement and the South American Indians could not stand the intense physical labor and died.

Between 1680 and 1688, England had over two hundred and fifty ships devoted specifically to slave trading, transporting some sixty thousand Negro slaves to the New World. The shipmasters would barter with the coastal chieftains with clothes, knives, rum, muskets and gunpowder. Chained together below decks, the slaves were so tightly crammed that these unfortunates could only sleep on their sides. Consequently, a slave ship could be identified by the nauseating odor some five miles away. Five percent died on the way to the ship, thirteen percent on the ship, and another thirty percent died during the period of seasoning, or breaking in, after arrival.

Over fifteen million Negroes were brought to the Americas, all subjected to this intensified evolutionary selection process, which undoubtedly accounts for their exceptional endurance and physical athletic ability in competition.

The sadistic monstrosities of the slave trade will always be a permanent blot on the human character, exemplifying the horrifying extent of man’s inhumanity to man. Entire populations were decimated, and every tribal unit throughout western Africa felt the terrible and painful effects of the Caucasian greed for power, dominance and wealth.

A peaceful land that had slumbered quietly throughout antiquity was suddenly devastated and the natives met the disastrous fate of every other primitive tribe throughout the world, wherever the Northern European entered the scene. Now oil has been discovered in Nigeria, and the entrepreneurs pour in to exploit the natives and extract the wealth.

Fortunately, eastern Africa possessed the large animal populations and had remained practically free of Caucasian intervention until less than a hundred years ago. It was the last of nature’s Utopias. The nearby coast had been thoroughly explored for over two thousand years, but the forbidding interior had remained inaccessible.

Every year like clockwork, from November to February, the Indian Ocean’s monsoons routinely blew Asian ships toward Africa. Then, from April to September, the winds reversed their direction and methodically blew the sailors back to Asia. The Chinese were in Tanganyika over a thousand years ago, and the remains of their pottery and printed coins have been discovered. Even a scattering of Indians managed to find their way to Africa, but it was the Arabs, due to their close proximity, who had the greatest interest in Africa and established trading posts all along the East African coast.

In 1502, Vasco da Gama landed in Kilwa and claimed Tanganyika for Portugal. Later in 1593, the Portuguese built Fort Jesus in Mombasa. This territorial intrusion by the Europeans was too much for the Arabs, and the fort was captured some one hundred years later in 1696, after a siege lasting thirty-three months. The Arabs never intended to rule as the Europeans had, being much more interested in the ivory and slave trade.

Even though they stayed mainly on the coast, they made numerous explorations into the interior, where they maintained isolated trading posts. Slave trading was extensive in East Africa, and the captives were sent off to India and Arabia. However, it never reached the immensity and brutality of that in West Africa.

In East Africa, entire territories were depopulated and tribal traditions were totally disrupted in some areas around Lake Tanganyika. The roads to the coast were covered with the skeletal remains of natives who could not withstand the march under Arab whips, Some statistics indicated that less than twenty percent survived. The primary reason that dominance of the country was never achieved by the Arabs was that they frequently had to return home to put down rebellions and attend to internal strife within their own families.

Zanzibar was the key during the early sailing days, before the Suez Canal was opened, because the Europeans were required to sail the long, arduous distance around the Cape. One of the Arab sultans even signed treaties with the United States in 1833 and with all of the European nations during the next twenty-six years, in return for an acknowledgement of his monopoly of trade. But the desire of the Europeans to spread the word of their God and Christianity plus the desire for further territorial conquests drove their insatiable curiosity into East Africa within a short period of time. Early explorations resulted in tragedy, the explorers either being murdered by the natives for their possessions or perishing because of their lack of knowledge of the terrain, fauna and flora. Others died from physical weakness and the inability to cope with the hardships of exploration.

The English explorers invaded Africa with all the dogged determination and self-righteousness they could muster. Africa, from that point on, ceased to be an Eden. Natives had been living in an orderly existence for thousands of years, in complete harmony and coexistence with nature as did the animals. They had adopted the land and took only enough to survive, and they represented no threat to the existing forms of life. Their entire lives were symbiotically intertwined with the other creatures of Africa.

Through the thousands of years, they had developed the necessary immunological resistance to several of the endemic diseases and their physical characteristics had been remarkably adapted to the harsh life in the equatorial sun. They had evolved to acclimate to their environment and had accomplished this feat remarkably well.

The Caucasian did not possess these protective physical attributes and perished by the hundreds. His blood, skin, hair, eyes, etc., were very poorly suited for the extremely hostile and rigorous environmental conditions, but still he came in the name of his God and to explore the unknown. He came because it was there, the same reason that he is going into outer space, because it is there.

Africa represented the unknown, the frightening darkness and the unimaginable dangers and thrills. Maybe it was to relieve a sense of crushing boredom since the confines of civilization had suddenly placed the human ape in a position where he no longer had the thrill and dangers of the hunt nor the confrontation with the prey and the kill. The hunt was exhilarating.

The human ape now placidly proceeds to the supermarket and pays a few shillings for a meaningless piece of meat. It has no personality, no thrill of adventure, no brain that had to be outwitted, no required cunning and intuitiveness, no risking one’s life as had always been the rule of nature. And the meat does hot even taste that good. It has to be heated to remind him of the kill, like it was still steaming hot when being ripped from the bones of the freshly fallen prey.

Clawing and tearing huge chunks of steaming, hot meat and gulping them into a waiting, hungry belly in the heat of passion and fear was sheer exhilaration. It was the primary reason for living and dying, and now, suddenly, it was all gone. The ecstasy of adrenalin shooting through one’s veins was capriciously confiscated.

There must be other games, i.e., exploring because it was, in its own way, a similar type of adventure, with all sorts of unknowns and dangers. It was a new kind of hunt, and it was dearly loved and praised by those who understood its meanings, ramifications and emotions. A hunt, with all the trappings, but a larger hunt, requiring more detail, more skill, more courage, more elaborate equipment, more preparation and with more dangers, and eventually, a greater prize. The hunt for food became secondary, since food was already supplied.

Now the hunt was for the unknown, for the mystery of the foreign lands and other subspecies of human apes that inhabited other territories. The civilized human apes had the weapons, the knowledge of the kill, since they had perfected their weapons down through the centuries in countless wars against their own kind.

War had become a senseless brutality with massive armies pitted against each other on a broad stretch of real estate, and only numbers could make a deciding difference. It was still exhilaration to some but exploration was an even greater exhilaration because the odds were unknown and the effects and eventualities were yet to be determined.

The quest continued unabated until there was no more territory to explore. Now it was time to dissect the territory, extract its wealth and devastate its beauty. Nothing is safe from the marauding, persistent inquisitiveness of the human ape. The deepest ocean trenches, the highest mountain peaks, and now the moon, and soon, outer space.

But animals have always held a special attraction and intrigue for the human ape. He stares at them uncomfortably and they stare back, which makes him even more uncomfortable. The human ape knows that they know, and he feels a fleeting sense of guilt when he sees them penned up in a cage.

For, deep down in his heart, he senses that they are related somewhere in the dim, distant past, which moves something within him; an uneasy feeling, which he sublimates and hides with nervous laughter. There is an innate compulsion to return, to look at animal pictures, to read stories about animals, to talk to them. But it would be sacrilegious to listen to them.

African safaris have always intrigued the white man. President Nyerere of Tanzania says that, Americans and Europeans have the strange urge to see these animals and we must ensure that they are able to do so.

This strange urge is due to the close relationship we have with the animals and it is easily kindled. For the last two hundred years, ever since European explorers discovered the vastness of the continent with its multiplicity and diversity of fauna and flora, Africa has remained an exotic dream to the sedentary, civilized city dweller. They avidly read all accounts of the thrills and adventures of those heroic, inscrutable, rugged white hunters. Africa was the last continent to be explored and exploited. The caged citizen, eager to live vicariously, identified with visions of mysterious veldts, dense jungles and long lines of native bearers weaving their uncharted course through hostile and forbidding lands.

Unfortunately, the exploiters and executioners follow the explorers. In 1843, a sadistic, wanton killer, one Gordon Cummings, son of a Scottish baronet, considered it great sport to hide by water holes and kill as many animals as possible. His luggage required some forty oxen and two wagons to carry, since it consisted mostly of ammunition, enough for a small army. He was foresighted enough to bring along beads, colored pieces of cloth, knives, snuff, etc., to trade with the natives. The chronicle of his African experiences excited those left behind, still leading their lives of quiet desperation.

Michael Norton, another savage sadist, whose claim to fame was that he killed more elephants than any other hunter, some two thousand. He was merciless and ruthless in the pursuit of ivory, and his small army ranged far and near through the Uganda, Kenya, the Congo and the Sudan.

Another ivory hunter was nineteen year old Frederick Selous, who arrived in Africa in 1871, hunted elephants from horseback, but later became a collector of specimens for museums, and was well recognized for his exploration of Rhodesia. Realizing that unlimited destruction of wildlife would one day decimate the animals; he became a crusader to develop game regulations and originated the white hunter profession.

David Livingston arrived in Africa in 1841 as a Scottish missionary. He had come, not to shoot the animals, but to suppress the slave traders, who had already exported some one hundred and fifty thousand slaves. During his three major trips, he covered some thirty thousand miles, traveling with only a few native servants. His gentle manner, friendliness and medical assistance were the only things that saved him from disaster in his encounters with hostile native tribes, most of whom had little or no contact with the white man.

He is credited with discovering Victoria Falls and Lake Nyasa, after following the Zambezi River to its source. The animals were plentiful beyond belief. Livingston relates that he, personally, counted more than eight hundred elephants along one stretch of the Shire River. He was determined to find the source of the Nile and set out with a large safari of backpacking animals such as the camel, buffalo, mule, donkey and also twenty-six native bearers. However, the Indian bearers deserted with the majority of his supplies, and only a few, faithful natives remained. Struggling on, he managed to discover the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, as well as several other lakes in the area, but the trip ended in disaster.

Ravaged by dysentery, he contracted pneumonia and died on the shores of the great swamp, Bangweulu. Two devoted natives embalmed his body and smuggled it some seven hundred treacherous miles to the coast across from Zanzibar, where it was taken back to his native England for burial.

Henry Stanley, the newspaperman from the New York Herald who had found Livingston on a previous expedition, continued the work of Livingston after he died. Richard Burton and John Speke were credited with discovering Lake Tanganyika in 1858. After friction erupted between the two men, Speke went on to discover Lake Victoria. Two years later, Florence and Samuel Backer discovered Lake Albert.

Emil Holub, a Prague physician, arrived in Johannesburg in 1874 and established a medical practice to finance his explorations. A measles epidemic did much to bolster his financial status. His third expedition was better equipped and lasted longer than the first two when he explored the Zambezi River and collected some forty cases of specimens. The third expedition explored the area above Victoria Falls and its source, during which time he contracted the fever and required a sixteen-month convalescence.

During his confinement, he observed and recorded the unique customs of the Barotse tribes. In 1879, after seven years of adventure, he returned to Prague with some thirty thousand items of natural history, most of which are still on exhibit in museums.

Winston Churchill arrived in 1907 to inspect the new British acquisition of Uganda. His description of the native porters was one of astute observation. This ragged figure, tottering along under his load, is the unit of locomotion and the limit of possibility. Without porters you cannot move.

Churchill’s entourage included four colonial officers and his personal physician, along with one hundred native helpers. They were given a royal welcome along the way and traveled in comfort. Churchill was totally captivated and spellbound by the immensity of the land, the brilliance of the scenery and the diversity of animal life.

Teddy Roosevelt, a well-recognized naturalist, was commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute to collect big game as well as birds, reptiles and plants. The party included some two hundred porters, a personal tub for his daily bath, and an imposing American flag, which hung conspicuously above his spacious tent.

He was impressed with the thronging herds of wild creatures and the naked savages who still led the life of our primeval ancestors. Their ability to track animals and their knowledge of guidance direction in the dense jungle was a complete mystery to him. The total kill of some 296 animals was rationalized that it had to be large enough to supply complete family groups to the museum.

The camera safari was initiated in the 1920’s by