Existing comment:
Images from the Expedition
Theodore Roosevelt standing by felled rhinoceros
Theodore Roosevelt's accounts of shooting African big game -- the rhino, buffalo, and the elephant -- include moments of extreme danger, which he relished. The "great bull rhino" has "the agility of a polo pony," and even after he put a bullet in its lungs, "he galloped full on us... [and] dropped just thirteen paces from where we stood." As a boy, to restore his health, Roosevelt had been sent to the American West, a rough-and-tumble sojourn that he credited with making him a man. Thereafter, Roosevelt became a lifelong advocate of the "strenuous life" and the continual testing of limits. It was "the man in the arena" who counted the most, not just for individuals but for societies. While Roosevelt's use of the term "savage," referring to the Africans on his safari, is disturbing to today's readers, it reflected the social Darwinist consensus of the late nineteenth century to explain mankind at its earliest stage of development. |