Teddy Roosevelt left the Oval Office of the U.S. Presidency on March 4, 1909.

Only a month later, Roosevelt and his son Kermit landed in Mombasa, the main Indian Ocean seaport of Kenya. There, Roosevelt gathered a safari party of nearly 250 porters and guides. For the next year, they trekked across British East Africa, into the Congo and then back to the Nile ending in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

The purpose of the trip was to gather nature specimens for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. With a goal in mind, the Roosevelts set out and collected over 1,100 items, including more than 500 specimens that were considered big game. In Roosevelt’s own words, he regarded his expedition to be “the most noteworthy collection of big animals that has ever come out of Africa.”

After his year long hunt, Mr. Roosevelt left Africa and proceeded in early May of 1910 to England to represent the USA at the funeral of King Edward VII.

Trivia: According to the MSNBC news site, Teddy Roosevelt was a reknown early Conservationist who owned a pet zebra, among an impressive list of other “exotic” animals that included wild cats, bears, snakes/lizzards, birds, and raccoons.

This is postcard #13, circa 1909: "Taming the Jungle Beasts"

(backside): Shot taken at Max Klein's infamous station in East Africa in 1909, where he tames the wild beasts of the jungle. The zebra is a very strong animal, and when domesticated makes an excellent draft animal, with greater endurance in such a hot climate than the horse. The clumsy beasts in the foreground are young rhinoceri, whose capture is a very dangerous operation, as their parents are so ferocious. Raising rhinoceri is very profitable as the healthy well-grown specimen will sell for $7000 in Europe.

(This Page last updated: September 18, 2004)