“THROUGH JUNGLE WILDS”

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 306, 20 September 1921, Page 8

“THROUGH JUNGLE WILDS”

IVITH MR. HARRY K. EUSTACE. All those who have n desire to visit tho wilds of Africa and meet its denizens face io face without the inconvenience and expense of making the journey could scarcely do better than visit the Grand Opera House, where Mr. Harry K. Eustace, a big game hunter, with a quarter of a century’s experience in .Africa, is exhibiting a most interesting and informative picture of his life in the heart of that vast and mysterious country. only the fringe of which has come under the influence of AVestern civilisation. If the picture teachers any one thing more than another it is tho astounding plenitude of big game. In the course of his lecture Mr. Eustace gave the assurance that in some instances littlo bits of the film took some months to secure, but even accepting that in the case of tho wilder animals, there appeared to lie vast hoards of wild beasts, koodoos, waterbucks, elands, zebras, wart hogs, elephants, rhinoceros, etc., of which he was able to show intimate pictures, thanks to his resource and courage with the kinema. Mr. Eustace and his string of “boys” are shown trekking from one part of tho country to the other, living on: their wits and tho rifle of tho white “Rhino,” as thd natives christened tho hunter. The white rhinoceros is a much larger and rarer animal than his black cousin, and tho very fine picture shown of a very magnificent speciinent was, the lecturer assured the audience, the only moving picture extant of the kind. Another picture he takes some prido in having secured is a “close up” of a lion drinking at a spring and playing with a boulder in the water in between gulps. It is all very well to see such pictures whilst placidly seated in a padded chair in a theatre, but one only needs to hare a little imagination to realise that the securing of such pictures In the wild must bo an extremely hazardous business. In one picture Mr. Eustace showed tho process of making ready to secure a picture of crocodiles at their meals by placing some haunches of a carcass on a small raft in a river. Tho photographer had to swim out with this raft to anchor it, his "boys" meanwhile throwing stones into the water round the swimmer to frighten away tho scaly monsters. Unfortunately, in this case the sight of the crocodiles feasting could not be shown as that part of tho picture (with some 40,000 feet of film) was destroyed in German East Africa by German foragers, who had been driven into tho back country by tho British forces.

The lecturer also showed some very fine pictures of the ruins in Northern Rhodesia, said to bo the remains oi Phoenician settlers of a remote age, some splendid views of tho Victoria Falls (discovered iiy Livingstone). Rhodes’s grave in the Matoppas, and many other pictures which graphically show the nature of the country and its teeming animal, reptile, and bird life. The picture was accompanied by a running comment by Mr. Eustace, descriptive and at times mildly amusing. The screening of the picture was marred by an accident to tho machine, which permitted the lens to shift and so threw it out of focus, but the. lecturer gave tho assurance that such disabilities would be removed in future exhibitions. Matinee performances for school children mid adults are being given each afternoon this week.