TOTO—THE REAL TARZAN

Evening Star, Issue 18031, 27 July 1922, Page 6

TOTO —THE REAL TARZAN

“ Big game hunting is no good nowadays, said ilr Cherry Kcartou, the hunter ana iuuema man, to a ‘'Daily Herald ’ repxeßOntotivo on May 21, on his acturn from a 330 days’ trip through Centra! Africa. “ You no sooner leave the train and stop Off the railway track, than it casts you for carriers. Water is very dear in those hob regions, as yoil have _to trek lor days, with vour expensive getinuo, to find _ it. With £SO and £IOO for elephants and ilimoceroses—and you -are only al’owed <"-o ot each—tho g-anio' is not worth, the candle. ■“ Set tiers have the best of it, because they pay only £ls for their license, ancl,_ on tho ground that wiki amnials are vermin, they can shoot as many as they like,” _ Mr Kearfcon was out of touch with cmhsatiou for eight mouths, and he was thought to bo lost, but this, he explained, wa.s because of tho absence of postal, telegraph, ami wireless facilities in the jungle. . Ho started from Capo Town, followed tho trail through Northern Rhodesia, and eventually reached the big game country around Nairobi.

In Rhodesia ho was intreduced to a skull, found coruscated with the bluish-white ore of the Broken Hill lead mine. The lower jaw was missing, and tho sex of its owner therefore a mystery; but by its anthropometric long-head measurements and other " features ” it was reckoned to bo at least 3,000 years old. - ‘Near Nairobi,” said-MV Koartou, "I mot a farmer, who oaine up* be me and said, ‘Do you remember me?’ I recalled his faoe, but 1 could not give his name. ‘“I carried your camera for you in the Shetland Islands fifteen years ago,’ he said; mid I then fixed him. He was a Scotsman, named Fergus son, who as a" hoy had helped me 'to photograph the rare Arctic gull, the skua, and wo celebrated (ho occasion m tho customary 'cup of his country. “Among ray other finds waa a chimpanzee, the most wonderful specimen I have ever scan. I found him in tile jungle. His habits are ; a revelation of tho TWzan trait, which no naturalist lias hitherto Been.

“I call him “Toto, 1 because ho is almost '■in toto’ a human being. Wo'bad him to lunch on the first ■occasion ha came in contact with civilisation. There wore bottled cherries on Ihe table.

“I nut a cherry into a bottle and handed it to ? T’oio.‘ Ho tried to got it out by tilting tho bottle sideways a.nd putting his finger in the neck, but the ebony slipped away from him. He then picked up a chicken bono with a knuckle on it, and, inserting it in the bottle, fished out the cherry. “In Africa the natives clean their teeth with the bark of a 'special tree. ‘Toto’ noticed this, and soon , followed their example. Ho mow uses a toothbrush. ‘ r ln tho .morning'; ‘Toto’ would como to ray bed, and. waiting till I awoke, would kiss mo. ‘What about tea?’ I would say, ami he would go outside aud call for tho native boy in, un extremely good imitation 'of tho human voice. He now drinks his tea from a cup and saucer like any human being.”