Quoted by Nigel Rothfels, 'Preserving History: Collecting and Displaying in Carl Akeley's In Brightest Africa', in Thorsen et. al., Animals on Display (2013) pp. 58-73.
Description:

Rothfels describes the book as follows: 'In his 1923 memoir, In Brightest Africa, Carl Akeley describes his collecting adventures in Africa working for the Fiels Museum in Chicago an dthe American Museum of Natural History in New York in the 1890s and first decades of the twentieth century. At first glance, the book seems to sit easily beside other hunting memoirs of the period, as Akeley relates his experiences shooting elephants, lions, antelopes, gorillas, and othe animals in the "Dark Continent." Akeley did not consider himself a hunter, however, but a scientific collector, taxidermist, and artist. And, indeed, even though such figures as Theodore Roosevet, Carl Georg Schillings, and many other big game hunters also characterized their hunting activities as quests to collect for natural historical museums, Akeley's memoir remains importantly different from their classic sport-hunting works. Despite its hunting focus, Akeley's account is clearly structured around the paradoxical theme of preserving animals at a time when their possible extinction seemed imminent.' (58)

'... it is useful to see just how much his writing about hunting parallels the writings of the great hunters of the period... In what one might expect to be a particularly important story for his memoir, for example, Akeley relates the killing of the "old bull" at the center of the large elephant group in the American Museum in New York City. According to Akeley, he was hunting elephants one day in a forest that was high, thick, and dark, and realized that he was in an area where signs of elephants were everywhere. Looking up at the trail, he thought he saw a group fo the animals, but the shapes turned out to be just boulders. Moments later, though, he writes, "I saw across the gully another similar group of boulders, but as I peered at them I saw through a little opening in the leaves, plain and unmistakable, an elephants tusk. I watched it carefully. It moved a little, and behind it I caught a glimpse of the other tusk. They were big and I decided that he would do for my group." Not able to see the animal's eye, Akeley calculated the point for a "brain shot" based on the location of the base of the tusk and fired. Akeley writes, "There was teh riot of an elephant herd suddenly starting. A few seconds later there was a crash. 'He's down,' I thought." When Akeley reached the site with his gun bearer, though, the animal was gone, and they began to follow its trail, which "went straight ahead without deviation as if it had been laid by a compass." Hours passed as the hunters followed the animal and Akeley notes that "the forest was so thick... we could not see in any direction." All of a sudden, Akeley writes, there was "a crash and a squeal," and the "elephant burst across our path within fifteen feet of us. It was absolutely without warning, andhad the charge been straight on us we could hardly ahve escaped." As the animal quickly disappeared back into the forest, Akeley "fired two hurried shots." Realizing that the elephant had begun to stalk him and that he had just narrowly escaped from the wounded animal, Akeley "found a place a little more open than the rest" and decided to wait the animal out. He ate his lunch and had taken a couple of puffs on his pipe when the elephant "let out another squeal and charged." Akeley writes that he "didn't see him but [he] heard him, and grabbing the gun [he] stood ready." The elephant didn't come, though. Akeley concludes the story, writing, "Instead I heard the breaking of the bushed as he collapsed. His last effort had been too much for him." (59-60)

Rothfels notes that Akeley was insistent that his activities were collecting- rather than hunting-oriented:

'Arguing that when it came to certain kinds of shooting he often felt "a great deal like a murderer," Akeley describes his attempts to collect the North African wild asses as "one of the worst" hunts of his first trip to Africa. According to his memoir, Akeley's party left camp at three o'clock in the morning, along with some camels to bring the collected specimens back. Finally, at about eight in the morning, they spotted a lone ass. He writes, "We advanced slowly. As there was no cover, there was no possibility of a stalk, and the chance of a shot at reasonable range seemed remote, for we had found in our previous experience that the wild ass is extremely shy and when once alarmed travels rapidly and for long distances." At two hundred yards, the animal spooked, but then it came back, apparently curious. Akeley and his companion fired. He writes that the animal was "hard hit... but recovered and stood facing us." Approaching closer and worried about losing the animal, the pair fired again. According to Akeley, the animal "merely walked about a little, making no apparent effort to go away. We approached carefully. He showed no signs of fear, and although 'hard hit' stood stolidly until at last I put one hand on his withers and, tripping him, pushed him over.

After a harrowing day during which he and his companions almost dies for lack of water and eventually robbed a caravan of milk at gunpoint, Akeley describes shooting a second ass before nightfall. He writes, "Just at dusk the shadowy forms of five asses dashed across our path fifty yards away and we heard a bullet strike as we took a snap at them. One began to lag behind as the others ran wildly away. The one soon stopped and we approached, keeping him covered in case he attempted to bolt. As we got near he turned and faced us with great, gentle eyes. Without the least sign of fear or anger he seemed to wonder why we had harmed him." Apparently, the animal had only suffered a small wound high on its neck and Akeley felt it should have been able to run away. He concludes: "We walked around him within six feet and I almost believe we could have put a halter on him." Without describing how he killed the ass, Akeley writes simply, "We reached camp about midnight and I announced that if any more wild asses were wanted, someone else would have to shoot them.' (64-65)