Stewart Edward White

Stewart Edward White, an American Hunter, crossed from the Great Rift Valley via Loliondo to Lobo Springs.

In a book called The Rediscovered Country (New York: Doubleday, Page & Co, 1915), he described the Serengeti as

'the haunt of swarms of game' and, added,

'in this beautiful, wide, populous country, no sportsman's rifle has ever been fired.'

White moved among

'those hordes of unsophisticated beasts as a lord of Eden would have moved,'

The first really detailed account of what is now the northern extension of the Serengeti was written by Stewart Edward White, the America hunter. White was determined to penetrate westward beyond the Loita range, and in 1913, accompanied by A.J.Cunningham, another well known hunter, he set out from Nairobi with thirty porters and twenty donkeys

It is interesting to note from the account of White's safari how scarce buffalo were in what is now the parks's buffalo country. Possibly they had not yet recovered from the great rinderpest plague of 1897. For when I left in 1972 annual counts had established a population of at least 70,000 buffalo.

The complete absence of elephant is also interesting.

. . . And the view described by Stewart White in 1913 in what is now the northern part of the park still exists today: "Never have I seen anything like that game. It covered every hill, standing in the openings, strolling in and out among groves, feeding on the bottom lands, singly, or in little groups. It did not matter in which direction I looked, there it was; as abundant one place as another"

The Serengeti’s first European hunters arrived in 1913. S. E. White and R.J. Cunningham organised a safari and found the wildlife plentiful, especially the lions, although they saw no elephants.

Never have I seen anything like that game. It covered every hill, standing in the openings, strolling in and out among the groves, feeding on the bottom lands, singly, or in little groups. It did not matter in which direction I looked, there it was; as abundant one place as another. Nor did it matter how far I went, over how many hills I walked, how many wide prospects I examined, it was always the same. During my stay at the next two camps I looked over fifty square miles. One day I counted 4,628 head! And suddenly I realized again that in this beautiful, wide, populous country, no sportsman's rifle has ever been fired. It is a virgin game country, and I have been the last man who will ever discover one for the sportsmen of the world. There is no other available possibility for such a game field in Africa unexplored. I moved among those hordes of unsophisticated beasts as a lord of Eden would have moved.

White made camp three miles downstream from the source of the Bolonja Spring, and his description of this area, the finest in the Serengeti, is worth quoting:

Leslie Simpson, an American hunter, reached Seronora from the north and returned five years later with Stewart Edward White and two other friends. Within three months they had shot fifty-one lions in the Seronera area.

In April and May 1925 Simpson brought Stewart Edward White and two friends along this route [to Seronera], and built a semi-permanent camp somewhere near the spot where the popular Seronera Wildlife Lodge now stands.

I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained.

I stand a look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth,

So they show their relations to me, and I accept them

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession.