Jungle Sounds

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 24

Jungle Sounds

WILD ANIMAL TALKIES Explorers to Make Attempt T'VO energetic Americans, Jlr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson, fi who have spent twenty-one years in travel, including nine years in Africa, obtaining “close-ups” of wild animals in the jungle, have returned to the scene of their adventures with a still more ambitious programme. In their forthcoming expedition they are hoping to outdo talking films by obtaining the actual sounds made by wild animals in their native habitat, and to spend two years in the hitherto unexplored Itura Forest, in the Congo," learning particulars about the “little people.”

As to his chances of success in reproducing the cries of beasts in the jungle, Mr. .Johnson confessed to

an interviewer that he was not too optimistic, as to do this, the microphone would have to be within 12ft of the sound. Moreover, he explained, animals do not make much noise in the daytime, and at night, when the i jungle reverberates with the roaring I of lions, the barking zebras, and other I sounds, it is impossible to get a photograph. “On my last trip,” said Mr. Johnson, “I photographed over 600 lions within 15ft —great black-maned animals —and our next picture, entitled ‘Across the World,’ which •will be produced in January, will be so chockfull of lions, that we had decided to give up taking any further films of them.” Hardly any wild animals, he said., are really as dangerous as the public imagine. Unless he is wounded the wild animal will always get away .! if he can.

M!r. and Mrs. Johnson hope to arrive at Nairobi, and after spending tw T o months in Tanganyika, trying to gel some lion sound-pictures, they will pass on to Uganda, and then explore the mysterious Itura Forest in the Congo. On a previous expedition they touched the edge of the forest and came across its pigmy inhabitants, but whether there were hundreds or thousands of them it was impossible to say. Their average height wras 3ft llin, and the tallest was 4ft 4in, and he -was black instead of brown like the rest. “They are the happiest and most innocent little people I have ever seen, and like a bunch of children,” said Mr. Johnson. “They have little bows and arrows, with which they shoot birds and monkeys; and although I saw no fire or cooking while I was there, they no doubt know how to get fire and do a certain amoiyit of copking. They are very primitive, and I do not think they have much in the way of religion or ceremonies. But they break out into dancing without any rhyme or reason, and have weird little musical instruments. They were quite friendly to us, but I believe the little people in the interior are very shy.”