By Caleb McClain
Dear Mr. J. P.
Just tell them you are a fictional character and it is your bad luck to have a writer put such language in your speeches. We all know how prettily the best brought up people speak but there are always those not quite out of the top drawer who have an ’orrid fear of vulgarity. You will know, too, how to deal with anyone who calls you Pop. Remember you weren’t written of as Pop. It was all this fictional character. Anyway the book is for you and we miss you very much. — Ernest Hemingway
There are few books outside the Bible I will read time and again, as if expecting a different outcome on the third, fourth, or fifth pass. I don’t know why, but I liken it to the repetitive binge-watching of shows like “The Office” that so many who don’t spend their lives chasing adventure partake in. One such book for me is Hemingway’s “Green Hills of Africa.” Within its pages, we meet the “white hunter” who guided Hemingway, J.P. Percival, or “Pop,” as he was commonly called. But who was he, really?
It turns out that Pop was no fictional creation of Hemingway’s imagination, but a real man who had a profound influence on the development of modern hunting in Africa.
Philip Percival — ‘Pop’ & Professional Hunter
Philip Percival was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in 1886. At 21, he sailed to Mombasa to join his older brother, Blaney, a local game scout. Philip quickly adapted to the life of lion hunting and soon began casually guiding Europeans and Americans eager to test their marksmanship on the abundance of wildlife in British East Africa.
As a game scout, Blaney played a role in arranging Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 1909 safari, on which Philip accompanied the party. Roosevelt later noted in “African Game Trails” that the younger Percival was an excellent shot who owned a pet cheetah that he caught as a cub.
That safari became the turning point in Percival’s life. From then on, he guided full-time. Almost certainly boosted by the celebrity from the former president’s book, his clientele grew into a “who’s-who” of European elites and royalty. By 1926, he was one of the two white hunters chosen for the Akeley-Eastman Safari, which set out to collect specimens for the American Museum of Natural History—the very animals later depicted in “Night at the Museum” (although I slightly question the historical accuracy of the film).
The Dean of Professional Hunters
Later in life, Percival partnered with the famous Bror von Blixen-Finecke, guiding Hemingway on the 1933 hunt that inspired “Green Hills of Africa.” In the 1940s, he became a mentor to a little-known field mechanic named Harry Selby, who would later rise to prominence through Robert Ruark’s “Horn of the Hunter.” Ruark recalled an incident in which Percival was chased around a buggy by a wounded buffalo. Completely unarmed, a brave porter tossed him two cartridges “as he went round the car for the umpteenth time. Percival loaded his weapon in full flight. He settled the animal.”
But even legends grow old. Hemingway begins “True at First Light” by noting that Percival finally left the trade in 1953 to retire on his farm. For the next 13 years, he lived a quieter life, passing away at the age of 80—a hell of an old age for a man who spent half a century dodging charges from wounded cats and buffalo.
He left a lasting impression on nearly everyone he hunted with, evidenced by the many who wrote about him. He was hailed as the “Dean of Professional Hunters” and even served a 16-year tenure as president of the East African Professional Hunters’ Association.
I find myself returning to “Green Hills of Africa” whenever I’m preparing for a safari, perhaps hoping to glean some overlooked nugget of wisdom before heading out. But the truth is, I suspect I’ll always be “pre-safari.” Perhaps that means I’ll keep rereading Percival’s story until the binding finally falls apart.
