Description
In Tanganyika during the 1950s, one of the most intriguing reputations belonged to a hunter whom few in the fraternity had actually ever encountered face to face.” That is how Brian Herne introduces Jorge de Lima in his own book, White Hunters. Jorge was “a man who genuinely lived to hunt. (And) there has never been a hunter anywhere in Africa, at any time, who has ever come close to matching his exploits in so many different territories.
DeLima arrived in Africa in 1948 and for 10 years he hunted mainly on his own and primarily for ivory. Then, in the 1950s, when new regulations and changing political winds foreshadowed changes in his nomadic lifestyle, Jorge became involved in the more structured safari business. During his career, which extended until almost 1970, he took clients hunting in Tanganyika and Kenya by forming associations with other professionals, and also had concessions of his own in Mozambique and Angola. His Kirongozi Safari Company was widely known and highly regarded throughout the then international hunting community and his Mozambique company later merged with Werner von Alvensleben’s Mozambique Safariland. Although Jorge has been all over Africa, he still described Tanganyika as a hunters’ paradise. It was, in Jorge’s words, “a hidden and distant dot on the map capable of sheltering and protecting any mortal imbued with the spirit of adventure from the bitter realities of the present.” Those were the days when standing to the charge of a lion, buffalo or elephant was a courageous and daring experience and when safaris were conducted without telephone or tarmac.
