Apatosaurus in Africa? (1912)

Some years ago I received reports from two quite distinct sources of the existence of an immense and wholly unknown animal, said to inhabit the interior of Rhodesia. Almost identical stories reached me, firstly, through one of my own travellers, and, secondly, through an English gentleman, who had been shooting big-game in Central Africa. The reports were thus quite independent of each other, and, as a matter of fact, the Englishman and my traveller had made their way into Rhodesia from opposite directions, the one from the north-east and the other from the south-west. The natives, it seemed, had told both my informants that in the depth of the great swamps there dwelt a huge monster, half elephant, half dragon. This, however, is not the only evidence for the existence of the animal. It is now several decades ago since Menges, who is of course perfectly reliable, heard a precisely similar story from the negroes; and, still more remarkable, on the walls of certain caverns in Central Africa there are to be found actual drawings of this strange creature. From what I have heard of the animal, it seems to me that it can only be some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurus. As the stories come from so many different sources, and all tend to substantiate each other, I am almost convinced that some such reptile must be still in existence.

Hagenbeck, Carl, Beasts and Men, London, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912, p. 96.