Ernest Hemingway’s Guns

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Ernest Hemingway’s Guns

Ernest Hemingway in East Africa on his second safari, from September 1953 into January 1954. On his right is Denis Zaphiro, the Kenya game warden who was attached to the Hemingway party and became the character “G.C.” in Under Kilimanjaro and True at First Light. (G.C. for “gin-crazed,” from the British fondness for gin in general and gin & tonics in the tropics). Although the son of an Egyptian-born Greek trader and bureacrat, Denis was a proper British public-school type, quiet but with a dry, wry sense of humor, good manners, and evident empathy and patience. He was, of necessity, a crack shot and cool under pressure—traits that Hemingway valued highly. He grew close to both Ernest and Mary and in 1957 spent nearly four months as their house guest in Cuba and the US.

On Papa’s left is his middle son Patrick, who at the age of 21, in 1951, relocated to East Africa and for 24 years worked as a white hunter, a forestry officer and an instructor of game wardens and professional hunters. At the time he was based in Tanganyika (Tanzania) and visiting his father in camp. The photo was probably taken by his stepmother, Mary Welsh, the fourth and final Mrs. Hemingway.

John F. Kennedy Library