PRIMEVAL MAN 197 



just as they themselves now did, for untold 

 generations before the soil-tillers and cattle- 

 owners came into it. They had shrunk from 

 the advent of the latter, and as a rule were 

 found only in isolated tracts which were use- 

 less for tillage or pasturage, the dense forest 

 forming their habitual dwelling-place and re- 

 treat of safety. From the best hunting-grounds, 

 those where the great game teemed, they had 

 been driven; yet these hunting-grounds were 

 often untenanted by human beings for much 

 of the year, being visited only at certain seasons 

 by the cattle-owning nomads. 



Often these hunting-grounds offered sights 

 of wonder and enchantment. Day after day I 

 rode across them without seeing, from dawn 

 to sundown, a human being save the faithful 

 black followers, hawk-eyed and steel-thewed, 

 who trudged behind me. Sometimes the plains 

 were seas of wind-rippled grass. Sometimes 

 they were dotted with clumps of low thorn- 

 trees or broken by barren, boldly outlined hills. 

 Our camp might be pitched by a muddy pool, 

 with only stunted thorns near by; or on the 

 edge of a shrunken river, under the dense shade 

 of some great, brilliantly green fig-tree; or in 

 a grove of huge, flat-topped acacias with yellow 

 trunks and foliage like the most delicate lace; 



