222 A BOOK-LOVER'S HOLIDAYS 



day of certain African tribes. The Palaeolithic 

 hunters slaughtered myriads of wild horses, 

 just as the ebony-hued hunters of Africa now 

 slaughter the zebra and feast on its oily flesh. 

 The spirited carvings and sketches of the hairy 

 mammoth by the later Palaeolithic cave-dwellers 

 show that the elephant of the cold northlands 

 had impressed their imaginations precisely as 

 the hairless elephant of the hot south now im- 

 presses the imaginations of the tribes that dwell 

 under the vertical African sun. The rhinoceros 

 and wild cattle of the pine forests played in 

 their lives the part played in the lives of our 

 contemporaries, the hunting tribes of Africa, by 

 the rhinoceros and the buffalo — the African 

 wild ox — which dwell among open forests of 

 acacias and drink from palm-bordered rivers. 

 They saw no animal like that strange creature, 

 the African giraffe; and several kinds of deer 

 took the place of the varied species of bovine 

 ruminants which, in popular parlance, we group 

 together as antelopes. 



Substantially the fauna of mighty beasts 

 which furnished the means of livelihood, and 

 also constantly offered the menace of death, to 

 our European forefathers — or to the predeces- 

 sors of our forefathers — was like that magnifi- 

 cent fauna which we who have travelled among 



