PRIMEVAL MAN 257 



and Siberia, and from Hudson Bay to the 

 Straits of Magellan. They were dominant 

 figures in the life of all the five continents when 

 primitive man had struggled upward from the 

 plane of his ape-like ancestors and had become 

 clearly human. For ages he was too feeble to 

 be as much of a factor in their lives as they were 

 in the lives of one another; and in North Amer- 

 ica he never became such a factor. The great 

 man-killing cat was his dreaded enemy, to be 

 fought only under the strain of direst need. 

 The horse became a favorite prey when he 

 grew cunning enough to devise snares and 

 weapons. The elephant he feared and respected 

 for its power and occasional truculence, and 

 endeavored to destroy on the infrequent oc- 

 casions when chance gave an opening to his 

 own crafty ferocity. 



All this is true, at the present day, in por- 

 tions of mid-Africa. I have been with tribes 

 whom only fear or imminent starvation could 

 drive to attack the lion; and I have seen the 

 naked warriors of the Nandi kill the great, 

 maned manslayer with their spears. Again 

 and again, as an offering of peace and good- 

 will, I have shot zebras for natives who greed- 

 ily longed for its flesh. My son and I killed a 

 rogue elephant bull at the earnest petition of a 



