Introduction -♦> 



This is the sportsmanship of the future. The 

 present writer does not mean to say that he or any 

 other exi)lorer, when and if they visited Africa, would 

 not still use every opjjortunity of ol)taining good 

 specimens of rare wild beasts, birds, and reptiles for 

 our museums, and most of all for the information of 

 zoologists, who must perforce carr)- on many of their 

 studies within the pale of civilisation. Neither does 

 the writer ot this Introduction condemn the killing of 

 leopards, lions, hyaenas, jackals, hipp()j)otamuses, or 

 elephants — at any rate in moderation — where they 

 become really dangerous to human beings, to the 

 keeping of domestic animals, or to the maintenance of 

 cLiltivated crops. 



Rut these concessions do not cover, excuse, or indem- 

 nify the ravages of Iuiroi)ean and American sportsmen, 

 which are still one of the greatest blots on our twentieth- 

 century civilisation. 



Herr Schillings refers to the case of the late I )r. Kolb, 

 a German who came out to I)ritish East Africa in con- 

 nection with a Utopian undertaking called " hreeland," 

 and who, when his jjolitical scheme Ijecame impossible, 

 ai)plied himself to the reckless slaughter of the big game 

 of British East Africa. In the course of two or three 

 years he had slain —f)r no useful ])urposc whatcxcr — one 

 hundred and ti(l\- rhinoceroses (a companion killed one 

 hundred and foi't) more), c-ach on(; being a tar more- 

 interesting mammal than himself .\t the <-nd ot this 

 career of slaughter, a rhinoceros killed him — pc;rhaps 

 approj)riately. 



X i \- 



