PEEFACE. 



All the best years of my life, from youth, till 

 middle age, were spent as a hunter of African 

 game. During that time the love of the free 

 wandering life in coimtries still well stocked 

 with the richest and most varied fauna to be 

 found on the face of the earth, grew with the 

 years, till it seemed to me that I could never be 

 content to live any other life than that of a 

 nomadic hunter. 



But as time went on the game that was of 

 value became ever scarcer and scarcer, civiliza- 

 tion gradually spread over the old hunting 

 grounds, and the old hunters either died or had 

 to turn their energies in other directions. 



