FOREWORD 



Mr. Selous is the last of the big-game hunters of 

 South Africa ; the last of the mighty hunters whose 

 experiences lay in the greatest hunting ground 

 which this world has seen since civilized man has 

 appeared therein. There are still many happy 

 hunting grounds to be found by adventure-loving 

 wilderness wanderers of sufficient hardihood and 

 prowess ; and in Central Africa the hunting 

 grounds are of a character to satisfy the most 

 exacting hunter of to-day. Nevertheless, they 

 none ot them quite equal South Africa as it once 

 was, whether as regards the extraordinary multitude 

 of big-game animals, the extraordinary variety of 

 the species, or the bold attraction of the conditions 

 under which the hunting was carried on. 



Mr. Selous is much more than a mere big-game 

 hunter, however ; he is by instinct a keen field 

 naturalist, an observer with a power of seeing, and 

 of remembering what he has seen ; and finally he 

 is a writer who possesses to a very marked and 

 unusual degree the power vividly and accurately 

 to put on paper his observations. Such a combina- 

 tion of qualities is rare indeed, and the lack of any 

 one of them effectually prevents any man from 

 doing work as valuable as Mr. Selous has done. 

 No ordinary naturalist fills the place at all. Big 

 game exists only in the remote wilderness. Thru- 

 out historic time it has receded steadily before the 

 advance of civilized man, and now the retrogression 



