FOREWORD ix 



beside the boat ; the giraffe looking over the tree-tops 

 at the nearing horseman ; the ostrich fleeing at a speed 

 that none may rival ; the snarling leopard and coiled 

 python, with their lethal beauty ; the zebras, barking in 

 the moonlight, as the laden caravan passes on its night 

 march through a thirsty land. To his mind come 

 memories of the lion's charge ; of the grey bulk of the 

 elephant, close at hand in the sombre woodland ; of the 

 buffalo, his sullen eyes lowering from under his helmet 

 of horn ; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, stand- 

 ing in the bright sunlight on the empty plain. 



These things can be told. But there are no words 

 that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that 

 can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. 

 There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long 

 rides rifle in hand, in the tin-ill of the fight with 

 dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, 

 is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large 

 tropic moons, and the splendour of the new stars ; 

 where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and 

 sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of 

 man, and changed only by the slow changes of the ages 

 from time everlasting. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



Khartoum, 

 March 15, 1910. 



