198 TO LAKE NAIVASHA [ch. ix 



bucks will do battle the minute the herd has stopped 

 running from the foe that has seized one of its number, 

 and a buck will cover a doe in the brief inter\'al between 

 the first and the second alarm, from hunter or lion. 

 Zebra will make much noise when one of their number 

 has been killed ; but their fright has vanished when 

 once they begin their barking calls. 



Death by violence, death by cold, death by starvation 

 — these are the normal endings of the stately and 

 beautiful creatures of the wilderness. 'J'he senti- 

 mentalists who prattle about the peaceful life of nature 

 do not realize its utter mercilessness ; although all they 

 would have to do would be to look at the birds in the 

 winter woods, or even at the insects on a cold morning 

 or cold evening. Life is hard and cruel for all the 

 lower creatures, and for man also in wliat the senti- 

 mentalists call a " state of nature." The savage of 

 to-day shows us what the fancied age of gold of our 

 ancestors was really like ; it was an age when hunger, 

 cold, violence, and iron cruelty were the ordinary 

 accompaniments of life. If Matthew Arnold, when he 

 expressed the wish to know the thoughts of Earth's 

 " vigorous, primitive " tribes of the past, had really 

 desired an answer to his question, he would have done 

 well to visit the homes of the existing representatives of 

 his " vigorous, primitive " ancestors, and to watch them 

 feasting on blood and guts ; while as for the " pellucid 

 and pure " feelings of his imaginary primitive maiden, 

 they were those of any meek, cowlike creature who 

 accepted marriage by purchase or of convenience, as a 

 matter of course. 



It was to me a perpetual source of wonderment to 

 notice the difference in the behaviour of different 

 individuals of the same species, and in the behaviour of 



