250 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



I have not told of how we were lured by men 

 who desired our death to a spot sixty miles 

 deep in the waste, and of how we had to 

 struggle back again in the burning heat be- 

 cause we found the promised water to be brine, 

 and the edges of the pools containing it 

 thickly caked with salt. I have not told of 

 your consistent unselfishness in giving me the 

 best chances in the matter of shooting, nor of 

 how generously you placed the riches of your 

 desert lore at my disposal. 



The world for us is not the same as it was — 

 even a few years ago, for at our time of life a 

 very few years make a considerable difference 

 where physical endurance is concerned. Al- 

 though on the verge of middle life we could 

 still, in the days I have told of, gallop ten 

 miles at a stretch and hold a rifle straight at 

 the end of the race — we could endure thirst, 

 hunger and fatigue without wilting. 



In the matter of shooting I am, perhaps, 

 like the reformed rake who coined virtue out of 

 inability further to sin. Nevertheless, I could 

 no longer take pleasure in slaughtering the 

 few of Nature's lovely wild creatures that sur- 

 vive our cruelly scientific machines of preci- 

 sion. It is true my eyesight is not quite what 

 it was. To what extent this circumstance 



