MY SOMALI BOOK 211 



down with a battery of magazine rifles which does not 

 give the brute a chance. Squirting death through a 

 hose in an exaggerated park, or kiUing hundreds of 

 heads of game from behind a wall, may be a pastime ; 

 but it needs a stronger effort of the imagination than 

 we can conceive to regard it as a sport " ! 



East Africa may be an exaggerated park, and 

 modern rifles certainly give the hunter an advantage, 

 but a perusal of the writings of any East African 

 sportsman will satisfy an unbiassed mind that the man 

 who wants to make a good bag of good heads has to 

 work for it. Imagine the " battery of magazine rifles " 





that would operate with the effect of a hose ! And 

 the " kflling of hundreds of heads from behind a wall " 

 is a lovely picture of the difflculties of getting within 

 shot of an old ibex or markhor m the Himalayas, 

 where a man may be well content if a couple of months' 

 strenuous toil produces two or three really good 

 trophies. One does not know whether to admire most 

 the sublimity of this gentleman's ignorance or (in 

 spite of his disclaimer) the superlative quality of his 

 imagination. Such talents are wasted m India ; their 

 proper sphere is the Yankee " Yellow Press." Really 

 it is not the usual practice for a big game hunter, even 

 if he be a gunner, to take artillery on to the veldt and 



