In \Yildest Africa --* 



with lions as well as elephants, and who used often to hold 

 forth to me beside camp fires on the subject of these 

 adventures, could not make: out why his eagerly coveted 

 quarry had become so scarce. Every other species of 

 " big game " was well represented, however, and according 

 to the time of the year I enjoyed ever fresh opportuni- 

 ties lor observation. Generally speaking, it would be a case 

 ot watching one aspect of wild lite one day and another all 

 the next, but now and again my eyes and ears would be: 

 surfeited and bewildered by its manifestations. The sketch- 

 plans on which I used to record my day's doings and 

 seeings serve now to recall to me all the multiform 

 experiences that fell to my lot. What a pity it is that the 

 old explorers of South Africa have lett no such memoranda 

 behind them for our benefit ! They would enable us to 

 form a better idea of things than we can derive from any 

 kind of pictures or descriptions. 



I shall try now to give some notion of all the different 

 sights I would sometimes come upon in a single day. It 

 would often happen that, as 1 was making my way down the 

 Pangani in my light folding craft, or else was setting out for 

 the velt which generally lay beyond its girdle of brushwood, 

 showers of ram would have drawn herds ot elephants down 

 from the mountains. 1 Kven when 1 did not actually come 

 within si-'lit of them, it was alwavs an intense en]ovment 



