CHAPTER VI. 



NATIVE HUNTERS. 



THE native is a keen hunter, but we are inclined to think that his hunting instinct 

 is derived more from a love of meat and a lust of killing than from any 

 sporting feehng. 



Some people think that the native is ill-used in not being allowed a free hand to 

 shoot in his own country. If he were it would only be for a few years that he 

 would enjoy the privilege, as with the weapons of precision the traders would at once 

 bring him, if they were allowed, and the indiscriminate slaughter of young and females 

 he would indulge in, he would soon denude the country of game ; moreover, to allow 

 natives the possession of rifles is not conducive to the peace of Africa, as history has 

 taught us. 



If the native was encouraged to farm cattle to a greater extent, he would be able 

 to indulge his passion for meat and his lust of killing, with the additional advantage 

 (to him) of not having to exert himself. 



Tribes like the Zulus and Masai, who go in extensively for cattle, are generally 

 poor hunters. 



However, when a native does turn his attention to hunting, he becomes more 

 proficient than the ordinary white man can hope to become. 



The advantage is all on the side of the native, as he has probably descended from 

 a race or family of hunters ; he has begun to observe spoor and imbibe bushcraft from 

 the time he could walk, he knows the country and the animals, he can move quietly 

 and stealthily with his bare feet, he lives in the bush, and hunting is his profession ; 

 he has nothing else to think of, nothing else to do, his mind is an absolute blank 

 with regard to everything else, his receptive perception drinks in every lesson he 

 learns with nothing to distract his thoughts, and he has the wonderful powers 

 of observation of the savage bred in him. Even with all these advantages 

 on his side, there have been white men to rival good native hunters, and 

 in cases where consecutive thought is required the native will often be found 

 at fault. 



In knowledge of country and ordinary bushcraft he will, as a rule, be far 

 ahead of the white man, but the latter is more cosmopolitan, and, if of average 



