THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 3 



of life in Europe as it was led by our ancestors ages before 

 the dawn of anything that could be called civilization. The 

 great beasts that now live in East Africa were in that by-gone 

 age represented by close kinsfolk in Europe; and in many 

 places, up to the present moment, African man, absolutely 

 naked, and armed as our early paleolithic ancestors were 

 armed, lives among, and on, and in constant dread of, these 

 beasts, just as was true of the men to whom the cave lion 

 was a nightmare of terror, and the mammoth and the 

 woolly rhinoceros possible but most formidable prey. 



This region, this great fragment out of the long-buried 

 past of our race, is now accessible by railroad to all who 

 care to go thither; and no field more inviting offers itself 

 to hunter or naturalist, while even to the ordinary traveller 

 it teems with interest. On March 23, 1909, I sailed thither 

 from New York, in charge of a scientific expedition sent 

 out by the Smithsonian, to collect birds, mammals, reptiles, 

 and plants, but especially specimens of big game, for the 

 National Museum at Washington. In addition to myself 

 and my son Kermit (who had entered Harvard a few 

 months previously), the party consisted of three naturalists: 

 Surgeon-Lieut. Col. Edgar A. Mearns, U.S.A., retired; Mr. 

 Edmund Heller, of California, and Mr. J. Alden Loring, 

 of Owego, N. Y.A My arrangements for the trip had been 

 chiefly made through two valued English friends, Mr. 

 Frederick Courteney Selous, the greatest of the world's 

 big-game hunter^, ancf Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a 

 mighty hunter.} On landing we were to be met by Messrs. 

 R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both famous hunt- 

 ers; the latter an Australian, who served through the South 

 African war; the former by birth a Scotchman, and a Cam- 





