FOREWORD ix 



horseman; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may 

 rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their 

 lethal beauty; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the 

 laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty 

 land. In after years there shall come to him memories of 

 the lion's charge; of the gray bulk of the elephant, close at 

 hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes 

 lowering from under his helmet of horn; of the rhinoceros, 

 truculent and stupid, standing in the bright sunlight on the 

 empty plain. 



These things can be told. But there are no words that 

 can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal 

 its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is de- 

 light in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, 

 in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from 

 this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent 

 places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendor of the 

 new stars; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sun- 

 rise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn 

 of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages 

 through time everlasting. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



KHARTOUM, March 15, 1910. 



