FOREWORD 



"I SPEAK of Africa and golden joys"; the joy of wan- 

 dering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting the mighty 

 and terrible lords of the wilderness, the cunning, the wary, 

 and the grim. 



In these greatest of the world's great hunting-grounds 

 there are mountain peaks whose snows are dazzling under 

 the equatorial sun; swamps where the slime oozes and 

 bubbles and festers in the steaming heat; lakes like seas; 

 skies that burn above deserts where the iron desolation is 

 shrouded from view by the wavering mockery of the mirage; 

 vast grassy plains where palms and thorn-trees fringe the 

 dwindling streams; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart 

 of the continent through the sadness of endless marshes; 

 forests of gorgeous beauty, where death broods in the dark 

 and silent depths. 



There are regions as healthy as the northland ; and other 

 regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds and butter- 

 flies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents, but, treacherous 

 in their beauty, and sinister to human life. On the land 

 and in the water there are dread brutes that feed on the 

 flesh of man; and among the lower things, that crawl, and 

 fly, and sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes far more 

 evil and deadly than any beast or reptile; foes that kill 

 his crops and his cattle, foes before which he himself per- 

 ishes in his hundreds of thousands. 



