THE GAME COUNTRY AND GAME HUNTER. 3 



comfortable, although I must say she harboured the biggest cockroaches and 

 fiercest mosquitoes I have ever seen. 



The reason that brought me to Central Africa was the chance of getting some 

 big game shooting, for ever since I could read I had taken the greatest interest in 

 accounts of shooting and travel in foreign countries. I read and re-read the works 

 of Harris, Gordon Gumming, Baldwin, Baker, Selous, and others who have written 

 on African sport; and many other books on shooting in India and America. My 

 greatest ambition was to shoot an elephant, lion, and rhinoceros, and as many more 

 animals of different species as I could, and to experience the life of a hunter's 

 excitements so well portrayed in the works I have mentioned, but particularly in 

 Mr. Selous' " A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa," which I consider to be the best 

 book that has ever been written on African shooting or is ever likely to be. From 

 my own experiences I have been able to prove that all he writes is solid fact, and not 

 fancy. 



Some of the earlier authors seem to think it necessary to embellish their works 

 with romantic and fanciful language, and it is not until the later days that we find 

 hunters giving their experiences in cool and logical expressions, which has a far 

 greater hold on the mind of the reader than reams of flowery matter. 



There are many good hunters in Africa who have never written anything, some 

 because they do not want to, and others because they could not ; for however expert 

 they may be with the rifle, when it comes to using a pen they find themselves 

 quite at sea. 



As it was in the Far West, where the best hunters and trappers seldom visited 

 the townships, so it is in the wilder parts of Africa, and there are many good hunters 

 whose exploits have never become known, except to a few close friends and to the 

 natives. However, sportsmen have to be thankful that there are others, such as 

 Mr. F. G. Selous and the late Mr. A. H. Neumann, for instance, who were willing to 

 put their experiences on paper for the benefit of others who take an interest in 

 the same subject. 



Although practical experience is the only true teacher, one can pick up many a 

 hint from a well-written book. If it cannot tell us how to spoor and shoot big game, 

 it can show us how it ought to be done, and this is better than nothing. 



Once a man has taken to a wandering life in the wilds of Africa, or in any 

 other new country, he seems unable to leave it, or if he does he will surely return 

 again. It seems to cast a spell on him, and is truly " the call of the wilds." 



Here one gets away from all the petty worries and conventionalities of 

 civilisation, and can live a free, open-air life, with the blue sky above and the 



