The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 
seems to breed contempt! I can vouch for my 
own feelings, however, and can swear there was 
little or no contempt in my mind, but I will 
confess to a certain degree of “ funk.” Some- 
how the darkness and inability to take active 
steps or to do things get on one’s nerves most. 
It is the waiting about, the enforced inactivity 
that is so trying. I had noticed the same feel- 
ings in many ways, for instance, in driving a 
strange team of horses. Before I got on the box 
and started the team, I would shake like a 
leaf, and be unable to speak with comfort, 
but directly I had them going, then they might 
smash up the whole concern, and I do not 
think I should have lost my nerve. I have felt 
the same feelings too in bicycle racing, going 
to a dentist to have a tooth drawn, ete. I 
wonder if this is funk? To my mind it is 
perilously near it, but at the same time one is 
quite unable to alter one’s temperament. The 
more phlegmatic a person is, the less he is able 
to enjoy various sensations, whilst for those 
who are, so to speak, ‘“‘on wires,” the exact 
reverse seems to me to be the case. 
I have digressed from my shooting, though. 
Notwithstanding the lions’ roaring I soon dropped 
off to sleep, not waking until Tom, the cook, 
came to call us when the sun had been up for 
some time. We had a cup of coffee each, and 
then started off to look for some sport. In a 
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