INTRODUCTION. xxi 



scientific survey, I trust that I have been enabled to 

 embody information of interest and importance, in a 

 manner sufficiently accurate to answer the object in 

 view. 



My passion for venerie had long aflforded me op- 

 portunities of discovering that the delineations given 

 in popular books of Natural History, of many of 

 the larger quadrupeds, were far from being correct ; 

 and I had, during my service in India, devoted a por- 

 tion of my leisure to making more accurate portraits 

 of them with appropriate scenery. A wide field for 

 the gratification of this taste lay before me in Africa, 

 of which I did not fail to avail myself, nor do I 

 despair of being enabled shortly to lay before the 

 public, the result of my labours in this department. 



These pages were originally written for the peru- 

 sal of some of my brother officers in India, with 

 whom I have oft stalked the forest, and scoured the 

 plain ; and it is to them chiefly that I still present 

 them, trusting that in the scenes depicted and 

 described, they will recognize their friend and brother 

 huntsman, and participate with him in the emotions 

 which the overpowering excitement of African wild 

 sports naturally produced in his breast. I knew 

 them to be persons equally attached to the pleasures 

 of the chase with myself, but generally unacquainted 

 with African story, which will account for the occa- 

 sional introduction of information derived from works 



