100 DIFFICULTIES OF HUNTING IN DENSE FORESTS. 



In these vast forest regions therefore, apart alto- 

 gether from the frequently malarious nature of the 

 country, anything like regular hunting is frequently 

 impossible, for the noise which a man would make 

 in forcing his way through the tangle of cord-like 

 creepers, would almost certainly cause all forest crea- 

 tures to glide silently away before he could possibly 

 get within shot, or even within sight of the flying 

 game. Thus it came to pass that Mr. Stanley during 

 his great forest march of 160 days obtained little or 

 no game. * Not at all because the forest was desti- 

 tute of game, for the trails of game, he says, were 

 exceedingly numerous, but because of the foregoing 

 reasons. Very little hunting therefore has ever been 

 attempted in forests of this description: the chances 

 of getting lost are so enormously against the hunter 

 that few would care to try it, nor would the quantity 

 of game, we may very safely conclude, prove w r orth 

 the candle; for though game of different species, both 

 furred and feathered, may be numerous, the extent, 

 the density, and above all the impassable nature of 

 such forests renders following it practically impos- 

 sible, f 



Sir James Emerson Tennent, a learned writer on 

 Ceylon for instance, dwells upon the fact that the 

 density of the undergrowth in the forests of that island 

 is such that 



"though it is capable of affording cover to the wilder carnivora, 

 it is unfavourable to the growth of any kind of herbage 

 fitted for the support of granivorous animals. Quadrupeds 



* See In Darkest Africa, by H. M. Stanley, 1890, Vol. ii, pp. 



83-84- 



T See Mr. Stanley's remarks upon these points in ibid. 



