-»i Spurt and Nature in Cjermaiiy 



restriction that it lies where water is to be found, and that 

 we can secure supplies. 



But with a Httle good-humour one can get over all 

 this, especially if one keeps before one's eyes the fact 

 that there are man\' worse things here, such as malaria, 

 dysentery, and all the other numerous tropical diseases 

 with which these lands are so la\"ishly supplied. But we 

 could not find greater enjoyment in the primitive beauty 

 and charm of this wilderness, even if all this were 

 not so. 



It is true that the hunter in Equatorial Africa cannot 

 obtain such splendid trophies as the stag's antlers, that 

 marvellous structure built up by an animal organism, and, 

 according to Rohrig's striking researches, renewed again 

 year after year in about eighteen weeks. But instead 

 there beckon to him other j)rizes — the mighty horns of 

 the buftalo, the heavily knotted horns of the eland, the 

 strong spiral horns of the two species of kudus, the 

 variouslv shaped horns of the cow-antelopes, the sword- 

 like horns of the oryx-antelope, all the beautiful variously 

 shaped antelope and gazelle horns, and many others 

 that make most delightful trophies, and will be still more 

 highly valued the more sportsmen go to these distant 

 countries, and the more these treasures, often so diffi- 

 cult to obtain, are understood. The mighty weapons 

 of the elephant, that glitter white in the sun, the 

 uncouth horns from the head of the rhinoceros or the 

 tusks of the hippopotamus, the head of a giant croco- 

 dile bristling with teeth, the plain and yet so eagerly 

 coveted hide of the King of the Desert, and the glaringly 



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