BOOKS ON BIG GAME 



321 



part of the life-work of both. They and their fellows 

 did the rough pioneer work of civilization, under condi- 

 tions which have now vanished for ever, and their type 

 will perish with the passing of the forces that called it 

 into being. But the big game hunter, whose campaigns 

 against big game are not simply incidents in his career as 

 a pioneer settler, will remain with us for some time 

 longer; and it is of him and his writings that we wish 

 to treat. 



Toward the end of the eighteenth century this big 

 game hunter had already appeared, although, like all 

 early types, he was not yet thoroughly specialized. Le 

 Vaillant hunted in South Africa, and his volumes are ex- 

 cellent reading now. A still better book is that of Bruce, 

 the Abyssinian explorer, who was a kind of Burton of his 

 days, with a marvellous faculty for getting into quarrels, 

 but an even more marvellous faculty for doing work 

 which no other man could do. He really opened a new 

 world to European men of letters and science; who there- 

 upon promptly united in disbelieving all he said, though 

 they were credulous enough toward people who really 

 should have been distrusted. But his tales have been 

 proved true by many an explorer since then, and his book 

 will always possess interest for big game hunters, because 

 of his experiences in the chase. Sometimes he shot 

 merely in self-defense or for food, but he also made regu- 

 lar hunting trips in company with the wild lords of the 

 shifting frontier between dusky Christian and dusky in- 

 fidel. He feasted in their cane palaces, where the walls 

 were hung with the trophies of giant game, and in their 



