292 ikinos of tbe 1Rot>, IRffle, anfc (Bun 



retinue seemed highly gratified, and presently took 

 leave and departed." 



Strong and hardy, however, though he believed him- 

 self to be, Gordon Gumming found five years of South 

 African hunting as much as he could stand. " The wild, 

 free, healthy, roaming life," he writes, " had grown upon 

 me, and I loved it more and more, but the most 

 laborious yet noble pursuit of elephant-hunting had 

 overtaxed my frame, and my nerves and constitution 

 were shaken by the scorching African sun." So he left 

 South Africa in 1849, never to return. In 1850 he 

 published his " Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the 

 Far Interior of South Africa," which, as I have said, was 

 an immense success, and made him a popular hero. At 

 the Great Exhibition of 1851 he exhibited his trophies 

 of the chase, and crowds pressed to see these proofs of 

 the famous " Lion-Hunter's " prowess. Then he went in 

 for lecturing, and as that particular form of self-adver- 

 tisement was a novelty then, he drew large audiences, 

 and made much money. People flocked to see the 

 stalwart Highland hunter in his kilt, surrounded by 

 the skins and heads of the wild beasts he had slain. 

 His conduct on the platform, however, was sometimes 

 so eccentric that his audiences did not know whether 

 to be angry or amused. And it is said that he on one 

 occasion in London so grossly shocked and insulted 

 the ladies that a riot nearly ensued. 



In the year 1858 he opened a museum of his African 

 trophies and curiosities at Fort Augustus in order to 

 catch the tourists as they came up or down the Caledonian 

 Canal. The idea, in modern phraseology, " caught on," 



