PREFACE 



If I have introduced the hunter to my readers, I 

 must not forget that he is also a learned explorer 

 and an expert in many sciences, who is practical as 

 well as theoretical, and has a methodical mind and 

 an extraordinary capacity for work. How much 

 scientific knowledge does the perfect explorer require 

 when he is left to himself, far away from everything 

 and everybody ? He must have, if not a deep know- 

 ledge of all these sciences, at least a considerable 

 acquaintance with zoology, including ornithology and 

 entomology, botany, geology, mineralogy, hydrography, 

 ethnography, astronomy, meteorology, topography, 

 anatomy, etc. He must be clever with his hands, ac- 

 quainted with a number of trades, and be something of 

 a doctor, surgeon, chemist, engineer, mechanic, gun- 

 smith, blacksmith, gardener, taxidermist, photographer, 

 and even cook. 



He should be proficient in most kinds of sport, 

 combining good shooting with the true science of 

 hunting, and should have considerable physical 

 strength, good health and spirits, and above all great 

 enthusiasm. 



Four years before this trip you had occasion to make 

 a kind of voyage of reconnaissance to Mozambique. 

 It was the remembrance of this first trip that made 

 you think of hunting there in the future, and on the 

 way home you formed in your mind the plan of a 

 new expedition, properly and scientifically organised. 



It is as a real explorer, charged with an official 

 mission from the Minister of Public Instruction, and 

 with various missions from the Museum of Natural 

 History and the Botanical Gardens of Marseilles and 

 Havre, that you have returned, having lived three 



(vii) 



