In Wildest Africa -^ 



with lions as well as elephants, and who used often to hold 

 forth to me beside camp fires on the subject of these 

 adventures, could not make out why his eagerly coveted 

 quarry had become so scarce. Every other species of 

 • " l^ig game " was well represented, however, and according 

 to the time of the year I enjoyed ever fresh opportuni- 

 ties for observation. Generally speaking, it would be a case 

 of watching one aspect of wild life one day and another all 

 the next, but now and again my eyes and ears would be 

 surfeited and bewildered by its manifestations. The sketch- 

 plans on which I used to record my day's doings and 

 seeings serve now to recall to me all the multiform 

 experiences that fell to my lot. What a pity it is that the 

 old explorers of South Africa have left no such memoranda 

 behind them for our benefit ! They would enable us to 

 form a better idea of things than we can derive from any 

 kind of pictures or descriptions. 



I shall try now to give some notion of all the different 

 sights I would sometimes come upon in a single day. It 

 would often happen that, as I was making my way down the 

 Pangani in my light folding craft, or else was setting out for 

 the velt which generally lay beyond its girdle of brushwood, 

 showers of rain would have drawn herds of elephants down 

 from the mountains.^ Even when I did not actually come 

 within sight of them, it was always an intense enjoyment 



^ Male Emperor-moths {Saiiimia pyrl) hasten from great distances, 

 even against the wind, to a female of the species emerging from the 

 chrysalis state in captivity. Elephants, the author believes, can scent a 

 fall of rain at a distance of many miles. 



