In Wildest Africa ^ 



compared with die African sport as I understand it. I 

 do not mean the easy-going, pleasure-excursion kind of 

 hunt ordinarily gone in for in the African bush, but a 

 one-man expedition, in which the sportsman sets himself 

 deliberately to bag his game single-handed. That, indeed, 

 is my idea of how one should go after big game in such 

 countries as Africa in all circumstances whatever. 



Barely as many as a dozen elephants have fallen to 

 my rifle. Some of these I killed in order to try and get 

 hold of a young specimen which I might bring to Europe 

 in good condition — a desire which I have long cherished, 

 but which has not yet been fulfilled. Others I killed so 

 that I might present them to our museums. 



There were immense numbers of other bull-elephants 

 that I might have shot, and that are probably now roaming 

 the velt, but that I had to spare because I was more 

 intent upon photographing them. My photographs are, 

 however, ample compensation to me. While, too, it is 

 pleasant to me to reflect that I have left untouched so 

 many elephants that came within easy range, I hope, none 

 the less, some day to bring down a specimen adorned with 

 a really splendid pair of tusks. This is an aspiration not 

 often realised by African sportsmen, even when they 

 have been hunting for half a lifetime. Elephants with 

 tusks weighing nearly five hundred pounds, like those 

 in our illustration, are extremely rare — even in earlier 

 times they were met with perhaps once in a hundred 

 years. 



The hunting of an African elephant, I repeat in 

 conclusion, is a source of the greatest delight to the 



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