in Wildest Africa ^ 



and apart from this I have confined myself to making 

 observations of the Hfe of the animals. Very large 

 bull-elephants were the only kind of big game that I had 

 any mind to shoot, for I was never at a loss for other 

 kinds. Elephants roam about in the hot season from 

 one watering-place to another, sometimes covering great 

 distances. They know the danger they run in frequenting 

 any one particular watering-place too regularly. This is 

 true of herds of other animals as well. 



These watering-places are, of course, very productive 

 to the natives, who make no account of time and who 

 spread themselves out over a number of them during the 

 hot weather, thus multiplying their chances. But the 

 havoc worked among the wild animals by their poisoned 

 arrows or the other methods of hunting which they 

 practise, when they have not taken to powder and shot, 

 is not serious. They have been hunting in this way 

 since prehistoric ages, and yet have been able to hand 

 over the animal kingdom to us Europeans in all the 

 fulness and abundance that have aroused our wonder and 

 admiration wherever we have set foot for the first time. 



In the course of my last journey I encamped for the 

 second time at the foot of the Donje-Erok mountain 

 (the circuit of which is a two-days' march), to the north- 

 west of Kilimanjaro. The region had been well known to 

 me since 1899. Previously to then it had been traversed 

 only by Count Teleki's expedition. His comrade, the 

 well-known geographer Ritter von Hohnel, had marked 

 its outlines on the map. No one, however, had pene- 

 trated into the interior, and here a wonderful field offered 



638 



