With Flashlight and Rifle * 



been true of the entire world before the beginning ol 

 the supremacy of Homo sapiens. 



What was found, indeed, in those polar regions 

 uninhabited by man, I myself have often observed in 

 that land of blinding sunshine which goes by the name 

 of the Dark Continent. Enormous herds of harmless 

 animals, as well as beasts of prey, forming one general 

 community, are to be found together at certain times in 

 desert places. 



Where the natives do not hunt, wild animals are 

 to be found on almost as friendly terms with them as 

 singing birds and other such pets are with us, or as storks, 

 swans, squirrels, and all the other naturally wild animals 

 that have come under our protection, and have come to 

 trust us. 



Thus it is that in the wild regions of Equatorial -Africa 

 we find the animal kingdom flourishing almost to the 

 same extent as was once the case in the south. 



I say " almost," because it must be allowed that the 

 herds of elephants in the interior have been thinned 

 and the herds of buffaloes decimated by the rinderpest 

 introduced by Europeans into Africa. At certain times 

 oJf the year, however, for weeks and months at a time, 

 I have seen such numbers and such a variety of animals 

 as simply cannot be imagined, and I am able thus to 

 form a notion ot what things must have been like in 

 the south. 



I can give no adequate notion of the extraordinary 

 profusion of wild life there is still in Equatorial Africa, 

 and I would fain raise my voice in order to induce 



10 



