A Hint to leisured young Englishmen. 215 



evening meal, eaten with an appetite and a zest 

 such as only an African hunter knows, the camp 

 fire, the i^ipe, the discussion of the day's sport, the 

 hunter's stories and expeiiences, the plans for the 

 morrow, no thoughts of rain or bad weather op- 

 pressing the mind, all this makes a combination 

 and a concentration of human joy which Paradise 

 might with difficulty vixiii. Nor is this limiting 

 life, when pursued for a few mouths or from time 

 to time, a useless, a frivolous, or a stupid existence, 

 especially when it is compared with the sort of idle? 

 unprofitable passing ol* the time experienced from 

 year to year by numbers of young Englishmen of 

 fortune. Xature and all her ways can be observed 

 and studied with advanta2:e, much knowledo-e of 

 wild animals and of wild men can be acquired by 

 the observant, the intelligent sportsman, languages 

 may be learnt, haljitudes and customs noticed and 

 written about, interesting persons are met with, 

 excellent friendships are f(3rmed, the mind and 

 the body are seasoned, liardened, developed by 

 travel in a wild country, all its many incidents, 

 its rough and its smooth, its surprises, its difficul- 

 ties, its adversities and its perils ; and I hold tlrs 

 for certain, that in nine cases out of ten a young 

 Englishman who has had six months of iifrican 

 hunting life, will be a 10 lb. l)etter fellow all round 

 than he was l^efore he started. 



These reflections occur to me as I sit in the shade 

 of my mule waggon, encamped Avithin a few miles 

 of the Upper Umfuli, on the banks of a small river, 

 passing the evening moments of a bright and warm 



