AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



killed; but their fright has vanished when once they be- 

 gin their barking calls. 



Death by violence, death by cold, death by starvation 

 these are the normal endings of the stately and beautiful 

 creatures of the wilderness. The sentimentalists who prattle 

 about the peaceful life of nature do not realize its utter 



The rhino stood looking at us with his big ears cocked forward 

 From a photograph by Kermit Roosevdt 



mercilessness; although all they would have to do would 

 be to look at the birds in the winter woods, or even at the 

 insects on a cold morning or cold evening. Life is hard 

 and cruel for all the lower creatures, and for man also 

 in what the sentimentalists call a "state of nature." The 

 savage of to-day shows us what the fancied age of gold of 

 our ancestors was really like; it was an age when hunger, 

 cold, violence, and iron cruelty were the ordinary accom- 

 paniments of life. If Matthew Arnold, when he expressed 

 the wish to know the thoughts of Earth's "vigorous, primi- 



