16 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



tures with dangerous game are related in its 

 pages, and most of these have been specially 

 contributed. There is, however, no account of 

 shooting either giraffe or hippopotamus, for 

 these should be shot only when meat is needed 

 for the natives, and such grisly necessity does 

 not fall under the head of sport. There is a 

 single interesting story of an elephant hunt in 

 Rhodesia. If the admission of this narrative 

 should be at variance with the view expressed 

 elsewhere in the book on the pity of slaying so 

 grand a creature for its ivory, it must be re- 

 membered that, when wounded at any rate, 

 and sometimes even without provocation, an 

 elephant is one of the most terrible of all wild 

 animals, and, as will be seen in Chapter III, 

 only one other, the lion, has killed so many 

 men in the history of African sport and explo- 

 ration. 



There will also be found an exciting narrative 

 of the manner in which the native Arab hunters 

 ride down the giraffe, killing the animal with 

 their wonderful two-handed swords. This kind 

 of hunting has not often been witnessed by 

 Europeans, and this account, contributed by an 

 officer who actually took part, was too interest- 



