PREFACE 17 



ing to omit. Moreover, though we rightly 

 regard the giraffe as a creature worthy of pro- 

 tection from the tourist's rifle, it is perfectly 

 legitimate for these native swordsmen to kill it 

 by such means for the sake of its meat, as the 

 animal is bagged only after an arduous chase, 

 not wholly free from danger. 



There is a third possibility in our relations 

 with the wild creatures in addition to the alter- 

 native of either killing them or leaving them in 

 peace. We can tame them, and the subject is 

 fraught with such interesting traditions in the 

 past and such curious possibilities for the future 

 that it has been thought worthy of a short 

 chapter to itself, dealing not so much with the 

 horse, dog, and other domestic animals familiar 

 at home, as with the camel, reindeer, yak, and 

 such beside as still exist in the wild state. 

 There are, it is true, wild horses in a restricted 

 area of Western Asia, and, in a sense also, 

 there are wild dogs, but the relationship is less 

 close than in the case of those named above. 



For the uninspired descriptions of some 

 aspects of the Wilderness, which form the 

 subject of the opening chapter, I am humbly 

 apologetic. My sense of futility in making this 



