Ill 



THE VENGEANCE OF THE WILD 



IT is no reflection on the courage of sportsmen 

 to-day to admit that modern conditions make 

 for safety. This is not the fault of those who 

 go big" game hunting. They take things as 

 they find them, and it would be sheer madness 

 to decline the latest rifle and ammunition de- 

 vised by the ingenuity of the makers, and to trust 

 to the obsolete weapons on which the hunters 

 of other days had to rely. One might as well 

 hunt lions with the spear used by the Nandi 

 warriors, who roused the admiration of Mr. 

 Roosevelt by their prowess against the king 

 of beasts, or with the two-handed swords 

 of the Agagir described on an earlier page. 

 Even so, men of the Stone Age slew the 

 shaggy aurochs with bow and arrow. Such 

 sport means very close quarters, and it is said 

 that one of the old elephant hunters won a 

 wager by stalking a tusker up-wind and get- 

 ting close enough to paint his initials on the 

 animal's flank before shooting it. Such a 

 performance is unnecessarily dramatic, but 



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