Loneliness of Bush Life. 43 



judging from my own experience of tropical Africa, that 

 one longs for the cold, exhilarating ,air of home more 

 than for good food ; although this, too, is often desired 

 when one is low with fever and satiated with unpalatable 

 stuff. 



The intense loneliness and monotony of a solitary 

 life, away from others of their own kind, have a bad 

 effect on the minds of many men, as they get morbid and 

 inclined to suffer from melancholia, when they often act 

 foolishly. 



About the year 1905 I spent twelve months at a place 

 called Mzazas, on the Luangwa River, and during that time 

 only four men visited me, and once I went away to see a 

 man I kne.v some sixty miles off. As Mzazas was not 

 a health resort and I underwent an attack of blackwater 

 fever there, I was naturally pretty bad at times ; but I 

 cannot say I regret the loneliness, as I was out in the bush 

 every day looking tor game and making a collection of 

 drawings of game spoor. 



Sometimes, when a man is beginning his shooting ex- 

 periences, over-keenness may lose him an animal he is 

 very anxious to bag. Besides the large-horned roan 

 antelope I have mentioned, I can remember several other 

 trophies that I should have bagged if I had shot more 

 steadily. Once when on a shooting trip, in December, 

 1903, to the country bordering Lake Chiuta, w r ith Captain 

 Mostyn, of the King's African Rifles, I lost a lion in the 

 following way. Every day my friend and I used to go off 

 in a different direction and meet in the afternoon or evening 

 when we returned to camp. One day I had got on the 

 fresh spoor of a herd of buffalo, which took me across the 

 mud and swamp of the lake, and I had followed them 

 many miles when my men and I noticed the tracks of some 

 Portuguese native hunters, who had cut the spoor of the 

 buffaloes just ahead of us. We then stopped and began to 

 return to the tents, and we had just reached the swamp 

 when we disturbed a fine, light-maned lion which was lying 

 in a low hollow, with some tall grass in its centre. I had 



