viii PREFACE 



distinct episodes, choosing from my experiences 

 only those which I feel will interest even the 

 ordinary reader who knows little of, and cares less 

 for, the technicalities of big game hunting. For, 

 apart from the number of admirably written books 

 dealing voluminously with the above sport, I feel 

 that a detailed and consecutive account of even a 

 hunter's career is apt at times to pall, and I have, 

 therefore, striven to eliminate from my humble 

 effort all that is not illuminating in some phase or 

 other. 



Before proceeding further, and in the light of 

 some of the personal adventures which follow, a 

 very brief sketch of my life abroad may be of some 

 interest to the reader, and lend a certain cohesion 

 to my stories as far as the question of time is 

 concerned. 



I left the Old Country for Cape Town, in the 

 early part of 1896, with the object of carving out a 

 career for myself. I had no precise knowledge of 

 what that career was to be, I simply experienced an 

 urgent desire to wander a desire probably inherited 

 from my father, who spent his early manhood gold- 

 digging in New Zealand and Australia. 



Those early days abroad gave me little that is of 

 any great interest. I moved from Cape Town to 

 Johannesburg (where I spent some time in hospital 

 suffering from the effects of a bullet wound), and 



