IQO ADVENTURES OF AN ELEPHANT HUNTER CH. 



I have often wondered what will happen when 

 there is no wild to tempt the daring spirit from 

 the comparative safety and comfort of civilization 

 to wander forth and seek adventure for the 

 very exhilaration that it affords. Surely, love 

 of excitement will always be a part of human 

 nature ! 



It is a generally accepted fact that nearly all those 

 who have lived a considerable portion of their lives 

 in the tropics experience a decided desire to return. 

 It is a yearning that is well-nigh irresistible, and, 

 more often than not, obeyed a call which is felt 

 by the West Coaster as strongly as by his brother 

 of the East Coast. I have heard many opinions 

 expressed on the subject and have frequently tried 

 to analyse the nature of this peculiar yearning. 



In the first place, a man living away from civiliza- 

 tion is naturally free from all the restraints of that 

 civilization, and those confining influences which, 

 in his youth, drove him from the compensating 

 luxuries of an old country to seek the heart of the 

 wild, are naturally more irksome to him on his 

 return than ever. Away in the back of beyond, he 

 is not obliged to observe the innumerable petty 

 points of convention with which public opinion 

 demands compliance in densely populated areas, 

 and which to many minds reduce existence, in a 

 phrase of Carlyle, to a 'highly complicated egg- 



