vi After Big Game in Central Africa 



should assist the text even better than in my 

 previous book, of which this may be considered a 

 continuation. 



The detailed narrative of my journey through 

 Central Africa, from the Zambesi to the French 

 Congo, with its incidents, its vicissitudes, its dis- 

 coveries, and its results, will be found in another 

 work. Here I propose only to relate matters of 

 sport as they occur to me, without obliging myself 

 to follow their chronological order. I shall guard 

 myself against the desire to make the reader be 

 present at the death of my 500 victims, which 

 would be very monotonous to him ; for, after all, 

 though circumstances may vary, the result of a 

 hunt after wild animals is always the same. There 

 will be found in this volume, therefore, only the 

 principal episodes of my most recent years in 

 hunting, with the addition of some notes on the 

 habits of African fauna. 



In excuse for the excessive use of the personal 

 pronoun, the reader will do well to recollect that I 

 relate here only what I have done myself or seen with 

 my own eyes. Faithfully as I have endeavoured to 

 depict nature, and the circumstances of my encounters 



