IN AFRICA 



CHAPTER I 



THE PREPARATION FOR DEPARTURE. EXPERIENCES 

 WITH WILLING FRIENDS AND ADVISERS 



EVER since I can remember, almost, I have cher- 

 ished a modest ambition to hunt lions and elephants. 

 At an early age, or, to be more exact, at about that 

 age which finds most boys wondering whether they 

 would rather be Indian fighters or sailors, I ran 

 across a copy of Stanley's Through the Dark Con- 

 tinent. It was full of fascinating adventures. I 

 thrilled at the accounts which spoke in terms of easy 

 familiarity of "express" rifles and "elephant" guns, 

 and in my vivid but misguided imagination, I pic- 

 tured an elephant gun as a sort of cannon a huge, 

 unwieldy arquebus that fired a ponderous shell. 

 The old woodcuts of daring hunters and charging 

 lions inspired me with unrest and longing the 

 longing to bid the farm farewell and start down the 

 road for Africa. Africa! What a picture it con- 

 jured up in my fancy! Then, as even now, it sym- 

 bolized a world of adventurous possibilities ; and in 

 my boyhood fancy, it lay away off there some- 

 where vaguely beyond mountains and deserts 

 and oceans, a vast, mysterious, unknown land, that 



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