ii6 THE LAND OF THE LION 



And this leads me to speak of dangerous animals, 

 when they are dangerous, and how, so far as I know, that 

 danger can be met and minimized. 



How a man should hunt in Africa, whether alone, 

 accompanied by his gunbearer, or if he finds it too hard 

 work to carry a rifle all day long, by his two gunbearers; 

 or whether he should engage a professional hunter to go 

 with him, a steady shot in an emergency, depends, of course, 

 on the man himself. 



If he can depend on his nerves, and has a reasonable 

 command of his weapon, it is far pleasanter to hunt alone. 

 Hunting, even with a tried friend, is a doubtful experiment. 

 One man is certain, at times, to spoil the other's shot. The 

 moment to fire cannot possibly be arranged by the "one, 

 two, three" method, or by any other. To get a wary animal 

 you want, nine times out of ten, to make the final part of 

 the stalk alone. If it is a dangerous beast, such as lion, 

 rhino, buffalo, or elephant, you must have a second gun to 

 your hand. This is absolutely necessary. But if two 

 sportsmen are making the final crawl, then there must 

 accompany them, at least two gunbearers, that makes 

 four, to get up unnoticed to killing range, something not 

 always to be accomplished. 



On the other hand, very few comparatively, who visit 

 Africa for the first time, have had much opportuntiy to test 

 their nerves, under such circumstances, as are likely to arise 

 here. If a visitor intends to make but a short trip, to con- 

 fine his wanderings to those parts of the country easily 

 reached from the railroad (even then I think he will find 

 the trip interesting and well worth the journey), in such a 

 case he need not, I think, fear a test of his nerves too severe. 

 But to enjoy sefari life, and to see the beautiful and won- 

 derful things that are to be seen, then he must go farther 

 afield to-day. To pick up twenty different kinds of heads 

 and bag a specimen of each of the large beasts as well, is 



