WITH FLASH-LIGHT AND RIFLE 



or explorer, who merely passes through the country, 

 and knowingly and willingly runs this risk as well as 

 others to satisfy his love of sport and adventure, or to 

 accomplish certain ends in the service of science. 



Malarial fever prostrated me more than once, and 

 brought me within an inch of death, but even this risk 

 has not been too great to gain an insight into the vir- 

 gin life of the nature, animate and inanimate, on the 

 far-off steppe of Africa. Often it draws me, in spite of 

 all dangers and risks, with a mysterious, almost irresist- 

 ible power away from our over-civilization into the sim- 

 plicity of life in that wild and virgin country, where 

 there is still elbow-room for a man to move and to em- 

 ploy his own individuality, and where so many scien- 

 tific questions are waiting for investigation and solu- 

 tion. Many native tribes are dying out, and with them 

 their language, customs, dress, weapons, and utensils; 

 also their legends and myths. All these treasures are 

 to be rescued from oblivion for their importance to 

 ethnology. Also many of the races of animals are 

 doomed, and specimens are to be secured " as long as 

 there is time" — as AVilhelm Boelsche and Ludwig Heck 

 put it. And men are needed with iron wills and con- 

 stitutions of steel to solve those questions and to enrich 

 our knowledge of the vanishing fauna. 



Hans Meyer has graphically and minutely described 

 his experience in exploring the tropical mountain world, 

 down to the increased beating of his heart. 



380 



