In Wildest Africa ^ 



our views can be made clear, the more complete the 

 survey of this difficult subject can be made by the combined 

 experience of many experts being gradually brought to 

 bear together upon it, the sooner may we anticipate 

 satisfactory results from this co-operative action. For 

 years I have been following with close interest everything 

 connected with this question, and my wide correspondence 

 with officers, officials, and private individuals warrants me 

 in concluding that on all sides there is an energetic 

 movement in progress. Of course, we have to face 

 serious difficulties in such a campaign. Thus it seems, 

 according to numerous and trustworthy reports, that the 

 attempt to establish Boer settlements in the Kilimanjaro 

 district in East Africa has had, and still is having, very 

 fatal results for the once splendid wild life of that region. 

 And, indeed, it is no easy matter to reconcile a colony 

 of Boers — the people who have already made such a 

 clean sweep of the wild life of South Africa — to the 

 preservation of the fauna of the country. One can see 

 how difficult the regulation of these matters is for the 

 authorities.^ 



We must not forget also that, as a result of the 

 wonderful improvements in firearms, the problem of the 

 protection of wild animals presents itself to-day in quite 

 a different fashion from that of the days of the hunters 

 of fifty, or even of twenty-five years ago. 



But it is not the individual hunter whose interest lies 



^ On the part of the Government and the local authorities everything 

 that is possible is being done to settle this difficulty. But unfortunately 

 their efforts seem to have little success. 



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