In Wildest Africa 



■-9) 



notwithstanding the consciousness that in no case can he 

 himself secure the prize. It is the call of a strong impulse 

 deep rooted in men. But in our Fatherland how grandly 

 and nobly what we mean by "true sportsmanship" has 

 developed out of this primitive instinct ! 



A certain kind of organisation of the business of the 

 chase must have been in existence even in primeval times. 

 Those who have made a study of this department of the 

 life of nomadic hunters In many lands tell us that tribes 

 and groups of famlHes hunt only In well-defined areas, 

 and as they value their lives do not venture to pass these 

 boundaries. I have learned the same thing by my own 

 personal experience of the Wandorobo and other nomad 

 huntsmen of the African plateau. It must therefore have 

 been the case everywhere, from the times when primitive 

 men, the cave-dwellers, began their struggle with the mighty 

 beasts of primeval days, down to our own times, when the 

 chase Is more and more regulated till at last It becomes the 

 exclusive property of the owner of the land. 



As a consequence of this right came measures for game 



preservation both against the Interference of the stranger 



sportsman, and as regards the wild creatures themselves. 



Increasing knowledge taught the hunter that he could not 



kill more than a certain number of wild animals without 



extirpating them entirely In his district.^ Hence grew up 



our complex game-laws of to-day, and the general feeling 



^ The Hudson Bay Company put on the market in the year 1891 

 1,358 skins of the musk ox {Ovibos moschatus), but only 271 in the year 

 1901. In the year 1878 the same company sold 102, 7J5 skins of the 

 Canadian beaver, but only 44,200 in the year 1892. A striking example 

 of the results of excessive exploitation of hunting grounds ! 



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