

<h< 



ON SAFARI 



CHAPTER I 



AFRICA— SOUTH AND EAST 

 INTRODUCTORY 



South Africa when the world was young — that is, 

 when we were young — represented to those who had 

 inherited an adventurous spirit, and in whose brea.st a 

 love of the wild was innate, something that approached 

 the acme of terrestrial joys. Thereaway, our earlier 

 lessons had taught that, co-existent with the humdrum 

 monotony of a work-a-day world, there yet survived 

 a vast continent still absolutely unknown and unsub- 

 dued by man, and across whose vacant space there 

 sprawled, inscribed in burning letters on the map, 

 that vocal word, "Unexplored." 



To no subsequent generation, as this world is 

 geologically constituted, can a similar condition ever 

 recur. 



To such temperaments as indicated the rough, free 

 intangible life on an unknown veld, surrounded by 

 savao-e Nature, and with its concomitants of self-reliance 

 and self-resource, of difficulty, and sometimes of danger, 

 appealed to the verge of — and, in some cases, beyond — 

 the limits of self-restraint. The contemporary writings 

 of Cornwallis Harris, of Baldwin and of Gordon Gum- 

 ming were read and re-read till almost known by heart. 

 They fired boyish imagination ; but in my case circum- 

 stances forbade such realisation, since success comes 

 more surely to the plodder than to the adventurer. 



B 



