3 02 BIG GAME 



Before the East Siberian hunting-field is developed, 

 another will probably be once more open to the British 

 big-game hunter. This is the Kassala district and the 

 valley of the Atbara river, which before its occupation 

 by the Dervishes was absolutely the finest sporting- 

 ground left in Africa. It was the land of the * hunting 

 Arabs/ very healthy, abounding in water and cover, 

 and the home par excellence of the black rhinoceros, 

 the lion, and smaller African carnivora of many species, 

 large antelope, and, in places, of the elephant and 

 giraffe. It is believed that an immense increase of wild 

 animals has recently taken place there, partly because 

 the population has been too harassed by the triangular 

 war between Dervishes, Abyssinians, and Italians to kill 

 off the game, and partly because the famous tribe of 

 sword-hunters, the Hamran Arabs, were nearly exter- 

 minated twelve years ago by an epidemic. The 

 Klondike discoveries will give, indirectly, better facilities 

 for reaching North British Columbia and Southern 

 Alaska than have hitherto been available, and though 

 not ' new ' hunting-grounds, they will come within 

 range of a much larger number of sportsmen. The 

 forest region of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus 

 will probably remain, as it is at present, the home of 

 great quantities of big game, but an impossible hunting- 

 ground. The valleys are full of fever ; diphtheria 

 seems native to the soil ; and though bear, boar, and 



