6 SAVAGE SUDAN 



Besides these "exclusive creations," the Sudan shares 

 with other African areas quite an extensive game-list, 

 including particularly lion and leopard, buffalo and giraffe, 

 roan antelope, koodoo, waterbuck, various hartebeests, 

 bushbuck and reedbuck, ibex, ariel, and a variety of gazelles, 

 together with wart-hog and many minor kinds of game. 1 



This imposing array notwithstanding, it is right 

 nevertheless to add that neither in quantity nor in variety 

 of game does Sudan equal the great hunting-fields farther 

 south. This employment of a comparison is in no proper 

 sense derogatory. The modern hunter has no use for 

 quantity : his object is ever the aliquid novi some new 

 acquaintance or trophy. The object is to suggest that 

 for those who have time and opportunity for both, it 

 would be advisable to take Central and Equatorial Africa 

 first, leaving the Sudan for a subsequent effort. But on no 

 account should the latter be omitted by one who desires 

 a comprehensive insight of the greater African fauna. 



To cite my own case, a preliminary expedition in 

 South Africa proved disappointing that field (in 1899) 

 was already played out. Then, after various other 

 ventures, the opening of the Uganda railway led me to 

 British East Africa, and its teeming wealth of wild-life 

 came as a revelation. To that region I am indebted for 

 memories as glorious as hunter-naturalist may ever realise 

 or even dream of. Lastly came the Sudan, and I bless 

 the guiding star that directed my final steps thither. 



If it be permissible to carry the personal retrospect 

 further, another comparison would be appropriate. 

 Namely, that between our present subject of African 

 hunting and my own antecedent period in Europe, when 

 strenuous days and even weeks were spent say in Spain 

 or in Norway in almost desperate efforts to secure an 



1 Oryx beisa strays over the mountain-plateaux that adjoin the boundaries 

 of Eritrea, and in the same region is also found the greater koodoo on the 

 Settite and Atbara rivers, and in the hill country along the Abyssinian 

 frontier as well as in Western Kordofan. 



