INTRODUCTORY 7 



odd head or two of big-game, efforts that ofttimes resulted 

 blank. In such European lands there would be, as a 

 rule, but a single species in any given area, and scarce- 

 even problematic at that. A whole week's hard hunting 

 might fail to produce even so much as a distant sight of 

 game. Thus in Scandinavia my average during several 

 seasons worked out at over nine days' work for every 

 bull-elk shot in the northern forests ; while, on the "high 

 fjeld," each reindeer represented some six and a half days 

 of supreme labour and rock-scrambling. How different 

 is the case in Africa! In that favoured continent it is 

 not unusual to have scores and even hundreds of head 

 of big-game (including many different species) within view 

 at once. In East Africa I have counted ten species from 

 one standpoint (On Safari, p. 224), and in Sudan, on the 

 Zeraf River, as many as seven. In each instance the 

 aggregate numbers would run into many hundreds. 



But, after all, that hard initial apprenticeship in 

 Europe remains a cherished memory ; and besides, the 

 contrast enables one to appreciate so much the more 

 fully and keenly the abounding joys of Africa. 



In Sudan, the far-flung flats, innocent of hill or hollow, 

 the reed-clad marsh and morass, and open forests seem 

 to suggest that such should be a difficult stalking-country, 

 since the stalker's art is always easier in a rugged and 

 broken region. That, however, is not in fact the case. 

 Sudan game is rather less difficult of access than that of 

 most other hunting-grounds within my own experience. 

 Like all plain-dwellers, these Sudan animals possess the 

 very keenest of vision, yet hardly avail themselves to 

 the full of that faculty. True, the game is ceaselessly 

 harassed, in season and out, by the savage tribes 

 Shilluk, Dinka, and Nuer yet hitherto it has not been 

 so fully introduced to the long-range rifle as have its 

 congeners further sou^h. Hence the game's conception 

 of its true danger-zone is, as yet, too narrow, and in 

 that pristine simplicity undue risks are accepted. Other 



