24 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



The wilderness eludes me when I try to de- 

 scribe its grandeur, and I realise with profound 

 humiliation the vanity of trying to introduce 

 the reader to the baffling mystery of the forest 

 or the haunting glare of the desert. The 

 witching hour in the forest is that of dawn, 

 and I have loved the cold silence of its waking 

 away in the dreary timberlands of Canada and 

 Russia, as well as in the luxuriant jungle of 

 the Eastern tropics. Such virgin forest gives 

 precious isolation from the little worries of 

 men, and its desolate beauty provides a fitting 

 frame for the last years on earth of many noble 

 animals that are making their final stand against 

 the march of civilisation in these all but im- 

 penetrable thickets. It may seem a paradox, 

 but lifelessness is the keynote of these forest 

 scenes. 



Sir Henry Seton-Karr tells me that he once 

 walked right on an old bull buffalo asleep in 

 the open plains of Africa, getting to within five 

 yards of the animal before it woke up. This 

 he regards as a very unusual case, the only one, 

 indeed, within his wide experience of many 

 continents. Indeed, even where not much 

 hunted, and, in consequence, not afraid of 

 man, this curious alertness is typical of all 

 the wild creatures. 



Though animals of the open plain depend 

 mainly on their eyesight for keeping out of 



