*?84 EXPEDITION INTO 



deterred them from taking- part in so interesting* an adventure. 

 There is doubtless a wide difference betwixt setting- out and 

 returnuig-, but I can assure these enterprising- travellers, that 

 unless the trackless desert hath charms for me, which it 

 would not possess in the eyes of the less enthusiastic, they 

 would have found no cause to repent of their rashness. To 

 all others I prefer a life of adventure — its very privations, 

 when coupled with scenes such as I have attempted to de- 

 scribe, constituting- an excitement peculiarly adapted to my 

 humour. The tracts throug-h which we travelled extending- 

 into the temperate zone, and being' surrounded also on three 

 sides by the ocean, while they possess the advantag-e of a 

 moderate climate, are the nursery of the noblest quadrupeds. 

 There was somethhig- truly soul-stirring- and romantic in 

 wanderino- amono- these free-born denizens of the desert- 

 realizing- as it were a new creation, in reg-ions hitherto 

 seldom, if ever, trodden by white man's foot. During* the 

 whole period that we were absent from the colony, I never 

 once omitted to take the field at break of day, or as soon 

 after as the weather would permit, frequently preparing- my 

 own breakfast, and never returnhig- unladen with spoils. 

 Firmly determined to bring- back correct delineations of the 

 whole of the fercc naturcB inhabiting- Africa, south of the 

 tropic, I never moved without drawing* materials in my 

 hunting*-cap, and during- brief cessations from hostilities, 

 found ample employment for the pencil instead of the rifle. 

 Altliouo'h the Indian traveller, who has been accustomed 

 to the accommodation afforded by tents and retinue, can form 

 little conception of the ten thousand difficulties, distresses, 

 and drawbacks, that beset the wanderer in the African desert, 

 he is nevertheless, from his locomotive habits, and experience 

 in oriental travelling-, far more capable of overcoming- tliem 

 than the letharg-ic and home-loving- natives of the colony, or 

 those less skilled in the art. Nearly all my sketches were 



