3 20 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



As the centuries passed it became more and more diffi- 

 cult to obtain sport in the thickly settled parts of Europe 

 save in the vast game preserves of the Kings and great 

 lords. These magnates of Continental Europe, down to 

 the beginning of the last century, followed the chase 

 with all the ardor of Gaston Phoebus; indeed, they erred 

 generally on the side of fantastic extravagance and exag- 

 geration in their favorite pursuit, turning it into a solemn 

 and rather ridiculous business instead of a healthy and 

 vigorous pastime; but they could hunt only the beasts of 

 their own forests. The men who went on long voyages 

 usually had quite enough to do simply as travellers ; the 

 occupation of getting into unknown lands, and of keeping 

 alive when once in them, was in itself sufficiently absorb- 

 ing and hazardous to exclude any chance of combining 

 with it the role of sportsman. 



With the last century all this had changed. Even in 

 the eighteenth century it began to change. The Dutch 

 settlers at the Cape of Good Hope, and the English set- 

 tlers on the Atlantic coast of North America, found them- 

 selves thrown back into a stage of life where hunting was 

 one of the main means of livelihood, as well as the most 

 exciting and adventurous of pastimes. These men knew 

 the chase as men of their race had not known it since the 

 days before history dawned; and until the closing decades 

 of the last century the Americans and the Afrikanders of 

 the frontier largely led the lives of professional hunters. 

 Oom Paul and Buffalo Bill led very different careers 

 after they reached middle age ; but in their youth warfare 

 against wild beasts and wild men was the most serious 



