i 4 4 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



once ranged in such countless multitudes, and of 

 rugged mountain ranges where the wapiti, once so 

 plentiful, still roams warily, never now showing his 

 magnificently antlered head beyond the shadow of 

 the dark pine forests, if he can possibly avoid doing 

 so. In a word, I wished to see wild America if there 

 was any left, not the new Europe of the Eastern 

 States. 



In 1893 I came very near the realisation of my 

 dream, for I had actually booked my passage to New 

 York and was passing through London on my way 

 to join the steamer, when judging from a cablegram 

 in one of the daily papers that trouble was surely 

 brewing between the Matabele natives and the settlers 

 in Mashonaland, I hurriedly changed my plans and 

 embarked for the Cape instead. 



From that time till 1897 circumstances kept me in 

 the Old World, but in that year I was able, in com- 

 pany with my wife, to join a friend who owns a cattle 

 ranch in Wyoming, in an expedition to the Rocky 

 Mountains. September i having been appointed as 

 the day on which we were to start from the ranch on 

 our hunting trip, my wife and I were able to accept 

 an invitation which had been extended to us to be 

 present at the meeting of the British Association 

 which was held in Toronto during August of the 

 same year. We crossed from Liverpool to Montreal 

 early in that month, in the good ship " Parisian " of 

 the Allan line, but being anxious to get to the Rocky 



