Trail and Camp-Fire 



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 travel- 

 ers; the occupation of getting into unknown lands was 

 in itself sufficiently absorbing and hazardous to exclude 

 any chance of combining with it the r61e of sportsman. 



With the present century all this has changed. Even 

 in the last century it began to change. The Dutch 

 settlers at the Cape of Good Hope, and the English 

 settlers on the Atlantic coast of North America, found 

 themselves thrown back into a stage of life where hunt- 

 ing was one of the main means of livelihood, as well as 

 the most exciting and adventurous of pastimes. These 

 men knew the chase as no men of their race had known 

 it since the days before history dawned; and until the 

 closing decades of the present century, the American and 

 the Afrikander of the frontier largely led the lives of 

 professional hunters. Oom Paul and Buffalo Bill have 

 had very different careers since they reached middle age; 

 but in their youth warfare against wild beasts and wild 

 men was the most serious part of the life work of both. 

 They and their fellows did the rough pioneer work of 

 civilization, under conditions which have now vanished 

 for ever; and their type will perish with the passing of 

 the forces that called it into being. But the big game 

 hunter, whose campaigns against big game are not sim- 

 ply incidents in his career as a pioneer settler, will re- 

 main with us for some time longer; and it is of him and 

 his writings that we wish to treat. 



Toward the end of the last century this big game 

 hunter had already appeared, although, like all early 

 types, he was not yet thoroughly specialized. Le Vail- 



322 



