CHAPTER X 



After saying good-bye to my friend I hastened on to Johannesburg, where 

 Mr. DufFus, an enterprising Scotchman from Aberdeen, took an excellent 

 photograph of my waggon and heads.^ Looking at the display of horns, the 

 reader may perhaps be led to suppose that the bag is a much larger one than it 

 really was ; but as a matter of fact all the skins and horns packed comfortably 

 away in the small space beneath the kartel. Indeed, the district I traversed was 

 by no means overstocked with game, though for variety of sport, and especially 

 of antelopes, I think it would be bad to beat. I should not, however, 

 recommend this route nowadays, the journey being exceptionally long and 

 tedious. By going in from Beira on foot one can almost at once find game in 

 far greater quantity. At the same time these pedestrian trips have their 

 disadvantages, for the chief delights of African sport can only be enjoyed from 

 the saddle of a really good horse. Moreover, in all these east coast localities 

 the climate is bad, and there is no certainty of obtaining either koodoo or sable 

 antelope, the heads of which are, to my thinking, the finest trophies that Africa 

 produces. Personally I was exceptionally fortunate with these two animals, 

 but then I gave up more than half my time exclusively to their pursuit ; for, 

 as every hunter knows, in a new country there is nothing to be learned by 

 squandering your attention on every object you come across. Let politicians 

 say what they may, there is no such urgent necessity for " one man, one vote " 

 as for " one trip, one animal " (or, say, at most two) to him who would make 

 the best of his time as a sportsman and a naturalist. Nearly all wild beasts are 

 becoming every day more difficult to obtain, and all vary in their habits more 

 or less ; the hunter may therefore be well content with one or two good 

 specimens of any one species, and having got these, to pass on to the next. 



Hardly anything new, I think, can now be said about either lions, elephants, 



1 See p. 319. 



