MR ROOSEVELT'S "AFRICAN GAME TRAILS"* 



IN these greatest of the world's great 

 hunting grounds there are mountain 

 peaks whose snows are dazzling 

 under the equatorial sun ; swamps where 

 the slime oozes and hubbies and festers in 

 the steaming heat ; lakes like seas ; skies 

 that burn above deserts where the iron 

 desolation is shrouded from view by the 

 wavering mockery of the mirage; vast 

 grassy plains where palms and thorn 

 trees fringe the dwindling streams ; 

 mighty rivers rushing out of the heart 

 of the continent through the sadness of 

 endless marshes; forests of gorgeous 



that feed on the flesh of man, and among 

 the lower things that crawl, and fly, and 

 sting, and bite, he finds swarming foes 

 far more evil and deadly than any beast 

 or reptile — foes that kill his crops and 

 his cattle ; foes before which he him- 

 self perishes in his hundreds of thou- 

 sands. . . . 



"The land teems with beasts of the 

 chase, infinite in number and incredible 

 in variety. It holds the fiercest beasts 

 of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid 

 of those beings that live in undying fear 

 of talon and fang. It holds the largest 



From "African Game Trails," by Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright by Charles Scribner's Sons 

 THE MONITOR LIZARD ROBBING A CROCODILE S NEST 

 From a photograph by J. Alden Loring 



beauty, where death broods in the dark 

 and silent depths. 



''There are regions as healthy as the 

 northland, and other regions, radiant 

 with bright-hued flowers, birds, and but- 

 terflies, odorous with sweet and heavy 

 scents, but treacherous in their beauty 

 and sinister to human life. On the land 

 and in the water there are dread brutes 



and the smallest of hoofed animals. It 

 holds the mightiest creatures that tread 

 the earth or swim in its rivers ; it also 

 holds distant kinfolk of these same crea- 

 tures, no bigger than woodchucks, which 

 dwell in crannies of the rocks and in the 

 treetops. There are antelope smaller 

 than hares, and antelope larger than 

 oxen. There are creatures which are the 



*African Game Trails. An account of the African wanderings of an American Hnnter- 

 Naturalist. By Theodore Roosevelt. With illustrations from photographs by Kermit Roose- 

 velt and other members of the Expedition, and from drawings by Philip R. Goodwin. New 

 York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1910. $4.00 net. 



