336 
WILD BEASTS AND THEIR WA VS 
CHAP. 
generally adopted in Central Africa is far more 
dangerous than the careful contrivances of India, 
where the tiger, as fully described, is hunted either 
upon elephants or by posting the guns in secure 
positions. Even in Rajpootana, where hunting is 
frequently conducted upon foot, the ground is 
specially favourable among deep and precipitous 
ravines, where abrupt rocks and perpendicular 
banks afford protection to the hunter. 
In Central Africa the climate and fodder are so 
detrimental to horses that the explorer quickly 
discovers the utility of his own legs, and no ex¬ 
perience is so conducive to steady and accurate 
shooting as the knowledge of an impossibility to 
escape by speed. We are all creatures of habit, 
and are more or less the slaves of custom ; this 
is proved ad absurdum by the peculiar feeling when 
a man who is accustomed to shoot tigers from the 
secure and lofty position in a tree, finds himself 
compelled to seek the animal upon foot. In Africa, 
also in Ceylon, the hunter is so much in the habit 
of standing upon his own legs that he ceases to 
fear the attack of any creature, feeling certain of 
the accuracy of his rifle ; but this ^ame individual 
would begin to feel unnaturally exposed if, after a 
continuous experience in secure mucharns and 
mounted upon elephants, he should be suddenly 
called upon to seek a wounded tiger or lion upon 
foot. I have never followed lions except on foot. 
They are killed by the Hamran Arabs on horseback, 
fairly hunted by two or three of these splendid 
