12 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
if all wild animals were allowed to increase unchecked. 
There must be recognition of the fact that almost any wild 
animal. of the defenceless type, if its multiplication were 
unchecked while its natural enemies, the dangerous carni¬ 
vores, were killed, would by its simple increase crowd man 
off the planet; and of the further fact that, far short of 
such increase, a time speedily comes when the existence of 
too much game is incompatible with the interests, or indeed 
the existence, of the cultivator. As in most other matters, 
it is only the happy mean which is healthy and rational. 
There should be certain sanctuaries and nurseries where 
game can live and breed absolutely unmolested; and else¬ 
where the laws should so far as possible provide for the 
continued existence of the game in sufficient numbers to 
allow a reasonable amount of hunting on fair terms to any 
hardy and vigorous man fond of the sport, and yet not in 
sufficient numbers to jeopard the interests of the actual 
settler, the tiller of the soil, the man whose well-being 
should be the prime object to be kept in mind by every 
statesman. Game butchery is as objectionable as any 
other form of wanton cruelty or barbarity; but to protest 
against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not 
of soundness of heart. 
In the creation of the great game reserve through which 
the Uganda Railway runs the British Government has 
conferred a boon upon mankind, and no less in the enact¬ 
ment and enforcement of the game laws in the African 
provinces generally. Of course experience will show where, 
from time to time, there must be changes. In Uganda 
proper buffaloes and hippos throve so under protection as 
to become sources of grave danger not only to the crops but 
