FOREWORD 
IX 
horseman; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may 
rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their 
lethal beauty; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the 
laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty 
land. In after years there shall come to him memories of 
the lion^s charge; of the gray bulk of the elephant, close at 
hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes 
lowering from under his helmet of horn; of the rhinoceros, 
truculent and stupid, standing in the bright sunlight on the 
empty plain. 
These things can be told. But there are no words that 
can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal 
its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is de¬ 
light in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, 
in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from 
this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent 
places, of the large tropic moons, and the splendor of the 
new stars; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sun¬ 
rise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn 
of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages 
through time everlasting. 
Theodore Roosevelt. 
Khartoum, March 15, 1910. 
