CHAPTER XXIII 
FASCICTTLA 
I. Retrospective 
It may amuse after a completed venture to return 
to the distant standpoint whence a promised land was 
first surveyed, and to “ reconstitute ” the original ideas 
and frame of mind. This is the way my brother 
regarded an East-African expedition when first proposed 
to him in April 1904— 
“I have just re-read ‘Jackson’ [ Badminton —‘Big 
Game ’], and admit to be a bit disconcerted, though of 
course the railway has modified things since that time. 
Still he doesn’t speak of the Kilimanjaro country being 
altogether healthy, and warns against ‘flies,’ which, 
as you know, are death to me. No doubt there was 
any amount of game—though, mind, I draw a very 
distinct line of demarcation between big game and 
dangerous game. Elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo and all 
such Noah’s Ark beasts are outside my schedule. The 
more subtle and venomous beasts of the field, I must 
just trust to Providence to escape the vengeance of. 
The giraffe I regard it as a shame to kill at all, and that 
only leaves me the antelopes. To get the bigger kinds, 
we shall have to trekk a long way in from the railway, 
and I do not think either of us can now do very hard 
work in such tropical heat; and if you go up too high, 
there is nothing but elephant and they in impenetrable 
forest! Jackson speaks of the labour [after elephants] 
being utterly exhausting. Now, I love big game, and 
can sit on a log and watch for it all day, but . . . 
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