4 
THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [ch. i 
hunters, and Mr. Edward North Buxton, also a mighty 
hunter. On landing, we were to be met by Messrs. 
R. J. Cuninghame and Leslie Tarlton, both famous 
hunters—the latter an Australian, who served through 
the South African War ; the former by birth a Scots¬ 
man and a Cambridge man, but long a resident of 
Africa, and at one time a professional elephant-hunter, 
in addition to having been a whaler in the Arctic 
Ocean, a hunter-naturalist in Lapland, a transport rider 
in South Africa, and a collector for the British Museum 
in various odd corners of the earth. 
We sailed on the Hamburg from New York—what 
headway the Germans have made among those who go 
down to the sea in ships!—and at Naples transhipped 
to the Admiral , of another German line, the East 
African. On both ships we were as comfortable as 
possible, and the voyage was wholly devoid of incidents. 
Now and then, as at the Azores, at Suez, and at Aden, 
the three naturalists landed, and collected some dozens 
or scores of birds, which next day were skinned and 
prepared in my room, as the largest and best fitted for 
the purpose. After reaching Suez the ordinary tourist 
type of passenger ceased to be predominant; in his 
place there were Italian officers going out to a desolate 
coast town on the edge of Somaliland ; missionaries, 
German, English, and American ; Portuguese civil 
officials ; traders of different nationalities ; and planters 
and military and civil officers bound to German 
and British East Africa. The Englishmen included 
planters, magistrates, forest officials, army officers on 
leave from India, and other army officers going out to 
take command of black native levies in out-of-the-way 
regions where the English flag stands for all that makes 
life worth living. They were a fine set, these young 
