FOREWORD 
ix 
beside the boat; the giraffe looking over the tree-tops 
at the nearing 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. To his mind come 
memories of the lion’s charge ; of the grey 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, stand¬ 
ing 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 delight 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 splendour of the new stars; 
where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and 
sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of 
man, and changed only by the slow changes of the ages 
from time everlasting. 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
Khartoum, 
March 15, 1910. 
