Vlll 
FOREWORD 
foes before which he himself perishes in his hundreds of 
thousands. 
The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary 
widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads ; 
some till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped 
like beehives ; some are fisherfolk ; some are ape-like, 
naked savages, who dwell in the woods and prey 
on creatures not much wilder or lower than them¬ 
selves. 
The land teems with beasts of the chase, infinite in 
number and incredible in variety. It holds the fiercest 
beasts of ravin, and the fleetest and most timid of 
those things that live in undying fear of talon and 
fang. It holds the largest and the smallest of hoofed 
animals. It holds the mightiest creatures that tread 
the earth or swim in its rivers ; it also holds distant 
kinsfolk of these same creatures, no bigger than wood¬ 
chucks, which dwell in crannies of the rocks, and in the 
tree-tops. There are antelope smaller than hares, and 
antelope larger than oxen. There are creatures which 
are the embodiments of grace ; and others whose huge 
ungainliness is like that of a shape in a nightmare. 
The plains are alive with droves of strange and beautiful 
animals whose like is not known elsewhere; and with 
others, even stranger, that show both in form and temper 
something of the fantastic and the grotesque. It is a 
never-ending pleasure to gaze at the great herds of 
buck as they move to and fro in their myriads ; as they 
stand for their noontide rest in the quivering heat haze ; 
as the long files come down to drink at the watering- 
places ; as they feed and fight and rest and make love. 
The hunter who wanders through these lands sees 
sights which ever afterward remain fixed in his mind. 
He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging 
