PREFACE 
viii 
distinct episodes, choosing from my experiences 
only those which I feel will interest even the 
ordinary reader who knows little of, and cares less 
for, the technicalities of big game hunting. For, 
apart from the number of admirably written books 
dealing voluminously with the above sport, I feel 
that a detailed and consecutive account of even a 
hunter’s career is apt at times to pall, and I have, 
therefore, striven to eliminate from my humble 
effort all that is not illuminating in some phase or 
other. 
Before proceeding further, and in the light of 
some of the personal adventures which follow, a 
very brief sketch of my life abroad may be of some 
interest to the reader, and lend a certain cohesion 
to my stories as far as the question of time is 
concerned. 
I left the Old Country for Cape Town, in the 
early part of 1896, with the object of carving out a 
career for myself. I had no precise knowledge of 
what that career was to be, I simply experienced an 
urgent desire to wander—a desire probably inherited 
from my father, who spent his early manhood gold- 
digging in New Zealand and Australia. 
Those early days abroad gave me little that is of 
any great interest. I moved from Cape Town to 
Johannesburg (where I spent some time in hospital 
suffering from the effects of a bullet wound), and 
