2 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
by other sportsmen and travellers, and that the 
hospitality of my friends in England, and days with 
the Quorn and Mr. Tailby’s, combined with my 
natural aversion to any set task, have ill fitted me to 
redeem the monotony inseparable from a journal, or 
the apparent egotism in that of the lonely traveller, I 
nevertheless appear before the public, with the hope 
that if again I should return to the land of my adop¬ 
tion, beginning my travels where I have now left off, 
I may hereafter produce something better worth their 
perusal. 
I feel that I owe a few words of explanation to 
my many friends in Africa as to the reasons why 
I went there at all, with a page of my earlier life 
which may perhaps be omitted by the general 
reader. The love of sport, dogs, and horses was 
innate in me. From the age of six I had my two 
days a week on my pony with the neighbouring 
harriers; until, one unfortunate day, an extra achieve¬ 
ment, as I considered it, brought a kindly and well- 
meant caution to my father from the worthy squire, 
which had the effect of sending me off to school. 
There I got on, I suppose, much as others, and on 
leaving it, being of a roving turn of mind, I was 
placed in the large merchant’s office of an ex-M.P., 
with a view of being fitted for going abroad. No 
doubt I did my best (though, to say truth, my boats 
and bull-terriers, with our beagles, and meetings, 
somewhat militated against the duties and discipline 
of the office), till at last, upon comparing notes with 
