IN THE HEART OF AFRICA 
CHAPTER I 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE JOURNEY 
I WAS first induced to visit Africa in 1902. During the month 
of March that year I was in Ceylon, where I had been hunting 
in the neighbourhood of Anaradjapura. Whilst there I received 
an invitation from Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy of India, 
asking me to accompany him on a tiger hunt or two, and I 
was very nearly unfaithful to my plan of having a look at 
Africa. However, the land which I knew from books, and the 
history of whose discovery and development had possessed my 
mind from earliest youth up, exercised an unconquerable fas¬ 
cination over me. I am thankful to-day that I did not allow 
myself to be led away by the tempting offer and that, aban¬ 
doning India, I threw in my lot with Africa. 
After visiting Daressalam and the great settlements in East 
and West Usambara, and whilst on a hunting tour in the Kilwa 
hinterland which I had embarked upon in company with the 
Governor, Mr. Rhode, District Judge, and Count von Gotzen, I 
learnt to know, and became thoroughly imbued with, the spirit 
and charm of African camp life. 
In the year 1904 a plan matured for a further journey to the 
land of my desire, but even at that period my ambitions soared 
higher than a mere hunting and pleasure trip. I hoped to 
connect a scientific mission with my new expedition, and acting 
on the advice of the authorities of the Berlin Zoological Museum, 
I decided in favour of the eastern shores of^Lake Victoria, a 
B 
