INTRODUCTORY 
7 
odd head or two of big-game, efforts that ofttimes resulted 
blank. In such European lands there would be, as a 
rule, but a single species in any given area, and scarce— 
even problematic—at that. A whole weeks hard hunting 
might fail to produce even so much as a distant sight of 
game. Thus in Scandinavia my average during several 
seasons worked out at over nine days’ work for every 
bull-elk shot in the northern forests; while, on the “high 
fjeld,” each reindeer represented some six and a half days 
of supreme labour and rock-scrambling. How different 
is the case in Africa! In that favoured continent it is 
not unusual to have scores and even hundreds of head 
of big-game (including many different species) within view 
at once. In East Africa I have counted ten species from 
one standpoint [On Safari , p. 224), and in Sudan, on the 
Zeraf River, as many as seven. In each instance the 
aggregate numbers would run into many hundreds. 
But, after all, that hard initial apprenticeship in 
Europe remains a cherished memory; and besides, the 
contrast enables one to appreciate so much the more 
fully and keenly the abounding joys of Africa. 
In Sudan, the far-flung flats, innocent of hill or hollow, 
the reed-clad marsh and morass, and open forests seem 
to suggest that such should be a difficult stalking-country, 
since the stalker’s art is always easier in a rugged and 
broken region. That, however, is not in fact the case. 
Sudan game is rather less difficult of access than that of 
most other hunting-grounds within my own experience. 
Like all plain-dwellers, these Sudan animals possess the 
very keenest of vision, yet hardly avail themselves to 
the full of that faculty. True, the game is ceaselessly 
harassed, in season and out, by the savage tribes-— 
Shilluk, Dinka, and Nuer—yet hitherto it has not been 
so fully introduced to the long-range rifle as have its 
congeners further south. Hence the game’s conception 
of its true danger-zone is, as yet, too narrow, and in 
that pristine simplicity undue risks are accepted. Other 
