PREFACE 
IX 
its primaeval possessors—whether wild men or wild beasts. 
Twenty years ago a similar remark applied to British 
East—or the Kenya Colony as we must now call it. 
To-day, though splendid hunting-fields therein remain 
untouched, yet the Uganda railway has opened those 
healthier highlands to white settlers and colonists— 
fortunate, that, for Civilisation and the Empire. Such, 
however, can hardly occur in the Sudan, which, although 
capable of infinite development, will never become a 
“White Man’s Land.” 
Over all South Africa, over hunting-fields where 
within a century, Cornwallis Harris, Gordon-Cumming, 
Baldwin, Oswell, and—within my own day— Selous 
achieved exploits that can never be repeated, flaunts 
that sinister writing on the wall, Ichabod. In my Sudan, 
primaeval conditions continue absolutely unchanged ; and 
grateful indeed is the Author that to him it has been 
granted, both there and in Equatoria, to witness those 
glorious scenes during seven strenuous expeditions to 
the Heart of Africa. 
In conclusion, may I add that these Sudan expeditions 
complete a tale of fifty-four overseas ventures carried 
out during half a century —1869-1921—all inspired 
primarily, and many exclusively, by innate love of this 
Study of Wild Nature and by a ceaseless ambition to 
perfect personal acquaintance with ever more and more 
of her creatures—always, for choice, with those whose 
natures—savage, shy, or reclusive—render them the most 
intolerant of human prying into their secret lives. May 
this book serve to stimulate and to reinvigorate this, 
the grandest (yet the most neglected) of field-pursuits— 
the Study of Wild Nature on living; lines. 
Houxty, Wark, 
Northumberland, May 23 , 1921 . 
Abel Chapman. 
