from either of these. They
want, first of all, to know what the country is like-not in vague and
grandiose "word paintings," nor in strange and foreign sounding words
and phrases, but in comparison with something they know. What is it
nearest like-Arizona? Surrey? Upper New York? Canada? Mexico? Or is it
totally different from anything, as is the Grand Canyon? When you look
out from your camp-any one camp-how far do you see, and what do you
see?-mountains in the distance, or a screen of vines or bamboo near
hand, or what? When you get up in the morning, what is the first thing
to do? What does a rhino look like, where he lives, and what did you do
the first time one came at you? I don't want you to tell me as though I
were either an old hunter or an admiring audience, or as though you were
afraid somebody might think you were making too much of the matter. I
want to know how you REALLY felt. Were you scared or nervous? or did you
become cool? Tell me frankly just how it was, so I can see the thing as
happening to a common everyday human being. Then, even at second-hand
and at ten thousand miles distance, I can enjoy it actually, humanly,
even though vicariously, speculating a bit over my pipe as to how I
would have liked it myself.

Obviously, to write such a book the author must at the same time sink
his ego and exhibit frankly his personality. The paradox in this is only
apparent. He must forget either to strut or to blush with diffidence.
Neither audience should be forgotten, and neither should be exclusively
addressed. Never should he lose sight of the wholesome fact that old
hunters are to read and to weigh; never should he for a moment slip
into the belief that he is justified in addressing the expert alone. His
attitude should be that many men know more and have done more than he,
but that for one reason or another these men are not ready to transmit
their knowledge and experience.

To set down the formulation of an ideal is one thing: to fulfil it is
another. In the following pages I cannot claim a fulfilment, but only an
attempt. The foregoing dissertation must be considered not as a promise,
but as an explanation. No one knows better than I how limited my
African experience is, both in time and extent, bounded as it is by East
Equatorial Africa and a year. Hundreds of men are better qualified than
myself to write just this book; but unfortunately they will not do it.

II. AFRICA

In looking back on t