hey would rather
be Indian fighters or sailors, I ran across a copy of Stanley's _Through
the Dark Continent_. It was full of fascinating adventures. I thrilled
at the accounts which spoke in terms of easy familiarity of "express"
rifles and "elephant" guns, and in my vivid but misguided imagination, I
pictured an elephant gun as a sort of cannon--a huge, unwieldy
arquebus--that fired a ponderous shell. The old woodcuts of daring
hunters and charging lions inspired me with unrest and longing--the
longing to bid the farm farewell and start down the road for Africa.
Africa! What a picture it conjured up in my fancy! Then, as even now, it
symbolized a world of adventurous possibilities; and in my boyhood
fancy, it lay away off there--somewhere--vaguely--beyond mountains and
deserts and oceans, a vast, mysterious, unknown land, that swarmed with
inviting dangers and alluring romance.

One by one my other youthful ambitions have been laid away. I have given
up hope of ever being an Indian fighter out on the plains, because the
pesky redskins have long since ceased to need my strong right arm to
quell them. I also have yielded up my ambition to be a sailor, or
rather, that branch of the profession in which I hoped to
specialize--piracy--because, for some regretful reason, piracy has lost
much of its charm in these days of great liners. There is no treasure to
search for any more, and the golden age of the splendid clipper ships,
with their immense spread of canvas, has given way to the unromantic age
of the grimy steamer, about which there is so little to appeal to the
imagination. Consequently, lion hunting is about the only thing
left--except wars, and they are few and far between.

And so, after suffering this "lion-hunting" ambition to lie fallow for
many years, I at last reached a day when it seemed possible to realize
it. The chance came in a curiously unexpected way. Mr. Akeley, a man
famed in African hunting exploits, was to deliver a talk before a little
club to which I belonged. I went, and as a result of my thrilled
interest in every word he said, I met him and talked with him and
finally was asked to join a new African expedition that he had in
prospect. With the party were to be Mrs. Akeley, with a record of
fourteen months in the big game country, and Mr. Stephenson, a hunter
with many years of experience in the wild places of the United States,
Canada and Mexico. My hunting experience had been chiefly gained i