Publisher's Synopsis
Ever since I can remember, almost, I have cherished a modest ambition to hunt lions and elephants. At an early age, or, to be more exact, at about that age which finds most boys wondering whether they 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.
