A HOT DAY IN THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY.] But here it can no longer exercise any spell. That has flown far, far away, into the interior. There, where the white man has not yet come, it still prolongs its existence. How long, yet will it be before it has entirely departed? [Illustration: GROUP OF MASAI--THE WARRIOR ON THE LEFT DRESSED IN A COSTUME IMPROVISED OUT OF A COLOURED BED QUILT.] [Illustration: ONE OF THE OLDEST “NATURE DOCUMENTS” FROM THE HAND OF MAN. PREHISTORIC SKETCH OF A MAMMOTH ON A FRAGMENT OF IVORY. (From L. Reinhardt’s work _Der Mensch zur Eiszeit in Europa_.)] II From the Cave-dweller’s Sketch to the Flashlight Photograph The mysterious charm of wild nature, undisturbed, almost untouched, by the hand of man,--the charm inherent in all that I have in mind when I talk of “the spell of the Elelescho”--explains the keen and profound interest with which my pictures of animal life were received at home. In these days, when even electricity has been harnessed by men, there is a feeling that the knell has been sounded of all that is wild, be it man or beast. And however unpretending and inadequate the little pictures might be that I had won from the wilderness, yet all nature-lovers felt that they had here before them authentic, first-hand records revealing secrets which the eye of man had never before looked upon, or had had but scant opportunity for studying. These pictures were the first to show really wild animals in full freedom, just as they actually live their life on velt and marsh-land, in bush, forest, air, and water. They showed nature in its unalloyed reality, and therefore a peculiar stamp of truth and beauty must have imprinted itself upon them. They came, too, as a surprise, for in many points the hitherto accepted representations of the animal world and those given by my photographs did not agree. Mere subject counts for so much in a picture with most people that it takes them a long time to appreciate a work of art the subject of which does not at the first glance appeal to them. This applies peculiarly to my African photographs. It is not a very easy matter for the eye to grasp the movements of the varying forms of animal life in their natural freedom. Often their appearance is so blended with their surroundings that it requires long practice to distinguish the individual characteristics of each, the fleeting graces of their momentary aspects.