About a century ago the “Twilight of the Gods” (_Götterdämmerung_) began for all the wild life of the Cape region of South Africa. Even before these hundred years had run out it was ended; this abundant flood of life had disappeared.... [Illustration: BATELEUR EAGLE IN FLIGHT.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ LIKE A ROSY RED CLOUD THE FLAMINGOES FLY DOWN ON THE MARGIN OF THE NATRON LAKE.] [Illustration: A FRANCOLIN PERCHED ON A THORN-BUSH.] VII The Voices of the Wilderness The German sportsman knows well the mysterious charm that speaks to the listener, when in the woods in spring he hears the note of the woodcock and the cry of the ptarmigan, and when in autumn he hears the call of the stag to its mate. It must be that the listener is subject to some atavistic influence, some impulse rooted in the dim past now quickening into life. Let him who understands this charm follow me through the equatorial wilderness, and listen with me to the music of songs and notes that we may call the language of the Nyíka. We shall hear it there on every side, by day and by night. True, fully to understand this language one should have King Solomon’s magic power, which made its possessor understand the speech of animals, or like Siegfried have dipped one’s hand in the blood of the dragon, and thus have acquired the gift of holding converse with the birds. This much is certain, in the wildernesses of Africa this primeval language is still to be heard. In our hunting grounds at home the voices of the aurochs, the bison, the ibex, the bear, the lynx, and the wolf have been silenced, and many other voices that have belonged to the wild open country since primeval days have all but died away. I have indeed learned to understand only a few words of this language of the wilderness, though I have heard thousands of its sounds. But I may be able to tell something about it.