Thus would I spend day after day, getting to know almost all the wild denizens of East Africa, either by seeing them in the flesh or by studying their tracks and traces, cherishing more and more the wish to be able to achieve some record of all these beautiful phases of wild life. I repeat: as a rule you will carry away with you but one or another memory from your too brief day’s wandering, but there come days when a succession of marvellous pictures seem to be unrolled before your gaze, as in an endless panorama. It is the experience of one such day that I have tried here to place on record. Professor Moebius is right in what he says: “Æsthetic views of animals are based not upon knowledge of the physiological causes of their forms, colouring, and methods of motion, but upon the impression made upon the observer by their various features and outward characteristics as parts of a harmonious whole. The more the parts combine to effect this unity and harmony, the more beautiful the animal seems to us.” Similarly, a landscape seems to me most impressive and harmonious when it retains all its original elements. No section of its flora or fauna can be removed without disturbing the harmony of the whole. Within a few years, if this be not actually the case already, all that I have here described so fully will no longer be in existence along the banks of the Pangani. When I myself first saw these things, often my thoughts went back to those distant ages when in the lands now known as Germany the same description of wild life was extant in the river valleys, when hippopotami made their home in the Rhine and Main, and elephants and rhinoceroses still flourished.... What I saw there before me in the flesh I learnt to see with my mind’s eye in the long-forgotten past. It is the duty of any one whose good fortune it has been to witness such scenes of charm and loveliness to endeavour to leave some record of them as best he may, and by whatever means he has at his command. [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ EGYPTIAN GEESE.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ A WOUNDED BUFFALO.] [Illustration: _C. G. Schillings, phot._ FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION OF ONE OF MY HUNTING RECORD-CARDS, ENUMERATING ALL THE DIFFERENT ANIMALS I SIGHTED ONE DAY (AUGUST 21, 1898) IN THE COURSE OF AN EXPEDITION IN THE VICINITY OF THE MASIMANI HILLS, HALF-WAY UP THE PANGANI RIVER. THE DOTTED LINE SHOWS MY ROUTE AND THE NUMBERS INDICATE THE SPOTS AT WHICH I CAME UPON THE VARIOUS SPECIES OF GAME. AT ANOTHER TIME OF THE YEAR THIS DISTRICT WOULD BE ENTIRELY DESTITUTE OF WILD LIFE.] [Illustration: A SEA-GULL.] [Illustration: A MASAI THROWING HIS SPEAR.] IX After Elephants with Wandorobo