I myself am conscious of a steadily increasing distaste for face-to-face encounters with rhinoceroses, and with elephants still more. There are indeed other denizens of the East African jungle whose defensive and offensive capabilities it would be no less a mistake to under estimate. The most experienced and most authoritative Anglo-Saxon sportsmen are, in fact, agreed that, whether it be a question of going-after lions or leopards or African buffaloes, sooner or later the luck goes against the hunter. Of recent years a large number of good shots have lost their lives in Africa. If one of these animals once gets at you, you are as good as dead. To be chased by an African elephant is as exciting a sensation as a man could wish for. The fierceness of his on-rush passes description. He makes for you suddenly, unexpectedly. The overpowering proportions of the enraged beast--the grotesque aspect of his immense flapping ears, which make his huge head look more formidable than ever--the incredible pace at which he thunders along--all combine with his shrill trumpeting to produce an effect upon the mind of the hunter, now turned quarry, which he will never shake himself rid of as long as life lasts. When--as happened once to me--it is a case not of one single elephant, but of an entire herd giving chase in the open plain (as described in _With Flashlight and Rifle_), the reader will have no difficulty in understanding that even now I sometimes live the whole situation over again in my dreams and that I have more than once awoke from them in a frenzy of terror. Of course, a man becomes hardened in regard to hunting accidents in course of time, especially if all his adventures have had fortunate issues. When, however, a man has repeatedly escaped destruction by a hairs-breadth only, and when incidents of this kind have been heaped up one on another within a brief space of time, the effects upon the nervous system become so great that even with the utmost self-mastery a man ceases to be able to bear them. As I have already said, the total number of casualties in the ranks of African sportsmen is not inconsiderable. [Illustration: ORYX ANTELOPE BULL, NOT YET AWARE OF MY APPROACH.] [Illustration: A HERD OF ORYX ANTELOPES (_ORIX CALLOTIS_, Thos.), CALLED BY THE COAST-FOLK “CHIROA.”] [Illustration: WATERBUCK. THEY SOMETIMES LOOK QUITE BLACK, AS THIS PHOTOGRAPH SUGGESTS. IT DEPENDS UPON THE LIGHT.] [Illustration: HEAD OF A BULL WATERBUCK (_COBUS ELLIPSIPRYMNUS_, Ogilb.).] In Germany, of course, we have time-honoured sports of a dangerous nature too, but these are exceptions--for instance, killing the wild boar with a spear, and mountain-climbing and stalking.