Big Game Shooting on The Equator
By Captain F. A. Dickinsonm, F.R.G.S.
CAPTAIN DICKINSON has asked me to write an introduction to his notes on Sport in East Africa, and I have much pleasure in complying with his request, although I am not a sportsman myself and have no qualification for speaking about sport in our Equatorial African possessions.
But I know the country well, and can bear witness to the extraordinary and almost incredible quantity of big game which it contains.
Tropical Africa is remarkable for the number and variety of large Ungulata contained in its fauna, and all the conditions are favorable to the sportsman and even to the mere sightseer.
The country is open, and hence whatever game there is can be seen without difficulty, whereas in neighboring countries, such as Uganda, it is hidden by forests and high grass; also legislation has intervened in time to stop the havoc wrought by the unrestrained energy of private sportsmen, and reserves of considerable extent have been established within whose precincts no animal may be killed.
The Uganda Railway passes through the best known of these reserves, and for almost one hundred miles the traveler may view from the windows of his railway carriage the surprising spectacle of large and beautiful animals which are rarely seen outside zoological gardens feeding freely and without fear close to the railway track.
The two most abundant animals are the Zebra, which may be seen in herds which sometimes literally contain thousands, and the Hartebeest or Kongoni, a strongly built antelope of somewhat bovine appearance, with a sloping back.