ADVENTURER AFRICA
stone. He must be helmsman and chief, the cragsman,
the rifleman, the boat steerer. He must be the wielder of
axe and of paddle, the rider of fiery horses, the master
of the craft that leaps through white water. His eye must
be true and quick, his hand steady and strong. His heart
must never fail nor his head grow bewildered, whether
he face brute and human foes, or the frowning strength
of hostile nature, or the awful fear that grips those who
are lost in trackless lands. (1916.) Mem. Ed. IV, xxi;
Nat. Ed. III, 181.
ADVENTURER—DELIGHTS OF THE. The
grandest scenery of the world is his to look at if he
chooses; and he can witness the strange ways of tribes
who have survived into an alien age from an
immemorial past, tribes whose priests dance in honor of
the serpent and worship the spirits of the wolf and the
bear. Far and wide, all the continents are open to him as
they never were to any of his forefathers; the Nile and
the Paraguay are easy of access, and the border-land
between savagery and civilization; and the veil of the
past has been lifted so that he can dimly see how, in
time immeasurably remote, his ancestors—no less
remote—led furtive lives among uncouth and terrible
beasts, whose kind has perished utterly from the face of
the earth. He will take books with him as he journeys;
for the keenest enjoyment of the wilderness is reserved
for him who enjoys also the garnered wisdom of the
present and the past. He will take pleasure in the
companionship of the men of the open. . . .
The beauty and charm of the wilderness are his for
the asking, for the edges of the wilderness lie close
beside the beaten roads of the present travel. He can see
the red splendor of desert sunsets, and the unearthly
glory of the afterglow on the battlements of desolate
mountains. In sapphire gulfs of ocean he can visit islets,
above which the wings of myriads of sea-fowl make a
kind of shifting cuneiform script in the air. He can ride
along the brink of the stupendous cliff-walled canyon,
where eagles soar below him, and the cougars make
their lairs on the ledges and harry the big-horned sheep.
He can journey through the northern forests, the home
of the giant moose, the forests of fragrant and
murmuring life in summer, the iron-bound and
melancholy forests of winter.
The joy of living is his who has the heart to
demand it. (1916.) Mem. Ed. IV, xxii; Nat. Ed. III, 182.
ADVENTURE; ADVENTURER. See also
EXPLORATION; HUNTER; HUNTING; MOUNTAIN
CLIMBING; SPORTS.
AFRICA. "I speak of Africa and golden joys"; the joy
of wandering through lonely lands; the joy of hunting
the mighty and terrible lords of the wilderness, the
cunning, the wary, and the grim.
There are mountain peaks whose snows are
dazzling under the equatorial sun; swamps where the
slime oozes and bubbles and festers in the steaming
heat; lakes like seas; skies that burn above deserts
where the iron desolation is shrouded from view by the
wavering mockery of the mirage; vast grassy plains
where palms and thorn-trees fringe the dwindling
streams; mighty rivers rushing out of the heart of the
continent through the sadness of endless marshes;
forests of gorgeous beauty, where death broods in the
dark and silent depths.
There are regions as healthy as the northland; and
other regions, radiant with bright-hued flowers, birds,
and butterflies, odorous with sweet and heavy scents,
but treacherous in their beauty, and sinister to human
life. . . .
The dark-skinned races that live in the land vary
widely. Some are warlike, cattle-owning nomads; some
till the soil and live in thatched huts shaped like bee-
hives; some are fisherfolk; some are ape-like, naked
savages, who dwell in the woods and prey on creatures
not much wilder or lower than themselves. (1910.)
Mem. Ed. V, xxv; Nat. Ed. IV, xxiii.
____________. Equatorial Africa is in most places
none too healthy a place for the white man, and he must
care for himself as he would scorn to do in the lands of
pine and birch and frosty weather. Camping in the
Rockies or the North woods can with advantage be
combined with "roughing it"; and the early pioneers of
the West, the explorers, prospectors, and hunters, who
always roughed it, were as hardy as bears, and lived to
a hale old age, if Indians and accidents permitted. But
in tropic Africa a lamentable proportion of the early
explorers paid in health or life for the hardships they
endured; and throughout most of the country no man
can long rough it, in the Western and Northern sense,
with impunity. (1910.) Mem. Ed. V, 20; Nat. Ed. IV,
17.
____________. The widely spread rule of a strong
European race in lands like Africa gives, as one
incident thereof, the chance for nascent cultures,
nascent semicivilizations, to develop without fear of
being overwhelmed in the surrounding gulfs of
savagery; and this aside from the direct stimulus to
development conferred by the consciously and
unconsciously exercised influence of the white man,
wherein there is much of evil, but much more of
ultimate good. In any
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