TERRORS OF THE WILD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 77, 9 July 1910, Page 9

TERRORS OF THE WILD

Mr. Roosevelt, in his latest article dealing with his hunting experiences in Central Africa, describes in an interesting passage the terrors of the wild. Watching the game, he says, one was struck by the intensity and the evanescence of their emotions. Civilised man now usually places his life under conditions which eliminate the intensity of terror felt by his ancestors when death by violence was their normal end, and threatened them during every hour of the day and night. It is only in nightmares that the average dweller in civilised countries now undergoes the hideous horror which was the regular and frequent portion of his ages-vanished fore- • fathers, and which is still an every-day incident in the lives of most wild creatures. But the dread is short-lived, and its horror vanishes with instantaneous i rapidity. In these wilds the game dreaded the lion and the other flesh-eating beasts rather than man. We saw innumerable kills of all the buck, an.l of zebra, the neck being usually dislocated, and it being evident that none of tms lion's victims, not even the truculent wildebeeste or huge eland, had been able to make anv fight against him. The game is ever on the alert against tins greatest of foes, and every herd, almost | everv individual, is in imminent and deadly peril every few days or nights, and of course suffers in addition from countless false alarms. But no sooner is the danger over than the animals resume their feeding, or love-making, or their fighting amongst themselves. Two bucks "will do battle the minute the herd has stopped running from the that has seized one of its number, and a buck resumes his love-making with ardor in the brief interval between the first and the second alarm from hunter and lion. Zebra will make much noise when one of their number has k-en killed, but their fright has vanished when once they begin their ly.irking calls. Death by violence", death by cold, death by starvation—these are the normal endings of the stately and 'beautiful creatures of the wilderness. The sentimentalists who prattle about the peaceful life of nature do not realise its uttermercilessness, although all they would have to do would be to look at the birds in the winter . wood*, or even at the insects on a cold I nioniinir or cold evening. Life is imrd and cruel for all the lower creatures, and for man also in what the sentimentalists call a "state of nature." The savage of to-day shows us what the fancied) age of gold of our ancesM's wa s_realb'ii*e; it was an "age when lrunger, cold"?vio-1 lence, and iron cruelty were the ordjhary | accompaniments of life. If Matthew Ar-i nold, when he expressed the wish tc | know the thoughts of earth's "vigorous.; primitive" tribes of the past, had really j desired answer to- his question, he would | have done well to vi«it the home.-, of the i existing representatives of his "vigorous, primitive" ancestors, an.l to watch tlieni , feasting mi blood and guts; while :■■■ for the -pellucid and I'lirc" feeling, o) , his imaginary primitive nnidea, they i were those of any meek, i-owlike >:■.'«•: ture who accepted' marriage by purchase or of convenience as a matter of course.