19 APRIL 1930, Page 15

Country Life

CAMERA V. GUN.

One of the wonders of the world is the company of wild animals that inhabits East Africa ; and it is a wonder that we should do all we can to preserve. It needs preservation very badly : Ex Africa semper aliquid novi is now a proverb as little extant as the Okapi. I have just received a succession of letters, written at various stages, of a journey from Cairo to the Cape. The traveller was able to take his tickets in London and work out the route to a time-table so exact that he allowed less than a day's margin for catching his steamer at the _Cape. Such a journey indicates how absurdly accessi- ble are the very arcana of "darkest Africa." And not only the line of one route is open to the public. The climate and contour of much of East Africa often allow a free run to the motor; Car, even where no roads are. An old archeologist of my acquaintance used to say that the best cycle-tracks he ever rode upon were the forest paths of East Africa ; and he travelled hundreds of miles on an old " push-bike " that he had used on East Anglian roads!

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