As I listened to these
fine fellows, who in a modest and unassuming manner recounted
their adventures as matters of course, I felt exceedingly small.
My whole life had been passed in wild sports from early manhood,
and I had imagined that I understood as much as most people of
this subject; but here were men who, without the aid of the best
rifles and deadly projectiles, went straight at their game, and
faced the lion in his den with shield and sabre. There is a
freemasonry among hunters, and my heart was drawn towards these
aggageers. We fraternised upon the spot, and I looked forward
with intense pleasure to the day when we might become allies in
action.
I have been rewarded by this alliance in being now able to speak
of the deeds of others that far excel my own, and of bearing
testimony to the wonderful courage and dexterity of these
Nimrods, instead of continually relating anecdotes of dangers in
the first person, which cannot be more disagreeable to the reader
than to the narrator.
Without inflicting a description of five months passed in Sofi,
it will be necessary to make a few extracts from my journal, to
convey an idea of the manner in which the time was occupied.
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