You cannot get a
skin from a native with them on, and gay, reckless young hunters
wear them stuck in their hair and swagger tremendously while the
Elders shake their heads and keep a keen eye on their subsequent
conduct.
I must say the African leopard is an audacious animal, although it
is ungrateful of me to say a word against him, after the way he has
let me off personally, and I will speak of his extreme beauty as
compensation for my ingratitude. I really think, taken as a whole,
he is the most lovely animal I have ever seen; only seeing him, in
the one way you can gain a full idea of his beauty, namely in his
native forest, is not an unmixed joy to a person, like myself, of a
nervous disposition. I may remark that my nervousness regarding the
big game of Africa is of a rather peculiar kind. I can confidently
say I am not afraid of any wild animal - until I see it - and then -
well I will yield to nobody in terror; fortunately as I say my
terror is a special variety; fortunately, because no one can manage
their own terror. You can suppress alarm, excitement, fear, fright,
and all those small-fry emotions, but the real terror is as
dependent on the inner make of you as the colour of your eyes, or
the shape of your nose; and when terror ascends its throne in my
mind I become preternaturally artful, and intelligent to an extent
utterly foreign to my true nature, and save, in the case of close
quarters with bad big animals, a feeling of rage against some
unknown person that such things as leopards, elephants, crocodiles,
etc., should be allowed out loose in that disgracefully dangerous
way, I do not think much about it at the time.
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