African Game Trails

by Theodore Roosevelt

Game butchery is as objectionable as any other form of wanton cruelty or barbarity; but to protest against all hunting of game is a sign of softness of head, not of soundness of heart.

It means hard work, of course; but success generally does imply hard work.

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 civilized countries now undergoes the hideous horror which was the regular and frequent portion of his ages-vanished forefathers, and which is still an everyday incident in the lives of most wild creatures.

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 realize its utter mercilessness;