The year is 1895. Three young men Frank, Harry, and Jack leave their breakfast half-eaten when word comes that elephants are nearby, and the hunt begins. But they are not alone in the South African wilderness. Two British women Miss Boland and Mrs. Roberts have organized their own expedition from Walvisch Bay, and as the paths of these hunting parties converge, something far more dangerous than lions awaits: romance. Thomas Wallace Knox, veteran journalist and actual big-game hunter, writes with the authority of someone who has stared down elephants and lived to tell of it. The encounters here are genuine: the tense stalk through forest, the charge of a wounded animal, the serpent in the shallows. Yet it is the women who ultimately claim their prizes, bagging two of the hunters themselves. A fascinating artifact of Victorian adventure literature that subverts its own machismo, this is for readers who want to feel the rush of the chase and glimpse a world where the wild still held terror and wonder in equal measure.
