Like most novices, however, I was guilty of one great fault.

I despised the game, and gave no heed to the many tales of danger and hair-breadth escapes which attended the pursuit of wild animals.

This carelessness on my part arose from my first debut having been extremely lucky; most shots had told well, and the animal had been killed with such apparent ease that I had learnt to place an implicit reliance in the rifle.

The real fact was that I was like many others; I had slaughtered a number of animals without understanding their habits, and I was perfectly ignorant of the sport.

This is now many years ago, and it was then my first visit to the island.