Thrilling Stories of the Forest and Frontier [Illustrated]

Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming (1820 – 1866) was a Scottish traveller and sportsman, known as the "lion hunter". He was the second son of Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet. 1843 he joined the Cape Mounted Rifles, but for the sake of absolute freedom sold out at the end of the year and with an ox wagon and a few native followers set out for the interior of Africa. He hunted chiefly in Bechuanaland and the valley of the Limpopo River, regions then swarming with big game. He was a noted author of books on hunting big game.

Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming was a favorite author of Theodore Roosevelt who read his books to his children before bedtime, as Roosevelt's son Kermit remembers: "Father's hunting experiences had been confined to the United States, but he had taken especial interest in reading about Africa, the sportsman's paradise. When we were small he would read us incidents from the hunting books of Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, or Samuel Baker, or Drummond, or Baldwin. These we always referred to as "I stories," because they were told in the first person, and when we were sent to bed we would clamor for just one more, a petition that was seldom denied."

Originally published by H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss in 1860; may contain occasional defect from original publication or from reformatting.