Mountains of the Moon were a vast range, stretching across Africa from
east to west, which in all probability would harbour wild goats and
sheep, as the Himalaya range does. There, too, I thought I should find
the Nile rising in snow, as does the Ganges in the Himalayas.

The time I proposed to myself for carrying this scheme into operation
was my furlough--a lease of three years' leave of absence, which I
should become entitled to at the expiration of ten years' service in
India; but I would not leave the reader to infer that I intended
devoting the whole of my furlough to this one pursuit alone. Two of
the three years were to be occupied in collecting animals, and
descending by the valley of the Nile to Egypt and England, whilst the
third year was to be spent in indulgent recreations at home after my
labours should be over.

I had now served five years in the Indian army, and five years were
left to serve ere I should become entitled to take my furlough. During
this time I had to consider two important questions: How I should be
able, out of my very limited pay as a subaltern officer, to meet the
heavy expenditure which such a vast undertaking would necessarily
involve? and how, before leaving India, I might best employ any local
leave I could obtain, in completing my already commenced collections
of the fauna of that country and its adjacent hill-ranges?[1]

Previous experience had taught me that, in the prosecution of my chief
hobby, I would also solve the problem of the most economical mode of
living. In the backwoods and jungles no ceremony or etiquette provokes
unnecessary expenditure; whilst the fewer men and material I took with
me on my sporting excursions the better sport I always got, and the
freer and more independent I was to carry on the chase. I need now