Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O Part 16

In this doubtless Roosevelt was correct; but Selous had hunted in a district where all good heads had been picked off, and the range and feed of wapiti had been so curtailed that even at this date and now it is practically impossible to obtain a good specimen.

In April, 1899, he went with his wife to Wiesbaden, returning in June.

In October he paid a short visit to his friend, Mr. Danford, in Transylvania, where he killed some good specimens of chamois--one, a female, having horns 11 inches long. In November he came home again, and having some thought of hunting elk in Norway in the following year, wrote to me in November, 1899: "I want to hear all about your hunt in Norway, so come over here at once. I am very glad to hear you were so successful with the elk and bear, and should much like to have a try next year, if I could stand the work, which I have always heard is very hard." This hunt, however, failed to materialize.

One of Selous' beliefs was that it was impossible for men to hold wide sympathies and to lead others towards the light unless they had been through the grinding-mill of experience in other lands. His broad-minded outlook made him a cosmopolitan in one sense of the word, for he found good and something ever to learn from the men of all nations; yet withal at heart he was intensely English of the English, and believed in our destiny, as a nation, as a guiding light to universal understanding.

His view was that no man had any right to express an opinion on another nation unless that man had lived amongst the people he criticized _and could speak their language_. Such a theory would no doubt be unpopular, but it is right. In international differences all kinds of people express their views in contemporary literature just because they happen to have the ear of the public; but how many of these really know anything about the people they criticize. A popular cry is raised, and the mob follow like a flock of sheep. An instance of this was the complete misunderstanding of the causes of the Boer War and Boer nation.

There were not half a dozen men in England or Africa to tell the public at home the true state of things, and when they did express their views they were quickly drowned in a flood of lies and misrepresentations by interested politicians and gold-magnates who held the press. Men like Selous and Sir William Butler, because they told the absolute truth, were dubbed "Pro-Boers," when in reality they were the best examples of "Pro-English" Englishmen. They simply could not be silent amongst the welter of falsehoods, and only tried to stem the flowing tide of mendacity. Their strongly expressed view that the war would not be a walk-over for us, and that we were fighting a gallant foe who deemed themselves right in defending their country, which had been most distinctly given back to them by inviolable treaties (made by the Gladstone Government), was correct, and that they would fight desperately and to a large extent successfully was abundantly proved by subsequent events. If Selous made a mistake it was in allowing certain letters to the "Times" and "Morning Post" to appear _after the war had commenced_. I have reason, however, to believe that these letters were written and sent in prior to the commencement of hostilities, and that they were "held over" to a time when their appearance was, to say the least of it, unfortunate.

In justice to Selous, however, it must be said that after this he kept silent, nor did he ever utter a word publicly in the matter. He felt that we were now hopelessly involved, and that anything he could say would be of little use. Though he felt sad and disappointed over the whole matter, he was far too much a patriot to do other than wish success to our arms, though he ever hoped that some amicable settlement would evolve out of the whole disastrous affair. Afterwards too he often expressed his appreciation of the n.o.ble way in which the subsequent British Government treated the Boers, both at the conclusion of peace and the liberal manner in which we sought to bury the hatchet--a manner which unfortunately has not always met with success amongst the older Boer irreconcilables. Men like Botha and s.m.u.ts have proved that our later policy has been broad-minded and humane, and that in time we shall amalgamate in one South African Dominion a nation absolutely loyal to the British Crown; but it will be a long time before the malcontents have lost all their bitterness and a new generation understands what is meant by a Greater South Africa.

His true feelings as regards the war are thus stated in a letter to me, November 5th, 1899:--

"This war is a most deplorable business; but of course, as you say, we _must_ bring it to a successful conclusion now at whatever cost; but think what South Africa will be like when it is over. However, it is useless talking about it. My letters to the 'Times' have raised a great deal of ill-feeling against me in this country."

And again, writing January 1st, 1900, he says:--

"I am very depressed about this war. It is a bad business, and justice is not on our side. There was a lot of dirty work done by the capitalists to bring it about, and no good can come of it for this country. I have seen several letters written by Jan Hofmeyr during the last few months, beginning before the war.

They are very interesting, and I hope will be published some day. They seem to explode the idea of the leaders of the Cape Africanders having been in a conspiracy of any kind with the Pretoria lot."

From 1872 onwards Selous had known and studied the Boers intimately. He had lived and hunted with them from the Orange Free State to Matabeleland, and had found them a simple race of hunter-farmers, intensely patriotic and hopelessly conservative. He knew that "they are neither angels nor devils, but just men like ourselves," and that the views of the British, German and Jew storekeepers and traders of the Transvaal and Orange Free State were hopelessly wrong, because they did not know the real back-veldt Boers of the country, who made up the majority of the Nation. He himself had never received anything but kindness and straight dealing from them, and was therefore able to appreciate their indignation and outbursts of fury when a second annexation was contemplated by our Government. He replies to the charge that life for Englishmen was impossible in the Transvaal after the retrocession to the Boers of that country in 1881: "Mr. Rider Haggard has told us that he found it impossible to go on living in the Transvaal amid the daily insults of victorious Boers, and he also tells us that Boers look upon Englishmen with contempt, and consider them to be morally and physically cowards. I travelled slowly through the Transvaal by bullock-waggon shortly after the retrocession of the country in 1881, and visited all the farmhouses on my route. I met with no insults nor the least incivility anywhere, nor ever heard any boasting about Boer successes over our troops, though at that time I understood the 'Taal'

well. In common with all who really know the Boers, who have lived amongst them, and not taken their character at second-hand, I have always been struck by their moderation in speaking of their victories over our soldiers. As for the Boers having a contempt for Englishmen as individuals, that is nonsense. They hate the British Government, and knowing their history, I for one think they have ample reason for doing so. But the individual Englishman that they know, they take at his real value. There are of course, unfortunately, certain Englishmen in Johannesburg, or people who are now put down as Englishmen, who could not but appear as contemptible to a Boer as they would do to most people in this country. But, on the other hand, I could name many Englishmen and Scotchmen, men who have been honest and upright and fearless in all their dealings with their neighbours, who have been held in immense respect by all the Boers of their acquaintance. These men, however, lived amongst the Boers, spoke their language, and took a sympathetic interest in their lives; whilst one of the troubles of the present situation in the Transvaal is that the Uitlander population of Johannesburg is, in its sympathies, its mode of life, and all its hopes and aspirations, as wide as the poles asunder from the pastoral Boers, with whom it never mixes, and whom it therefore does not understand."

(Letter to the "Times," October 24th, 1899.)

This was also exactly my own experience as recently as 1893, when I lived entirely and trekked with Boers for a year. Never was I ever treated except with the greatest kindness both by my own intimate friends or casual acquaintances, once I had learnt to speak the "Taal,"

nor did I ever hear them "crow" over their victories of 1881. There was, however, always the latent fear that the British Government would again play them false, and they would be once more forced to fight us; but with individual Englishmen they liked and trusted there was no sign of animosity.[52]

In June, 1900, Selous was asked to sign a protest, issued by the "South Africa Conciliation Committee," inaugurated by W. L. Courtney (editor of the "Fortnightly Review"). In the following letter, however, written to the Secretary, he manifests his sound common-sense in separating the "causes of the war" from what could be done at the moment when our forces were actually fighting and likely to prove victorious. His grievance was with the authorities who brought about the war and the methods which had been employed to make it, and not with the conduct thereof or its natural effects. Wherefore he refused to sign the protest, and gave his reasons as follows:--

"_August 3rd, 1900._

"I have left your circular so long unanswered because I have been thinking over it very deeply, and because, although I realize most fully the force of all the arguments that can be used against the annexation of the Boer Republics, I still think that those who sign the protest ought to be able to propose some scheme of settlement which holds out a better prospect of future peace. I personally can think of no such scheme. Had honourable terms been offered to the Boers, and the independence of their countries been a.s.sured to them with certain necessary limitations, immediately after the occupation of Pretoria, there might have been great hope for the future peace of the country, but all that has occurred, not only in the Transvaal and Orange State, but also in the Cape Colony, must have caused such a feeling of exasperation amongst the Dutch Africanders against the British Government, that I cannot but feel that the granting of a limited independence to the Boer Republics would not now produce rest or peace. Things have gone too far for that now, and it seems to me that Great Britain will only be able to hold South Africa in the immediate future by force. I am of course convinced of the truth of all you say in the protest, that the annexation of the Boer Republics is 'contrary to the public declarations of Her Majesty's Ministers, alien to all the best traditions of a freedom-loving country, burdensome to the resources of the nation, and wholly distasteful to the majority of our fellow-subjects in South Africa,' but that does not blind me to the fact that the race hatred that has been engendered by this war is so deep and so terrible that the granting of independence to the Boer Republics would be more immediately disastrous to British supremacy in South Africa than unjust annexation accompanied by the garrisoning of the country with large numbers of troops. Annexation or no annexation, I firmly believe that sooner or later the people who actually live in South Africa--as distinguished from those whose only interest in the country is the exploitation of its mineral wealth--will govern the country, and, if they wish it, have their own flag, and throw off all allegiance to Great Britain. I would gladly sign any protest against the policy which brought about the war, one of the results of which is this ill-omened annexation of independent states, but I am beginning to think, with John Morley, that annexation was an almost necessary result of a war pushed to the bitter end. I am very sorry to have troubled you with so long a letter, but I wish you to understand that, although my views as to the iniquity of the policy which brought about the war will always remain the same, and although I think the annexation of the two Boer Republics a piece of injustice and a national disgrace, and would most willingly have signed a protest against it three months ago, I now feel the exasperation caused by the war is so great that the independence of the Boer Republics might very possibly be used against British supremacy in South Africa. It is a very distressing outlook, and I can see no light in the future; but still I do not feel justified in signing the present protest. I beg to thank you for the last two leaflets you sent me, Nos. 53 and 54. The publication of Colonel Stonham's evidence, as to the humanity of the Boers, ought to have a very good effect if it could be made widely known."

After this the war drew on slowly to its eventual finish in 1901, Selous' only public contribution being a letter to the "Speaker," which was used by the South African Conciliation Committee in its efforts to influence the Government, and part of this letter, which deals with the effects of the war on the Boer population and the future, is worth quoting:--

"Should it, however, be determined to erase the Boer Republics from the map of Africa and to carry on the war to the point of practically exterminating the able-bodied male population of these two spa.r.s.ely-peopled States, let it not be thought that the surviving women will bring up their children to become loyal British subjects. Let Englishmen remember that the men who prophesied that within a short time after the war was over the Boers would become reconciled to the British, whom they would then have learnt to respect, are the same people who also told us that the war would be a very short and simple campaign, as the Boers were a degenerate, cowardly race, who could no longer shoot at all well, and who would be sure to disperse to their homes after the first battle, if only a hundred of them were killed. These were the sort of predictions which were very commonly heard in this country a few months before the war commenced, and they were the utterances of men wholly ignorant of the Boer character.

"As showing that there are people whose opinions are ent.i.tled to respect who think differently, I will now quote from memory a pa.s.sage in a letter lately written by a well-known and well-educated Dutch Africander to a friend in this country: 'Those people who expect that the Boers will soon forgive and forget this war, and settle down quietly under the British flag, are most terribly mistaken. I think I know my own countrymen, and I believe that if, after this war is over, the independence of the Republics is destroyed, the historic episode of Hamilcar making Hannibal swear eternal enmity to Rome will be re-enacted in many a farmhouse throughout the Transvaal and Orange Free State. The Boer women will teach their children to hate the very name of England, and bid them look forward to the day when their country will be freed from British domination.' These words, even if the idea they express is somewhat exaggerated, are worthy of attention when it is remembered how rapidly the Boers increase in numbers and fighting strength." ("The Speaker,"

1900.)

After this he only expressed his views to a few personal friends, such as President Roosevelt, who was in close sympathy with his hopes that peace on a fair basis might soon be restored. In reply to one of his letters, Roosevelt, writing March, 1901, says:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WANDERING MINSTREL.]

"It makes me melancholy to see the Boer War hanging on. Your limit of eighteen months (the time Selous stated it would last) is rapidly approaching. Of course there can be only one ending; but it is a dreadful thing to have the ending come only by the exhaustion of the country and of the fighting men. How I wish you could be made administrator of all South Africa. Somehow I feel that you could do what no other man could do, and really bring about peace. I begin to be afraid you have been right about this war. I hope we shall see things go right hereafter."

It is interesting too to study both Roosevelt's and the American att.i.tude towards our policy in the Boer War. In reply to Selous'

explanation of the whole matter the American statesman thus writes (March 19th, 1900):--

"I appreciate very deeply the trouble you have taken in writing to me; although in a way your letter has made me feel very melancholy. My idea of the questions at issue has been mainly derived from the 'Spectator,' a paper that I take and always like, and which impresses me as being honestly desirous of getting at the true facts in any given case. I paid especial heed to what it said because of its entire disapproval of Cecil Rhodes and the capitalist gang. Moreover, a friend of mine, Ferdinand Becker, who was in the Transvaal and who saw very clearly the rights and wrongs of each side, and for whose judgment I have great respect, insists that as things actually were the war was inevitable, _that there had to be a fight, and that one or the other race had to be supreme in South Africa_.

By the way, much of the pro-Boer feeling here is really anti-English, and as I have a very warm remembrance of England's att.i.tude to us two years ago, I have of course no sympathy with such manifestations. So I thought after Montague White's visit to me that I should like to hear the other side from someone whom I could thoroughly trust, and I appealed to you. It is largely an academic curiosity on my part, so to speak, for the answer of the English Premier to the communication of transmissal sent by President McKinley with the letters from the Presidents of the two Republics shows that any mediation would be promptly rejected. I do not suppose that the end can be very far distant now, unless there is a formidable uprising in the Cape Colony, for it would look as if there had never been fifty thousand Boers under arms, and Roberts has four times that number of troops in South Africa. Evidently the Boers are most gallant fighters, and quite as efficient as they are gallant.

"I had been inclined to look at the war as a.n.a.logous to the struggles which put the Americans in possession of Texas, New Mexico, and California. I suppose the technical rights are about the same in one case as in the other; but, of course, there is an enormous difference in the quality of the invading people; for the Boers have shown that they have no kins.h.i.+p with the Mexicans. In Texas the Americans first went in to settle and become citizens, making an Outlander population. This Outlander population then rose, and was helped by raids from the United States, which in point of morality did not differ in the least from the Jameson raid--although there was at back of them no capitalist intrigue, but simply a love of adventure and a feeling of arrogant and domineering race-superiority. The Americans at last succeeded in wresting Texas from the Mexicans and making it an independent Republic. This Republic tried to conquer New Mexico but failed. Then we annexed it, made its quarrels our own, and did conquer both New Mexico and California. In the case of Texas there was the dark blot of slavery which rested on the victors; for they turned Texas from a free province into a slave republic. Nevertheless, it was of course ultimately to the great advantage of civilization that the Anglo-American should supplant the Indo-Spaniard. It has been ultimately to the advantage of the Indo-Spaniard himself, or at any rate to the advantage of the best men in his ranks. In my regiment, which was raised in the South-West, I had forty or fifty men of part Indian blood and perhaps half as many of part Spanish blood, and among my captains was one of the former and one of the latter--both being as good Americans in every sense of the word as were to be found in our ranks.

"If the two races, Dutch and English, are not riven asunder by too intense antagonism, surely they ought to amalgamate in South Africa as they have done here in North America, where I and all my fellows of Dutch blood are now mixed with and are indistinguishable from our fellow Americans, not only of English, but of German, Scandinavian, and other ancestry.

"The doubtful, and to my mind the most melancholy, element in the problem is what you bring out about the Englishman no longer colonizing in the way that the Boer does. This is a feature due, I suppose, to the enormous development of urban life and the radical revolution in the social and industrial conditions of the English-speaking peoples during the past century. In our Pacific States, and even more in Australia, we see the same tendency to the foundation of enormous cities instead of the settlement of the country districts by pioneer farmers. Luckily, America north of the Rio Grande and Australia definitely belong to our peoples already, and there is enough of the pastoral and farming element among us to colonize the already thinly-settled waste places which now belong to our people. But the old movement which filled the Mississippi valley at the beginning of this century with masterful dogged frontier-farmers, each skilled in the use of the rifle and axe, each almost independent of outside a.s.sistance, and each with a swarm of tow-headed children, has nearly come to an end. When Kentucky, at the close of the eighteenth century, was as populous as Oregon 100 years later, Kentucky did not have one-tenth of the urban population that Oregon had when she reached the same stage. Now, urban people are too civilized, have too many wants and too much social ambition, to take up their abode permanently in the wilderness and marry the kind of women who alone could be contented, or indeed could live in the wilderness. On the great plains of the West, when I was in the cattle business, I saw many young Easterners and young Englishmen of good families who came out there; but not one in twenty, whether from the Atlantic States or from England, married and grew up as a permanent settler in the country; and the twentieth was usually a _decla.s.se_. The other nineteen were always working to make money and then go home, or somewhere else, and they did not have their womankind with them. The 'younger son' of whom Kipling sings is a picturesque man always, and can do very useful work as a hunter and explorer, or even a miner, but he is not a settler, and does not leave any permanent mark upon any true frontier-community with which I am acquainted. After the frontier has been pushed back, when the ranchman and the cowboy and the frontier-ganger, who are fitted for the actual conditions, have come in, then the 'younger son' and the struggling gentleman-adventurer may make their appearance in the towns. Of course, there are exceptions to all of this, but as a rule what I have pointed out is true. I have seen scores--perhaps hundreds--of men from Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, who went into cattle-growing on the Great Plains, but they did just as I did; that is, worked with greater or less success at the business, gained an immense amount of good from it personally, especially in the way of strength and gratifying a taste for healthy adventure, learned much of human nature from a.s.sociating with the men round about, and then went back to their own homes in England or New York or Boston, largely because, when it came to marrying and bringing up children, they could not well face the conditions; and so the real population of the future in the valleys of the upper Missouri, the Platte, and the Rio Grande, will be composed of the sons of their companions, who were themselves descendants of small farmers in Texas, Missouri, and Illinois, or of working-men from Scandinavia and Germany.

"Pardon this long letter, which has wandered aside from the thesis with which it started. I hope that the language of the more highly civilized people will, in spite of the evil influences of to-day, gradually oust the 'Taal' or whatever you call Boer Dutch in South Africa, and that when the conquest of the two Republics is succeeded by the full liberty which I understand the Cape Dutch enjoy, there will come a union in blood as well as in that between the two peoples who are so fundamentally alike.

"I am looking forward to the receipt of the three books you have been so very kind as to send me. I do know a certain amount about the Boers from the time of their great trek onward, for it has always seemed to me to be one of the most fascinating bits of modern history."

In the spring of 1900 Selous went on a bird-nesting trip to the forest and marshes of the Danube in Hungary, and was successful in getting the eggs of many new species for his collection. When he arrived home in June he found his finances in low water, owing to enlarging his house, and so feared he would be unable to make an extensive autumn hunt, but later on things improved, and he was able to go West after all.

In September, 1900, he went to Canada to hunt moose, and arrived at Mattawa, Ontario, on September 24th. On this trip he was fortunate in securing the services of George Crawford, a half-breed Indian, who was probably the best moose-caller and hunter in that province. In spite of the number of American hunters who at this time made the districts of Kippewa and Tamiskaming their favourite hunting-grounds, Crawford always knew where to go to secure moose, and it was not long before Selous reached a hunting-ground, about three days north of Mattawa, on Lake Bois Franc, where he killed two fine bulls. After this short trip he went to Snake Lake to try and secure a good white-tailed deer stag, but was not very successful, as he only secured a four-year-old buck with moderate horns. On October 26th he landed in Newfoundland and, being supplied with bad information, went by railway from Port-aux-Basque to Howley, a station on the main line, where the annual slaughter of caribou took place late in the season.

It was not long before Selous found that the so-called "sport" of shooting caribou on migration as they crossed the line in their southern migration was not sport at all, and that frequently, owing to the number of bullets flying in all directions fired by enthusiastic meat-hunters, the shooting was likely to result in human as well as cervine casualties. Moreover, hardly any good stags come south with the ma.s.s of does and immatures, so, taking his guide Stroud and an old man named Robert Saunders he left the place in disgust and went south to the Terra Nova river, intending to strike into the heart of the country and, if possible, catch up the main body of the migrating deer before they cast their horns and reached their winter-quarters near the south coast. But he was too late, and after an onerous tramp, during which he penetrated beyond the limits reached by other white men, he was forced to return owing to lack of food, but not before his sharp eyes had seen numerous trees stripped by "summering" stags in the neighbourhood of St. John's Lake. These signs convinced him that the local movements of the deer were unknown even to the hunters in Newfoundland, and that the big stags would probably be found in autumn in the heart of the island, and not on migration in the north. In this he was quite correct. He did not, however, go home without a specimen, for he killed one nice stag on his journey inland.

Accordingly he made plans to hunt in the neighbourhood of St. John's Lake in the following autumn of 1901, and procuring two canoes from Peterborough in Ontario, and enlisting the services of Saunders and his cousin John Wells, he ascended the rocky Terra Nova river in September.

To the reader it may seem easy to go seventy miles in a canoe up-stream, but the fact that previous hunters had not been there proves that there were difficulties. No Newfoundland boats in fact would withstand the rocky benches of this swift-flowing river, so progress can only be made for the most part by wading and dragging the canoes, whilst the hunter has to force his way through dense forest, so thick at times that an axe has to be used for progress to be made before reaching the higher plateaux, where lakes and streams are easily pa.s.sed. Once on Lake St.

John, all was easy, and Selous found game abundant and a small migration of big stags already in progress.[53]

Moreover, Selous was lucky enough to have struck a good year for "heads." In less than eight days he shot his five stags, two of which carried remarkably fine heads--one, in fact, a forty-pointer, which he killed by a long shot close to his camp, being one of the finest specimens ever killed in the island by any sportsman. Selous often spoke afterwards of this trip as being one of the pleasantest he ever had in his life.

He writes, October 6th, 1901:--

"I am back from Newfoundland. I had a short but very successful little trip into quite new country, thanks to my canoes, and shot the five stags my licence ent.i.tled me to kill very quickly.

I have got one really remarkable head, a second, very handsome, with beautiful double brow-antlers, and very fine tops; and a third, a pretty regular head of medium size--the other two not much to boast about. But my two good heads are really fine, and when you see them you will never rest till you go to my new ground and get more like them. I can give you all particulars when we meet, and have arranged that my guide--hardly the right word, as we got into country where he had never been in his life and where he says no one has ever yet hunted, except a few Micmac Indians who were out after caribou, but trapping beavers along the rivers--shall keep himself unengaged for you up to June next."

In December we had some good days together in Shrops.h.i.+re, at Sir Beville Stanier's, shooting partridges, and at Swythamley with the Brocklehursts killing driven grouse in a blizzard. Selous, though then over fifty, was much fitter and more active than many a man of twenty-five, and the way he walked and talked was a joy to behold. After dinner he would begin telling stories, and at 1.30 was still hard at it when most of us were dying to go to bed. Nothing could curb his enthusiasm once a congenial topic was started, and his avidity was such both for acquiring and dispensing knowledge that time itself seemed all too short.

Early in January, 1902, he went to Smyrna for the purpose of egg-collecting, with the added expectation of getting a shot at a stag or wild goat, and on March 5th writes:--

"I got back from Asia Minor last week, with a good series of eggs of the White-tailed Eagle and one Lammergeier's egg. I found two Lammergeiers' nests, both with young birds, but I got an addled egg which I was able to blow. I had no shooting, though I made an attempt to get a shot at a stag, but there was so much snow in the mountains that the Turks would not take pack-ponies in for fear of getting snowed up."

On August 11th we were all at Swythamley again enjoying the hospitality of Sir Philip Brocklehurst and having some very excellent shooting. One day we shot the park and killed 1170 rabbits, and a notice of this event given in the "Field," as 585 brace of grouse, a good bag, indeed, for Staffords.h.i.+re, was a statement so far from the truth that we easily traced it to the old squire's love of nonsense.

Having some time at his disposal in September, Selous resolved to take a short run out to Sardinia for the purpose of adding specimens of the Mouflon to his collection. Most of the English hunters who have killed this very sporting little sheep have pursued it in March, at which time of year the Mouflon are mostly hidden in the tall "Maquia" scrub (_Erica arborea_), where they are difficult both to find and to stalk. Someone, however, had given Selous the hint that if he went to Sardinia in late September he would see the sheep on the open hills, when they would probably afford much better sport. This was quite true, but unfortunately for the hunter the autumn of 1902 was one of the wettest on record, and Selous, after the first few days of good weather, when he killed three fair rams, lived for a fortnight in pouring rain and discomfort in a leaky tent, and had eventually to give up the chase in disgust. He came back, however, with a high admiration for the intellectual abilities of the little Mouflon, and resolved at some future date once again to visit the "elevated farmyard,"[54] as someone has termed these mountains of "the Isle of Unrest."

On November 17th he left on his first trip to British East Africa, taking the German boat at Ma.r.s.eilles to Mombasa. As this trip was somewhat experimental he made no large plans and merely wished to get a few specimens of the common species of mammals found there. This he hoped to do by making short trips in the neighbourhood of the line. At this time, even so near civilization, British East Africa was truly a big game paradise.

Writing to Abel Chapman concerning this, Selous says:--

"My trip to East Africa last year (1902-1903) cost me just 300, but I think I did it cheaper than most people. I got fairly good heads of c.o.ke's, Neumann's, and Jackson's Hartebeests, Topis, Impala, Bushbucks, Oribis, Steinbucks, and Cavendish's Dik-diks.

I did not get a Jackson's Wildebeest as, although there were thousands all along the line when I went up country, when I came back to try to get one, they had migrated south. I saw lots of Common and Defa.s.sa Waterbucks, but no good heads, so never shot one. Also hundreds of Elands. I did not actually see a Rhino., but often got quite fresh spoor; but I did not want to shoot one of these animals as I have good specimens from South Africa."

He reached home in March, 1903, and the spring of this year was, as usual, spent in egg-collecting. He writes, June 30th:--

"I have just finished my egg-collecting season. I got a Dotterel's nest on the top of Ben Wyvis, also a couple of Ptarmigans' nests, which are difficult to find. I got too several nests of Gra.s.shopper Warbler, Wood Wren, and Pied Flycatcher in Northumberland, but I had a very good local man to help me."