Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O Part 19

When he reached Cairo, he had an interview with Sir F. Wingate, to whom he had letters of introduction from Sir E. Grey. He then went on to Khartoum, where he met Mr. Butler, who was then in charge of big game matters connected with the Lower Sudan. Mr. Butler advised him to go to Mongalla, as the best and most accessible place at which to find the Giant Eland, since Wau had been much hunted, but Selous thought that the Tembera country would be the best, because few travellers had ever been there, and it could only be reached by a toilsome journey from the river with pack-donkeys. Accordingly he took the steamer going south. At Rejaf the vessel stopped to take in wood, and there met another steamer whose occupants informed him of the death of poor Phil Oberlander, who had just been killed by a buffalo near the village of Sheikh Lowala. It appears that this unfortunate fellow, who had just killed a fine Giant Eland at Mongalla, and was on his way home up the river, had stopped at a village near Mongalla for a day or two, to try to get a buffalo, of which there were some herds in the neighbourhood. He had landed and very soon found a good herd. His shots wounded a big bull, which left the herd and retreated into the thick bush. Oberlander at once followed, but unfortunately forgot to reload his heavy rifle. The usual thing happened, and the wounded bull charged suddenly from one flank, and instead of reports two clicks ensued. The bull rushed at Oberlander, knocked him to the ground and literally beat his body to a pulp. Later in the day the bull was found lying dead. Its head was recovered by Mr.

Butler, who sent it to the Vienna Museum, for which Oberlander had collected industriously for several years.

I first met Oberlander on the steamer going to Alaska, in September, 1908. He then called himself Count Oberlander, a t.i.tle which I believe he had no claim to. He was a strange creature, full of a.s.surance, and with a very complete contempt for British and American game-laws, and apparently oblivious of the fact that without their inst.i.tution he would not have been able to obtain the specimens he so earnestly desired to capture. His one idea seemed to be to get specimens anyhow, and that a letter from the authorities of the Vienna Museum and an unlimited expenditure of cash would overcome all difficulties. In this he was partly right and partly wrong, for when he shot numerous female sheep and kids in the mountains of Ca.s.siar he reckoned without the long arm of the law and the vigilance of the hawk-eyed Bryan Williams, our game warden in Vancouver, who promptly had him arrested and heavily fined.

As an example of his impudence he told us the following story, which I afterwards found was true in all details. One day in August, 1908, he went to the National Park at Yellowstone, and coolly informed two of the game wardens that he had come there to shoot a buffalo. At first the latter regarded the matter as a joke, but, finding he was in earnest, they told him that if he did not clear out they would confiscate his guns and arrest him. Unabashed, Oberlander said:

"Well, you need not get huffy. I will give you 250 for that old bull,"

pointing to an old patriarch within a wooden enclosure. The shaft, however, went home, for the game wardens at once reported the matter to their chief.

Now, 250 was a very nice sum, and it was quite within the realms of possibility that the old bull would die a natural death within the next year or two and that the dead carcase might be worth perhaps 50. Facts, therefore, were facts, which seemed to appeal to the business instincts of the park authorities, so next day Oberlander was informed that he might shoot the buffalo as soon as his cheque was forthcoming.

Oberlander at once handed over the money and killed the bull, shooting him through the bars of the cage, and he showed us an excellent photograph of this doughty deed with no little satisfaction.

Oberlander afterwards hunted in Ca.s.siar, Mexico, East Africa, and the Arctic regions, before going on the expedition up the Nile that was to prove fatal to him. In him the Vienna Museum lost a good friend, but he could scarcely be considered a good type of sportsman.

We need not follow Selous' wanderings in the parched uninteresting forest country about Tembera, where for nine weeks, in company with a native chief named Yei, he hunted the small herd of Giant Elands somewhat unsuccessfully. At last he killed a good female, but had no luck in securing a big male. On March 7th he went north to Rumbek, and on March 28th he and Captain Tweedie went north to a small river and shot nine Kobs. On April 4th he again left Rumbek and returned south for another hunt for the Elands, which was again unsuccessful. On April 29th he arrived at the Nile and turned homewards.[61]

"I cannot pretend," writes Selous, "I enjoyed my excursion in the Bahr-el-Ghazal Province. In the first place, I was unsuccessful in the main object of my journey. Then the deadly monotony of the landscape, the extraordinary scarcity of game, and the excessive heat of the climate, all combined to make my trip very wearisome and uninteresting."

He came away, however, with a very deep admiration for the gallant band of young Britons who were doing the work of the Empire in the wilds of Africa.

At the end of this trying hunt he was far from well, and was unable to ride, so he had to tramp the whole way to the Nile on foot. Arrived at Rumbek the medical officer there discovered the cause of his ill-health, so, as soon as he arrived in England he saw Mr. Freyer, who recommended an operation. "I got over the operation," he writes to Abel Chapman, "wonderfully well, and simply healed up like a dog. In fact, I was the record case for healing up in ten years amongst Freyer's patients." I went to see him in a nursing home in London, and heard all about his Lado trip, which was rather a sore subject with him, but, with his usual determination, he was only full of ideas to go back again and make a success the next time. In August we both went again to Swythamley, as the guests of young Sir Philip Brocklehurst, and had a very pleasant time amongst the grouse on the Derbys.h.i.+re hills. Afterwards Selous stayed for a time in the Isle of Wight, with his wife and boys, and later in the autumn he travelled to Turin Exhibition of hunting and shooting, as one of the British jurors.

Later in 1911 Selous again left for British East Africa, to go on another hunt to the Gwas N'yiro river, with his friend MacMillan. Before leaving he wrote to President Roosevelt, intimating that he feared he was now too old for the hard work entailed by African hunting, which called forth the following comfortable advice (Sept. 11th, 1911).

"MacMillan lunches here Thursday. I am very glad you are going out with him to Africa. He is a trump! I am rather amused at your saying that you will not take any risks with lion now, and that you do not think your eyes are very good. I would not trust you!--seriously. I always wished to speak to you about the time that you followed the lioness which crouched in a bush, and then so nearly got Judd, who was riding after you. I think you were taking more of a chance on that occasion than you ought to have taken. It is not as if you had never killed a lion, and were willing to take any chance to get your first specimen. That I could quite understand. But you have killed a great many, and you ought not to do as poor George Grey did last year, and get caught through acting with needless recklessness.[62] I know you will not pay any heed to this advice, and, doubtless, you regard me as over-cautious with wild beasts, but, my dear fellow, at your age and with your past, and with your chance of doing good work in the present and future, I honestly do not think you ought to take these risks unless there is some point in doing so.

"You say you are too old for such a trip as that with MacMillan.

Nonsense! It is precisely the kind of trip which you ought to take. Why, I, who am far less hardy and fit, would like nothing better than to be along with you and MacMillan on that trip. But you ought not to take such a trip as that you took on the Bahr-el-Ghazal. It would have meant nothing to you thirty years ago; it would mean nothing to Kermit now; but you are nearly sixty years old, and though I suppose there is no other man of sixty who is physically as fit as you, still it is idle to suppose that you can now do what you did when you were in the twenties. Of course I never was physically fit in the sense that you were, but still I was a man of fair hardihood, and able to hold my own reasonably well in my younger days; but when I went to Africa I realized perfectly well, although I was only fifty, that I was no longer fit to do the things I had done, and I deliberately set myself to the work of supplying the place of the prowess I had lost by making use of all that the years had brought in the way of gain to offset it. That is, I exercised what I think I can truthfully say was much intelligence and foresight in planning the trip. I made it for a great scientific National museum (which was itself backed by private capital), and made it at the time when the fact that I had been President gave me such prestige that the things were done for me which ought to have been done, but were not done, for you last spring. Then I took along Kermit, who, in the case of the bongo and koodoo and Northern Sable, was able to supply the qualities that I once had had and now lacked. In consequence, while everything was done to make my trip successful and comparatively easy, I am yet ent.i.tled to claim the modest credit that is implied in saying that I took advantage of the opportunities thus generously given me, and that I planned the trip carefully, and used the resources that my past had given me, in the way of notoriety or reputation, to add somewhat to my sum of achievement. On your trip you also had genuine bad luck, and the trip was not long enough, and the opportunities were not sufficiently numerous, to allow the good and bad luck to even up, as they will on such a long trip as mine. For instance, it was simply luck in my case that got me some of my game; but then it was simply luck, also, that I did not get some other things; and so it about evened up.

"My own physical limitations at the moment come chiefly from a perfectly commonplace but exasperating ailment--rheumatism. It not only cripples me a good deal, so that I am unable to climb on or off a horse with any speed, but it also prevents my keeping in condition. I cannot take any long walks, and therefore cannot keep in shape; but I am sufficiently fortunate to have a great many interests, and I am afraid, sufficiently lazy also thoroughly to enjoy being at home; and I shall be entirely happy if I never leave Sagamore again for any length of time. I have work which is congenial and honourable, although not of any special importance, and if I can keep it for the next seven or eight years, my youngest son will have graduated from college, so that all the children will be swimming for themselves, and then I am content not to try to earn any more money.

"Fond though I am of hunting and of the wilderness and of natural history, it has not been to me quite the pa.s.sion that it has been to you, and though I would give a great deal to repeat in some way or some fas.h.i.+on, say in Central Asia or in Farther India, or in another part of Africa, the trip I made last year, I know perfectly well that I cannot do it; and I do not particularly care for smaller trips. If it were not for our infernal newspaper-men, I should go off for a week or two this fall bear-hunting in the Louisiana cane-brakes; but I know I should be pestered out of my life by the newspaper-men, who would really destroy all my pleasure in what I was doing. I have found that I have to get really far off in the wilderness in order to get rid of them, even now, when I am no longer a person of public prominence. I never cared for the fis.h.i.+ng-rod or the shot-gun, and I cannot afford to keep hunters. But you, my dear fellow, are still hardy, and you can still do much. I have never understood why your 'African Nature Notes' did not have a greater financial success. It is a book which will last permanently, and will, I am sure, have an ever-increasing meed of appreciation. I re-read it all last winter, and Sheldon, as I think I told you, mentioned to me the other day that he regarded it as the best book of the kind that had ever been written.

"Kermit is, at the moment, in New Brunswick getting moose, caribou, and beaver for the National Museum. I think I told you that he got four sheep, three of them for the Museum, on his recent trip into the Mexican desert. He made it just as you have made so many of your trips, that is, he got two Mexicans and two small pack-mules, and travelled without a tent, and with one spare pair of shoes and one spare pair of socks as his sole luggage. Once they nearly got into an ugly sc.r.a.pe through failure to find a water-hole, for it is a dangerous country.

Kermit found that he could outlast in walking and in enduring thirst, not only the Mexicans but the American prospectors whom he once or twice met."

The reference in his letter to the lioness "which crouched in a bush, and then so nearly got Judd," refers to an incident that happened in the Gwas N'yiro bush in Selous' former hunt with MacMillan (1909), and this little adventure was related to me by William Judd himself. It appears that Selous and Judd were out together one day and disturbed two lionesses, which disappeared in thick forest. Selous at once galloped after them and outdistanced Judd, who came somewhat slowly cantering behind, as he did not wish to interfere with Selous. All at once, from the side of the path, Judd saw a great yellow body come high in the air from the side of the game-trail. He had no time even to raise his rifle from the position across the saddle-pommel, but just c.o.c.ked it up across and pulled the trigger. One of the lionesses, for such it was, had apparently crouched and allowed Selous to pa.s.s, and had then hurled herself upon the second hunter. By a fine piece of judgment, or a happy fluke, Judd's bullet went through the lioness's eye and landed her dead at his feet. His horse swerved. He fell off, and found himself standing beside the dead body of his adversary. Selous then returned, and was astonished to find Judd standing over the dead animal in the path he had so lately pa.s.sed. I saw the skin of this lioness in Judd's house, near Nairobi, in 1913, and noticed the little bullet hole over the eye. If the missile had gone an inch higher it is doubtful if the hunter would have escaped with his life, or at any rate without a severe mauling.

After the trip with MacMillan, 1911-1912, Selous writes (June 23rd, 1913):--

"My dear Johnny,--I wonder where you are and what you are doing.

Some one told me the other day that you were going to Africa on a shooting-trip this year. I had quite an interesting time with MacMillan, and got a few nice things to add to my collection. I got three nice Lesser Koodoos on the lower Gwas N'yiro river as well as Gerenuks, good Beisa, and Impala--though nothing exceptional--very good specimens of the small races of Grant's Gazelle--_notata_ and _Brighti_--Grevy's zebra, the reticulated giraffe, a good bushbuck, a striped hyena, two buffalo bulls, and a lot of Dik-diks (of two distinct species and, I think, possibly three). I don't know whether you have seen two letters of mine in the 'Field'[63] for June 8th and 15th, but if you have, you will have read my account of a rather interesting experience I had with a lion. This was the only lion I actually fired at, though I saw four lionesses one day, and tracked a lion and lioness on another occasion for a long distance and got close to them, but, owing to the thickness of the bush, could not see them. That was the trouble on the lower Gwas N'yiro river. The bush was so frightfully thick along the river, and outside, too, very often, that it required great luck to get a lion in the daytime, and they would not come to baits at night.

The bush was simply awful for buffaloes. Let me know what you are doing and I will try and come over to see you one of these days."

Selous seems to have been unusually unlucky on the few occasions he met with lions in the Gwas N'yiro bush. On March 2nd, 1912, he suddenly came face to face with a big lion, but as soon as it saw him, it dived into the forest and was immediately lost to view. On another occasion he wounded a pallah buck, which a lion then killed, and death was so recent that Selous sat over "the kill" and waited. The lion came and stood within twenty-five yards of the hunter, who fired two shots at it, and although a.s.sured that it was severely wounded he never recovered the body.[64]

The most exciting incident, however, of this trip was the killing of what he calls "My Last Buffalo." Near the river he found the tracks of two old buffalo bulls, which he followed industriously for six miles. At last he obtained a snap shot and hit one of the bulls badly through the lungs. After following the wounded animal a short distance, he suddenly heard the unmistakable grunts which always precede a charge. "The next instant the buffalo was on us, coming over the edge of the gully with nose outstretched, half a ton of bone and muscle driven at tremendous speed by the very excusable rage and fury of a brave and determined animal.... When I fired, the muzzle of my rifle must have been within three yards of the buffalo." The buffalo fell to the shot, the vertebrae of the neck being struck, and as he fell struck Elani the Somali.

"He only received this one terrific blow, though he was pushed to the bottom of the gully--only a few yards--in front of the buffalo's knees and right under its nose, but my bullet had for a moment partially paralysed it. I got another cartridge into the chamber of my rifle as quickly as possible, and, turning to the buffalo, somehow got a second bullet into its hind-quarters, which brought it down altogether. When I was again ready to fire, the buffalo was on its knees, with its hind-legs doubled in under it, in the bed of the gully a few yards below me, and Elani was under its great neck between its nose and its chest, with one arm outstretched and his right hand on the buffalo's shoulder, so that I had to shoot carefully for fear of hitting it.

"Elani then pushed himself with his feet free of the buffalo, whilst I stood where I was, ready to put in another shot if necessary, and it was, for the brave and determined bull partially recovered from the shocks its nervous system had received, though the mists of death were already in its eyes."

Another bullet finished this gallant old bull. Elani the Somali was little the worse for his severe handling.

Selous spent the autumn of 1912 quietly at home or shooting with friends.

Writing to Chapman, September 26th, 1912, he says: "Don't worry about our visit to Hexham the other day. We got through the time quite easily. I can always pa.s.s an hour or two reading, very comfortably, but what I dislike more than anything else in English life is the crowds of people everywhere.... The crowds spoil all the pleasure of going to a cricket- or football-match or a theatre. It is always such a trouble getting away. I am already longing to be in Africa again. If only Mrs. Selous would be happy there, I would rather live in East Africa than in this country."

His mother[65] was still alive at Longford House, Gloucester, but getting old and feeble. He visited her in December, 1912. On December 7th, 1912, he was in Devons.h.i.+re, shooting pheasants at MacMillan's place. "We got two fine days' shooting," he writes to Chapman, "but at the best, pheasant shooting is a very inferior sport to the pursuit of the grouse and the blackc.o.c.k on the wild free moors of Northumberland.

May I live to renew my acquaintance with them next year."

Never did the spring come round but it always filled Selous with new delight, and then he used to write me long letters of the arrival of the birds and the advent of the early flowers. His joy was great when the Wrynecks took to his nesting-boxes in the garden, the Long-eared Owls nested in the woods close by, or the rare Dartford Warbler was seen again in its old haunts. Thus, on April 15th, he says:--

"I was very disappointed not to see you yesterday, as I was looking forward to a good crack with you. I have not yet heard the cuckoo, but the cuckoo's mate has been here in the garden since April 2nd. There are several pairs of snipe on Whitmoor Common (just below Worplesdon village) this year. They are now in full 'bleat.' There are also a number of Redshanks, the first I have ever seen here."

We used often to go out and look for nests in the commons, hedgerows, and woods at Worplesdon, and it was now a sorrow to him that he could no longer, owing to a slight deafness, recognize the notes of birds at a distance. These nests, when found, he never touched, as he had already got specimens of the eggs of all common birds, but the joy of hunting was always present, and he never tired of watching the habits of birds, even though he knew them well.

In the early part of 1913, Selous made a little trip to Jersey and Normandy, to visit the home of his ancestors, in whose history he always showed a lively interest. He wrote a long account of this to President Roosevelt, who replied as follows (April 2nd, 1913):--

"I was greatly interested in your account of your visit to the home of your people in the Channel Islands, and then to Normandy. Of course, the Channel Islands are the last little fragment of the old Duchy of Normandy. I was always pleased by the way in which their people, when they drink the health of the King, toast him as 'The Duke.' It is the one fragment of the gigantic British Empire which owes fealty to the Royal House of England primarily as the representative of the still older ducal line of Normandy. Moreover, the people of the Channel Islands have always seemed to me, like the French Huguenots, to combine the virile virtues of the northern races with that quality of fineness and distinction which are far more apt to be found in France--at least in old France--than among our northern Teutonic peoples.

"Indeed, those cathedrals represent the greatest architecture this world ever saw, with the sole exception of Greece at its best. All that you say about the Normans is true. What they accomplished in government, in war, in conquest, in architecture, was wonderful beyond description. No adequate explanation of the Norman achievements during the eleventh and twelfth centuries has ever been or ever can be made. As you say, it was their conquest of England and the Scotch lowlands that gave to the English their great push forward; and they gave this push in many different lands. The handful of Norman adventurers who went to Italy fifty years before the conquest of England speedily conquered South Italy and Sicily and part of Greece, and ruled over Saracen, Italian and Byzantine alike. The handful of Norman adventurers who conquered Ireland, thereby for the first time brought that country into the current of European affairs. It was the Normans to whom we owe the great 'Song of Roland.' They formed princ.i.p.alities and dukedoms in the Holy Land and the Balkan Peninsula. They set their stamp on the whole contemporary culture of Western Europe, just as their kinsfolk, who, as heathens, conquered heathen Russia, were the first to organize the Slav communities of Eastern Europe. In a way, the action of the Normans in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (for by the thirteenth century their importance had vanished) represented the continuation, culmination, and vanis.h.i.+ng of the tremendous Norse or Scandinavian movement which began about the year 800, and ended in the latter part of the eleventh century, when its Norman offshoot was at the zenith of its power and influence. There are many things about these people and their movements which are hard to explain. Wherever the Nors.e.m.e.n went, they became completely merged with the people they conquered, and although they formed a ruling caste they lost all trace of their own language and traditions. The Norse invaders became Sicilians in Sicily, Russians in Russia, Frenchmen in Normandy, Irishmen in Ireland, English- and Scotchmen in Great Britain.

They furnished kings to England, Scotland and Sicily, and rulers to a dozen other countries, but they always a.s.similated themselves to the conquered people, and their blood must always have been only a thin strain in the community as a whole. When the Normans came over to conquer England, I believe that they represented the fusion, not only of Scandinavians and Franks, but of the old Gallo-Romans, whose language they took. A great many of the adventurers were base-born. King William himself was the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of a tanner's daughter. Cooks and varlets, if vigorous enough, founded n.o.ble families. Quant.i.ties of Bretons and Flemings accompanied the Normans to England. Their language was purely French, and their culture was the culture of Latin Europe. They had lost every trace of the Norse language, and every remembrance of Norse literature and history. In William's army there seems to be no question that any man of fighting ability came to the front without any regard to his ancestry, just as was true of the Vikings from whom the Normans were descended; yet these people were certainly not only masters of war and government, but were more cultured, more imaginative, more civilized and also more enterprising and energetic, not only than the English but than any of the other peoples among whom they settled. In England two centuries and a half later, their tongue had practically been lost; they had been completely absorbed, and were typical Englishmen, and their blood must have been but a thin thread in the veins of the conquerors of Cressy and Agincourt. Yet this thin thread made of the English something totally different from what they had been before, and from what their kinsmen, the low Dutch of the Continent, continued to be. It is all absorbingly interesting."

In the spring of 1913 Selous decided to take a hunt in Iceland to collect the eggs of the various northern species of birds, and in this I was fortunately able to be of some a.s.sistance to him, as I had ridden nearly 1000 miles there in 1899, to study the bird-life of the island.

Wherefore I was able to give him accurate information of the various nesting-localities, and where each species was to be found in the summer months. Of only one bird, the Grey Phalarope, I could tell him nothing, but he and his friend, Heatley n.o.ble, were so industrious that they found it breeding on the south coast of the island and secured eggs.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BULL MOOSE ABOUT TO LIE DOWN.]

Of this trip, Heatley n.o.ble, an intimate and well-loved friend of Selous, kindly sends me the following notes:--

"Well do I remember our first meeting, which was destined to prove the beginning of a close friends.h.i.+p of more than twenty years--I was working on the lawn when I saw a picturesque figure dressed in shooting-clothes and the ever-present 'sombrero'

walking towards me. Off came the hat and 'Good morning, sir, my name is Selous. I am just beginning to arrange my collection of eggs and was advised at the Natural History Museum to call on you, as they say your method of keeping a collection was good.'

"How odd it seemed to me that this hero of a thousand hairbreadth escapes should start egg-collecting once more at his time of life (he was then about forty-five). I was soon to learn that the energy he has always thrown into his hunting-trips was to be given equally to this new pursuit--it was not really new, as he had collected as a boy at Rugby, and in Germany, but years spent away from home had seriously damaged the spoils of early days. I showed him my collection, and on hearing that he wanted to start with even the commonest species, we went off and collected what nests I knew. How interested I was to see the care with which this man, who could handle four-bore rifles as tooth-picks, yet retained the delicacy of touch which enabled him to wrap in cotton-wool such small eggs as those of Blue t.i.ts and Chiffchaffs! He told me he was off to Asia Minor for a few days, and then on to the plains of Hungary. This programme would have been sufficient for most men, but there were some days to spare, the season was short, so I recommended him to go to the Isles of Scilly; the owner being an old friend, I was sure I could get him leave. He went, and subsequently wrote me a long letter mentioning all the different species he had found, which fairly made my mouth water!

"Unlike some collectors, Fred Selous, if he knew where a good thing was to be found, made it his delight to share that knowledge. Perhaps to the detriment of the species, but greatly to the joy of his friends. Jealousy was unknown to him, his pleasure was always to help others, regardless of trouble; had he been to any part of the world where you had not, he would make it his business to give you the minutest details so that you could go there almost blindfold! I know this from personal experience, as it was thanks to him I went birds'-nesting into Andalusia and Hungary, besides many little trips in these Isles.

If he had been lucky with some rare species in a foreign country, he would press his duplicates on anyone interested, and more than this, it was difficult to prevent him handing out eggs he really could not spare. His own large collection was purely personal. I believe there were only some Bearded Vultures' eggs in it that he did not take with his own hands. These came from Sardinia, where he had been after Mouflon--he had seen the birds, but was too soon for eggs. If I found a nest on this property which he wanted, he would never let me take the eggs and send them to him, he would bicycle over to lunch (twenty-three miles each way) and take them with his own hands!

"I had long wished to visit Iceland on a nesting-trip, and in the early spring of 1913, wrote asking Selous if he would come.

To my great joy I found that he had already arranged to go there, and it was soon fixed up that we should go together. What a glorious time we had, and how much I owe to his companions.h.i.+p, invariable good temper and knowledge of travel! The s.h.i.+p we went out in was a smelly beastly thing, the weather cold, sea rough and food vile. The latter bothered Fred not at all, he often said he could live on any food that would support a human being, and from subsequent experience I believe he was right. He liked some things better than others, but anything would do. I only saw him beaten once; we had had an eight-hour ride in vile weather, at last we arrived at the farm where we were to spend the night. Fred loved meat, and our host produced a plate of stuff that might have been thin slices of mutton. Fred attacked it, and I watched developments! In place of the Aldermanic smile I expected, the face contracted, the mouth opened, a sharp word escaped, and later on the first course of his dinner turned out to be pickled Guillemot of the previous season! But to return to our s.h.i.+p. Fred didn't smoke, the rest of the company did to a man, rank Danish cigars, which made even a good sailor wish he had never left home. We were driven into the dining saloon, the only place where there was some peace, though the smell of ponies and cod took the place of vile cigars. Here Fred used to spend his day reading, his favourite book being 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles.' One day he complained bitterly of the light, and for the first time I noticed that this wonderful man was reading small print without gla.s.ses--aged, I think, sixty-three, and as long-sighted as anyone I ever met. All things come to an end in time, and after what seemed a month, and was really three days, we arrived at Reykjavik, starting the following day on our trip.

The first trek was a short one, only twenty miles, but quite long enough for me, as next day I could hardly climb on the pony, whereas Selous jumped on like a boy, and during the whole of our journey, above 1000 miles on pony back, never once felt stiffness. We did well from an ornithological point of view, finding some forty-six different kinds of nests, and bringing home over 1000 eggs, _not one_ of which was broken, thanks mostly to the careful packing of our friend. Selous had the greatest objection to getting his feet wet unnecessarily, and when crossing those rapid rough rivers would take his feet out of the stirrups and somehow curl them up behind him, it was a wonderful performance, and how he kept his balance with the pony stumbling and regaining his feet as only an Icelander can, fairly beat me. Once, when crossing an extra bad place, full of boulders and in a flooded condition, his pony got on the top of a flat rock under water; when he went to crawl down on the other side, there was the inevitable hole from back-wash--down went the pony, the jerk pulling Fred over on to his ears--I thought he must have fallen into the boiling cauldron--No; a short scramble, the pony righted himself and there was Fred as peaceful as ever, didn't even look round! When we were safe on the far side, I said to him, 'If you had gone off then, you would not have stopped till you got to the sea.' His reply was, 'Yes, but I didn't.'

"I was very anxious to get on to the Island of Grimsey, one of the European breeding places of the Little Auk. It is situated some sixty-five miles from Akureyri, and I was told motor fis.h.i.+ng-boats went there sometimes. I told our guide to telephone on and find out if such a boat could be hired, the reply came back that a small one would be available. The terms were settled, and the boat was to be ready the following evening, to start by 9 p.m. About 8 o'clock, we went to the quay to inspect our s.h.i.+p, when to my horror I was shown a single-cylinder thing not as large as a moderate Thames pleasure-launch, a free-board about 10 inches, no cabin, no deck. I'm bound to confess my heart failed me, it didn't seem quite good enough to trust ourselves to a sixty-five mile trip in a little tub with two youths (one of whom had a withered hand) and a very doubtful looking compa.s.s! Not so Fred, he never raised the least objection to a North Sea trip in a s.h.i.+p dependent on a single plug, which might become sooty any moment!

In due time we started, and after watching the midnight sun, my s.h.i.+pmate remarked, 'I think I shall turn in.' 'Turn in where?'

'Oh, the c.o.c.kpit will do.' It was full of rusty old chains, he could just get into it and lie curled up in a sort of knot on the rug, and here he pa.s.sed a dreamless night, never moving until I called him as the boat touched land about 8.30 a.m. On landing, the first thing was to find out where the Little Auk might breed. The Parson told us he knew a man skilled in such matters. With a total population of 72 souls, 13 of which were belonging to the Parson, it ought not to be difficult to find the tastes of any unit of the congregation (especially after eighteen years' residence). In a short time a fisherman arrived with a coil of rope and a crowbar; the latter he drove into the ground, tied the rope to it and heaved the end over the rock.

Our friendly Parson then waved towards the sea, remarking, 'There you are, how do you like it? The birds breed in the rocks at the bottom.' Honestly I did _not_ like it, but Fred remarked, 'Thank you, that will do well,' and without another word seized the rope and was soon at the bottom. I _had_ to follow, the Parson looking down from the top very much like the picture of Nebuchadnezzar looking down at Daniel in the lions' den. The Little Auk was not there, only Puffins inhabited that part of the island, and we had to regain the top as best we could. Later on we were shown a spot where the bird really did breed, and two eggs rewarded us for the long journey. We left again the same evening in a thick fog, Selous curling himself up once more on the rusty chains, and utterly oblivious to the fact that it was just a toss-up if our helmsman ever found the mainland again or not. A short time after this event we were resting at a farmhouse, and as usual asked if the boys knew of any nests. One of them replied that there was a Merlin's nest with five eggs in some rocks a few miles from the farm. Off we started, and all went well until we came to the face of a nasty crumbling steep place. The farm-boy, with only a pair of shoes made from raw sheepskin, made no bones about it and dashed up to the top. I was next, and after going up a certain distance could find no foothold and had to stop where I was. Selous was a little below me, and, when he reached my none too comfortable seat, I suggested that it was no place for me, and that the boy who was at the nest might as well bring down the eggs. This was not Fred's way of doing things, he simply remarked, 'I think I'll go a little further.' He did, right up into the nest, returning with the five eggs, and this too with a pair of long, heavy Norwegian field-boots on. I felt a proper weakling, but our friend never once rubbed it in by word or deed. Of side he had none, and the possibility of hurting anyone's feelings was absolutely repugnant to him _always_. During our long rides in Iceland, he told me many things about his life in Africa in the earlier days. How I wish I could have taken down the stories he related! To hear him talk was like listening to someone reading a book. He was never at a loss for a word or the name of a place. Perhaps we would have been riding together in silence for some time, then Fred would turn round with the remark, 'Do you know,' he then would start and tell me something of his early days in Africa, what may never have been published, things he did for which _others_ got the praise. I fear this most unselfish of men was far too often made use of. Not that Selous did not see through the schemes of various impostors; he did, but as he would never have done a dirty trick to a living soul, he could not believe they would to him. His fondness for tea was a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt for this indigestible drink. He told me that in his early camping days in Africa, he used to throw a handful of tea in the pot before starting off to hunt, let it simmer all day, freshening it with another handful in the evening. The tea-leaves were never emptied! The first time he stayed with me I saw him making very bad weather of a gla.s.s of champagne; on asking if he would prefer something else, the prompt reply came--'Tea.' Ever after that he was provided with his pet drink, and it used to interest me to see how he invariably left the spoon in the cup, a relic of old veldt days where manners were unknown. Fred's ideas on food were different to most people's. One evening after a wretched eight hours' ride in pouring cold rain, just as we neared the farm where we were to rest, I said, 'How would you like to dine with me at the Ritz to-night? A little clear soup, a grilled sole, lamb cutlets and green peas, mushrooms on toast and a bottle of Champagne 94?'

'Thanks very much, but if I had my choice of what I should like best, it would be good fat moose and tea.'

"I think it was not generally known that Selous held strong views about what he called Psychic Force, for during the whole of our long friends.h.i.+p I only once heard him let himself go on this subject, and I am bound to confess that coming from a man like him whose every word was truth, anyone who heard him relate what he had seen take place in his own home with only his brothers and sisters present, could not but help owning that he was in the presence of something beyond his understanding. His conversation was always worth listening to, but like all brave men, it was difficult to get him to talk. If he liked those present, he would often delight his audience and yarn on for hours, if he didn't, he was civility and politeness itself, but no yarns! His little sayings, without _an atom_ of side, always amused me. The last time but one that I saw him when on leave, I remarked on his close-cropped beard. 'Yes,' he said, 'it looked so white in the bush, they seemed as if they were always shooting at it.'