Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O Part 4

CHAPTER III 1871-1875

There are few of us whose early aspirations and subsequent acts are not influenced by literature. Some book comes just at the time of our life when we are most impressionable and seems exactly to fit in with our ideas and temperament. To this rule Selous was no exception, for he often admitted in after-life that the one book which definitely sent him to Africa and made him a pioneer and a hunter of Big Game, was Baldwin's "African Hunting from Natal to the Zambesi," published in 1864. Example in any line of adventure is recurrent, and especially so if the field of adventure is not spoilt by what we may call excessive "civilization."

There have been, as it were, landmarks in the literature of African sport and travel, each book being more or less c.u.mulative in its effect.

Amongst books that mattered, perhaps the first was Burch.e.l.l's fully-ill.u.s.trated folio and the lesser writings of an English officer who hunted in the Orange Free State late in the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth century. The works of these men incited Captain Cornwallis Harris to undertake an extensive trip as far as the Limpopo.

He was a capable artist and an excellent writer, and published a magnificent folio describing his adventures and the natural history of the large mammals, which still commands a high price. He at once inspired many hunters to follow in his footsteps, and several of these, such as Roualeyn Gordon c.u.mming, William Cotton Oswell, Sir Francis Galton, and C. J. Anderson, wrote either books of great value or portions of standard works. Gordon c.u.mming did an immense amount of shooting--far too much most people now think--but his volume, written in the romantic British style, is one that will always remain a cla.s.sic in the world of sporting literature. His tales of the game he saw or what he killed were not always accepted as true facts, but from all accounts, gathered from independent sources, it is now admitted that Gordon c.u.mming was a fearless hunter and did in the main accomplish all the princ.i.p.al exploits to which he laid claim.

"Lake Ngami, or Explorations in South-Western Africa," by Charles John Anderson, published in 1856, with some admirable early ill.u.s.trations by Wolf, gives an account of the author's four years' wanderings (partly with Francis Galton) in the Western Wilderness, and is a truthful and excellent record of the Great Game in these districts at that time.

Galton also published "Tropical Africa," but did not give much s.p.a.ce to sport or natural history. Oswell, a great hunter and companion of Livingstone in many of his travels, also wrote in the last days of his life an admirable contribution to the "Badminton Library," which embodied an account of his life and adventures amongst the Great Game of South Africa in the forties. It is well ill.u.s.trated by Wolf, the greatest painter of birds and mammals who ever lived. Other men of his date who were excellent hunters, who left no records of their lives, were Vardon, General Sir Thomas Steele, and Thomas Baines, who, without prejudice, did perhaps as much exploration, geographical work, painting, and hunting as any Afrikander of his time. Baines, I believe, really discovered the Falls of the Zambesi before Livingstone visited them, and no adequate tribute to the work of this remarkable man has ever appeared. The amount of maps he prepared of out-of-the-way corners of South Africa from the Zambesi northwards, was very great and his work was only known to the pioneers like Livingstone, Oswell, Selous and others who followed after him and made use of his industry. Baines, too, though almost uneducated, was a very capable artist and I think I must have seen at least two hundred of his paintings in oil. He liked to depict landscapes and wild animals. Whilst those of the latter were not above criticism, his views of the rivers, lakes, forests, mountains, and plains of the Free State, swarming with game, are a truthful record of the days that are no more, and will doubtless live in South African history when more ambitious, technically correct works are forgotten.[4]

After these sportsmen and writers came William Charles Baldwin, who wandered, primarily with the object of hunting elephants, from Zululand to the Zambesi and west to Lake Ngami between the years 1852 and 1860.

His book "African Hunting and Adventure" was published in 1863, and was beautifully ill.u.s.trated by Wolf and Zwecker. It was an immediate success and caused many, like Selous, to leave the ways of civilization and seek adventure in the wilds. Baldwin was an excellent and fearless rider (he rode in a steeplechase when he was seventy) and a good shot, and the accounts of his adventures could hardly have failed to make their impress on the minds of young men of the right kind, but, as he admits, the elephants were on the wane even in his day (he never succeeded in hunting in the main haunts in Matabeleland), so future travellers had to exploit new fields.

On the 4th of September, 1871, Selous landed at Algoa Bay with 400 in his pocket. He went there determined to make his way into the interior and to lead the free life of the hunter as described by Gordon c.u.mming, Baldwin, and others. First he decided to go to the Diamond Fields, and left Port Elizabeth on September 6th with a young transport rider named Reuben Thomas, who conveyed him and his baggage for the sum of eight pounds. After a slow journey of nearly two months he reached his destination. On the road by hunting hard he had managed to kill "one bushbuck ram, one duiker, one springbuck, one klipspringer, and eight grey and red roebucks, all of which I carried on my own shoulders to the waggons."

Most unfortunately, however, a valuable double breechloading rifle with which he had been shooting was stolen on the day he reached Kimberley.

Next day he bought a horse and rode over to Pniel. There he met Mr.

Arthur Lang, and on October 31st went with him on a trading trip through Griqualand, pa.s.sing down the Vaal and Orange rivers. He found the Bechuanas an industrious race, "but they are the stingiest, most begging, grasping, and disagreeable set of people that it is possible to imagine." He was much disappointed to find the country so bare of game.

"The great drawback was that there was no game whatever, not even springbucks, the Kafirs having hunted everything into the far interior, so that now there is more game within five miles of Cape Town than here, where we were more than 600 miles up country." The party returned to the Diamond Fields at the end of March and sold off their produce--cattle, goats, and ostrich feathers at a profit of about 100.

Selous then set about his preparations for a journey into the far interior. From a trader he purchased a waggon, a span of young oxen, and five horses. A young fellow named Dorehill and a Mr. Sadlier then agreed to accompany him. The whole party seems to have been very badly armed with indifferent weapons. At the end of April, 1872, Selous and his two friends trekked north and only got as far as Kuruman, a delay of a fortnight being caused through the horses running away. Here Selous met Mr. William Williams, an experienced trader and hunter, from whom he purchased two unprepossessing-looking large-bore elephant guns as used by the Boer native hunters. Cheap as these guns were, about six pounds a-piece and using only common trade gunpowder, they were most effective weapons, for in three seasons with them (1872-1874) Selous killed seventy-eight elephants, all but one of which he shot whilst hunting on foot. He used to load them whilst running at full speed by simply diving his hand into a leather bag of powder slung at his side. "They kicked most frightfully, and in my case the punishment I received from these guns has affected my nerves to such an extent as to have materially influenced my shooting ever since, and I am heartily sorry I ever had anything to do with them."

After a trying trek the party arrived at Secheli's in twenty days through more or less waterless country, but just before reaching these kraals an accident happened which might easily have cost Selous and Dorehill their lives. Selous was taking some cartridges from a box on the side of the waggon, in which was about a pound of loose gunpowder, when Dorehill came up and dropped some ashes from his pipe into the box.

An immediate explosion followed and both were badly burnt. Sadlier, however, rose to the emergency and "at once rubbed a mixture of oil and salt into our skinless faces; it was not a pleasant process." After a visit to Secheli, who was a most completely civilized Kafir, Selous and his friends moved northward on the 28th June, with Frank Mandy, who was about to trade in the Matabele country. On the road to Boatlanarma they experienced great difficulties and were once three days and three nights without water. About the middle of August they left Bamangwato, where Selous purchased a salted horse. By exchanging his new waggon for a smaller second-hand one, a trade rifle and the horse itself valued at 75, he made a deal with a shrewd but uneducated Scotchman named Peter Skinner. Of course the new purchase ran away at the first opportunity, which delayed the party for another week. Near Pelatsi Selous had his first experience of real African hards.h.i.+p, and his subsequent account of being lost in the bush for four days and three nights, without covering except his s.h.i.+rt and breeches and without food or drink, is one of the most thrilling he ever wrote.[5]

Selous and his comrades here met their first giraffes and proceeded to give chase.

"After a time the giraffes separated, and suffice it to say that, at the end of an hour or so, I found myself lying on my back, with my right leg nearly broken, by coming violently into contact with the trunk of a tree; and, on getting up and remounting my horse, not only were the giraffes out of sight, but nowhere could I see either of my two companions. Though, of course, my inexperience contributed much to the unsuccessful issue of this, my first giraffe hunt, yet I cannot help thinking that my horse also had a good deal to do with it, for, having been bred in the open plains of the Transvaal Republic, he was quite at sea in the thick forests of the interior; and if, when going at full gallop through a thick wood, you intend to pa.s.s on one side of a tree, but your horse, being of a different opinion, swerves suddenly and goes to the other, it is awkward, to say the least of it.

"My first object was to rejoin my companions; so, not having heard a shot, and imagining they must by this time have given up chasing the giraffes, I fired as a signal, and at once heard a shot in answer far to my right, and rode in that direction.

After riding some distance I again pulled up, and shouted with all my might, and then, not hearing anything, fired another signal shot, but without effect. As my horse was very tired, I now off-saddled for a short time and then fired a third shot, and listened intently for an answer, but all was silent as the grave; so, as the sun was now low, I saddled up again and struck a line for the waggon road, thinking my friends had already done the same thing. In this way I rode on at a slow pace, for my horse was tired and thirsty, keeping steadily in one direction till the sun, sinking lower and lower, at last disappeared altogether. I expected I should have reached the road before this, and, attributing my not doing so to the fact of the path having taken a turn to the right, still kept on till twilight had given place to moonlight--a fine bright moonlight, indeed, for it wanted but two nights to the full, but, under the circ.u.mstances, perhaps a trifle cold and cheerless. Still, thinking I must be close to the road, I kept on for another couple of hours or so, when, it being intensely cold, I resolved to try and light a fire, and pa.s.s the night where I was and ride on again early the following morning. Having no matches, I had to make use of my cartridges, of which I had only three remaining, in endeavouring to get a light. Breaking one of these open, I rubbed some of the powder well into a bit of linen torn from my s.h.i.+rt, slightly wetted, and, putting it into the muzzle of the rifle, ignited it with the cap and a little powder left in the bottom of the cartridge. So far well and good, but this was, unfortunately, almost as far as I could get; for, though I managed to induce some gra.s.s to smoulder, I couldn't for the life of me make it flare, and soon had the mortification of finding myself, after two more unsuccessful attempts, just as cold and, hungry as before, and minus my three cartridges to boot. Were the same circ.u.mstances to occur again, no doubt everything would be very different; but at that time I was quite a tyro in all forest lore. It was now piercingly cold, though during the day the sun had been as hot as at midsummer in England--regular South African fas.h.i.+on. Still, I thought it better to pa.s.s the night where I was; so, tying my horse to a tree, I cut a little gra.s.s with my pocket knife to lie upon, and turned in. My entire clothing consisted of a hat, s.h.i.+rt, pair of trousers, and veldt shoes, as I had ridden away from the waggon without my coat. However, lying on my back, with my felt hat for a pillow, I put the saddle over my chest and closed my eyes in the vain hope that I should soon fall asleep and forget my cares; vain indeed, for the bitter cold crept in gradually and stealthily from my feet upwards, till I was soon s.h.i.+vering from head to foot as if my very life depended on it. After having worked hard at this unpleasant exercise for a couple of hours or more, watching the moon all the time, and cursing its tardy pace, I could stand it no longer; so, getting up with difficulty--for I was regularly stiffened by the cold--I ran backwards and forwards to a tree at a short distance until I was again warm, when I once more lay down; and in this manner the weary hours wore away till day dawned. During the night a couple of hyenas pa.s.sed close to me, enlivening the silence with their dismal howlings. I have often thought since that they must have been on their way to drink, perhaps at some pit or spring not far off; how I wished that I had known where! I will take this opportunity of saying that the howl of the African hyena is about the most mournful and weird-like sound in nature, being a sort of prolonged groan, rising in cadence till it ends in a shriek; they only laugh when enjoying a good feed.

"At first dawn of day I once more saddled up and rode in the same direction as before. My poor horse was so tired and thirsty that he would only go at a very slow pace; so I didn't make much progress. On coming to a high tree I stopped and climbed up it, and looked about me to try and recognize some landmark. On every side the country was covered with forest, and in the distance were several low ranges of hills, yet nothing seemed familiar to my eye. Right ahead, in the direction in which I had been riding, appeared a line of densely wooded hills, with one single kopje standing alone just in front of them, and thither I determined to ride. On the way I pa.s.sed three beautiful gemsbuck, which allowed me to come quite close to them, though they are usually very wild; but they had nothing to fear from me, as I had no cartridges, and so could do nothing more than admire them. Thus I rode on and on, until the idea occurred to me that I must have ridden across the road (a mere narrow track) without noticing it in the moonlight, as I had constantly been star-gazing after the sun went down, so as to guide my course by the position of the Southern Cross. After a time, I at last felt so sure that this was the case, that I turned my horse's head to the right-about, and rode back again in the direction from which I had just come."

He was now hopelessly lost but did not give way to despair, as so many in a similar position have done. Nothing but a level sea of forest surrounded him, so he turned his jaded horse to the setting sun in the west in the hope of again striking the road. After another night in the wilderness he awoke to find his horse gone. Far to the south-west was a line of hills and after walking without food or water till the moon rose, he reached the mountains. At sunrise he topped the crest of the range, hoping to see the maize fields of Bamangwato, but saw nothing.

Worn out with thirst, fatigue, and hunger he started again at sunrise and at last at sundown he met two Kafirs who eventually took him to their kraal and gave him water and milk.

"The next morning, as soon as it was light, accompanied by the Kafir who carried my rifle, I made a start, and, though very tired and worn out from privation, managed to reach the waggons late in the afternoon, after an absence of five days and four nights. How I enjoyed the meal that was hastily prepared for me, and how delightful it was to keep out the bitter cold with a couple of good blankets, I will leave the reader to conjecture."

Of course, he lost his valuable salted horse, which although hobbled, found its way back to Bamangwato. But Selous could never claim it as he had sold his right to it to a Mr. Elstob at Tati. At Goqui he saw his first lions. Unfortunately he had fired a shot at two lionesses running away, when a fine lion with dark coloured mane stood up and offered him a splendid shot at 80 yards, but his rifle was empty, and as he had no dogs to follow the lions when they had vanished, his first encounter with lions gave him much disappointment. At the end of August they reached Tati, and on leaving this place and pa.s.sing the Ramaqueban river the following day, Selous says: "Here I first saw a sable antelope, one of the handsomest animals in the world," and anyone, indeed, who sees this magnificent creature for the first time never forgets it.

Next day he reached Minyama's kraal, the frontier outpost of the Matabele country, where most of the inhabitants were Makalakas in native dress. The country now became beautiful and park-like in character, and this extends to Bulawayo, the town founded by Lobengula in 1870, and where the sable king dwelt. On receipt of messages announcing their arrival, the king arrived, dressed in a greasy s.h.i.+rt, a costume which shortly afterwards he discarded for native dress. "He asked me what I had come to do," writes Selous. "I said I had come to hunt elephants, upon which he burst out laughing, and said, 'Was it not steinbucks' (a diminutive species of antelope) 'that you came to hunt? Why, you're only a boy.' I replied that, although a boy, I nevertheless wished to hunt elephants and asked his permission to do so, upon which he made some further disparaging remarks regarding my youthful appearance, and then rose to go without giving me any answer."

But Selous was persistent and again begged for permission. "This time he asked me whether I had ever seen an elephant, and upon my saying no, answered, 'Oh, they will soon drive you out of the country, but you may go and see what you can do!'" When Selous asked him where he might go, Lobengula replied impatiently, "Oh, you may go wherever you like, you are only a boy."

It was about this time that the famous Boer elephant hunter, Jan Viljoen, arrived at Bulawayo and offered to take Sadlier and Selous to his waggons on the River Gwenia to join his hunting party. This was an opportunity not to be lost. In eight days the party, after crossing the Longwe, Sangwe, Shangani, and Gwelo, reached the Gwenia and found the patriarchal encampment of the Boer elephant hunters. The Boers then, as now, travelled even into the far interior with wives, children, cows, sheep, goats, and fowls, and established a "stand-place" whilst the men hunted in all directions, being absent for a week to a month at a time.

A slight accident now prevented Selous from going in on foot with the Viljoens to hunt in the "fly." He went off at the Boer's request to buy some corn and on the way back, in pa.s.sing some Griqua waggons at Jomani, he saw for the first time a Hottentot named Cigar, with whom later he became better acquainted.

Cigar was an experienced hunter and as it seemed now hopeless to follow Viljoen he decided to go in and hunt with the Hottentot. It may be gathered how roughly they lived from Selous' own words: "Having now run through all my supplies of coffee, tea, sugar, and meal, we had nothing in the provision line but Kafir corn and meat of the animals we shot, washed down by cold water."

Cigar--besides two Kafirs who were shooting for him, and carried their own guns and a supply of ammunition--had only three spare boys who carried his blankets, powder, Kafir corn, and a supply of fresh meat. He himself carried his own rifle, a heavy old four-bore muzzle-loader. "As for me," says Selous, "having had to leave two of my Kafirs to look after my horses and oxen, I had but one youngster with me, who carried my blanket and spare ammunition, whilst I shouldered my own old four-bore muzzle-loader, and carried besides a leather bag filled with powder, and a pouch containing twenty four-ounce round bullets. Though this was hardly doing the thing _en grand seigneur_, I was young and enthusiastic in those days and trudged along under the now intense heat with a light heart."

It must be remembered that at this time nearly all the old Boer and English elephant-hunters, such as men like Piet Schwarz, William Finaughty, Hartley, the Jennings family, J. Giffard, T. Leask, and H.

Biles, had given up the game of elephant-hunting when horses could be no longer used and the elephants themselves must be pursued on foot in the "fly." Only George Wood, Jan Viljoen,[6] and the greatest hunter of all in South Africa, Petrus Jacobs, still pursued the elephant, but the difficulty, danger, distance, and scarcity of elephant haunts were now so defined and the results so small that none save the very hardiest were able to follow them.

At this time (1873) Piet Jacobs was undoubtedly the most famous hunter in South Africa. During a long life, most of which was spent in the Mashuna and Matabele country, he is supposed to have shot between 400 and 500 bull elephants, mostly killed by hunting them from horseback, but even after as an old man he killed many on foot in the "fly"

country. Unlike most Boers, he constantly attacked lions whenever he had the opportunity, and Selous considers that he shot "more lions than any man that ever lived." His usual method in hunting these animals was, if the first shot missed, to loose three or four strong "Boer" dogs, which quickly ran the lion to bay. Then, as a rule, it was easily killed. One day, however, in 1873, on the Umniati river he was terribly mauled by a lion that charged after being bayed by his three dogs. His shot at the charging lion missed, and he was thrown to the ground and severely bitten on the thigh, left arm, and hand. The dogs, however, now came up and saved his life, but it was a long time before he recovered. He said that, unlike the experience of Dr. Livingstone, the bites of the lion were extremely painful, at which Selous humorously remarks that the absence of suffering in such a case is an especial mercy "which Providence does not extend beyond ministers of the Gospel."

Of William Finaughty, the greatest of the English elephant-hunters, neither Selous nor any contemporary writer gives any particulars, so I am indebted to Mr. G. L. Harrison, an American gentleman, for his "Recollections of William Finaughty," which was privately printed in 1916. He met Finaughty, who was then a very slight old man, with a wonderful memory and much weakened by attacks of fever, in 1913.

Finaughty was one of the first white men to hunt elephants in Matabeleland, and his activities extended from 1864 to 1875, when he gave up serious hunting because he could no longer pursue them on horseback.

Finaughty describes himself as a harum-scarum youth who left Grahamstown at the age of twenty-one early in 1864. He pa.s.sed north through the Free State, then swarming with tens of thousands of black wildebeest, blesbok, springbok, quagga, blue wildebeest, and ostrich, and made his way to Matabeleland, then ruled by Mzilikatse, a brother of the Zulu king Chaka. After sport with lion and buffalo on the road, for all game, including elephants, were abundant at this time, he reached Tati. Old Mzilikatse was then a physical wreck but treated the Englishman well, although at times he had violent outbursts of pa.s.sion. Finaughty was witness of a great dance in which 2500 warriors took part, and on which occasion 540 oxen were slaughtered. Horse-sickness was then rife in the country and the party lost fourteen horses out of seventeen within thirty hours. In this, his first trip, Finaughty only killed three elephants, which he attributed to lack of experience. On his second trip in 1865 he did better, whilst a third in 1866 was made purely for trading, yet he shot eight elephants and then decided to become a hunter only.

On the fourth trip he shot nineteen elephants, but in 1868, on the Umbila, he states that he had "the two finest months of my life. In all I shot 95 elephants, the ivory weighing 5000 lbs."

One day he had a narrow escape in the sandy bed of the Sweswe river. He had wounded an old bull when he fired at it again as it was on the point of charging. His boy had put in two charges and the hunter was nearly knocked out of the saddle by the recoil. The elephant then charged and got right on the top of him, but, at the moment when death seemed imminent, the elephant's shoulder-bone broke and he was helpless--thus Finaughty escaped. In those days the elephants did not know the meaning of gunfire. Finaughty one day bagged six bulls in a river bed, as they did not run on the shots being fired.

In 1869 he went into the elephant country one hundred miles beyond the Tuli and remained there three years, sending out his ivory and receiving fresh provisions and ammunition on the return of his waggons. In five months he killed fifty-three elephants yielding 3000 lbs. of ivory. In one day he killed five bulls and five cows, which was his "record" bag for one day. In the two following years he killed a large number of elephants, but does not state the precise number. In 1870 he again hunted elephants without giving particulars.

From 1870 to 1874 Finaughty remained at Shoshong as a trader and prospered.

It is interesting to note that Finaughty, like many experienced hunters, does not agree with Selous in considering the lion the most dangerous of all African game. He repeatedly says that buffalo-hunting is the most risky of all forms of hunting.[7] "Far better," he says, "follow up a wounded lion than a wounded buffalo, for the latter is the fiercest and most cunning animal to be found in Africa." He himself had many narrow escapes from buffaloes and only one or two unpleasant incidents with lions. "No," he remarks again, "a man who is out after buffalo must shoot to kill and not to wound, and if he fails to bring his quarry down he should on no account venture to follow up unless in open country. He should never follow a buffalo into cover, unless he is accompanied by a number of good dogs. Many a good man has lost his life through neglect of this precaution." Finaughty lived in the Transvaal from 1883 to 1887, and then moved to Johannesburg in the early days of the "boom." In the nineties he returned to Matabeleland to spend the rest of his days on his farm near Bulawayo. He was still alive in 1914.

What would, however, have been only toil and hards.h.i.+p to older men was small discomfort to a tough young fellow like Selous, who was now in his natural element. Almost at once he and Cigar tracked and killed a grand old bull which carried tusks of 61 and 58 lbs. On the following days they killed six elephants, Cigar accounting for four. Selous here pays a high tribute to the good qualities of his dusky companion. "Cigar was a slight-built, active Hottentot, possessed of wonderful powers of endurance, and a very good game shot, though a bad marksman at a target.

These qualities, added to lots of pluck, made him a most successful elephant-hunter; and for foot hunting in the 'fly' country I do not think I could have had a more skilful preceptor; for although only an uneducated Hottentot--once a jockey at Grahamstown--he continually allowed me to have the first shot, whilst the elephants were still standing--a great advantage to give me--and never tried in any way to over-reach me or claim animals that I had shot, as is so often done by Boer hunters. Strangely enough, Cigar told me, when the celebrated hunter, Mr. William Finaughty, first took him after elephants on horseback, he had such dreadful fear of the huge beasts that, after getting nearly caught by one, and never being able to kill any, he begged his master to let him remain at the waggons. When I knew him this fear must have worn off, and I have never since seen his equal as a foot hunter." Selous did very well with Cigar, getting 450 lbs. of ivory which he had shot himself, and another 1200 lbs. which he had traded with the natives, thus making a clear profit of 300. When he saw the king, he told him that the elephants had not driven him out of the country, but that he had killed several, to which Lobengula replied, "Why, you're a man; when are you going to take a wife?" and suggested that he should court one at once.

Selous' friends had now all left the country, but he himself decided to remain in Matabeleland to be ready to hunt in the following year with George Wood. As usual, however, Lobengula took months to give his permission, so that it was not until the 15th June, 1873, that he gave permission to the two hunters to make a start. Even then he would not allow them to go to the Mashuna country and stated that they must hunt to the westward of the river Gwai.

A fortnight after leaving Bulawayo Selous and Wood reached Linquasi, where they began to hunt, and two days later they killed two fine bull elephants. Here they established their main hunting-camp and made raids into the "fly." During this season of four months Selous killed forty-two elephants and George Wood fifty. They also accounted for a good many rhinoceros and buffalo. Their main hunting veldt was the "fly"

region between the rivers Zambesi and Gwai. It was a broken country full of hills, "kloofs," dense bush and park-like opens. This area was formerly inhabited by the Makalakas, but these had been driven across the Zambesi by raiding Matabele. These regions were consequently a great game preserve and full of elephant, black and white rhinoceros, buffalo, zebra, sable, roan, koodoo, impala, reedbuck, klipspringer, grysbok, bushbuck, waterbuck, and other antelopes. In "A Hunter's Wanderings"

Selous gives many interesting accounts of his hunts after elephants, but perhaps his best is the splendid narrative of his great day, of which I am permitted to give his own description.[8]

"As soon as the day dawned, we sent a couple of Kafirs down to the water to see if any elephants had been there, and on their return in a quarter of an hour with the joyful tidings that a fine troop of bulls had drunk during the night, we at once started in pursuit. We found they had come down from the right-hand side, and returned on their own spoor, feeding along nicely as they went, so that we were in great hopes of overtaking them without much difficulty. Our confidence, however, we soon found was misplaced, for after a time they had ceased to feed, and, turning back towards the N.E., had taken to a path, along which they had walked in single file and at a quick pace, as if making for some stronghold in the hills. Hour after hour we trudged on, over rugged stony hills, and across open gra.s.sy valleys, scattered over which grew clumps of the soft-leaved machabel trees, or rather bushes; but, though the leaves and bark of this tree form a favourite food of elephants, those we were pursuing had turned neither to the right nor to the left to pluck a single frond.

"After midday, the aspect of the country changed, and we entered upon a series of ravines covered with dense, scrubby bush.

Unfortunately the gra.s.s here had been burnt off, but for which circ.u.mstance the elephants, I feel sure, would have halted for their midday sleep. In one of these thickets we ran on to three black rhinoceroses (_R. bicornis_) lying asleep. When we were abreast of them they got our wind, and, jumping up, rushed close past the head of our line, snorting vigorously. It was a family party, consisting of a bull, a cow, and a full-grown calf; they pa.s.sed so near that I threw at them the thick stick which I used for a ramrod, and overshot the mark, it falling beyond them.

"Shortly after this incident, we lost the spoor in some very hard, stony ground, and had some trouble in recovering it, as the Kafirs, being exhausted with the intense heat, and thinking we should not catch the elephants, had lost heart and would not exert themselves, hoping that we would give up the pursuit. By dint of a little care and perseverance, however, we succeeded, and after a time again entered upon a more open country. To cut a long story short, I suppose it must have been about two hours before sundown when we came to a large tree, from which the elephants had only just moved on. At first we thought they must have got our wind and run, but on examination we found they had only walked quietly on. We put down the water-calabashes and axes, and the Kafirs took off their raw-hide sandals, and then we again, quickly but cautiously, followed on the spoor. It was perhaps five minutes later when we at last sighted them, seven in number, and all large, full-grown bulls. W. and I walked up to within thirty yards or so, and fired almost simultaneously; he at one standing broadside, and I at another facing me. Our Hottentot boy also fired, and, as the animals turned, a volley was given by our Kafirs, about ten of whom carried guns. Not an elephant, however, seemed any the worse, and they went away at a great pace. Judging from the lie of the land ahead that they would turn to the right, I made a cut with my two gun-bearers, whilst W. kept in their wake. Fortune favoured me, for they turned just as I had expected, and I got a splendid broadside shot as they pa.s.sed along the farther side of a little gully not forty yards off. The Kafir having, as he ran, reloaded the gun which I had already discharged and on which I placed most dependence, I fired with it at the foremost elephant, an enormous animal with long white tusks, when he was exactly opposite to me. My boy had put in the powder with his hand, and must have overloaded it, for the recoil knocked me down, and the gun itself flew out of my hands. Owing to this, I lost a little time, for, when I got hold of my second gun, the elephants had turned back again (excepting the one just hit) towards W. and the Kafirs. However, I gave another a bullet behind the big ribs as he was running obliquely away from me. The first, which I had hit right in the middle of the shoulder, was now walking very slowly up a steep hill, looking as though he were going to fall every instant; but, nevertheless (as until an elephant is actually dead, there is no knowing how far he may go), I determined to finish him before returning to the others. On reaching the top of the hill, and hearing me coming on not a dozen yards behind him, the huge beast wheeled round, and, raising his gigantic ears, looked ruefully towards me. Poor beast, he was doubtless too far gone to charge, and, on receiving another ball in the chest, he stepped slowly backwards, and then sinking on to his haunches, threw his trunk high into the air and rolled over on his side, dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Selous as a Young Man, in Hunting Costume.]

"During this time, the remainder of the elephants, harried and bewildered by the continuous firing of W. and our little army of native hunters, had come round in a circle, and I saw the four that still remained (for, besides the one I had killed, two more were down) coming along in single file, at the long, quick half run, half walk, into which these animals settle after their first rush. I at once ran obliquely towards them; but, before I could get near, one more first lagged behind, and then fell heavily to the ground, so that there were but three remaining.

W., being blown, had been left behind; but most of the Kafirs were still to the fore, firing away as fast as they could load, from both sides. It was astonis.h.i.+ng what bad shooting they made; their bullets kept continually striking up the ground all round the elephants, sometimes in front of their trunks, sometimes behind them, and ever and anon one would come whistling high overhead. It was in vain that I shouted to them to leave off firing and let me shoot; their blood was up, and blaze away they would.

"Just as I was getting well up alongside, the elephants crossed a little gully, and entered a small patch of scrubby bush, on the slope of the hill beyond, in the shelter of which they at once stopped and faced about, giving me a splendid chance. I had just emptied both my guns, hitting one animal full in the chest, and another, that was standing broadside to me, in the shoulder, when loud lamentations and cries of 'Mai-ai!' 'Mai mamo!' burst from my Kafir followers close behind. At the same time my two gun-carriers, throwing down their guns, ran backwards, clapping their hands, and shouting like the rest. Turning hastily round, I saw a Kafir stretched upon the earth, his companions sitting round him, wailing and clapping their hands, and at once comprehended what had occurred. The poor fellow who lay upon the ground had fired at the elephants, from about thirty yards behind myself, and then ran up an ant-hill, just as another Kafir, who preferred to keep at a safer distance, discharged a random shot, which struck poor Mendose just between the shoulder-blades, the bullet coming out on the right breast. I ran up at once to see what could be done, but all human aid was vain--the poor fellow was dead. At this moment two more shots fell close behind, and a minute or two afterwards W. and our Hottentot boy John came up. One of the three elephants had fallen after my last shot, close at hand, and a second, sorely wounded, had walked back right on to W. and John, who were following on the spoor; and the two shots I had just heard had sealed his fate. The third, however, and only surviving one out of the original seven, had made good his escape during the confusion, which he never would have done had it not been for the untimely death of Mendose.

"The sun was now close down upon the western skyline, and little time was to be lost. The Kafirs still continued to shout and cry, seeming utterly paralysed, and I began to think that they were possessed of more sympathetic feelings than I had ever given them credit for. However, on being asked whether they wished to leave the body for the hyenas, they roused themselves.

As luck would have it, on the side of the very ant-hill on which the poor fellow had met his death was a large deep hole, excavated probably by an anteater, but now untenanted. Into this rude grave, with a Kafir needle to pick the thorns out of his feet, and his a.s.segais with which to defend himself on his journey to the next world, we put the body, and then firmly blocked up the entrance with large stones, to keep the prowling hyenas from exhuming it. Poor Mendose! he was an obedient, willing servant, and by far the best shot of all our native hunters.