A Hunter Wanderings in Africa Frederick Courteney Selous
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"Selous is the most famous hunter in all Africa." — THE AMERICAN
"Since the days of Baldwin there has not been published a book on South African sporting which equals in value and interest the volume brought out by Mr. Selous." —ACADEMY
Frederick Courteney Selous (1851 – 1917) a British explorer, officer, hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann.
With but very few exceptions, Selous was the last of a long line of oldfashioned pioneer hunters of African big game. By long odds he was the most famous and conspicuous man of his kind. He lived and hunted from the period of the big-calibre smoothbore elephant gun that he loaded at the muzzle with a handful of powder as he ran at full speed, up through the 577 English express rifle of the 70's, to the highly finished Mannlicher of small calibre and tremendous power.
In 1881 Selous published his book "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa Being a Narrative of Nine Years Spent Amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa."
His book, as a matter of course, abounds in hunting stories of the lion, elephant, rhino, ; and, as these are well told, and only just sufficiently flavoured with sporting slang to give them an air of reality or local colour, they are quite as likely to interest stay-at-home readers as sportsmen. We need hardly say that Mr. Selous was a successful sportsman, who made a good thing out of the ivory which he carried away as his spoils.
The hunting of big game demands of its devotees many sacrifices. The hunter must be prepared to endure many and varied hardships in the pursuance of his vocation. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, the rigors of climate, the scorching sun by day, the fever-laden mists of night, these and many other trials must he encounter if he would taste to the full the joys of the hunter's life.
Going to South Africa when he was 19, Selous travelled from the Cape of Good Hope to Matabeleland, which he reached early in 1872, and where (according to his own account) he was granted permission by Lobengula, King of the Ndebele, to shoot game anywhere in his dominions. From then until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo Basin, shooting elephants and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections.
His travels added greatly to the knowledge of the country now known as Zimbabwe. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings—often among people who had never previously seen a white man—he maintained cordial relations with the chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula.
In 1890, Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, at the request of magnate Cecil Rhodes, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 miles of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements which brought the country there under British control.
Coming to England in December 1892, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys.
A Hunter Wanderings in Africa Frederick Courteney Selous
The book started slow for me but in short order I realized the author was a man of incredible vigor as well as honesty. His observations given in his day to day style of the journal will give you an astonishingly informative account of Africa's big game animals as well as many of it's tribes. Mr. Selous frequently goes against statements made by people who obviously either did not have his experience or were attempting to be dramatic to the point that their credibility suffers. He dispels many myths about some of Africas big game animals. He lays out in a very matter of fact manner the hardships faced by people in this area in both finding water as well as securing food. He had a very unbigoted view of the people for his time and felt sorry for the amount of slavery that went on during his years hunting in Africa. I found him to be obviously a wirey framed man as tough as leather. He frequently hunted on foot, especially for elephant and would walk days and days as well as running frequently to cut them off. He was hunting with black powder rifles for most of his experiences which any hunter knows makes for an even more challenging hunt against the size and speed of the animals he hunted. He cuts out portions of his notes which he felt were of no interest but his factual account is an understated journal of a real man hunting big game in the 1870's and early 80's in Africa. i highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys hunting and would like to understand the Africa of the 1870's it's beauty, dangers, and challenges.Product details
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A Hunter Wanderings in Africa Frederick Courteney Selous Reviews
Interesting if you like old hunting reports - ratter slow - not an action book but more a report of hunting trips
Interesting to read that even in the late 1800's they had to trek for long time to find things like elephants. Incredibly detailed, but as a commercial hunter...a lot gets redundant.
Not only enjoy hunting stories like history as well. this book is very readable. makes me laugh at how easy it is to travel around these days and how people complain about little delays. imagine if their cart got stuck in the mud every hundred yards and they had unhook the oxen and dig it out. alot of the places that he talked about have different names now so some of them were hard to find on google maps as i was reading the book. a few of the rivers also. I like to try and follow the hunter around on the maps as he talks about going different places. But anyway if you enjoy hunting and history stories i believe you will like this book. not quit the same style hunting stories as say jim corbetts awsome books because this guys main goal was ivory and animals with nice horns for museums and of course dinner. but very good.
The stories are so amazing that they must be false, one might say. ...Actually, not really. The truth is stranger than fiction. The hardships these hunters had to endure are amazing. Often it was a Dirty Job and dangerous, if you only consider the bugs and diseases. I love this book, and I am buying one or two as gifts.
While a bit "tedious" of continual shooting of African wildlife, this book did exemplify the time period and what hunting was. Too bad the "big tusker" elephants and their subsequent genes have been mostly removed. Sub Sahara Africa has had huge changes in population growth,politics, and land use over the last 100+ years, since the time of hunters like Selous. He definitely lived at a tough yet exciting time for hunting African wildlife. This book graphically shows this.
I am enthralled by the exploits of the early big game hunters. I found although their lives were filled with deprivation and hardship they appear to have loved what they did. I was surprised at the amount of game killed for food. I cringed at the number of animals wounded and lost. It would shame today's ethical hunter. I have always equated Africa with teaming plains of game yet in the 1870s when Selous wrote they often had problems finding game, especially elephants. Much of the game was very spooky and hard to approach. This is not a high adventure novel of fiction but rather a day by day narrative of the trials and triumphs of a man looking to make his fortune harvesting ivory. For anyone looking to experience "The good old days " this is a good read
Mr. Selous was a remarkable man in many respects and to read his own accounts of his journeys in South Africa is an additional treat. It was incredible how he survived his many adventures as a hunter in the wilds of Africa in the late 1870's; lions, buffalo, elephant, days without food or water, malaria, tribal conflicts, days/nights alone in the wilderness with wild creatures, etc. Mr.Selous also takes time to identify the different animals in Africa and describe their identifying features. What saddens me is that even he describes various animals becoming more and more extinct due to hunting in various locations of Africa and this is back in 1874. Descriptions of killing entire herds of elephants just for their tusks is also hard to comprehend though that is how he made his adventurous living. I read his biography first but also enjoyed his own personal accounts of the life of an African hunter in the late 1800's.
The book started slow for me but in short order I realized the author was a man of incredible vigor as well as honesty. His observations given in his day to day style of the journal will give you an astonishingly informative account of Africa's big game animals as well as many of it's tribes. Mr. Selous frequently goes against statements made by people who obviously either did not have his experience or were attempting to be dramatic to the point that their credibility suffers. He dispels many myths about some of Africas big game animals. He lays out in a very matter of fact manner the hardships faced by people in this area in both finding water as well as securing food. He had a very unbigoted view of the people for his time and felt sorry for the amount of slavery that went on during his years hunting in Africa. I found him to be obviously a wirey framed man as tough as leather. He frequently hunted on foot, especially for elephant and would walk days and days as well as running frequently to cut them off. He was hunting with black powder rifles for most of his experiences which any hunter knows makes for an even more challenging hunt against the size and speed of the animals he hunted. He cuts out portions of his notes which he felt were of no interest but his factual account is an understated journal of a real man hunting big game in the 1870's and early 80's in Africa. i highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys hunting and would like to understand the Africa of the 1870's it's beauty, dangers, and challenges.
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