Like all big game hunters Selous always dreamed of a land teaming with game where other hunters had not been and scared the game away. He saw by this time that the old hunting-grounds, at least as far as elephants were concerned, were finished, and that he must find for himself a new field to exploit if such a place existed. The difficulties, however, even to such a man as himself, were immense, because the "fly" debarred him to the east and north, whilst to the west was nothing but a waterless desert where no elephants could live. If therefore he was to find the virgin country it must be far to the north where he could not take his waggons. The country on which he had set his heart was the Mashukulumbwe, and though no hunters had been there, he heard from natives that it was full of elephants. In 1877 he had tried to reach it, but owing to the hostility of the Portuguese and local chiefs beyond the Zambesi, and the subsequent illness of himself and his friend, he had been obliged to abandon the venture. Now, however, in 1879, he conceived a plan to cross the desert to Bamangwato, when he hoped to kill gemsbuck, which had so far eluded him, and to hunt on the Chobe, which always held a peculiar attraction for him, then to leave his waggons and visit the unknown portions of the Barotsi country and strike east to the Mashukulumbwe. He expected that this journey would extend over two or three years, so in January he trekked south to Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, where he laid in stores and ammunition for the long trip.

On April 14th he reached Bamangwato and obtained permission from Khama to travel through the Kalahari to the Mababe river. This time young Miller again accompanied him as well as another young colonist of German extraction named Sell. Khama sent with Selous a grumpy disagreeable old Kafir named Ai-eetsee-upee (the man who knows nothing) to look after the waggons. Five other coloured men completed the party.

On May 4th they reached the Botletlie river. "This," says Selous, "is one of the most abominable spots I have yet visited: one small mud hole from which a little filthy water was all we could get for ourselves or the oxen, yet on the map this river looks like a young Mississippi."

On May 8th to the west of the Botletlie, Selous reached an encampment of bushmen, who told him there were giraffes in the bush close at hand. An old bull was soon found. "I gave the giraffe four shots," says Selous, "and then, seeing that he was done for, galloped round him, upon which he stood reeling under a tree, and I was just pulling my horse in, when a lion, a lioness, and two half-grown cubs jumped out of the bushes just in front of me and trotted slowly away. Just at this moment, too, I saw four stately giraffe cows walk out of the bush in single file about 500 yards ahead. The lion, after trotting a few paces, turned round and stood, broadside on, looking at me, offering a splendid shot. I was on the ground in a moment and gave him a bullet just behind the shoulder. With a growl he galloped away for about 100 yards, and then rolled over on his side, stone dead. I just rode up to assure myself of the fact, and then galloped on after the giraffe cows." Two of these he also killed.

On May 10th he saw the first gemsbuck, "the antelope of all others of which I longed to shoot a fine specimen," but after wounding one he lost it. Next day, however, he killed a young cow.

On May 28th they reached the so-called "fountain" of Sode-Garra, where the bushmen told him that the country to the north was impassable owing to no rain falling the previous summer. Never having known the untutored savage to tell the truth Selous imagined that the bushmen were lying, and so decided to risk it and trek on. The poor oxen then had a terrible time; they got no water for two days and nights except a little moisture at one spot. On the fourth day they reached the sand-belts and pans just south of the Mababe flats, and still there was not a drop of water. It was here two years previously the famous Boer elephant-hunter Martinus Swartz and ten members of his family died of fever, only six individuals surviving out of a party of seventeen.

At these dried-up pans, however, Selous found some comparatively fresh spoor of buffalo and that meant there must be water at no very great distance. Accordingly, he abandoned the waggons and accompanied by bullocks, horses, dogs and Kafirs went north to the great plain known as the Mababe flat. Here they saw grass fires at a distance of about twelve miles, but the presence of numerous zebras indicated that there was water still nearer. Old Jacob, one of his Kafirs, now said there was a small vley close at hand. "We went to look," writes Selous, "and five minutes later found a long shallow vley full of water. I could have hugged the dirty old man with delight. What a sight it was to see the poor thirsty oxen come trotting down to the pan, as soon as they smelt the longed-for water, and rush knee-deep into it! What a sudden relief the sight of that pool of muddy water was, too, and what a weight of fear and anxiety it lifted from our hearts! Only an hour before it had seemed that I was doomed to lose all my live stock—nearly everything I possessed in the world—from thirst; and now the danger was past, and not a single ox had given in." Next day the oxen were sent back and brought the waggons to the vley.

On June 4th he encountered three lionesses, at one of which he had a running shot which knocked her over. Soon a second lioness stood and turned to bay, and Selous killed her dead with a shot in the head just as she was on the point of charging. He then returned to the first wounded animal and gave her a shot through the lungs. Two days later whilst stalking giraffes he met two full-grown lions lying under a bush.[22]

Two of these, a bull and a cow, he chased and killed.

A few days later Selous' friend, H. C. Collison, arrived in his camp. Collison, with French, had also trekked north across the thirst-land, and lost several of their oxen on the way. Moreover, to add to these disasters, Clarkson, an intimate friend of all three, had been struck by lightning and killed near Klerksdorp shortly after their departure for the interior. Speaking of Clarkson, to whom he was much attached, Selous says: "A better fellow never stepped. Short of stature, but very strong and active, he was, like most colonists, a capital shot and first-rate rough-rider, qualities that could hardly fail to make him a successful hunter. Morally speaking, too, he was upright and honourable in his dealings with his fellow-men, cool in danger, and as plucky as a bull-dog. May his spirit find a good hunting-country in the next world!"

A few days later Collison, French and Selous established a permanent hunting-camp on the Mababe river and went north on foot into the "fly." Owing to the size of the party they soon separated, French and Miller going to the Sunta river, whilst Collison, Sell and Selous went on up the Machabe, but afterwards they met on the Chobe. Miller and Selous then passed on to Linyanti, where they killed four elephants, many buffaloes, and several of the small spotted and striped bushbucks peculiar to the Chobe. Here Selous tried unsuccessfully to kill a specimen of the sitatunga antelope by hunting in a canoe at dawn amongst the reed beds, but only saw one female, although he found lying dead a fine male killed by a rival.

On August 23rd Selous obtained permission to hunt elephants in the angle of the Chobe and the Zambesi from the Barotsi chief Mamele. After a visit to the waggons to get stores and ammunition he returned to the Chobe angle with French and Miller. Close to Mamele's town the party met four lionesses, one of which Selous shot. Buffaloes at this time were in immense herds feeding out in the open all day, even amongst the native cattle, and Selous shot several to provide meat for the Kafirs.

It was not until September 24th that the party found any elephants, and then Selous and Miller killed a young bull, four large cows and a heifer. Poor French on this day wounded and lost a cow, and contrary to advice, followed it into the bush. He was never seen again, and died of thirst in the bush. For days Miller and Selous tried to find his tracks, but without avail. The loss of his good friend made a deep impression on Selous, and for years afterwards he never spoke of French, to whom he was greatly attached, without showing signs of emotion. To have lost two of his best friends in one year depressed him greatly, and to this were added constant attacks of malarial fever which made him very weak.

However, at the time he always hoped that French might have reached some place of safety on the river and be alive. So Selous continued to hunt for elephants until one day "Boy," French's gun-bearer, crawled into camp and gave an account of his master's death. It appeared that after hunting for days in the bush in the wrong direction poor French collapsed, and as he was dying wrote on his rifle the words "I cannot go any further; when I die, peace with all." French's two boys, "Boy" and "Nangora," then walked all night and struck the river at Linyanti. "For several nights," says Selous, "I never slept, as the vision of my lost friend wandering about and dying by inches continually haunted me."

Seriously ill as he was, Selous then went to Linyanti, hoping to recover the body of his friend and give it decent burial, and Mamele promised to send all his people out to look for it when the rains came, but it was never found. Selous himself was so depressed in mind and worn with fever that he did not care to hunt any longer on the Chobe, so made for his waggons, which he reached on October 11th, where he found Sell dangerously ill. Miller, too, was attacked with malaria but soon recovered.

It was now necessary to wait for the rains, but as they did not come Selous, tired of shooting wildebeest and zebra on the Mababe flats, once more returned to the Chobe to look for elephants. He went as far as Maimi's town, and as the rain was now threatening he retraced his steps. By the middle of November he again reached the waggons, and the much desired rains at last fell. The party got to the Botletlie with ease, but between that river and Bamangwato the oxen again suffered terribly and were nearly lost owing to thirst. Later, in December, Selous reached the Diamond Fields, and was there attacked by a low fever which nearly cost him his life; in fact, nothing but the unremitting attention and care of his friends, Mrs. Frederick Barber and her daughter, Mrs. Alexander Baillie, rescued him from death.

Meanwhile, owing to political blunders, South Africa and all its white and black races were in a ferment, and the Zulu War in full progress. The usual cause of England's wars with savages was acts of rapine or insolence on the part of natives living in wild country where the black or red man predominated in numbers and a small white population was threatened with danger. No such reason, however, was the cause of the Zulu war in 1879. Since 1861 the Natal colonists had lived alongside the Zulus in perfect amity, and the colonists "felt no real alarm concerning the Zulus until the idea was suggested to them by those in authority over them."[23]

The real cause, apart from the fact that the Natal farmers were annoyed that at their side dwelt a great black population they could neither tax nor force to work for them, was the aggression of the Transvaal Boers in a small portion of territory owned by Cetawayo, the Zulu king, and lying on the Transvaal border. There were two disputed boundary lines. The one between Zululand and the Transvaal to the south of the Pongolo river, and the other between the Zulus and the Swazis, to the north of and parallel with the Pongolo river.

The Swazis had always been hereditary enemies of the Zulus, and there was bitter feeling between the two races. Nevertheless the real cause of both disputes was the acquisitiveness of the Boers. In the case of the territory on the second boundary line they professed to have obtained by cession from the Swazi king in 1855 a strip of land to the north-east of the Pongolo river, so as to form a barrier between the Swazis and the Zulus; but the Swazis denied having ever made such a cession. It is doubtful, however, whether the Swazis had any power to have made such a contract, even if it had been made, because the territory in question was occupied until 1846 by two Zulu chiefs, Puttini and Langalibalele. These chiefs, however, had been driven out of Zululand by Umpande (Panda), then king of the Zulus.

As time went on efforts were made to induce Cetawayo to allow the boundary territory to be occupied by the Boers, but the king sagely replied that as we had suggested that this territory belonged to Zululand, and he wished it for his own people, he did not see how it could belong to two parties. A boundary commission was, however, eventually formed, and asserted that neither party had a claim to the whole, whilst distinctly stating that no cession of land had been made by the Zulu king past or present.

Other minor causes of the Zulu war were the raids of Umbilini, a Swazi chieftain living under Cetawayo's protection, and the forcible capture in Natal of Zulu brides and girls who had run away to escape disagreeable marriages.

On December 11th, 1878, the Zulus were presented with an ultimatum, of which the demand for the disbandment of the Zulu army was the principal clause. Cetawayo agreed to some of the demands but asked for time to consult his Indunas as regards demobilization. This was, however, refused. It would appear that even Cetawayo was anxious to avoid war if possible, for at his side stood John Dunn, who well knew the power of England. Lord Chelmsford had, however, completed his preparations for war, and on January 12th crossed the border into Zululand. Then followed the disaster of Isandlwana, the splendid defence of Rorke's Drift, the battle of Ngingindhlovu, in which the Zulus lost heavily, and in July the great battle of Ulundi, which finally broke the Zulu forces.

Selous always enjoyed meeting people who had taken part in events in the recent history of South Africa, and one day he met at my house General Sir Edward Hutton, who told us the following story of the capture of Cetawayo.

Selous was much interested in this story, and then told us the following interesting tale which I never heard him repeat before or later. It has always been a puzzle to me how he knew Cetawayo, for after many enquiries amongst his family and friends I have been unable to learn when he visited Zululand, for otherwise he could not have known the Zulu king. Yet the fact remains that he distinctly said on this occasion that he had met the black monarch in some of his past wanderings.

Such is the black man's reasoning, and can we controvert it with uplifted heads?

After the Zulu war McLeod asked some of the chiefs why they went to war with us. They replied, "The Right of the Strong. Now you have proved you are the strongest we will look up to you and follow you." Except for one trifling insurrection under Denizulu, which was quickly nipped in the bud, the Zulus have since accepted our suzerainty.

The following example of the intellect and common-sense of the South African native is given to me by McLeod of McLeod, who was in charge of the Swazis both in the Zulu war and the subsequent attack on Sekukuni, the paramount chief of Basutoland.

McLeod called upon Ubandini, the Swazi king, to raise some 8000 levies. This army was then about to set out for Basutoland, there to join our forces under Sir Garnet Wolseley. The following conversation took place:—

McL. "It is agreed that your people may have all the cattle they can capture, but the English Government insists that on no account are your men to injure the Basuto women and children."

Ubandini thought deeply for a moment, and then remarked, "Mafu (the McLeod's native name), do you like rats?"

McL. "No."

U. "In fact you kill them whenever you can."

McL. "Yes."

U. "But surely you spare the females and little rats?"

No answer.

The black man will do much from fear or for utilitarian motives, but to him as a rule charity simply does not exist. One day in 1874 an old man came to Sepopo, the paramount chief of the Barotsi, and claimed his help. Sepopo, who was drinking beer with a white trader, turned to some of his men and said: "He's a very old man; can he do any work?" Being answered in the negative he ordered his servants to take the old man down to the river and hold his head under water. On being informed that the unfortunate victim was dead he coolly said: "Then give him to the crocodiles," and then went on chatting quietly and drinking beer with his white friend. The whole affair was a matter of no importance.

Of the intentions and views of the Zulus and the Boers at this time Selous writes to his mother, January 25th, 1880, and it is interesting to notice that at this time his attitude towards the Boers was not so sympathetic as it eventually became on more intimate knowledge.

Early in 1880 Selous, having completely recovered from his attack of fever and settled up French's affairs, turned his attention to the preparations for his big expedition across the Zambesi. Difficulties, however, arose which foiled all his plans. In the first place the Matabele were supposed (officially) to be in a disturbed state, so it was necessary for Selous to go to Pretoria to obtain from Sir Owen Lanyon, the administrator of the Transvaal, permission to carry a good supply of ammunition. This, however, Sir Owen blankly refused. The secretary to the administrator was Mr. Godfrey Lagden (afterwards Sir Godfrey Lagden, Governor of Basutoland for many years, and a close friend of Selous). Sir Godfrey thus writes to me:-

The refusal of a permit to carry sufficient ammunition undoubtedly caused him to abandon the long journey—that is to say, for the time being—and in his letters home at this period he is once again depressed at the financial outlook and the difficulty of making a living. "I hope to be in England," he says (March, 1880), "by the end of the year. I shall then go in for writing a book, for which I may get a little money. I know that people have got good sums for writing bad books on Africa, full of lies, though I do not know if a true book will sell well. My book at any rate will command a large sale out here, as I am so well known, and have a reputation for speaking nothing but the truth."

Before going home he decided to go to Matabeleland and join his friends Collison, J. S. Jameson, and Dr. Crook in a hunting trip to the Mashuna country.

Here it is necessary to say a few words concerning Selous' friend, J. S. Jameson, for in later days he took a prominent part in the page of African history.

James Sligo Jameson was born at Alloa, N.B., on 17th of August, 1856. His father, Andrew Jameson, was the son of John Jameson, who founded the business in Dublin. From his early youth he evinced a great taste for sport and natural history, with a desire to travel and doing something big. After schooldays at Dreghorn and the International College, Isleworth, he began to read for the army, but soon abandoned his intention, and his father being a rich man he went on his travels in 1877 to Ceylon, Calcutta, Singapore, and Borneo, where he made a good collection of birds and insects. In 1878 he went to South Africa and hunted on the borders of the Kalahari in Montsioa's veldt until 1879, when he returned to Potchefstroom and outfitted for an extensive trip to Matabeleland and the Zambesi in 1880. Whilst at Potchefstroom he carried despatches to Sir Garnet Wolseley at Pretoria and then returned, completed his preparations, and trekked north across the Limpopo to Matabeleland, where later on he met Selous.

In the spring of 1881 Jameson returned to England with a fine collection of heads, birds and insects, and the following year, in company with his brother, J. A. Jameson, he went to the upper waters of the Mussel Shell river in Montana and hunted successfully bear, sheep, wapiti, mule deer and antelope. In 1883 he again hunted in the Rockies with his brother on the North Foot of Stinking Water, then a great game country, and killed thirty-six mountain sheep, buffalo, bears and wapiti.

In 1884 he travelled in Spain and Algeria, and in 1885 married Ethel, daughter of Major-General Sir Henry Durand.

It was in January, 1887, that the English public were interested in the proposed expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha—Gordon's friend—under the command of H. M. Stanley. The whole idea was one that appealed to Jameson's chivalrous nature, and as it seemed to offer good opportunities for collecting specimens of big game, birds and insects in a part of Africa that was practically unknown, he offered a thousand pounds to be allowed to accompany the expedition as an officer acting under Stanley's orders. This offer was at once accepted.

After a wearisome journey up the Congo, Stanley decided to make a base camp at Yambuya on the Aruwimi, and to leave there all the sick and useless Soudanese and Zanzibari soldiers and porters, extra stores, etc., and to push on himself to the Ituri forest and Lake Albert with the main expedition. Two officers had to be left in charge at Yambuya, and to his great disgust Jameson found that he was one of those selected for this uncongenial task. Almost from the first the whole outfit suffered from semi-starvation. The site of the camp was badly chosen, the natives were more or less hostile, and Jameson and his gallant friend, Major Barttelot, were often at their wits' ends to feed their men and keep down the continuous death-rate.

Stanley, it seems, had promised to return in November, and that if he did not return he had arranged with Tippu-Tib, the Arab chieftain, ivory and slave-trader, and actual master of the Upper Congo, to permit a thousand porters to bring on the rearguard and join him at Lake Albert.

At last things became so desperate that Jameson himself went up the Congo, a twenty-four days' journey, to see Tippu-Tib to try and induce him to supply the men with which to cross Africa—even offering a bond for five thousand pounds on his and Major Barttelot's private account if Stanley's word was not considered sufficient. Tippu-Tib seems to have behaved well, and accompanied Jameson back to Stanley Falls, from which he and Barttelot presently started with some four hundred unruly Manyema savages.

We need not follow poor Jameson's troubles in the ensuing months of June to August, 1888, when, the move failing, owing to ceaseless thefts, desertions and small-pox, Jameson at last reached Unaria and Barttelot returned to Stanley Falls. Barttelot was then murdered, and Jameson returned to Stanley Falls, where he found it impossible to re-organize the expedition without monetary help, which at the time he could not obtain. There being no prospect of doing anything in the way of crossing Africa, and no word or orders having been received from Stanley, Jameson then went down the river to Bangala in order to obtain some reply from the Emin Relief Committee. Tippu-Tib indeed offered himself to go with Jameson, but demanded £20,000—a sum which at the time it was not possible for Jameson to guarantee. On this journey Jameson got wet and caught a chill which soon developed into acute fever. He was a dying man when his good friend Herbert Ward lifted him from the canoe at Bangala, and he only lived for a few days.

Jameson was to all who knew him well of a generous and gentle nature, full of thought for others and a man of high courage.

At the end of May, 1880, Selous reached Bulawayo and met his friends, and left a few days later for the hunting veldt, where they had fine sport with all sorts of game except elephants. On July 24th Jameson and Selous left their waggons on the Umfule river and went in on foot with thirteen natives into the "fly" country to the north. This was a rough, hilly country where rhinoceros were numerous in the hills and hippopotami in the river. The country was quite unknown, but the object of the hunters was to strike east to the Hanyane and follow it down to the Portuguese town of Zumbo on the Zambesi. At Lo Magondi's kraal they decided to abandon the Hanyane route and to follow the Umfule to its junction with the Umniati.

On July 31st they reached a pool and killed several hippopotami, and the hunters and natives were soon revelling in meat and fat. The next day Selous killed a very fine buffalo bull. In a few days they reached the Umniati and entered the first Banyai village. The party got game almost every day, and on August 10th Selous killed another fine buffalo bull. On the Umniati the natives engaged in the practice of enclosing a space of the river over 200 yards broad and 400 yards in length to confine a herd of hippopotami so as to starve them to death. In one of these the travellers saw ten unfortunate animals which had been enclosed for about three weeks. Occasionally one was speared by the natives when it became exhausted.

On August 17th Jameson and Selous turned homewards towards their waggons, and whilst travelling through the bush suddenly came upon two fine bull elephants. Jameson was in great excitement, as they were the first he had ever seen. The elephants passed broadside and both hunters fired, but the beasts made off. After several more shots—Jameson having got hold of his big rifle—both hunters killed their quarry, then following the course of the Umzweswe for some distance, where Jameson got his first lion, and by striking east to the Umfule river, they got back to their waggons on August 30th.

In a letter to his mother (November 2nd, 1880) Selous says: "I will send you an account of a lion that came to our camp whilst we were away and did a bit of mischief, causing the death amongst other things of Mr. Jameson's servant, a white man named Ruthven." No details of this unfortunate incident are, however, available.

Jameson and Selous continued hunting until November, and then trekked out to Bulawayo. In December Selous bade farewell to Lobengula and reached Bamangwato at the end of the month. Early in 1881 war broke out in the Transvaal, so Jameson and Selous travelled along the borders of the Kalahari desert to Griqualand and reached the Diamond Fields. Here Selous disposed of his waggon, oxen and horses, travelled to Port Elizabeth, and took ship for England. As soon as he landed he heard that "the wretched war with the Transvaal—a war that will leave a legacy of hatred for generations to come to be equally divided between the Dutch and English colonists in South Africa—had been concluded by a most humiliating peace, and a more disgraceful page added to the history of England than any that have yet been written in its annals."

On April 17th, 1877, Sir T. Shepstone, on behalf of H.M. Government, annexed the Transvaal. It is true that for a long time the management of the affairs of the Boer Republic had been going from bad to worse. Its government had no longer powers to enforce laws or to collect taxes. Nevertheless, many thought our action was unjust as long as their affairs did not affect us. On one point, however, we had a right, for the conduct of the Boers to the native tribes had been abominable. One of the causes alleged for our interference was the desultory war carried on with great brutality by the Boers against Sekukuni, chief of the Bapedi. This war was brought on by the encroachment of the Boers on the Bapedi, just as the Zulu war was brought on by similar causes. The object of the Boers in their attacks on native races was firstly the acquisition of territory, and secondly the capture of children to be brought up as slaves.

When the annexation was announced, the Zulus rejoiced greatly, but their joy was soon dashed when they found that, far from removing the bitter trouble of the boundary question, the English had turned against them in this matter. They were sore at our having espoused the cause of their enemies, the Boers, whom they had refrained from attacking for many years, when they could have done so with impunity, without coming into collision with the English. Even at this time they still believed in us; but considered that Sir T. Shepstone in undertaking the government of the Boers, had become a Boer himself.

At first the Boers took the annexation quietly, and sent two commissions to London, in 1877 and 1878, with a memorial signed by thousands of Boers stating their rights in the matter, in order to avoid war, but obtained no satisfaction from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. A considerable feeling of unrest therefore remained after their return, and the Boers went into laager near Pretoria, where Sir Bartle Frere met them on September 10th, 1879. The Boers then complained bitterly of the annexation and of the manner in which it had been carried out. The answer given on the 29th of September by Sir Garnet Wolseley was that we intended to keep the Transvaal.

On the 12th of December there was a meeting of over six thousand Boers at Wonderfontein, and many resolutions were passed which in the main proclaimed their continued independence. At the end of 1879, however, the Home Government established a sort of Executive Council for the Transvaal which consisted of both Boers and Englishmen. In March, 1880, the first legislative assembly under Her Majesty's rule was opened at Pretoria by Colonel Owen Lanyon, and for a short time after this the Home Government was assured that the agitation amongst the Boers was dying out, whereas in reality it was only the calm before the storm.

On November 11th some disaffected Boers forcibly stopped an execution sale for non-payment of taxes. Soon after this the Boers gathered and refused to pay taxes. This led to collisions, and Sir Owen Lanyon ordered up troops to Potchefstroom. On December 13th, 1880, the first shot was fired and England began to reap the fruit of her disastrous policy. The result of the war of 1881 and the subsequent peace made by Gladstone immediately after the disaster of Majuba are too well known to need recapitulation.

As soon as Selous arrived in England he began preparing for the Press an account of his travels which was published by Richard Bentley & Son in the same year under the title of "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa."[25] As was expected by his friends, but not himself, it achieved an immediate success and stamped the author at once not only as a great hunter, naturalist and explorer, but as one who could narrate his experiences in an entertaining fashion. Since Baldwin's "African Hunting and Adventure," published in 1863, there had been no first-class book on South African sport, so Selous' book was welcomed by all men who love the rifle and the wilderness. If he made a mistake it was in publishing the lists of game shot by himself between January, 1877, and December, 1880. They amount to such a formidable total that, both at the time and subsequently reviewers attacked him for what they call "this wholesale senseless slaughter." Selous was wont to reply to this charge by saying that the greater part of the meat killed was consumed by his own followers and hungry natives who would do nothing for him unless he killed some animal for food.[26] This is very true, but it must be admitted there was enormous waste on some days when four or five giraffes or elephants were killed. Selous, however, was no different from other hunters of all time, and thought that in the case of very abundant species they would last for ever, or in the case of others—such as the great game—if he did not shoot them somebody else would. Nevertheless, he was far more considerate than the majority of the early hunters, and never shot an animal except for a definite purpose. Between the years 1860-1870 the destruction of game in South Africa was very great, but the real disappearance of the large fauna probably dated from the introduction of the modern breechloading rifle, roughly about 1875, and the commencement of the sale of hides for commercial purposes. It will give the reader a better idea of what this wholesale destruction meant when I state that one dealer in Kroonstad (Orange River Colony) told me by reference to his books that between the years 1878-1880 he exported nearly two million skins of springbuck, blesbok and black wildebeest. He, it is true, was the principal dealer in hides for that part of the Vaal river district, but there were many others who also exported very large numbers. It has been abundantly proved that game of all kinds must disappear at the advent of railways and modern weapons. In a new country every man carries a rifle and uses it, whilst history teaches us that nothing has ever been done to save the game until it is on the verge of extinction. East Africa, alone of all countries, made adequate Game Laws in time, but how long the game will last there, near railways, is a doubtful point, for the settlers have now taken matters into their own hands and are destroying the game wholesale on the pretext of wanting the grass for the cattle. This is done indiscriminately by all settlers whether they have cattle or not. Considering that Big Game shooting parties furnish a good part of the revenue (over £10,000 annually in shooting licences) of British East Africa, and that the country, except for coffee, black wattle and hemp, all of which grow where there is little or no big game, is mostly unsuitable for ranching, the state of things is deplorable.

There are many who sneer at Big Game shooting, and are opposed to the slaughter of animals, but if we look upon this sport in a wider sense, in its magnificent opportunities for training the body and developing the best qualities in men of the right stamp, and in the matter of shooting, endurance and the organization of material, we will find that the balance is on the right side. There is, in fact, no outdoor exercise to compare with it, whilst the man who delights in slaughtering large numbers of animals purely for the lust of taking life is extremely rare.

[22] "A Hunter's Wanderings," pp. 382-383.