Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O., Capt. 25th Royal Fusiliers

In January, 1895, he again went to Loch Buie and shot his first woodcock and other Highland game, and in January, 1897, he got his first pair of ptarmigan. It was in Ben Alder Forest that he killed his first Highland stags, but the chase of red deer as conducted in Scotland did not, as we should expect, greatly appeal to him.

In September, 1894, Selous and his wife reached Bournabat near Smyrna, where he remained a short time as the guest of H. O. Whittall. From here, accompanied by his wife and the Whittalls, Selous made a short trip into the interior, with the intention of finding haunts of the wild goat (Capra aegagrus). After an interesting journey amongst the Turks and Yuruks he returned to the sea-coast, where in the Musa Dagh he did some hunting, but was unsuccessful in finding the old billies, only killing one male with small horns. On October 3rd he returned to Smyrna, and then went straight into the Ak Dagh to look for the long-faced red deer. These animals are now scarce and difficult to hunt in the dense forests, and he only succeeded in coming up to one good fourteen-pointer, which he killed with a long shot on October 19th.

He was, however, somewhat fascinated with this hunting in Asia Minor, for though the game was comparatively scarce and hunting difficult, owing to the rough nature of the ground and abundance of local hunters, yet it satisfied his idea of what is called "high-class sport." Selous never liked to admit failure with any animal, so at the end of January, 1895, he again made a trip to Asia Minor in the hope of getting good specimens of the wild goat and, if possible, the black mouflon (Ovis gmelini). This time he decided to hunt the Maimun Dagh, a great mass of mountains situated close to the Smyrna railway. For a fortnight he toiled up and down its steep and parched cliffs, and then at last he saw and got a shot at one of the patriarchs with long horns. This goat he wounded very badly and lost, but some days later a Turk saw a large goat fall from a cliff and remain suspended by its horns in a tree, where he despatched it. This was without doubt the fine male which Selous had lost, and he was lucky enough to obtain the head. A few days later he found another grand billy, alas with only one horn. This he also killed and lost, but found it the next day. Two other fair specimens made up his bag, so on the whole the expedition was quite successful. Then he returned to England in February.

Although so recently married, Selous found that living in England was too expensive, and this, combined with the "call of the wild," which never left him, evolved a new spirit of restlessness and desire once more to live in the open veldt and to see the game. To this was added the request of an old friend, Mr. Maurice Heany, who asked him to go into Matabeleland and assist him in the management of a land and gold-mining company. After consulting his wife, who was willing to share the troubles and difficulties of the new country, Selous accepted the post, which was to occupy him for two years.

Accordingly Selous and his wife left England in March, 1895, and after spending two months in Cape Colony and the Free State, where he shot some springbuck, blesbuck, and black wildebeest for his collection, he took ship to Beira and then went by rail to Chimoio, where he met his waggon and oxen, and passed on via Salisbury, the Hanyane river, to Bulawayo. At the Sebakwe river he fired at what he thought was a jackal, but on arriving near the animal, which he expected to find dead, as he had heard the bullet strike, he was suddenly charged by a leopard. The angry beast passed right under his stirrup-iron, and after going thirty yards stopped and sat on its haunches. Another shot at once killed it.

The Selous now left for Essexvale, the farm of his company, and took up their quarters in a rough wood and mud two-roomed house which was to be their home until the wire-wove bungalow, which had been sent out from England in sections, should arrive and be erected. It was whilst travelling to Essexvale that Selous met his old friend, Mr. Helm, the missionary, who by his long residence amongst the Matabele was thoroughly conversant with native views. Mr. Helm said that on the whole the natives had accepted the new regime, but that they were highly incensed at the confiscation of their cattle by the Chartered Company. The natives at first were told that after all the cattle had been branded with the Company's mark and handed back to the natives, only the king's cattle would be confiscated. "This promise," says Selous, "was made under the belief that nearly all the cattle in Matabeleland had belonged to the king and that the private owners had been but few in number." This was a great mistake, for nearly every chief induna and men of any position had possessed large herds of their own.

At Bulawayo Selous found a ruined kraal, since it had been burnt and deserted by the Matabele after their defeat in 1893. The site of the new town had been marked out by the settlers, who had camped close by, and a general air of hope and prosperity hung over the scene of the new British town that was shortly to arise from the ashes of the past. No difficulties with the natives were apprehended, and farms and town-sites were at a high value. No one, in fact, dreamed that in a few months the whole country would be overwhelmed in the calamity of the rinderpest—a cattle disease that swept from Abyssinia to the Cape and killed in its course nearly the whole stock of cattle, as well as many fine species of game, such as buffalo, eland, koodoo, etc. Added to this the Matabele again rose, burnt the farms, and in many cases murdered all the new settlers and carried destruction throughout the whole country north of the Limpopo. To add to these horrors a bad drought and an unusual plague of locusts rendered farming and transport practically impossible.

There were some 70,000 cattle at this time in the hands of the natives, and a final settlement was made by which the Chartered Company retained two-fifths, giving the remaining three-fifths to the natives, a settlement by which for the time being the natives appeared satisfied.

All through the autumn and winter of 1895 life passed quietly at Essexvale. The new house arrived, and was erected just before the rains set in on a high position eighty feet above the Ingnaima river. The Company bought 1200 head of cattle which were distributed amongst the natives. Five thousand gum-trees were raised from seed and planted on some forty acres of ploughed land, the other products including maize and fruit trees of various kinds.

All this time the natives appeared to be happy and contented, whilst Umlugula, a relation of Lobengula, and a great chief under his rule, now living some eighteen miles away, constantly visited Selous and seemed as quiet as the rest, although he was actively plotting the rebellion which was shortly to break out. Selous afterwards thought that the cause of the insurrection was the withdrawal of the Matabeleland Police Force and their munitions of war, and its subsequent capture by the Boers in the ill-starred "Jameson Raid."

The first cloud of trouble appeared in February, 1896, when news was spread that the "Umlimo," or god of the Makalakas, who lived in a cave in the Matoppo hills, had said that the white man's blood was about to be spilt. It was also rumoured that Lobengula was not dead, as previously reported, but was coming with a large army from the north-east and west. Umlimo also claimed to have sent the rinderpest which at this date had already reached Northern Matabeleland.

So far, however, there were merely rumours, and old residents in the country, with the single exception of Mr. Usher, believed that nothing was to be feared. Mr. Jackson, a native commissioner, thought that if the natives rose a certain danger was to be expected from the Matabele Police, who had been armed with Winchesters and were kept for the purposes of law and order, and in this he was right, for half of this body revolted and attacked their former employers.

The "Umlimo" was a kind of native hereditary priest whose family are supposed to inherit supernatural powers. His family are known as the children of the god and all are supposed to commune with the unseen deity. He lived in the Matoppo Hills, where the people visited their "god" and consulted him. He was supposed to speak all languages, and could moreover roar like a lion, bark like a dog, and do other wonderful things. There seemed to have been other Umlimos in other tribes, and it is somewhat strange that this "deity" of the despised Makalakas should have been possessed of such influence over the powerful Matabele. Lobengula at any rate constantly visited and even feared this man, and there is no doubt that Lobengula and his chiefs made full use of him in the present instance to excite the natives.

In the middle of March Selous was appointed to inspect the Umsingwani and Insiza district and try and stop the spread of the rinderpest to the south, and in this he was powerless, as trek-oxen further carried the infection. At Dawson's store on March 22nd he heard that a native policeman had been killed and that the murderers with their women and children had fled to the Matoppo hills. This was the first overt act of the rebellion.

Immediately after this two attacks were made on the native police, and Selous found when he arrived home that some Matabele had borrowed axes from Mrs. Selous, and had left with them ostensibly to repair their cattle-kraals, but in reality to attack the settlers. The following night three miners, Messrs. Foster, Eagleson and Anderson, carrying on work at Essexvale, were attacked and murdered as well as several other Europeans in the neighbourhood. Next day most of the Essexvale cattle were driven off by the natives, so that there was now no doubt that a rising was imminent. Selous therefore took his wife into Bulawayo for safety, and returned at once with an armed force of thirty-eight men, intending if possible to recover his cattle; but by this time the flame of rebellion had spread to the whole of the north, and numerous white men, women and children had been brutally murdered.

At least nine-tenths of the Matabele natives were now in arms against the whites, who were very badly equipped and in sore straits for arms, ammunition, cattle and horses. Their position was somewhat desperate, but, as ever before and since, the settlers nobly responded to the call to arms, although there was really no organized force worth speaking of. However, about five hundred good men and true assembled at Bulawayo, from which it was almost impossible to move owing to the absence of horses. This force only had some 580 rifles, but a good supply of ammunition—1,500,000 rounds. There was also a ·303 Maxim and an old gun or two. This is all they had with which to resist some 10,000 Matabele, of which at least one-fifth had breechloading rifles and plenty of ammunition. The tactics of the Matabele, however, were indifferent, and it is somewhat incomprehensible that they never blocked the main road to the south or attacked waggons or coaches moving along it.

Of the 1000 white men in Bulawayo only about 300 were available for active operations, as 400 had always to be kept for the defence of the women and children in the town: but in addition to this force a regiment of native boys, mostly Zulus, was organized by Colonel Johan Colenbrander,[48] and did excellent scouting work. This little force of white and black eventually drove the Matabele from the neighbourhood of Bulawayo and rescued many small isolated detachments, whilst keeping the enemy at bay until the arrival of Sir Frederick Carrington, who eventually completed their rout.

But to return to the movements of Selous after he revisited his farm. He was not long in finding part of his stolen cattle and burning the kraal where they were found. Then he searched for the rebels and found them in the act of driving off more cattle. These he attacked and recovered some 150 cattle belonging to Colenbrander. Selous then returned to Essexvale on March 26th, and left the herd of cattle there in charge of loyal natives because he feared they would be attacked by rinderpest if he drove them into Bulawayo. This, however, may have been a mistake, since Inxnozan, a native Matabele warrior, and some three hundred of his men came in a few days and burnt the farm and carried off all the cattle.

Selous then took his men to Spiro's Store in the Matoppo hills in the hope of finding or rendering assistance to Mr. Jackson, the native commissioner, who was reported to have been murdered with the whole force of native police. He was now entering the Matabele stronghold, where large forces of the enemy were likely to be encountered. He put his best men out to scout ahead. In a gorge in the hills the enemy were found in some force, and Selous' men drove them off after some sharp fighting. Selous himself was fired at at a distance of fifteen yards, but fortunately the shot missed. Cattle to the number of one hundred were found, and Selous endeavoured to drive them, but the enemy again attacked, when four horses were killed and two men wounded. After this small fight he returned to Bulawayo, where he was delighted to find his friend Mr. Jackson, who had been given up for dead. Soon afterwards Selous went on patrol and visited the Mangwe laager, and on the way saw much of the ravages of the rinderpest. At one spot at a farm near Bulawayo "acres of carcasses were lying festering in the sun."

Various patrols, under Colonel the Hon. Maurice Gifford, Captain Brand, Captain Van Niekerk, Captain Grey and others all had sharp fighting with the Matabele, and relieved many isolated bodies of white men.

In April Selous was appointed Captain of the "H" troop of the Bulawayo Field Force, and went out to clear the road and establish forts at Fig Tree and Mangwe. First he erected a very strong little fort called Fort Molyneux. Further on, at Fort Halstead, he made another, and at the Matoli river a third. All this he did with the Matabele army lying on the Khami river, about twelve miles west of Bulawayo, whilst another large army was in the Elibaini hills close by. Yet they did not attack Selous' patrols or fort builders, and did not approach Bulawayo until the middle of April, when a small fight occurred between the scouts under Grey and Van Niekerk and a large body of the enemy. The scouts then returned. Shortly after this Selous joined in patrols with Captain Macfarlane and Captain Bisset in trying to dislodge the enemy from positions close to the town, and in the last-named attack on the Umguza the Matabele lost heavily. During this fight, and whilst firing hard, Selous' pony ran away and he was soon surrounded by large numbers of Matabele.

The incident is best related in his own words:—[49]

After this exciting incident, Selous, having lost his horse, managed to get another, and assisted Captain Mainwaring in repairing the telegraph wires to Fig Tree Fort, which had been cut. He then rejoined his troop, which arrived from Matoli. On the way they found the bodies of two transport riders killed by followers of Babian and Umsheti.[50]

Selous then built Fort Marquand on the top of a kopje, which commanded the road and a splendid view of the surrounding country. After a brief visit to Bulawayo he again went north to build a fort at the Khami river, and afterwards visited Marzwe's kraal, which had been attacked by an impi.

On his return to Bulawayo he found the large column commanded by Col. Napier despatched to the Tchangani river to meet the column coming from Salisbury under Colonel Beal, with which was Cecil Rhodes. This column, the largest sent out from Bulawayo, inflicted severe punishment on the Matabele. On May 20th the Salisbury column was met, and after considerable fighting the whole force returned to Bulawayo, having suffered but small loss. On the way a number of the mutilated corpses of white men and women were found and buried. The history of these murders Selous relates in his book on the campaign.[51]

Shortly before the arrival of the Field Force and Salisbury Column, Colonel (now Sir Herbert) Plumer had arrived with a strong body of troops from the south, and the back of the rebellion was broken, for this gallant officer attacked the enemy and drove them from the neighbourhood of Bulawayo, whilst in June General Sir Frederick Carrington, who had now taken over the supreme command, cleared the districts surrounding the Matoppo hills, and then to the north and east, the rebels retreating as the patrols advanced.

On June 7th Selous proceeded with Colonel Spreckley's patrol to Shiloh, where but little resistance was encountered, and on the 4th of July the campaign may be considered at an end, when the Bulawayo Field Force was disbanded. Thus ended one of the many little native wars in which British colonists, nobly assisted by Boer contingents, overcame under great difficulties a strong and well-armed nation of savages, who, if they had been properly organized, might easily have overwhelmed our small forces. The Matabele, the last strong savage power in South Africa, were beaten by good "morale" and tenacity on the part of the whites, who were incensed at the brutal savagery displayed by their enemies, for if they had not fought for their lives not only they but all their wives and children would have been murdered. Mr. Labouchere's choice phrase, "that the natives are being shot down like game at a battue, with apparently as little danger to the shooters as to those killing hares and rabbits," was as great a travesty of the case as it was mendacious.

Selous, at any rate in 1896, was a firm believer in the future of what is now called Southern Rhodesia, and at that date wrote: "It is known throughout South Africa that Matabeleland and Mashunaland are white men's countries, where Europeans can live and thrive and rear strong healthy children; that they are magnificent countries for stock-breeding, and that many portions of them will prove suitable for Merino sheep and Angora goats; whilst agriculture and fruit-growing can be carried on successfully almost everywhere in a small way, and in certain districts, especially in Mashunaland and Manica, where there is a greater abundance of water on a fairly extensive scale.

He moreover predicted that when the railway reached Bulawayo success would be assured, but that this success would be destroyed if the British South Africa Company's Charter was revoked and the affairs of the colony administered by Imperial rule. Whether these hopeful views, honest as they are, have been fulfilled, still remains to be seen.

Shortly after the British occupation of Mashunaland the Chartered Company made an immense effort to "boom" the country and induce settlers and investors to become interested in it. The papers were filled with accounts of the "New Eldorado," whose gold mines were to rival the Rand, and whose lands were to teem with flocks and herds of sheep and cattle on a scale that would make Canada and other parts of South Africa look quite small. The effect was to drive up the Chartered £1 Shares to over £7, and to create some apprehension in the minds of the few old South Africans who really knew the assets of what is, as a matter of fact, a country of only average possibilities. Its successful gold mines have, after years of test, proved only of moderate wealth, and these are only few in number, whilst the farming industry that was to have supplied the wants of all the local population as well as great quantities of cattle for export, has not yet proved a great success. In fact, after twenty years, the gallant Rhodesian farmers are still living on hope. There are too many adverse features against the man who farms stock in Rhodesia, even if he possesses capital, whilst the settler without money has no earthly chance to make good. Through all these years every effort has been made by the Chartered Company to induce the right kind of settler to go there, but on the whole their efforts have not met with any great success, or, after all this time, we should not read the usual note of hope in the "Times" report of the "Mashunaland Agency," November 17th, 1917:-

The high rate of freight and expense of transport from an isolated region like Rhodesia will be the great difficulty in the future, even if they can raise the stock, and the country will have to compete with Canada, New Zealand, and South America, all countries which have now good, cheap, well-organized methods of transport and shipment. It must not be supposed that Rhodesia has suffered altogether from a lack of the right kind of settlers. On the contrary, the most cheerful, industrious type of gentleman-farmer has tried to "make good" there and when backed by capital has just managed, after years of toil, to make both ends meet. If the reader wishes to know the absolute truth about conditions of life there let him ask some of the old settlers who are independent in opinion and have no land to sell, and let him read the novels of Gertrude Page and Cynthia Stockley, and he will glean a far more accurate picture of life in Southern Rhodesia than from any company reports or blue books. Romance is often truth, whilst complete distortion may lie in official dreams.

The British South African Company is ever active in trying to get the right kind of settlers in Southern Rhodesia and we have no fault to find with them for that if they were to put them in healthy, fertile areas, but what are the actual prospects of success there compared with other British colonies. They too have a post-war land-scheme of offering ex-soldiers a free land-grant of 500,000 acres. It sounds generous, but if it is to grant free blocks of land (in Scotland) of the class offered to ex-soldiers without capital by the Duke of Sutherland, I feel very sorry for the poor soldiers. All the land of any value in South Rhodesia is already taken up by settlers, whilst a great part of the country is totally unfit for "white man" colonization.

The following is written by a lady now resident as a farmer's wife in South Rhodesia, and gives accurately the various pros and cons and the prospect of success to-day in that colony.

When the boom in "Things Rhodesian" was at its height, some truth of the real state of affairs seemed to have reached British investors. Henry Labouchere doubtless got hold of a good deal of perfectly correct information and much that was decidedly otherwise. With his characteristic audacity in exposing all shams he, in a series of articles in "Truth," ruthlessly attacked the Chartered Company and all exploiters and "boomers" of the new territory. Much of what he wrote was the truth, but with it all, most of his criticisms were too scathing and hopelessly inaccurate. Amongst those classed as rascals who came under the lash of his pen was Fred Selous, a man who knew no more about business than a child, and who was not associated in the smallest degree with any financier, and who had never written one word about the country he was not prepared to substantiate. To those who knew Selous and his perfect immunity from all stock-dealing transactions the whole thing was simply ridiculous, but the Great Public, after all, is too often prone to believe any libel if it is constantly repeated. In consequence Selous was much depressed by these attacks and resented them bitterly, for he knew he was wholly innocent, yet being advised that he would not advance his position by replying in the newspapers he resolved to bide his time and reply to them in toto in a work he had under preparation ("Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia").

Mr. Burlace (of Rowland Ward, Ltd., who had bought the rights of his new book) met Selous at Plymouth on his arrival in 1896, and fortunately persuaded him not to mention controversial matters to the numerous pressmen who were there and wished to hear what he had to say concerning Mr. Labouchere's articles. Selous was, however, still anxious to thresh out the whole matter in his book, but Mr. Burlace, who has very considerable business knowledge and a firm conviction that the public do not care two straws about controversial matters after the subject is, so to speak, "dead," gave him good advice to avoid the discussion as far as possible and to let the public learn by a man's own character, past and future, who speaks the truth. That was sound logic, and Selous profited thereby, although he did answer many of Labouchere's gross libels on the Bulawayo Field Force.

In many ways Rowland Ward and the members of his staff were good friends to Selous for a considerable part of his life. They bought his specimens at a good price, looked after his affairs at home before he married, and helped him in a hundred ways. Rowland Ward purchased the rights of Selous' new book, "Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa," and gave the author a good sum of money for his work. If "A Hunter's Wanderings" made Selous known to the public, "Travel and Adventures in South-East Africa" assured his reputation, made money for him when he badly wanted it, and fixed a definite value to his future books and the numerous contributions he made to scientific and sporting literature. "Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia," published by Rowland Ward and Co., was also a success and gave the public a clear and truthful account of the second Matabele war and did much to enhance the author's reputation. This book he dedicated to his wife "who, during the last few months, has at once been my greatest anxiety and my greatest comfort."

It had long been one of Selous' ambitions to add to his collection the heads of that rare and beautiful antelope, the Nyala, or Angas's bushbuck, Tragelaphus angasi, whose habitat was the dense bush stretching along the coast from St. Lucia Bay, Zululand, to the Sabi river in Portuguese territory, east of Mashunaland. It has also more recently been found in Nyassaland. Wherefore, as soon as he left Matabeleland and reached Kimberley, he left his wife and went to Delagoa Bay, intending to hunt this animal for a short time in the dense thickets which border the Pongolo and Usutu rivers in Amatongaland. Only three Englishmen previously had had personal acquaintance with this somewhat rare antelope, namely, Angas who discovered it, Baldwin in 1854, and Drummond, 1867-1872, all of whom wrote of its great beauty, cunning nature, and the pestilential climate in which it lived.

In Delagoa Bay Selous was fortunate enough to meet a certain colonist named Wissels, who owned a small trading station near the junction of the Pongolo and Usutu rivers, right in the heart of the habitat of the Nyala. Wissels was returning home next day in his sea-going boat and Selous made some swift preparations and accompanied him. In two days he reached the Maputa and proceeded overland, with three women carriers, to Wissels' station, where he found numerous freshly captured skins and horns of the animal he had come to hunt. For the next few days, in pouring rain, he crept through the bush with native hunters, and was fortunate enough to bag three fine male and two female Nyala, a pair of which are now in the Natural History Museum in London; the heads of the two other males are in the collection at Worplesdon. He was somewhat disappointed not to shoot the rare little Livingstone's Suni, one of which he saw, as it was one of the few rare antelopes he did not possess. After a long tramp of eighty miles through deep sand he reached Delagoa Bay on October 7th, and then returned to Kimberley, and so to England, not, however, completely escaping the inevitable attacks of fever which are the lot of all who hunt the Nyala in the feverish swamps and thickets of the East Coast.

CHAPTER X

1896-1907

As soon as Selous and his wife returned home at the end of 1896 he finished off the notes he had made concerning the second Matabele War, and delivered them to Rowland Ward & Co., who published his book, "Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia," shortly afterwards. From this time forward he did a considerable amount of literary work, which, being in demand, gave him sufficient money to satisfy many of his more pressing wants at home, as well as supplying funds for the numerous short trips he now made every year. Owing in a large measure to the kindly help and advice given to him by a South African friend, his finances were now put on a sound basis, and he was able to look forward to being able to live at home in comfort without being denied those short periods of wandering which to him were part of his existence. Of course there were always ups and downs due to market fluctuations, and when things went wrong for a while he would have fits of depression that he would be unable to hunt any more; but these always passed away sooner or later when the clouds lifted and some new piece of work commanded a good price. There is little doubt that a man enjoys best that for which he has worked. All Selous' later hunts were the outcome of his industry with the pen, and in some measure from lectures, so he experienced some joy in the working, for it meant to him the camp fire and the open road.

In reading of his almost continuous wanderings after this date it must not be supposed that he was not happy in his home life. As a matter of fact no man considered himself more blessed by fortune in the possession of wife and children, and every fresh expedition, when he felt impelled as it were to go to the wilds, was fraught with misgivings and anxieties for his loved ones at home. It was always a wrench when the time came. He wrote once to Roosevelt on this point, and received the following sympathetic answer:—

Like most schoolboys with a taste for natural history and an adventurous disposition Selous had, as we have seen, been an industrious bird-nester. In his youth he had commenced to make a collection of European birds' eggs, and this taste, usually abandoned by most boys in after-life, was in him only dormant. When he set out to do anything he generally carried it through to the end; and so when opportunity came again, as it did after his wanderings in South Africa were finished, he seized it with avidity. He was much too good a naturalist to collect eggs wholesale, as some collectors unfortunately do, but contented himself with one or two clutches taken by himself. His contention was, I think, a correct one, that if only one clutch of eggs of a bird is taken, the same bird either sits again and lays a fresh set of eggs or makes a new nest. So little or no harm is done.

Being a member of the British Ornithologists' Union he knew all the regular egg-collectors, and soon obtained the best information where various species were to be found. Each year as April came round he packed his bag and, occasionally accompanied by some local enthusiast, he went to all the best resorts of rare birds in England, Scotland, the Orkneys, Asia Minor, Spain, Hungary, Holland, and Iceland.

Thus in 1897 he commenced the egg-hunting season by going to Smyrna in February with the intention of taking the nests of the large raptorial birds which there breed very early in the year. The point he made for was the Murad Dagh, a range of mountains in the interior of Asia Minor, where he knew the short-toed, golden and imperial eagles, and the black and griffon vultures nested. He also had some hopes that he might secure one of the big stags before they dropped their horns. On his journey he suffered much from the cold in the mountains, and was also at first unsuccessful in finding any of the big stags, who seemed to have been hunted out of the range. He saw three fine stags but did not succeed in finding one of those which he had wounded. He then returned to Smyrna and went into the Maimun Dagh again. Here he took the eggs of black vulture, griffon vulture, short-toed eagle and lämmergeier. Getting tired of this range he went on to the Ak Dagh, where he took one golden eagle's nest, three griffon vultures' eggs, and two of black vultures. He also shot a young red deer, with which was a fine old stag that had just dropped its horns. He returned to England in March.

In England he commenced his nesting operations in April by hunting Thatcham Marsh (near Reading) for water-rails' nests, and took two. Then he went on to the Scilly Isles for sea-birds.

He says, in a letter to me: "I am going to Brabant if I can obtain a permit from the Dutch Government to collect a few eggs, and after that to Scotland, where I shall remain until it is time to leave for America." In Scilly, he says: "I got eggs of the Greater and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gull, Manx Shearwater, Oyster-catcher, and Ringed Plover, but found no Terns breeding." On June 8th he decided to put off his trip to Holland, as it was too late. I then gave him particulars where he could get Arctic, Lesser and Sandwich terns in Scotland, and also obtained permission for him to take two Capercaillie nests. All of these he obtained.

In any collection of hunting trophies, the gems of all collections (with perhaps the exception of the red deer of Europe and the great sheep and goats of Central Asia) are the great deer of North America, and Selous had for long envied the possessors of such fine specimens of moose, wapiti and caribou as had been obtained in the seventies and eighties of the last century. It is true that as good moose and caribou can be killed to-day as ever; but the great wapiti, owing to their curtailed range, are gone for ever, so a hunter to-day must be content with inferior specimens. In 1897 three or four specimens of wapiti were allowed to be killed in the restricted area south of the Yellowstone Park, and it was with the intention of killing these as well as other North American game that Selous turned to the West in August, 1897.

In his youth Selous, like other boys of similar tastes, had devoured the works of Ballantyne, Mayne Reid, Catlin, and Kingston, relating to fact and fiction, and had always desired to visit America as one of his lands of dreams. But it was not civilized America that appealed to him. Cities are the same all the world over. It was the land of vast plains and trackless forests swarming with game that appealed to him; and if he could not, alas, now find such a hunter's paradise, he could at least see something of the little that was truly wild which was left and perhaps obtain a few fair specimens for his collection. Once, it is true, he had actually taken his passage to America. That happened in 1893, but the outbreak of the Matabele war in that year had caused him to alter his plans and he went back to South Africa instead.

Selous had a good friend, W. Moncrieff, who owned a small cattle ranch in the heart of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. Here in the adjoining forests and mountains still lived a remnant of the bears, wapiti, mule-deer and sheep that had formerly been so abundant, and the local knowledge enjoyed by Moncrieff enabled him to furnish Selous with the best information. Accordingly he left England accompanied by his wife, and, passing through Canada, reached the ranch on the last day of August. Next day the party on horses, accompanied by a waggon with one Bob Graham as a guide, struck into the mountains and, after passing over the main range of the Big Horns, descended into the Big Horn basin. This is covered with sage brush, and is still the home of a few prong-horned antelopes, two of which, one a good male, Selous succeeded in shooting.

The hunters then proceeded up the south fork of Stinking Water, and established a main camp in the forests, where a few very shy wapiti males were still to be found. For twenty days Selous toiled in a mass of dense and fallen timber before he carried his first wapiti head back to camp. Wapiti are in fact now both shy and scarce, and a man must persevere and work continuously, at least early in the season, before even one fair specimen can be found, but Selous greatly enjoyed the grandeur and wildness of the scenery, and being still in the prime of life the exertion of daily toil did not in any way affect his energy. On September 29th he shot his first mule-deer buck. A little snow came and helped to make tracking easier. Then Selous had some luck, and he killed four wapiti, two in one day, and a fifth near Davies' ranch on October 28th. Near the same place too he killed one of the few remaining white-tailed deer-bucks in Wyoming, but its head was rather a poor one, that of an old male "going-back." Selous wrote an account of this trip to Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary to the American Navy, and received (November 30th, 1897) the following reply:—