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

On December 8th, the Royal Fusiliers went in open trucks by rail to Mikesse, near Morogoro, and from thence had a very trying eight days' march to Kissaki. During this and previous marches Selous never rode a yard of the way, but marched like his men, living on their rough fare and enduring the constant rain and soaking bivouacs with stoical indifference. On December 15th he writes to his wife from Tulo:—

One of his last letters, written on Christmas Day, 1916, from Kissaki, states:—

During the last three weeks of 1916, General Smuts (except for Van Deventer's Division) had not been engaged in important operations but was busy reorganizing his columns. Von Lettow-Vorbeck was, however, forced out of Kissaki on September 15th, by the brigade under Brits and Nussey. He then took up his position between the Ingeta and Rufigi rivers, where he remained until January 1st, when General Smuts began another offensive from Kissaki.

An attack was made on the German positions by General Smuts on January 2nd, but the enemy again escaped and took up a fresh position in dense bush on the Beho-Beho ridge. All January 2nd and 3rd General Smuts spent in developing a new encircling movement of which the following is the "Times" History account:—

General J. Smuts, who was in command of the British Forces in German East Africa, has kindly given me the following account of the fight at Beho-Beho, Sugar Mountain, on January 4th, 1917, when Selous met his death. General Smuts, with the aid of a large-scale map, personally explained to me the feature of the operations on that day, and though it was instrumental in driving the enemy from their positions, causing them to retreat to the Rufigi river, it did not result in the capture of the enemy's force, which it was hoped would be the case.

When he came to the road, Selous and his company met the German advanced guard, which probably outnumbered his force five to one. He had, however, received his orders to prevent, if possible, the enemy from reaching the road and retreating, so he immediately extended his company and himself went forward to reconnoitre. It was whilst using his glasses to ascertain the position of the enemy's advance guard that Selous received a bullet in his head and was killed instantly.[82]

Thus died Frederick Selous of the Great Heart, a splendid Englishman, who in spite of age and love of life, gave up all pleasant things to follow the iron path of duty. To him his country's needs were ever before his private interests. Like the voyageurs of old he was ever looking for some far-off country where his restless soul could sleep in peace. Let us hope that he found his Valhalla on that day.

He sleeps with other gallant comrades who fell beside him in the heart of Africa, far from home and loved ones. Yet it seems fitting that he should lie at last in the land of his dreams, where he laboured so much, and where his name will never be forgotten. No sculptured mausoleum records his prowess, but only a simple wooden cross bearing his name and that of his good comrades stands beneath the shade of a tamarind tree in the woody forest, where the bush-cuckoo heralds the dawn and the lion roars his requiem to the night.

I am indebted to Captain R. M. Haines of the South African Forces for the following account of Selous' life from the time he landed at Mombasa till his death:—

Mr. P. H. Lamb, writing in "The Field," June 18th, 1918, gives some details of the actual position of Selous' grave, of which he furnishes a photograph.

The war in German East Africa dragged its slow length along throughout 1917, in November of which year it may be said to have terminated, when the remnant of the German forces under Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck were driven right across the borders into Portuguese territory. There, owing to the rainy season in the early part of 1918, they split up into small parties and searched the country for native supplies, being finally (September, 1918) forced into the low-lying country between the north of the Zambesi and the coast.

Since then they have attacked various Portuguese stations and encampments and taken fresh supplies of provisions, medical necessaries and ammunition and are still (September, 1918) causing much trouble to trace, British forces relentlessly pursuing them. Colonel R. Meinertzhagen, who is well acquainted with the local conditions, writes:—

Commenting on the great difficulties of the campaign, General Smuts, at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society (January 28th, 1918), designated the travels of Livingstone and Selous as mere "joy rides" compared to what had been done by Empire troops in East Africa.

All of which is very true, for after the war, if German East Africa is restored to Germany, as some of our socialists, like Mr. Wells, seem to desire, it is a certainty that in time we shall lose all our South African possessions as well as those in the north.

CHAPTER XV

CHARACTER, APPEARANCE, ETC.—SOME STORIES OF HIM

Perhaps Selous' chief success as a hunter lay in his untiring energy and fearless intention to gain some desired object. He brought the same force into play in pursuit of a bull elephant as of a small butterfly, and allowed nothing to stand in his way to achieve success. Time, distance, difficulty, or danger were all things that could be conquered by a man of strong will, and his bodily strength was such that even to the end he almost achieved the virility of perfect youth. He would come back from the early morning hunt, the best time of all for pursuing big game, and have some breakfast. Then, when others were tired and glad of some hours' sleep in the camp or waggon, he would call a native boy to carry his rifle and a few cartridges—in case of an unexpected meeting with some rare animal—take his butterfly-net and collecting-box, to spend the hot hours of the day in search of Lepidoptera. Few men, even young men in the prime of life, are capable of pursuing insects under a tropical sun after the fatigue of the early morning hunt, but Selous not only did this almost to the day of his death, but also went out again in search of big game in the hours between three o'clock and sunset.

It was his untiring love of Nature and the possible capture of some victim new to science that always drove him on and banished fatigue. His whipcord frame responded readily to all the calls he made upon it, for from his youth he had inured himself to strain and privation, and was extremely moderate in any indulgence. He ate less than most men, and never drank anything but tea, which he enjoyed at every meal. Sometimes he drank champagne at big dinners, but rich wines and high feeding had no attractions for him.

He always rated himself as a very moderate shot, and doubtless, in the early days, when he was only armed with clumsy and indifferent weapons, his success was not always of a high order, but with the advent of rifles of greater precision he was certainly a good shot, and he killed a large proportion of the game he fired at. This was especially so when he got what he described as his first first-class rifle, a ·450 single shot, made by Gibbs, of Bristol, and with this he killed a large quantity of game. All of us who are big game hunters, however, know how greatly the average of hits has advanced since the introduction of the small-bore high-velocity rifles. In 1895 came the British ·303, the German ·275 Mauser, and the Roumanian ·256 Mannlicher, and these weapons possess such accuracy and flatness of trajectory that a poor shot becomes a moderate one, a good shot a first-class one, and a first-class performer something remarkable. Since 1900 some firms, notably John Rigby, have utilized the best points of these smaller weapons to make them successful on the largest and most dangerous game in the hands of experienced men, and have invented weapons of tremendous hitting power with magazine rapidity of fire.

London gunmakers were so anxious for Selous to use every new weapon they put on the market that he was bombarded with gifts of new weapons, in the hope that he would use them and advertise their wares. In many cases he did accept them, and between 1896 and 1915 he tried, on his numerous trips, perhaps a dozen different rifles. In this he admitted that he made a great mistake, for he would have done much better it he had adhered to one rifle for small game, such as the common ·256 Mannlicher, and one large one, such as the ·450 Rigby for heavy or dangerous animals. Many of these new rifles, though they nearly all shot well when they worked, developed glaring faults in magazine construction or defective bullets. What does well enough on the target at home is often quite a failure in the wear and tear of the African wilderness. A bullet that "mushrooms" nicely on the carcase of a horse may completely fail to stop a tough African antelope, and so on. Thus Selous lost his faith in specious promises, and often wished he had stuck to his old ·450 single-shot Gibbs, which always gave good results on all medium-sized game, and even on the few occasions when he met elephants.

As an example of Selous' practical nature with regard to rifles, and the absolute necessity of testing them thoroughly before field-use, he told me one day the following story:—

At a leading London gunmaker's he had ordered a heavy high-velocity rifle, which he intended to use on large game in one of his more recent expeditions. As so often happens, the gunmaker in question delayed the delivery of the weapon till the very last moment, and one hour before he was to depart for Africa, Selous found himself in possession of a new weapon whose sighting and cartridges he had not tested. Now, to a man of his experience, such a thing as taking a rifle to Africa without first shooting it carefully was unheard of. The cartridges might not fit, or the sights might be set too high or too low. There was only one thing to be done, he must test the rifle somehow, even though located as he was in a house in Regent's Park. Calling the servant he asked her to get a cab and put all his kit therein and to place his hat and coat ready in the hall. When the maid announced that this had been done, he then opened his bedroom-window, and selecting a neighbouring chimney-stack, at about 100 yards distance, he fired five shots in quick succession.

The effect in the densely populated neighbourhood may be more easily imagined than described. Heads appeared at every window and knots of people began to assemble in the streets below. What on earth was happening? Had someone suddenly gone mad? Was a murder being perpetrated, or had the Germans landed? Selous quickly got out his field-glasses, and noticed that the pattern on the brick chimney was distinctly good. He then carefully cleaned the rifle and put it in its case, donned his hat and coat, and opened the front door. Here was assembled a group of scared people, whilst a policeman was seen hastily crossing the road. Someone asked him as he entered the cab if he had heard the shots, and the old hunter replied that he had, and that the sounds seemed to have come from one of the rooms above. So Selous tried his rifle and went on his way rejoicing.

Speaking of him as a hunter, Sir Alfred Pease, himself one of our best performers in the field, writes:—

It is a little difficult to gauge the shooting quality of a man by reading published works, because rifle-shooting at big game in various countries involves such various conditions. In Scotland, Norway, and the high grounds of Europe, Asia, and America, a good shot would probably kill ten beasts out of every fifteen or twenty cartridges expended, or even less. Many men do not take "all chances," moving or otherwise, whilst the best hunters do take all targets offered at a good head and at all ranges up to 350 yards, but in the plains and forests of Africa the average of shots fired is far higher, because the conditions are more difficult, and, broadly speaking, from three to six shots[86] are required in the course of a trip to every animal brought to bag. In Africa visibility, except in the early morning and late evening, is curtailed by refraction from the earth of the sun's rays, and animals are much shyer; on the plains and in the bush it is difficult to pick out the best head or to see it clearly. Often too, especially in bush, the shot is hurried, and has to be taken when the shooter is standing in a bad position. There is always too the nervous tension on the part of the hunter when pursuing dangerous game, a nervousness not necessarily fear, which makes him ever on the alert for danger or alarm caused by some other animal of the same herd. All these circumstances create other conditions unfavourable to good shooting, although they undoubtedly add to the charm of African sport. In earlier days too in South Africa (and more recently sometimes in East Africa) most of the game killed was shot after riding down the animal or quickly galloping after it and jumping off for the shot as soon as the beast came to a standstill and was not greatly alarmed. At this form of sport Selous was, when once well armed, a very skilful performer. His excellent horsemanship, fearless dash through "wait-a-bit" thorns, and keen eye enabled him almost invariably to run to a standstill almost any animal he had set out to chase, and though he admitted he frequently used many cartridges before he achieved success, I think he was a much better shot than he professed to be. In later years, when he hunted the beasts of the plain, forests, and mountains in Europe, Asia Minor, and North America, his expenditure of cartridges (if we read his books carefully) certainly proves him to have been a very good performer with the rifle.

After his marriage, in 1895, he spent much of his time in England and took "seriously" to the shot-gun. I say "seriously," because everything he did was adopted with the same whole-heartedness that he brought to other things. At first it must be admitted he was a very poor performer, and did not kill any except the ordinary rising bird; but, as time went on, he practised so assiduously that he was soon able to kill a few driven grouse and partridges. After twenty years he became quite a good shot, certainly above the average, but was always depressed that he could not master the slowness which is ever the lot of a man who takes up the shot-gun after middle age. Such, however, was his persistence and determination to excel that on occasion he performed so well that his hosts thought he had been shooting with the smooth-bore all his life, and complimented him on his skill. I remember one day in particular at Tatton Park, Lord Egerton's beautiful seat in Cheshire, when Selous really shot brilliantly and quite as well as any of the other guns, who were accounted first-class shots. We killed over one thousand pheasants that day, and Selous took down the high birds with a speed and accuracy that I think even astonished himself. He was like a schoolboy in his joy that day at shooting so well, and as usual said it was a "fluke" and he could never do it again. Another day at Swythamley, where, at the invitation of our old friend, Sir Philip Brocklehurst, we drove the moor for grouse, Selous killed for the first time twenty birds at one stand. He was in the seventh heaven of delight, nearly walked us off our legs, and told us "lion" stories till far into the night. We had many happy days at Swythamley between the years 1896-1914, and Selous was always at his best there under the rain of "chaff" and practical jokes of our host. Sir Philip's two sons, the present Sir Philip, who accompanied Shackleton to the Antarctic, and Courtenay, a captain in the 10th Hussars, and at present "flying" in East Africa, were boys after Selous' own heart, and have since become keen and successful big game hunters, whose youthful imagination Selous did so much to fire. At Swythamley we were all a happy party with congenial tastes and full of fun, and I always look back on the many delightful days we spent there as some of the best of life.

He liked nearly all outdoor sports at different times. He played an energetic game of tennis and was a really good croquet-player. Most of all he loved cricket, and played regularly for his local club at Worplesdon, taking part in all their matches until 1915. When any great game was fought at Lord's, such as England v. Australia, he was generally there before the game began in the members' enclosure, and, much as he detested crowds, he with his wife would sit out the whole three days and watch every ball that went down. On such occasions he seldom spoke, but kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the players, noting the skill displayed on both sides. At Worplesdon he put such life into the local club that they were soon able to leave the rough common where former matches were played and take and keep in order an excellent cricket-field. I played in some of these matches, which were rather of the "Dingley-Dell" type, and it was always a treat to see Fred standing so close "in" at "point" that he looked as if he would catch the batsman before he hit the ball. "Big Game Hunters v. Worplesdon" was always a great and solemn occasion.

In his later years he was a most indefatigable cyclist, and thought nothing of riding over to see his friends thirty and forty miles away and back, even when he was over sixty years of age. When at home he never rode in a car if he could avoid it, as his policy was ever to keep fit by physical exercise.

The following is an example of his energy as a cyclist (September 5th, 1909):—

With regard to the personal appearance and character of the man, his hard, gruelling life had left him straight and well-conditioned at the age of sixty. Few men interested others so much. He stood for all that was best in romance and high adventure. His life was of the hardest, for he loved to pit his strength against the forces of Nature. From childhood he only knew physical discipline as a virtue and battle as a self-enforced necessity. In appearance he was deep-chested, straight as an arrow, and with immensely powerful muscles on his arms and legs. Latterly he was inclined to stoutness, but this was kept in check by constant exercise. If there was one striking feature in his physiognomy it was his wonderful eyes, as clear and blue as a summer sea. Nearly every one who came in contact with him noticed his eyes. They were the eyes of the man who looks into the beyond over vast spaces. Instinctively one saw in them the hunter and the man of wide views. Their clarity of expression was so intense that any observer could see at a glance the whole nature of the mind that lay behind.

In social intercourse Selous had a presence that was apt to make other people look insignificant. He was adored by all his friends, and even perfect strangers seemed to come under his magnetism at the first introduction. It was not only the interesting things he had to tell, and the way he told them, but the kindness of heart and modesty that forced their way through any narrative, and which seemed to grow upon him with the years. Often was he the most sympathetic of listeners, but as a rule he was a great talker and an unrivalled story-teller. His memory was marvellous. Never halting for a word, his tales would flow on for hours without a check, and he was so skilful in the art of telling a tale that he seldom repeated stories with which he knew his audience were familiar. Well as I knew him for twenty years, I have rarely heard him repeat himself. Great as he was in this character, as powerful as any professional who holds his audience entranced in the court-yards of the Eastern cities, it was not a sense of vanity that inspired his volubility. It was always others who drew him on to talk, and he was so good-natured that he hated to leave his friends disappointed when he felt that stories were expected from him. Life was to him an endless adventure, and the freshness of his curiosity, the tireless spring of youth and romance, and the eagerness with which he attacked any subject, were such as to cause delight in the minds of all men who love to hear of high adventure and are yet debarred from playing their part. Nothing could quench his ardour when once his mind was set upon a thing. To hear him was to experience some fresh breeze blowing off the shores of youth. He possessed charm in the highest degree because he always seemed to like best the people he was with. He led his audience along pleasant ways and knew the secret of raising others to the plane of his own intellectual level. Alternately he was romantic, brilliant, fiery, brave, or kind, and thus ran through the gamut of human emotions.

Yet with all his high enthusiasm he always displayed a curious diffidence as regards his own exploits—a modesty that perhaps endeared him best to those who loved him, for he was like all big men—a man who had no illusions. In all success he was ever alive to his own limitations, and none was more severe than he upon himself when he felt he had done some foolish thing or failed in some achievement from want of knowledge or skill. Few people knew how hardly he judged himself, or what anxieties he passed through before attacking some new problem. But the mental drag was there nevertheless, and though he may have laughed at it afterwards, there was something curiously feminine and introspective in his dual nature.

In many of the letters written during his early life in Africa, there is a certain strain of melancholy which seemed to overwhelm him when he found that after all his efforts to "make good," the results had not been a financial success. But these times of sadness were for the most part only temporary, and soon gave way under the influence of fresh enterprise.

All men and women have a real age which never leaves them from the cradle to the grave. Some are always twenty, and others drag through life with the soul of sixty. Fred Selous was one of those happy creatures who die young, for he never resigned his youthful ideals.

He had a great sympathy with emotional people. Good acting or the "French temperament" appealed to him. Though slow to anger as a rule, it was not rare to see him spring from his chair and jerk his head fiercely from side to side at any story of injustice. The Norman blood in his veins caused him to like the French and to appreciate their "bonhomie" and excitability. With him too it was always near the surface—ready to sympathize, swift to resent—but over it all was the iron check of Scottish caution.

One night in Vienna, in 1910, Prince Henry Liechtenstein gave a little dinner party at "Sacher's." Slatin Pasha was there, and told us some interesting stories of his adventures as a captive of the Mahdi. Then came what I thought to be a somewhat garbled version of the Fashoda incident. Finally he made certain remarks, in very bad taste, of the leave-taking of Marchand with the French colony at the Cairo railway station. To him it was exceedingly "funny" that Marchand should burst into tears and kiss his friends. I got angry at this, and we had a somewhat heated passage of words. "Why," he sneered in conclusion, "what had Marchand to complain of—he was only a miserable Captain before, and was now made a Colonel." Such a gross misunderstanding of a man's temperament and ideals and ambitions seemed deplorable indeed. It was quite German in its total failure to appreciate national psychology. In those two years of trial, privation and danger which Marchand had to face what must his thoughts have been. Twice on the road his expedition met with disaster from sickness, desertion and other causes. Yet he had re-formed it and marched successfully across unknown Africa from West to East with a handful of Senegalese sharpshooters, courting almost certain death at the end at the hands of the Mahdists. Only our expedition to Khartoum had saved him, by destroying the power of the Khalifa at the eleventh hour. What did such a man as he care for a trumpery military advancement? He was out to do his duty for France, and he did it where nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have failed. He achieved his end, but owing to our policy—for once strong—his Government failed him. Marchand was truly a great man. When I told this trifling incident to Selous he seemed to be thrown into a frenzy of rage, for I did not then know his views on Marchand. "Why," he shouted, "Marchand did the biggest thing any man has ever done in Africa, and of course no one knows it—I should like to kiss him myself!"

In speaking his voice possessed a singularly rich tone and resonance, and with all it carried a sympathetic quality that seemed to play directly on the heartstrings of his audience. Such gestures as he used were purely natural and necessary, and though possessing the volubility and excitable temperament of the southern races, the northern strain kept in check any excessive gesticulation. Although latterly his hearing was poor, he possessed a wonderful discrimination in shades of pronunciation when making use of native or foreign languages. Ever alive to the picturesque or the romantic, he clothed his stories in the language of which the true story-teller has the key, whilst over all hung the indelible stamp of truth and accuracy that characterized the man himself. His thoughts ranged over a wide field of emotions and ideas, in which chivalry perhaps played the most important part. It was always present in all his thoughts and acts. This with the intense energy or "fury of play," backed by the vehemence of emotion, carried him far in the higher flights both of act and imagination. "It is easy to be an ass and to follow the multitude like a blind besotted bull in a stampede," says Stevenson. Selous followed no leader but himself. Success left him humble, and the sharp ferule of calamity only crushed him for the moment. As he hated conventionality, so he loathed respectability—"that deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid on men." It meant nothing to him but the crystallized demeanour of spineless invertebrates. Thus when he spoke either in public or private life, he spoke direct from his heart and experience, and Men recognized the Man. He had a few mannerisms, and all have that—but was never the victim of stereotyped phrase or trite quotation. He took infinite care in his composition, but seldom altered, once the written thought was on paper. Unlike most authors he did not prune the "flesh" off his "bones" until the residue was satisfactory. Every line was complete when once he had set it down, and his manuscripts are as unaltered as at the moment they were written. In his lectures, as in his writings, he seemed to complete his thoughts before they were transferred to speech or writing. Having made up his mind what to say he just delivered himself over, as it were, to the absorbing interest or ruling passion of the moment. All his written work cannot be said to be of equal merit. Perhaps his best efforts are to be found in "African Nature Notes and Reminiscences," in which his command of English reaches a high level, yet in all circumstances, especially when narrating his own adventures in simple style such as in "A Hunter's Wanderings," or his escape from the Mushukulumbwe, he enjoyed "the happy privilege of making lovers among his readers." He possessed a certain quiet gift of humour, which he seldom indulged in except in such quaint instances as the remarks he makes on the vicious horse he gave to Lobengula in the hope that he would give it to one of his chiefs whom Selous particularly detested.

Pathos too, to the man who so frequently met with it, was something too terrible for soul disintegration. He often told me he simply could not speak of the circumstances of poor French's death in the bush in 1879. It hurt him so much. But romance, tragedy, the beautiful, the picturesque, or the noble deeds of unpretentious men all fell into their natural places in his scheme of colour and formed a completed whole that was the outcome of perfect spontaneity and natural utterance. Thus he saw life in a vision as wide and untrammelled as the desolate plains he loved. He seemed to divine from his own experience how other men felt, and with the intensity of human sympathy knew how to encourage and console others in times of difficulty. To him no man was so poor that he was not ready to give him a "lift" on his waggon or through his purse. Sternness and tenderness were nearly matched in his conduct, the former for himself and the latter for the failings of others. In spite of his knowledge of the world he had no cynicism, his motto being to make things easier to those who were less fortunate than himself. He bore no grudge, nor did he feel sore at ingratitude, and might truly have said, "There is no man born with so little animosity as I."

In later years Selous often confessed to an enduring restlessness. There was always so much to be done and so little time to do it. Even when at home, where he was perfectly happy and always immersed in some form of brain work or outdoor activity, this restlessness never left him. He felt it ever in his blood, and it would act like some violent force—most violent when the turmoil and pettiness of human life or the futile presence of crowds jarred upon him. Life in cities was to him so infinitely inferior to the grandeur of nature and interest of the unknown. Having tasted of the best it is hard after a life spent amid romance and adventure to settle down comfortably amidst the tiny affairs and tittle-tattle of everyday things at home. He hated intensely lawyers, politicians, theorists and men who daily live in the public eye without knowing anything of the great world in its wide sense. This spirit of restlessness seems to have been ever present in his later life. He confessed that he found it difficult to stay in England for more than six months at a time. There was always some new country and the pursuit of some new animals which he wished to add to his unique collection. Africa seemed to draw him like a loadstone, as it had always done, and its never-ceasing call was ever sounding in his ears. Even when on service in 1916 he talked with William Judd in Nairobi of a trip he wished to make with him, after the war had ended, to the Amala to get a really good black-maned lion. Yet when he was on board ship he confessed that he was overcome with such home-sickness that he felt inclined to "throw himself overboard and swim ashore." It must be admitted that he suffered to some extent in his later days from a disease which for want of a better word we must call the Nostalgia of Travel—a disease which attacks many old Big Game hunters—for often there comes a time when weariness of actual travelling creates depression, but in his subsequent letters from the actual hunting-grounds these adverse conditions disappear and he is once more keen and happy in the fascination of the chase and the clean conditions of a hunter's life. If we read carefully the classics in hunting and travel such as Baldwin, Neumann, Livingstone, etc., we constantly come across records of depression on the part of the writers. Were all the hardship, toil, dangers and the eternal difficulties of keeping an outfit in order and even temper good enough? Was not all the money so hardly won to gain this trip not thrown away? Would the elephants (it was generally elephants) or the rare horns ever be sighted? Would the horses or oxen that were left be sufficient to carry the expedition through after the best had been killed or died of sickness? And yet there was always an answer to these questions when the leaders were men of grit. Clouds pass away, men recover their spirits, and we find them writing, it may be a few weeks or even days afterwards, as if "all was lovely in the garden."

All his life he was a great reader, and rather preferred the old "classics" of English literature to modern books, except those on travel and big game hunting, of which he had an extensive library. He would read again and again and enjoy the works of Thackeray and Dickens, and amongst poets Byron was his favourite. Of modern writers no one appealed to him so much as Thomas Hardy, all of whose works found great favour, and especially "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," which he rightly esteemed as perhaps the greatest modern novel in the English language. Of writers on Big Game he esteemed highly Baldwin, Roosevelt, Charles Sheldon, Stewart Edward White, and Arthur Neumann. If he was bored in a crowd or had to wait at a railway station, he generally had a book in his pocket, and passed the hours happily in complete absorption of the author's descriptions. His tastes were wide, as we should expect, ranging from Tom Hood's humorous poems and such modern imaginative adventures as "Raffles" and "Stingaree", to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He considered "Robbery under Arms" the most delightful modern romance, with a substratum of fact, he had ever read, but it always held second place to "Tess." He loved novels about imaginary people leading heroic lives, suffering, loving, hating, adventuring and fighting—all on some high level above the petty joys and sorrows of a work-a-day world.

Of his personal friends it is somewhat difficult to speak, as he knew so many in so many different lands. His circle of acquaintances was immense, though it was natural that his intimates should be men of similar tastes. In England we have a very excellent institution known as the "Shikari Club," an association of Big Game hunters founded by Captain C. E. Radclyffe, Captain P. B. Vanderbyl and Selous himself under the presidency of the Earl of Lonsdale. This club meets but once a year on the night of the Oaks, and members dine together at the Savoy Hotel. Here all matters relating to hunting throughout the world are discussed, plans are made for the future, and it is, as it were, a general meeting round the camp fire of brothers of the rifle. The camaraderie is excellent, and we all know and help each other with information as to future travels. Admission to its ranks is somewhat severe, for no man, unless he has proved himself to be a sportsman of the best type, is ever elected. Amongst these men, who have probably travelled and hunted more extensively than any other community in the world, Selous counted many close friends whose names are too numerous to mention, and from them he got the latest information for some projected trip just as he on his part helped many of them. Another club which at one time he constantly visited to hear discussions on the subject of birds was the British Ornithologists', a dining branch of the British Ornithologists' Union, where after dinner specimens of interest were exhibited, and discussions took place. Most of the principal members were his friends, as well as leading Zoologists in the Zoological Society and the British Museum (Natural History), whom it was always his pleasure to serve and help with new specimens. In later years nearly all his old South African friends were dead or had retired, so he saw little of them, but in England, after his return from South Africa, he made many new friends whose homes he constantly visited. From 1896 till the time of his death he often stayed with Lord Egerton of Tatton, whose son, the Hon. Maurice Egerton, whom he had first met in Alaska, was a great friend of his; with Abel Chapman, with whom he had been at school at Rugby, and who had many kindred tastes; with Heatley Noble, to whom he was much attached; with Sir Philip Brocklehurst and his family, for whom he entertained a warm affection; and with Mr. MacMillan, in Devonshire. These are only a few of the friends who were in intimate sympathy with him, and to whom he constantly wrote accounts of his more recent travels. I met him first in 1897, and from then until his death he wrote to me constantly, and never did either of us go on an expedition without his coming to see me or my going to Worplesdon to discuss the matter in the smallest detail. In those twenty years we both hunted or wandered in other lands every year, and I cannot adequately express what his warm friendship and help was to me, for when Selous opened his soul to anyone he did it with a whole-heartedness and an abandonment of all reserve that are rare in these days. In our lives there come only a few fellow-creatures to whom we can say anything that comes into our minds without being misinterpreted. Even in absence we think about them as they about us, and we know how they will rejoice at our successes and sympathize with our failures, because they know and understand. When such a man as Selous passes away, and we have enjoyed that intimacy, the world indeed seems desolate, even though we have the poor consolation that what has been was very good.

In his own home Selous was hospitality itself, and loved to entertain visitors from all parts of the world who came to see him or his museum. Complete strangers were received with the same courtesy as intimate friends, and Selous would spend hours showing his trophies to anyone who exhibited the smallest interest in the subject. Officers from Aldershot or Naval men were always welcome, and I should think that a large portion of the British Army and Navy had at one time or another enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his trophies under his personal supervision, and it was this abandonment of self and personal interest in his fellow-creatures that made him so popular.