African Nature Notes and Reminiscences

by Frederick Courteney Selous

Under these conditions, I found this usually arid waste a very pleasant place to wander over. Game, though not very abundant, was still in sufficient numbers to enable me to keep my own people and the several families of Bushmen who had attached themselves to me in rude plenty. Owing to the favourable season, all grazing and browsing animals, including my own cattle, were in very good condition, and my larder seldom lacked the choicest portions of the giraffe, eland, gemsbuck, and springbuck, four of the best animals for the table, when in prime condition, which South Africa, or any other part of the world, can produce. Blue wildebeests were more plentiful than all other species of game, and on the broad, grassy plains which stretch westwards from Metsibutluku—the bitter water—often congregated in herds of from one to two hundred individuals. Here, too, large troops of zebras—Chapman's variety of Burchell's zebra—were often to be met with, as well as small herds of the Cape hartebeest, now quite a scarce animal, as it has been either exterminated in most parts of its former range or driven into the waterless deserts of South-Western Africa.

In the dense thorn jungles which lay a little to the north of my route, a large herd of elephants spent the whole year, as I saw their tracks when travelling westwards from Matabeleland, and again on my return eastwards some five months later. These animals were, however, very wary, never drinking twice running at one pool, and travelling immense distances every night. I twice followed their spoor for a whole day and slept on it without coming up with them. But besides this large herd of cow and young bull elephants, there were four immense old bulls (judging from their tracks), which frequented the same jungles but lived by themselves apart from the herd.

These old patriarchs I tried hard but unsuccessfully to find in the daytime, and I also watched for them at nights on several occasions at vleys at which they had been in the habit of drinking, but I never had the luck to hit off the right pool of water on the right night. Once they drank at a vley within a mile of the one at which I was watching, and I heard them at the water, but on this occasion I think they must have got my wind, as, although I was early on their tracks and followed them all day with the best Bushmen spoorers, I never got near them, and the next day rode home, shooting a fat giraffe cow on the way.

I may here remark that it is of little use, if you do not come up with elephants which have been frightened on the first day, to follow them any farther, as, when alarmed, these animals travel very fast and far at nights, and on the morning of the second day will, in all probability, be much farther off than they were when you first took up their spoor.

Of lions there were a few, but not very many, in this part of the country, and my one successful encounter with one of these animals during this season occurred late in the year, when I was once more nearing the western frontier of Matabeleland. My waggon was then standing beneath some tall, feathery leaved thorn trees near a large vley of water, beyond which stretched an open plain covered with a rather short growth of yellow grass for South Africa—as it was not more than about two feet in length. This open plain was skirted to the north by dense jungles of wait-a-bit thorns, and on its other three sides by open Mopani forest and scrub. My camp was on the northern side of the plain, quite close to the thorn jungles.

At this time I had been long absent from the farthest outpost of civilisation, and had not seen a white mans face or spoken a word of English for more than six months; but I never felt lonely or low spirited, for I had plenty of books with me to read at nights, and hunting and collecting specimens of natural history filled all my time by day. I was, too, in perfect health.

One night I was reading in the waggon rather late, when a lion—the first I had heard for a long time—commenced to roar loudly apparently not very far away, and was immediately answered by several other lions roaring in unison. After this, and until I went to sleep, this roaring became almost continuous, but I could tell that there was one lion which always roared alone, and was answered by several others which all roared together. Presently, lulled by this grandest of all earthly music, I went to sleep.

I awoke just before daylight, and as the lions were still roaring, apparently within a mile of the waggon, I at once got up, and after drinking a cup of coffee, rode out just at daylight, accompanied by a mounted Griqua lad and several of my best Bushmen, to look for them. Twice after we had left the waggon their deep, menacing voices rolled out over the silent veld, and assured us that they were still in the open grass plain, but after the sun rose they became silent.

We had ridden for perhaps a mile and a half across the open plain, when I suddenly saw something dark appear above the long yellow grass some four hundred yards ahead of me, and knew at once that what I had seen was the maned shoulder of a lion. At this time I do not think he had seen us, but had just risen from the spot where he had been lately lying roaring, with the intention of making his way to the thorn jungles ahead of him. I was mounted on a very good, well-trained shooting horse, in splendid hard condition, and very fast, and I at once put spurs to him, and rode as hard as he could go, in the hope of getting up to the lion before the latter gained the shelter of the thorn jungle, where no horse could have followed him.