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 would be easier to write more fully of Selous, if he had occasionally 'broken out' and 'bucked' a bit—his very modesty and reserve and his care about what he said and his delightful simple-heartedness concerning his own achievements[85] were something difficult to cope with—much as they added to the charm and attractiveness of the man and fortified one's confidence in him. To me that he was absolutely true and the pure stuff was what made him stand out. Personally I never saw him do anything brilliant—I have seen many men shoot better, quicker, and so on, but no man who got so much or at any rate any more interest out of all that pertains to a hunter's and naturalist's life. He was a rather deliberate than quick observer, as far as I can judge, but when he had reached a conclusion you might lay your money he was right. I remember one day being rather inclined (being myself of an eager, quick, and perhaps impatient nature) to think him tiresome. He was with me at Kilanga (my B.E.A. farm), and said, 'Now I want to get a good Kongoni' (Coke's Hartebeest)—we were standing where there were always hundreds, and often thousands, in sight. We regarded Kongoni like the flocks on a hundred mountains. The old bulls' heads were much alike; in early days I had measured perhaps a dozen, and did not find that any one was much more interesting than another. I said I didn't know that I could help him, 'they were much of a muchness.' He asked me questions about measurements and weights and so on, most of which I could not answer. I told him there were plenty to choose from, and off he went and spent the whole of a hot day trying to find a 'specimen' worth having. He returned at night with a head and neck, and then the inquisition began again after measuring and remeasuring, and after a time (perhaps he was two hours messing about with his Kongoni head in the evening, after a tiring day, when I wanted him to come in and sit down) he came to the conclusion that there was not much difference between his head and the horns lying about of those we had shot for meat. He went to Juja (MacMillan's), and a few days after showed me two other heads he had got there, and no doubt had given the same exertion and examination to get, and with not much different result. It is well for science that there are such men, and some of my neighbours were amazed at this man, whose great reputation had reached them, and had expected to see him galloping after lions and shooting them from the saddle, etc., bothering himself over Kongoni heads, but I must say I admired immensely this persistence to get at a definite knowledge about a common beast."