There are few of us whose early aspirations and subsequent acts are not influenced by literature. Some book comes just at the time of our life when we are most impressionable and seems exactly to fit in with our ideas and temperament. To this rule Selous was no exception, for he often admitted in after-life that the one book which definitely sent him to Africa and made him a pioneer and a hunter of Big Game, was Baldwin's "African Hunting from Natal to the Zambesi," published in 1864. Example in any line of adventure is recurrent, and especially so if the field of adventure is not spoilt by what we may call excessive "civilization." There have been, as it were, landmarks in the literature of African sport and travel, each book being more or less cumulative in its effect. Amongst books that mattered, perhaps the first was Burchell's fully-illustrated folio and the lesser writings of an English officer who hunted in the Orange Free State late in the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth century. The works of these men incited Captain Cornwallis Harris to undertake an extensive trip as far as the Limpopo. He was a capable artist and an excellent writer, and published a magnificent folio describing his adventures and the natural history of the large mammals, which still commands a high price. He at once inspired many hunters to follow in his footsteps, and several of these, such as Roualeyn Gordon Cumming, William Cotton Oswell, Sir Francis Galton, and C. J. Anderson, wrote either books of great value or portions of standard works. Gordon Cumming did an immense amount of shooting—far too much most people now think—but his volume, written in the romantic British style, is one that will always remain a classic in the world of sporting literature. His tales of the game he saw or what he killed were not always accepted as true facts, but from all accounts, gathered from independent sources, it is now admitted that Gordon Cumming was a fearless hunter and did in the main accomplish all the principal exploits to which he laid claim.
"Lake Ngami, or Explorations in South-Western Africa," by Charles John Anderson, published in 1856, with some admirable early illustrations by Wolf, gives an account of the author's four years' wanderings (partly with Francis Galton) in the Western Wilderness, and is a truthful and excellent record of the Great Game in these districts at that time. Galton also published "Tropical Africa," but did not give much space to sport or natural history. Oswell, a great hunter and companion of Livingstone in many of his travels, also wrote in the last days of his life an admirable contribution to the "Badminton Library," which embodied an account of his life and adventures amongst the Great Game of South Africa in the forties. It is well illustrated by Wolf, the greatest painter of birds and mammals who ever lived. Other men of his date who were excellent hunters, who left no records of their lives, were Vardon, General Sir Thomas Steele, and Thomas Baines, who, without prejudice, did perhaps as much exploration, geographical work, painting, and hunting as any Afrikander of his time. Baines, I believe, really discovered the Falls of the Zambesi before Livingstone visited them, and no adequate tribute to the work of this remarkable man has ever appeared. The amount of maps he prepared of out-of-the-way corners of South Africa from the Zambesi northwards, was very great and his work was only known to the pioneers like Livingstone, Oswell, Selous and others who followed after him and made use of his industry. Baines, too, though almost uneducated, was a very capable artist and I think I must have seen at least two hundred of his paintings in oil. He liked to depict landscapes and wild animals. Whilst those of the latter were not above criticism, his views of the rivers, lakes, forests, mountains, and plains of the Free State, swarming with game, are a truthful record of the days that are no more, and will doubtless live in South African history when more ambitious, technically correct works are forgotten.[4]
After these sportsmen and writers came William Charles Baldwin, who wandered, primarily with the object of hunting elephants, from Zululand to the Zambesi and west to Lake Ngami between the years 1852 and 1860. His book "African Hunting and Adventure" was published in 1863, and was beautifully illustrated by Wolf and Zwecker. It was an immediate success and caused many, like Selous, to leave the ways of civilization and seek adventure in the wilds. Baldwin was an excellent and fearless rider (he rode in a steeplechase when he was seventy) and a good shot, and the accounts of his adventures could hardly have failed to make their impress on the minds of young men of the right kind, but, as he admits, the elephants were on the wane even in his day (he never succeeded in hunting in the main haunts in Matabeleland), so future travellers had to exploit new fields.
On the 4th of September, 1871, Selous landed at Algoa Bay with £400 in his pocket. He went there determined to make his way into the interior and to lead the free life of the hunter as described by Gordon Cumming, Baldwin, and others. First he decided to go to the Diamond Fields, and left Port Elizabeth on September 6th with a young transport rider named Reuben Thomas, who conveyed him and his baggage for the sum of eight pounds. After a slow journey of nearly two months he reached his destination. On the road by hunting hard he had managed to kill "one bushbuck ram, one duiker, one springbuck, one klipspringer, and eight grey and red roebucks, all of which I carried on my own shoulders to the waggons."
Most unfortunately, however, a valuable double breechloading rifle with which he had been shooting was stolen on the day he reached Kimberley. Next day he bought a horse and rode over to Pniel. There he met Mr. Arthur Lang, and on October 31st went with him on a trading trip through Griqualand, passing down the Vaal and Orange rivers. He found the Bechuanas an industrious race, "but they are the stingiest, most begging, grasping, and disagreeable set of people that it is possible to imagine." He was much disappointed to find the country so bare of game. "The great drawback was that there was no game whatever, not even springbucks, the Kafirs having hunted everything into the far interior, so that now there is more game within five miles of Cape Town than here, where we were more than 600 miles up country." The party returned to the Diamond Fields at the end of March and sold off their produce—cattle, goats, and ostrich feathers at a profit of about £100.
Selous then set about his preparations for a journey into the far interior. From a trader he purchased a waggon, a span of young oxen, and five horses. A young fellow named Dorehill and a Mr. Sadlier then agreed to accompany him. The whole party seems to have been very badly armed with indifferent weapons. At the end of April, 1872, Selous and his two friends trekked north and only got as far as Kuruman, a delay of a fortnight being caused through the horses running away. Here Selous met Mr. William Williams, an experienced trader and hunter, from whom he purchased two unprepossessing-looking large-bore elephant guns as used by the Boer native hunters. Cheap as these guns were, about six pounds a-piece and using only common trade gunpowder, they were most effective weapons, for in three seasons with them (1872-1874) Selous killed seventy-eight elephants, all but one of which he shot whilst hunting on foot. He used to load them whilst running at full speed by simply diving his hand into a leather bag of powder slung at his side. "They kicked most frightfully, and in my case the punishment I received from these guns has affected my nerves to such an extent as to have materially influenced my shooting ever since, and I am heartily sorry I ever had anything to do with them."
After a trying trek the party arrived at Secheli's in twenty days through more or less waterless country, but just before reaching these kraals an accident happened which might easily have cost Selous and Dorehill their lives. Selous was taking some cartridges from a box on the side of the waggon, in which was about a pound of loose gunpowder, when Dorehill came up and dropped some ashes from his pipe into the box. An immediate explosion followed and both were badly burnt. Sadlier, however, rose to the emergency and "at once rubbed a mixture of oil and salt into our skinless faces; it was not a pleasant process." After a visit to Secheli, who was a most completely civilized Kafir, Selous and his friends moved northward on the 28th June, with Frank Mandy, who was about to trade in the Matabele country. On the road to Boatlanarma they experienced great difficulties and were once three days and three nights without water. About the middle of August they left Bamangwato, where Selous purchased a salted horse. By exchanging his new waggon for a smaller second-hand one, a trade rifle and the horse itself valued at £75, he made a deal with a shrewd but uneducated Scotchman named Peter Skinner. Of course the new purchase ran away at the first opportunity, which delayed the party for another week. Near Pelatsi Selous had his first experience of real African hardship, and his subsequent account of being lost in the bush for four days and three nights, without covering except his shirt and breeches and without food or drink, is one of the most thrilling he ever wrote.[5]
Selous and his comrades here met their first giraffes and proceeded to give chase.
"After a time the giraffes separated, and suffice it to say that, at the end of an hour or so, I found myself lying on my back, with my right leg nearly broken, by coming violently into contact with the trunk of a tree; and, on getting up and remounting my horse, not only were the giraffes out of sight, but nowhere could I see either of my two companions. Though, of course, my inexperience contributed much to the unsuccessful issue of this, my first giraffe hunt, yet I cannot help thinking that my horse also had a good deal to do with it, for, having been bred in the open plains of the Transvaal Republic, he was quite at sea in the thick forests of the interior; and if, when going at full gallop through a thick wood, you intend to pass on one side of a tree, but your horse, being of a different opinion, swerves suddenly and goes to the other, it is awkward, to say the least of it.
"My first object was to rejoin my companions; so, not having heard a shot, and imagining they must by this time have given up chasing the giraffes, I fired as a signal, and at once heard a shot in answer far to my right, and rode in that direction. After riding some distance I again pulled up, and shouted with all my might, and then, not hearing anything, fired another signal shot, but without effect. As my horse was very tired, I now off-saddled for a short time and then fired a third shot, and listened intently for an answer, but all was silent as the grave; so, as the sun was now low, I saddled up again and struck a line for the waggon road, thinking my friends had already done the same thing. In this way I rode on at a slow pace, for my horse was tired and thirsty, keeping steadily in one direction till the sun, sinking lower and lower, at last disappeared altogether. I expected I should have reached the road before this, and, attributing my not doing so to the fact of the path having taken a turn to the right, still kept on till twilight had given place to moonlight—a fine bright moonlight, indeed, for it wanted but two nights to the full, but, under the circumstances, perhaps a trifle cold and cheerless. Still, thinking I must be close to the road, I kept on for another couple of hours or so, when, it being intensely cold, I resolved to try and light a fire, and pass the night where I was and ride on again early the following morning. Having no matches, I had to make use of my cartridges, of which I had only three remaining, in endeavouring to get a light. Breaking one of these open, I rubbed some of the powder well into a bit of linen torn from my shirt, slightly wetted, and, putting it into the muzzle of the rifle, ignited it with the cap and a little powder left in the bottom of the cartridge. So far well and good, but this was, unfortunately, almost as far as I could get; for, though I managed to induce some grass to smoulder, I couldn't for the life of me make it flare, and soon had the mortification of finding myself, after two more unsuccessful attempts, just as cold and, hungry as before, and minus my three cartridges to boot. Were the same circumstances to occur again, no doubt everything would be very different; but at that time I was quite a tyro in all forest lore. It was now piercingly cold, though during the day the sun had been as hot as at midsummer in England—regular South African fashion. Still, I thought it better to pass the night where I was; so, tying my horse to a tree, I cut a little grass with my pocket knife to lie upon, and turned in. My entire clothing consisted of a hat, shirt, pair of trousers, and veldt shoes, as I had ridden away from the waggon without my coat. However, lying on my back, with my felt hat for a pillow, I put the saddle over my chest and closed my eyes in the vain hope that I should soon fall asleep and forget my cares; vain indeed, for the bitter cold crept in gradually and stealthily from my feet upwards, till I was soon shivering from head to foot as if my very life depended on it. After having worked hard at this unpleasant exercise for a couple of hours or more, watching the moon all the time, and cursing its tardy pace, I could stand it no longer; so, getting up with difficulty—for I was regularly stiffened by the cold—I ran backwards and forwards to a tree at a short distance until I was again warm, when I once more lay down; and in this manner the weary hours wore away till day dawned. During the night a couple of hyenas passed close to me, enlivening the silence with their dismal howlings. I have often thought since that they must have been on their way to drink, perhaps at some pit or spring not far off; how I wished that I had known where! I will take this opportunity of saying that the howl of the African hyena is about the most mournful and weird-like sound in nature, being a sort of prolonged groan, rising in cadence till it ends in a shriek; they only laugh when enjoying a good feed.