"At first dawn of day I once more saddled up and rode in the same direction as before. My poor horse was so tired and thirsty that he would only go at a very slow pace; so I didn't make much progress. On coming to a high tree I stopped and climbed up it, and looked about me to try and recognize some landmark. On every side the country was covered with forest, and in the distance were several low ranges of hills, yet nothing seemed familiar to my eye. Right ahead, in the direction in which I had been riding, appeared a line of densely wooded hills, with one single kopje standing alone just in front of them, and thither I determined to ride. On the way I passed three beautiful gemsbuck, which allowed me to come quite close to them, though they are usually very wild; but they had nothing to fear from me, as I had no cartridges, and so could do nothing more than admire them. Thus I rode on and on, until the idea occurred to me that I must have ridden across the road (a mere narrow track) without noticing it in the moonlight, as I had constantly been star-gazing after the sun went down, so as to guide my course by the position of the Southern Cross. After a time, I at last felt so sure that this was the case, that I turned my horse's head to the right-about, and rode back again in the direction from which I had just come."
He was now hopelessly lost but did not give way to despair, as so many in a similar position have done. Nothing but a level sea of forest surrounded him, so he turned his jaded horse to the setting sun in the west in the hope of again striking the road. After another night in the wilderness he awoke to find his horse gone. Far to the south-west was a line of hills and after walking without food or water till the moon rose, he reached the mountains. At sunrise he topped the crest of the range, hoping to see the maize fields of Bamangwato, but saw nothing. Worn out with thirst, fatigue, and hunger he started again at sunrise and at last at sundown he met two Kafirs who eventually took him to their kraal and gave him water and milk.
"The next morning, as soon as it was light, accompanied by the Kafir who carried my rifle, I made a start, and, though very tired and worn out from privation, managed to reach the waggons late in the afternoon, after an absence of five days and four nights. How I enjoyed the meal that was hastily prepared for me, and how delightful it was to keep out the bitter cold with a couple of good blankets, I will leave the reader to conjecture."
Of course, he lost his valuable salted horse, which although hobbled, found its way back to Bamangwato. But Selous could never claim it as he had sold his right to it to a Mr. Elstob at Tati. At Goqui he saw his first lions. Unfortunately he had fired a shot at two lionesses running away, when a fine lion with dark coloured mane stood up and offered him a splendid shot at 80 yards, but his rifle was empty, and as he had no dogs to follow the lions when they had vanished, his first encounter with lions gave him much disappointment. At the end of August they reached Tati, and on leaving this place and passing the Ramaqueban river the following day, Selous says: "Here I first saw a sable antelope, one of the handsomest animals in the world," and anyone, indeed, who sees this magnificent creature for the first time never forgets it.
Next day he reached Minyama's kraal, the frontier outpost of the Matabele country, where most of the inhabitants were Makalakas in native dress. The country now became beautiful and park-like in character, and this extends to Bulawayo, the town founded by Lobengula in 1870, and where the sable king dwelt. On receipt of messages announcing their arrival, the king arrived, dressed in a greasy shirt, a costume which shortly afterwards he discarded for native dress. "He asked me what I had come to do," writes Selous. "I said I had come to hunt elephants, upon which he burst out laughing, and said, 'Was it not steinbucks' (a diminutive species of antelope) 'that you came to hunt? Why, you're only a boy.' I replied that, although a boy, I nevertheless wished to hunt elephants and asked his permission to do so, upon which he made some further disparaging remarks regarding my youthful appearance, and then rose to go without giving me any answer."
But Selous was persistent and again begged for permission. "This time he asked me whether I had ever seen an elephant, and upon my saying no, answered, 'Oh, they will soon drive you out of the country, but you may go and see what you can do!'" When Selous asked him where he might go, Lobengula replied impatiently, "Oh, you may go wherever you like, you are only a boy."
It was about this time that the famous Boer elephant hunter, Jan Viljoen, arrived at Bulawayo and offered to take Sadlier and Selous to his waggons on the River Gwenia to join his hunting party. This was an opportunity not to be lost. In eight days the party, after crossing the Longwe, Sangwe, Shangani, and Gwelo, reached the Gwenia and found the patriarchal encampment of the Boer elephant hunters. The Boers then, as now, travelled even into the far interior with wives, children, cows, sheep, goats, and fowls, and established a "stand-place" whilst the men hunted in all directions, being absent for a week to a month at a time. A slight accident now prevented Selous from going in on foot with the Viljoens to hunt in the "fly." He went off at the Boer's request to buy some corn and on the way back, in passing some Griqua waggons at Jomani, he saw for the first time a Hottentot named Cigar, with whom later he became better acquainted.
Cigar was an experienced hunter and as it seemed now hopeless to follow Viljoen he decided to go in and hunt with the Hottentot. It may be gathered how roughly they lived from Selous' own words: "Having now run through all my supplies of coffee, tea, sugar, and meal, we had nothing in the provision line but Kafir corn and meat of the animals we shot, washed down by cold water."
Cigar—besides two Kafirs who were shooting for him, and carried their own guns and a supply of ammunition—had only three spare boys who carried his blankets, powder, Kafir corn, and a supply of fresh meat. He himself carried his own rifle, a heavy old four-bore muzzle-loader. "As for me," says Selous, "having had to leave two of my Kafirs to look after my horses and oxen, I had but one youngster with me, who carried my blanket and spare ammunition, whilst I shouldered my own old four-bore muzzle-loader, and carried besides a leather bag filled with powder, and a pouch containing twenty four-ounce round bullets. Though this was hardly doing the thing en grand seigneur, I was young and enthusiastic in those days and trudged along under the now intense heat with a light heart."
It must be remembered that at this time nearly all the old Boer and English elephant-hunters, such as men like Piet Schwarz, William Finaughty, Hartley, the Jennings family, J. Giffard, T. Leask, and H. Biles, had given up the game of elephant-hunting when horses could be no longer used and the elephants themselves must be pursued on foot in the "fly." Only George Wood, Jan Viljoen,[6] and the greatest hunter of all in South Africa, Petrus Jacobs, still pursued the elephant, but the difficulty, danger, distance, and scarcity of elephant haunts were now so defined and the results so small that none save the very hardiest were able to follow them.