At this time (1873) Piet Jacobs was undoubtedly the most famous hunter in South Africa. During a long life, most of which was spent in the Mashuna and Matabele country, he is supposed to have shot between 400 and 500 bull elephants, mostly killed by hunting them from horseback, but even after as an old man he killed many on foot in the "fly" country. Unlike most Boers, he constantly attacked lions whenever he had the opportunity, and Selous considers that he shot "more lions than any man that ever lived." His usual method in hunting these animals was, if the first shot missed, to loose three or four strong "Boer" dogs, which quickly ran the lion to bay. Then, as a rule, it was easily killed. One day, however, in 1873, on the Umniati river he was terribly mauled by a lion that charged after being bayed by his three dogs. His shot at the charging lion missed, and he was thrown to the ground and severely bitten on the thigh, left arm, and hand. The dogs, however, now came up and saved his life, but it was a long time before he recovered. He said that, unlike the experience of Dr. Livingstone, the bites of the lion were extremely painful, at which Selous humorously remarks that the absence of suffering in such a case is an especial mercy "which Providence does not extend beyond ministers of the Gospel."
Of William Finaughty, the greatest of the English elephant-hunters, neither Selous nor any contemporary writer gives any particulars, so I am indebted to Mr. G. L. Harrison, an American gentleman, for his "Recollections of William Finaughty," which was privately printed in 1916. He met Finaughty, who was then a very slight old man, with a wonderful memory and much weakened by attacks of fever, in 1913. Finaughty was one of the first white men to hunt elephants in Matabeleland, and his activities extended from 1864 to 1875, when he gave up serious hunting because he could no longer pursue them on horseback.
Finaughty describes himself as a harum-scarum youth who left Grahamstown at the age of twenty-one early in 1864. He passed north through the Free State, then swarming with tens of thousands of black wildebeest, blesbok, springbok, quagga, blue wildebeest, and ostrich, and made his way to Matabeleland, then ruled by Mzilikatse, a brother of the Zulu king Chaka. After sport with lion and buffalo on the road, for all game, including elephants, were abundant at this time, he reached Tati. Old Mzilikatse was then a physical wreck but treated the Englishman well, although at times he had violent outbursts of passion. Finaughty was witness of a great dance in which 2500 warriors took part, and on which occasion 540 oxen were slaughtered. Horse-sickness was then rife in the country and the party lost fourteen horses out of seventeen within thirty hours. In this, his first trip, Finaughty only killed three elephants, which he attributed to lack of experience. On his second trip in 1865 he did better, whilst a third in 1866 was made purely for trading, yet he shot eight elephants and then decided to become a hunter only.
On the fourth trip he shot nineteen elephants, but in 1868, on the Umbila, he states that he had "the two finest months of my life. In all I shot 95 elephants, the ivory weighing 5000 lbs."
One day he had a narrow escape in the sandy bed of the Sweswe river. He had wounded an old bull when he fired at it again as it was on the point of charging. His boy had put in two charges and the hunter was nearly knocked out of the saddle by the recoil. The elephant then charged and got right on the top of him, but, at the moment when death seemed imminent, the elephant's shoulder-bone broke and he was helpless—thus Finaughty escaped. In those days the elephants did not know the meaning of gunfire. Finaughty one day bagged six bulls in a river bed, as they did not run on the shots being fired.
In 1869 he went into the elephant country one hundred miles beyond the Tuli and remained there three years, sending out his ivory and receiving fresh provisions and ammunition on the return of his waggons. In five months he killed fifty-three elephants yielding 3000 lbs. of ivory. In one day he killed five bulls and five cows, which was his "record" bag for one day. In the two following years he killed a large number of elephants, but does not state the precise number. In 1870 he again hunted elephants without giving particulars.
From 1870 to 1874 Finaughty remained at Shoshong as a trader and prospered.
It is interesting to note that Finaughty, like many experienced hunters, does not agree with Selous in considering the lion the most dangerous of all African game. He repeatedly says that buffalo-hunting is the most risky of all forms of hunting.[7] "Far better," he says, "follow up a wounded lion than a wounded buffalo, for the latter is the fiercest and most cunning animal to be found in Africa." He himself had many narrow escapes from buffaloes and only one or two unpleasant incidents with lions. "No," he remarks again, "a man who is out after buffalo must shoot to kill and not to wound, and if he fails to bring his quarry down he should on no account venture to follow up unless in open country. He should never follow a buffalo into cover, unless he is accompanied by a number of good dogs. Many a good man has lost his life through neglect of this precaution." Finaughty lived in the Transvaal from 1883 to 1887, and then moved to Johannesburg in the early days of the "boom." In the nineties he returned to Matabeleland to spend the rest of his days on his farm near Bulawayo. He was still alive in 1914.
What would, however, have been only toil and hardship to older men was small discomfort to a tough young fellow like Selous, who was now in his natural element. Almost at once he and Cigar tracked and killed a grand old bull which carried tusks of 61 and 58 lbs. On the following days they killed six elephants, Cigar accounting for four. Selous here pays a high tribute to the good qualities of his dusky companion. "Cigar was a slight-built, active Hottentot, possessed of wonderful powers of endurance, and a very good game shot, though a bad marksman at a target. These qualities, added to lots of pluck, made him a most successful elephant-hunter; and for foot hunting in the 'fly' country I do not think I could have had a more skilful preceptor; for although only an uneducated Hottentot—once a jockey at Grahamstown—he continually allowed me to have the first shot, whilst the elephants were still standing—a great advantage to give me—and never tried in any way to over-reach me or claim animals that I had shot, as is so often done by Boer hunters. Strangely enough, Cigar told me, when the celebrated hunter, Mr. William Finaughty, first took him after elephants on horseback, he had such dreadful fear of the huge beasts that, after getting nearly caught by one, and never being able to kill any, he begged his master to let him remain at the waggons. When I knew him this fear must have worn off, and I have never since seen his equal as a foot hunter." Selous did very well with Cigar, getting 450 lbs. of ivory which he had shot himself, and another 1200 lbs. which he had traded with the natives, thus making a clear profit of £300. When he saw the king, he told him that the elephants had not driven him out of the country, but that he had killed several, to which Lobengula replied, "Why, you're a man; when are you going to take a wife?" and suggested that he should court one at once.