A few days later Selous' friend, H. C. Collison, arrived in his camp. Collison, with French, had also trekked north across the thirst-land, and lost several of their oxen on the way. Moreover, to add to these disasters, Clarkson, an intimate friend of all three, had been struck by lightning and killed near Klerksdorp shortly after their departure for the interior. Speaking of Clarkson, to whom he was much attached, Selous says: "A better fellow never stepped. Short of stature, but very strong and active, he was, like most colonists, a capital shot and first-rate rough-rider, qualities that could hardly fail to make him a successful hunter. Morally speaking, too, he was upright and honourable in his dealings with his fellow-men, cool in danger, and as plucky as a bull-dog. May his spirit find a good hunting-country in the next world!"
A few days later Collison, French and Selous established a permanent hunting-camp on the Mababe river and went north on foot into the "fly." Owing to the size of the party they soon separated, French and Miller going to the Sunta river, whilst Collison, Sell and Selous went on up the Machabe, but afterwards they met on the Chobe. Miller and Selous then passed on to Linyanti, where they killed four elephants, many buffaloes, and several of the small spotted and striped bushbucks peculiar to the Chobe. Here Selous tried unsuccessfully to kill a specimen of the sitatunga antelope by hunting in a canoe at dawn amongst the reed beds, but only saw one female, although he found lying dead a fine male killed by a rival.
On August 23rd Selous obtained permission to hunt elephants in the angle of the Chobe and the Zambesi from the Barotsi chief Mamele. After a visit to the waggons to get stores and ammunition he returned to the Chobe angle with French and Miller. Close to Mamele's town the party met four lionesses, one of which Selous shot. Buffaloes at this time were in immense herds feeding out in the open all day, even amongst the native cattle, and Selous shot several to provide meat for the Kafirs.
It was not until September 24th that the party found any elephants, and then Selous and Miller killed a young bull, four large cows and a heifer. Poor French on this day wounded and lost a cow, and contrary to advice, followed it into the bush. He was never seen again, and died of thirst in the bush. For days Miller and Selous tried to find his tracks, but without avail. The loss of his good friend made a deep impression on Selous, and for years afterwards he never spoke of French, to whom he was greatly attached, without showing signs of emotion. To have lost two of his best friends in one year depressed him greatly, and to this were added constant attacks of malarial fever which made him very weak.
However, at the time he always hoped that French might have reached some place of safety on the river and be alive. So Selous continued to hunt for elephants until one day "Boy," French's gun-bearer, crawled into camp and gave an account of his master's death. It appeared that after hunting for days in the bush in the wrong direction poor French collapsed, and as he was dying wrote on his rifle the words "I cannot go any further; when I die, peace with all." French's two boys, "Boy" and "Nangora," then walked all night and struck the river at Linyanti. "For several nights," says Selous, "I never slept, as the vision of my lost friend wandering about and dying by inches continually haunted me."
Seriously ill as he was, Selous then went to Linyanti, hoping to recover the body of his friend and give it decent burial, and Mamele promised to send all his people out to look for it when the rains came, but it was never found. Selous himself was so depressed in mind and worn with fever that he did not care to hunt any longer on the Chobe, so made for his waggons, which he reached on October 11th, where he found Sell dangerously ill. Miller, too, was attacked with malaria but soon recovered.
It was now necessary to wait for the rains, but as they did not come Selous, tired of shooting wildebeest and zebra on the Mababe flats, once more returned to the Chobe to look for elephants. He went as far as Maimi's town, and as the rain was now threatening he retraced his steps. By the middle of November he again reached the waggons, and the much desired rains at last fell. The party got to the Botletlie with ease, but between that river and Bamangwato the oxen again suffered terribly and were nearly lost owing to thirst. Later, in December, Selous reached the Diamond Fields, and was there attacked by a low fever which nearly cost him his life; in fact, nothing but the unremitting attention and care of his friends, Mrs. Frederick Barber and her daughter, Mrs. Alexander Baillie, rescued him from death.
Meanwhile, owing to political blunders, South Africa and all its white and black races were in a ferment, and the Zulu War in full progress. The usual cause of England's wars with savages was acts of rapine or insolence on the part of natives living in wild country where the black or red man predominated in numbers and a small white population was threatened with danger. No such reason, however, was the cause of the Zulu war in 1879. Since 1861 the Natal colonists had lived alongside the Zulus in perfect amity, and the colonists "felt no real alarm concerning the Zulus until the idea was suggested to them by those in authority over them."[23]
The real cause, apart from the fact that the Natal farmers were annoyed that at their side dwelt a great black population they could neither tax nor force to work for them, was the aggression of the Transvaal Boers in a small portion of territory owned by Cetawayo, the Zulu king, and lying on the Transvaal border. There were two disputed boundary lines. The one between Zululand and the Transvaal to the south of the Pongolo river, and the other between the Zulus and the Swazis, to the north of and parallel with the Pongolo river.
The Swazis had always been hereditary enemies of the Zulus, and there was bitter feeling between the two races. Nevertheless the real cause of both disputes was the acquisitiveness of the Boers. In the case of the territory on the second boundary line they professed to have obtained by cession from the Swazi king in 1855 a strip of land to the north-east of the Pongolo river, so as to form a barrier between the Swazis and the Zulus; but the Swazis denied having ever made such a cession. It is doubtful, however, whether the Swazis had any power to have made such a contract, even if it had been made, because the territory in question was occupied until 1846 by two Zulu chiefs, Puttini and Langalibalele. These chiefs, however, had been driven out of Zululand by Umpande (Panda), then king of the Zulus.