On August 17th Jameson and Selous turned homewards towards their waggons, and whilst travelling through the bush suddenly came upon two fine bull elephants. Jameson was in great excitement, as they were the first he had ever seen. The elephants passed broadside and both hunters fired, but the beasts made off. After several more shots—Jameson having got hold of his big rifle—both hunters killed their quarry, then following the course of the Umzweswe for some distance, where Jameson got his first lion, and by striking east to the Umfule river, they got back to their waggons on August 30th.
In a letter to his mother (November 2nd, 1880) Selous says: "I will send you an account of a lion that came to our camp whilst we were away and did a bit of mischief, causing the death amongst other things of Mr. Jameson's servant, a white man named Ruthven." No details of this unfortunate incident are, however, available.
Jameson and Selous continued hunting until November, and then trekked out to Bulawayo. In December Selous bade farewell to Lobengula and reached Bamangwato at the end of the month. Early in 1881 war broke out in the Transvaal, so Jameson and Selous travelled along the borders of the Kalahari desert to Griqualand and reached the Diamond Fields. Here Selous disposed of his waggon, oxen and horses, travelled to Port Elizabeth, and took ship for England. As soon as he landed he heard that "the wretched war with the Transvaal—a war that will leave a legacy of hatred for generations to come to be equally divided between the Dutch and English colonists in South Africa—had been concluded by a most humiliating peace, and a more disgraceful page added to the history of England than any that have yet been written in its annals."
On April 17th, 1877, Sir T. Shepstone, on behalf of H.M. Government, annexed the Transvaal. It is true that for a long time the management of the affairs of the Boer Republic had been going from bad to worse. Its government had no longer powers to enforce laws or to collect taxes. Nevertheless, many thought our action was unjust as long as their affairs did not affect us. On one point, however, we had a right, for the conduct of the Boers to the native tribes had been abominable. One of the causes alleged for our interference was the desultory war carried on with great brutality by the Boers against Sekukuni, chief of the Bapedi. This war was brought on by the encroachment of the Boers on the Bapedi, just as the Zulu war was brought on by similar causes. The object of the Boers in their attacks on native races was firstly the acquisition of territory, and secondly the capture of children to be brought up as slaves.
When the annexation was announced, the Zulus rejoiced greatly, but their joy was soon dashed when they found that, far from removing the bitter trouble of the boundary question, the English had turned against them in this matter. They were sore at our having espoused the cause of their enemies, the Boers, whom they had refrained from attacking for many years, when they could have done so with impunity, without coming into collision with the English. Even at this time they still believed in us; but considered that Sir T. Shepstone in undertaking the government of the Boers, had become a Boer himself.
At first the Boers took the annexation quietly, and sent two commissions to London, in 1877 and 1878, with a memorial signed by thousands of Boers stating their rights in the matter, in order to avoid war, but obtained no satisfaction from the Secretary of State for the Colonies. A considerable feeling of unrest therefore remained after their return, and the Boers went into laager near Pretoria, where Sir Bartle Frere met them on September 10th, 1879. The Boers then complained bitterly of the annexation and of the manner in which it had been carried out. The answer given on the 29th of September by Sir Garnet Wolseley was that we intended to keep the Transvaal.
On the 12th of December there was a meeting of over six thousand Boers at Wonderfontein, and many resolutions were passed which in the main proclaimed their continued independence. At the end of 1879, however, the Home Government established a sort of Executive Council for the Transvaal which consisted of both Boers and Englishmen. In March, 1880, the first legislative assembly under Her Majesty's rule was opened at Pretoria by Colonel Owen Lanyon, and for a short time after this the Home Government was assured that the agitation amongst the Boers was dying out, whereas in reality it was only the calm before the storm.
On November 11th some disaffected Boers forcibly stopped an execution sale for non-payment of taxes. Soon after this the Boers gathered and refused to pay taxes. This led to collisions, and Sir Owen Lanyon ordered up troops to Potchefstroom. On December 13th, 1880, the first shot was fired and England began to reap the fruit of her disastrous policy. The result of the war of 1881 and the subsequent peace made by Gladstone immediately after the disaster of Majuba are too well known to need recapitulation.
As soon as Selous arrived in England he began preparing for the Press an account of his travels which was published by Richard Bentley & Son in the same year under the title of "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa."[25] As was expected by his friends, but not himself, it achieved an immediate success and stamped the author at once not only as a great hunter, naturalist and explorer, but as one who could narrate his experiences in an entertaining fashion. Since Baldwin's "African Hunting and Adventure," published in 1863, there had been no first-class book on South African sport, so Selous' book was welcomed by all men who love the rifle and the wilderness. If he made a mistake it was in publishing the lists of game shot by himself between January, 1877, and December, 1880. They amount to such a formidable total that, both at the time and subsequently reviewers attacked him for what they call "this wholesale senseless slaughter." Selous was wont to reply to this charge by saying that the greater part of the meat killed was consumed by his own followers and hungry natives who would do nothing for him unless he killed some animal for food.[26] This is very true, but it must be admitted there was enormous waste on some days when four or five giraffes or elephants were killed. Selous, however, was no different from other hunters of all time, and thought that in the case of very abundant species they would last for ever, or in the case of others—such as the great game—if he did not shoot them somebody else would. Nevertheless, he was far more considerate than the majority of the early hunters, and never shot an animal except for a definite purpose. Between the years 1860-1870 the destruction of game in South Africa was very great, but the real disappearance of the large fauna probably dated from the introduction of the modern breechloading rifle, roughly about 1875, and the commencement of the sale of hides for commercial purposes. It will give the reader a better idea of what this wholesale destruction meant when I state that one dealer in Kroonstad (Orange River Colony) told me by reference to his books that between the years 1878-1880 he exported nearly two million skins of springbuck, blesbok and black wildebeest. He, it is true, was the principal dealer in hides for that part of the Vaal river district, but there were many others who also exported very large numbers. It has been abundantly proved that game of all kinds must disappear at the advent of railways and modern weapons. In a new country every man carries a rifle and uses it, whilst history teaches us that nothing has ever been done to save the game until it is on the verge of extinction. East Africa, alone of all countries, made adequate Game Laws in time, but how long the game will last there, near railways, is a doubtful point, for the settlers have now taken matters into their own hands and are destroying the game wholesale on the pretext of wanting the grass for the cattle. This is done indiscriminately by all settlers whether they have cattle or not. Considering that Big Game shooting parties furnish a good part of the revenue (over £10,000 annually in shooting licences) of British East Africa, and that the country, except for coffee, black wattle and hemp, all of which grow where there is little or no big game, is mostly unsuitable for ranching, the state of things is deplorable.
There are many who sneer at Big Game shooting, and are opposed to the slaughter of animals, but if we look upon this sport in a wider sense, in its magnificent opportunities for training the body and developing the best qualities in men of the right stamp, and in the matter of shooting, endurance and the organization of material, we will find that the balance is on the right side. There is, in fact, no outdoor exercise to compare with it, whilst the man who delights in slaughtering large numbers of animals purely for the lust of taking life is extremely rare.