1896-1907
AS soon as Selous and his wife returned home at the end of 1896 he
finished off the notes he had made concerning the second Matabele War,
and delivered them to Rowland Ward & Co., who published his book,
"Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia," shortly afterwards. From this time
forward he did a considerable amount of literary work, which, being in
demand, gave him sufficient money to satisfy many of his more pressing
wants at home, as well as supplying funds for the numerous short trips
he now made every year. Owing in a large measure to the kindly help and
advice given to him by a South African friend, his finances were now put
on a sound basis, and he was able to look forward to being able to live
at home in comfort without being denied those short periods of wandering
which to him were part of his existence. Of course there were always ups
and downs due to market fluctuations, and when things went wrong for a
while he would have fits of depression that he would be unable to hunt
any more; but these always passed away sooner or later when the clouds
lifted and some new piece of work commanded a good price. There is
little doubt that a man enjoys best that for which he has worked. All
Selous' later hunts were the outcome of his industry with the pen, and
in some measure from lectures, so he experienced some joy in the
working, for it meant to him the camp fire and the open road.
In reading of his almost continuous wanderings after this date it must
not be supposed that he was not happy in his home life. As a matter of
fact no man considered himself more blessed by fortune in the possession
of wife and children, and every fresh expedition, when he felt impelled
as it were to go to the wilds, was fraught with misgivings and anxieties
for his loved ones at home. It was always a wrench when the time came.
He wrote once to Roosevelt on this point, and received the following
sympathetic answer:--
[Illustration: LIONS CHASING A KOODOO BULL.]
"... After all, there is nothing that in any way comes up to
home and wife and children, in spite of the penalty one has to
pay for having given hostages to fortune. I know just exactly
how you feel about the 'two hearts.' Having a wife and six
children, of whom I am very fond, I have found it more and more
difficult to get away; for the last eight years, indeed, my
hunting trips have merely been short outings. I am of course
very much interested in my work here; but I cannot say how I
long at times for the great rolling prairies of sun-dried yellow
grass, where the antelopes stand at gaze, or wheel and circle;
for the splintered cottonwoods on the bank of some shrunken
river, with the wagon drawn up under them, and the ponies
feeding round about; for the great pine forests, where the bull
elk challenge, and the pack-train threads its way through the
fallen timber. I long also for the other wilderness which I have
never seen, and never shall see, excepting through your books,
and the books of two or three men like you who are now dead. It
may be that some time I can break away from this sedentary life
for a hunt somewhere; and of all things possible to me, I should
like to take this hunt among the big bears of Alaska, and try to
work out their specific relationship. But I don't know whether I
shall ever get the chance; and of course this sedentary life
gradually does away with one's powers; though I can walk and
shoot a little yet. Politics is a rather engrossing pursuit,
and, unfortunately, with us it is acute in the Fall, at the very
time of the best hunting; and as my children grow older I am
more and more concerned with giving them a proper training for
their life-work, whatever it may be. I don't yet accept the fact
that I shall never get the chance to take some big hunt again,
and perhaps it may come so I shall be able to; and meanwhile I
do revel in all the books about big game, and when I can get out
to my ranch even for ten days, I enjoy it to the last point,
taking an old cow-pony and shambling off across the grassy flats
for a few days' camping, and the chance of an occasional
prong-buck.
"I am glad you like to chat with me even by letter. Ever since
reading your first book I have always wanted to meet you. I hope
I may have better luck next year than I had this. You will of
course let me know if you think I can be of any help to you in
your Canadian trip.
"The Colonel X. whom I wrote to you about is, I am quite sure,
what we should term a fake, although I also have no doubt that
he has actually done a good deal of big game hunting; but I am
certain that, together with his real experiences, he puts in
some that are all nonsense. Did you ever read the writings of a
man named Leveson, who called himself 'the Old Shikari'? He was
undoubtedly a great hunter; yet when he wrote about American big
game, I know that he stretched the long bow, and I am very sure
he did the same about African big game. He everywhere
encountered precisely those adventures which boys' books teach
us to expect. Thus as soon as he got to Africa, he witnessed a
vicious encounter between black rhinoceroses and elephants,
which would have done credit to Mayne Reid; exactly as Colonel
X. relates the story of a fearful prize-fight, in which a
captive English Major slays a gorilla, against which he is
pitted by a cannibal king--dates, names and places being left
vacant.
"What do you know of that South African hunter and writer named
Drummond? He wrote very interestingly, and gave most vivid
descriptions of hunting-camps, of the African scenery, and of
adventures with Hons and buffaloes; but his remarks about
rhinoceroses made me think he was not always an exact observer,
especially after I had read what you said.
"By the way, did I ever mention to you that Willie Chanler's
party was continually charged by black rhinoceroses, and his
companion, an Austrian named Von Hoehnel, who stayed with me
once, was badly mauled by one."
Like most schoolboys with a taste for natural history and an
adventurous disposition Selous had, as we have seen, been an industrious
bird-nester. In his youth he had commenced to make a collection of
European birds' eggs, and this taste, usually abandoned by most boys in
after-life, was in him only dormant. When he set out to do anything he
generally carried it through to the end; and so when opportunity came
again, as it did after his wanderings in South Africa were finished, he
seized it with avidity. He was much too good a naturalist to collect
eggs wholesale, as some collectors unfortunately do, but contented
himself with one or two clutches taken by himself. His contention was, I
think, a correct one, that if only one clutch of eggs of a bird is
taken, the same bird either sits again and lays a fresh set of eggs or
makes a new nest. So little or no harm is done.
Being a member of the British Ornithologists' Union he knew all the
regular egg-collectors, and soon obtained the best information where
various species were to be found. Each year as April came round he
packed his bag and, occasionally accompanied by some local enthusiast,
he went to all the best resorts of rare birds in England, Scotland, the
Orkneys, Asia Minor, Spain, Hungary, Holland, and Iceland.
Thus in 1897 he commenced the egg-hunting season by going to Smyrna in
February with the intention of taking the nests of the large raptorial
birds which there breed very early in the year. The point he made for
was the Murad Dagh, a range of mountains in the interior of Asia Minor,
where he knew the short-toed, golden and imperial eagles, and the black
and griffon vultures nested. He also had some hopes that he might secure
one of the big stags before they dropped their horns. On his journey he
suffered much from the cold in the mountains, and was also at first
unsuccessful in finding any of the big stags, who seemed to have been
hunted out of the range. He saw three fine stags but did not succeed in
finding one of those which he had wounded. He then returned to Smyrna
and went into the Maimun Dagh again. Here he took the eggs of black
vulture, griffon vulture, short-toed eagle and laemmergeier. Getting
tired of this range he went on to the Ak Dagh, where he took one golden
eagle's nest, three griffon vultures' eggs, and two of black vultures.
He also shot a young red deer, with which was a fine old stag that had
just dropped its horns. He returned to England in March.
In England he commenced his nesting operations in April by hunting
Thatcham Marsh (near Reading) for water-rails' nests, and took two. Then
he went on to the Scilly Isles for sea-birds.
He says, in a letter to me: "I am going to Brabant if I can obtain a
permit from the Dutch Government to collect a few eggs, and after that
to Scotland, where I shall remain until it is time to leave for
America." In Scilly, he says: "I got eggs of the Greater and Lesser
Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gull, Manx Shearwater, Oyster-catcher, and
Ringed Plover, but found no Terns breeding." On June 8th he decided to
put off his trip to Holland, as it was too late. I then gave him
particulars where he could get Arctic, Lesser and Sandwich terns in
Scotland, and also obtained permission for him to take two Capercaillie
nests. All of these he obtained.
In any collection of hunting trophies, the gems of all collections (with
perhaps the exception of the red deer of Europe and the great sheep and
goats of Central Asia) are the great deer of North America, and Selous
had for long envied the possessors of such fine specimens of moose,
wapiti and caribou as had been obtained in the seventies and eighties of
the last century. It is true that as good moose and caribou can be
killed to-day as ever; but the great wapiti, owing to their curtailed
range, are gone for ever, so a hunter to-day must be content with
inferior specimens. In 1897 three or four specimens of wapiti were
allowed to be killed in the restricted area south of the Yellowstone
Park, and it was with the intention of killing these as well as other
North American game that Selous turned to the West in August, 1897.
In his youth Selous, like other boys of similar tastes, had devoured the
works of Ballantyne, Mayne Reid, Catlin, and Kingston, relating to fact
and fiction, and had always desired to visit America as one of his
lands of dreams. But it was not civilized America that appealed to him.
Cities are the same all the world over. It was the land of vast plains
and trackless forests swarming with game that appealed to him; and if he
could not, alas, now find such a hunter's paradise, he could at least
see something of the little that was truly wild which was left and
perhaps obtain a few fair specimens for his collection. Once, it is
true, he had actually taken his passage to America. That happened in
1893, but the outbreak of the Matabele war in that year had caused him
to alter his plans and he went back to South Africa instead.
Selous had a good friend, W. Moncrieff, who owned a small cattle ranch
in the heart of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. Here in the adjoining
forests and mountains still lived a remnant of the bears, wapiti,
mule-deer and sheep that had formerly been so abundant, and the local
knowledge enjoyed by Moncrieff enabled him to furnish Selous with the
best information. Accordingly he left England accompanied by his wife,
and, passing through Canada, reached the ranch on the last day of
August. Next day the party on horses, accompanied by a waggon with one
Bob Graham as a guide, struck into the mountains and, after passing over
the main range of the Big Horns, descended into the Big Horn basin. This
is covered with sage brush, and is still the home of a few prong-horned
antelopes, two of which, one a good male, Selous succeeded in shooting.
The hunters then proceeded up the south fork of Stinking Water, and
established a main camp in the forests, where a few very shy wapiti
males were still to be found. For twenty days Selous toiled in a mass of
dense and fallen timber before he carried his first wapiti head back to
camp. Wapiti are in fact now both shy and scarce, and a man must
persevere and work continuously, at least early in the season, before
even one fair specimen can be found, but Selous greatly enjoyed the
grandeur and wildness of the scenery, and being still in the prime of
life the exertion of daily toil did not in any way affect his energy. On
September 29th he shot his first mule-deer buck. A little snow came and
helped to make tracking easier. Then Selous had some luck, and he
killed four wapiti, two in one day, and a fifth near Davies' ranch on
October 28th. Near the same place too he killed one of the few remaining
white-tailed deer-bucks in Wyoming, but its head was rather a poor one,
that of an old male "going-back." Selous wrote an account of this trip
to Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary to the American Navy, and
received (November 30th, 1897) the following reply:--
"Your letter made me quite melancholy--first, to think I wasn't
to see you after all; and next, to realize so vividly how almost
the last real hunting-grounds in America have gone. Thirteen
years ago I had splendid sport on the Big Horn Mountains which
you crossed. Six years ago I saw elk in bands of one and two
hundred on Buffalo Fork; and met but one hunting expedition
while I was out. A very few more years will do away with all the
really wild hunting, at least so far as bear and elk are
concerned, in the Rocky Mountains and the West generally; one of
the last places will be the Olympic Peninsula of Oregon, where
there is a very peculiar elk, a different species, quite as big
in body but with smaller horns, which are more like those of the
European red deer, and with a black head. Goat, sheep, and bear
will for a long time abound in British Columbia and Alaska.
"Well, I am glad you enjoyed yourself, anyhow, and that you did
get a sufficient number of fair heads--wapiti, prong-buck,
black-tail, and white-tail. Of course I am very sorry that you
did not get a good sheep and a bear or two. In the north-eastern
part of the Park there is some wintering ground for the elk; and
I doubt if they will ever be entirely killed out in the Park;
but in a very short while shooting in the West, where it exists,
will simply be the kind that can now be obtained in Maine and
New York; that is, the game will be scarce, and the game-laws
fairly observed in consequence of the existence of a class of
professional guides; and a hunter who gets one good head for a
trip will feel he has done pretty well. You were in luck to get
so fine a prong-buck head.
"Do tell Mrs. Selous how sorry I am to miss her, as well as
you. I feel rather melancholy to think that my own four small
boys will practically see no hunting on this side at all, and
indeed no hunting anywhere unless they have the adventurous
temper that will make them start out into wild regions to find
their fortunes. I was just in time to see the last of the real
wilderness life and real wilderness hunting. How I wish I could
have been with you this year! But, as I wrote you before, during
the last three seasons I have been able to get out West but
once, and then only for a fortnight on my ranch, where I shot a
few antelope for meat.
"You ought to have Hough's 'Story of the Cowboy' and Van Dyke's
'Still Hunter.' Also I think you might possibly enjoy small
portions of the three volumes of the Boone and Crockett Club's
publications. They could be obtained from the 'Forest and
Stream' people at 346 Broadway, New York, by writing. Have you
ever seen Washington Irving's 'Trip on the Prairie,' and Lewis
and Clarke's Expedition? And there are two very good volumes,
about fifty years old, now out of print, by a lieutenant in the
British Army named Ruxton, the titles of which for the moment I
can't think of; but I will look them up and send them to you. He
describes the game less than the trappers and hunters of the
period; men who must have been somewhat like your
elephant-hunters. When I was first on the plains there were a
few of them left; and the best hunting-trip I ever made was in
the company of one of them, though he was not a particularly
pleasant old fellow to work with.
"Now, to answer your question about ranching; and of course you
are at liberty to quote me.
"I know a good deal of ranching in western North Dakota, eastern
Montana and north-eastern Wyoming. My ranch is in the Bad Lands
of the Little Missouri, a good cattle-country, with shelter,
traversed by a river, into which run here and there perennial
streams. It is a dry country, but not in any sense a desert.
Year in and year out we found that it took about twenty-five
acres to support a steer or cow. When less than that was allowed
the ranch became overstocked, and loss was certain to follow. Of
course where hay is put up, and cultivation with irrigation
attempted, the amount of land can be reduced; but any country
in that part of the West which could support a steer or cow on
five acres would be country which it would pay to attempt to
cultivate, and it would, therefore, cease to be merely pastoral
country.
"Is this about what you wish? I have made but a short trip to
Texas. There are parts of it near the coast which are
well-watered, and support a large number of cattle. Elsewhere I
do not believe that it supports more cattle to the square mile
than the north-western country, and where there are more they
get terribly thinned out by occasional droughts. In Hough's book
you will see some description of this very ranching in Texas and
elsewhere. I really grudge the fact that you and Mrs. Selous got
away from this side without my even getting a glimpse of you."
As he had only shot two wapiti with fair heads and one mule-deer with
average horns, Selous decided to have a second hunt in the Rockies, with
the object of obtaining better specimens. In November, as a rule, there
is heavy snow in the mountains, and this has the effect of driving the
game down out of the heavy timber into more open ground where "heads"
can more easily be seen and judged. Accordingly in October, 1898, Selous
went to Red Lodge in Montana and there met the hunter Graham. This time
he went up the north fork of Stinking Water to the forest and about
twelve miles east of the Yellowstone Park. Mild weather, however,
throughout November was all against seeing any quantity of game, so
Selous was again somewhat disappointed with the results of this hunt.
After this trip, in 1898, he wrote to me:--
"Come here yourself as soon as you can. _Vous serez toujours le
bienvenu._ A damned newspaper reporter (an American, who came
here whilst I was in London, and would not go away until he had
seen me) said I have got some good wapiti heads, but I only got
one _fair_ one. I got four wapiti bulls altogether, but two had
very small heads--not worth taking. I got four mule-deer stags,
one with a very nice head and a second not at all bad. I also
shot another lynx; but I had very unfortunate weather, hardly
any snow, and when I left the Mountains the wapiti were still up
in their early autumn range."
Selous was rather disappointed in not obtaining better wapiti heads, and
wrote in his book ("Travels East and West") that bigger heads of deer
could now be killed in Hungary than in the Rockies. Commenting on this,
Roosevelt, in a letter to him at a later date, says:--
"By the way, I was in the winter range of the deer (Colorado),
and I have never seen them so numerous. They were all black-tail
(mule-deer). Every day I saw scores, and some days hundreds.
There were also elk (wapiti). I did not shoot either deer or
elk, of course; but I saw elk-antlers shot last fall, ranging
from 52 to 56 inches in length. I think you were a few years
ahead of time (although only a few years) when you stated that
already bigger antlers could be secured in Hungary than in the
Rockies."
In this doubtless Roosevelt was correct; but Selous had hunted in a
district where all good heads had been picked off, and the range and
feed of wapiti had been so curtailed that even at this date and now it
is practically impossible to obtain a good specimen.
In April, 1899, he went with his wife to Wiesbaden, returning in June.
In October he paid a short visit to his friend, Mr. Danford, in
Transylvania, where he killed some good specimens of chamois--one, a
female, having horns 11 inches long. In November he came home again, and
having some thought of hunting elk in Norway in the following year,
wrote to me in November, 1899: "I want to hear all about your hunt in
Norway, so come over here at once. I am very glad to hear you were so
successful with the elk and bear, and should much like to have a try
next year, if I could stand the work, which I have always heard is very
hard." This hunt, however, failed to materialize.
One of Selous' beliefs was that it was impossible for men to hold wide
sympathies and to lead others towards the light unless they had been
through the grinding-mill of experience in other lands. His broad-minded
outlook made him a cosmopolitan in one sense of the word, for he found
good and something ever to learn from the men of all nations; yet
withal at heart he was intensely English of the English, and believed in
our destiny, as a nation, as a guiding light to universal understanding.
His view was that no man had any right to express an opinion on another
nation unless that man had lived amongst the people he criticized _and
could speak their language_. Such a theory would no doubt be unpopular,
but it is right. In international differences all kinds of people
express their views in contemporary literature just because they happen
to have the ear of the public; but how many of these really know
anything about the people they criticize. A popular cry is raised, and
the mob follow like a flock of sheep. An instance of this was the
complete misunderstanding of the causes of the Boer War and Boer nation.
There were not half a dozen men in England or Africa to tell the public
at home the true state of things, and when they did express their views
they were quickly drowned in a flood of lies and misrepresentations by
interested politicians and gold-magnates who held the press. Men like
Selous and Sir William Butler, because they told the absolute truth,
were dubbed "Pro-Boers," when in reality they were the best examples of
"Pro-English" Englishmen. They simply could not be silent amongst the
welter of falsehoods, and only tried to stem the flowing tide of
mendacity. Their strongly expressed view that the war would not be a
walk-over for us, and that we were fighting a gallant foe who deemed
themselves right in defending their country, which had been most
distinctly given back to them by inviolable treaties (made by the
Gladstone Government), was correct, and that they would fight
desperately and to a large extent successfully was abundantly proved by
subsequent events. If Selous made a mistake it was in allowing certain
letters to the "Times" and "Morning Post" to appear _after the war had
commenced_. I have reason, however, to believe that these letters were
written and sent in prior to the commencement of hostilities, and that
they were "held over" to a time when their appearance was, to say the
least of it, unfortunate.
In justice to Selous, however, it must be said that after this he kept
silent, nor did he ever utter a word publicly in the matter. He felt
that we were now hopelessly involved, and that anything he could say
would be of little use. Though he felt sad and disappointed over the
whole matter, he was far too much a patriot to do other than wish
success to our arms, though he ever hoped that some amicable settlement
would evolve out of the whole disastrous affair. Afterwards too he often
expressed his appreciation of the noble way in which the subsequent
British Government treated the Boers, both at the conclusion of peace
and the liberal manner in which we sought to bury the hatchet--a manner
which unfortunately has not always met with success amongst the older
Boer irreconcilables. Men like Botha and Smuts have proved that our
later policy has been broad-minded and humane, and that in time we shall
amalgamate in one South African Dominion a nation absolutely loyal to
the British Crown; but it will be a long time before the malcontents
have lost all their bitterness and a new generation understands what is
meant by a Greater South Africa.
His true feelings as regards the war are thus stated in a letter to me,
November 5th, 1899:--
"This war is a most deplorable business; but of course, as you
say, we _must_ bring it to a successful conclusion now at
whatever cost; but think what South Africa will be like when it
is over. However, it is useless talking about it. My letters to
the 'Times' have raised a great deal of ill-feeling against me
in this country."
And again, writing January 1st, 1900, he says:--
"I am very depressed about this war. It is a bad business, and
justice is not on our side. There was a lot of dirty work done
by the capitalists to bring it about, and no good can come of it
for this country. I have seen several letters written by Jan
Hofmeyr during the last few months, beginning before the war.
They are very interesting, and I hope will be published some
day. They seem to explode the idea of the leaders of the Cape
Africanders having been in a conspiracy of any kind with the
Pretoria lot."
From 1872 onwards Selous had known and studied the Boers intimately. He
had lived and hunted with them from the Orange Free State to
Matabeleland, and had found them a simple race of hunter-farmers,
intensely patriotic and hopelessly conservative. He knew that "they are
neither angels nor devils, but just men like ourselves," and that the
views of the British, German and Jew storekeepers and traders of the
Transvaal and Orange Free State were hopelessly wrong, because they did
not know the real back-veldt Boers of the country, who made up the
majority of the Nation. He himself had never received anything but
kindness and straight dealing from them, and was therefore able to
appreciate their indignation and outbursts of fury when a second
annexation was contemplated by our Government. He replies to the charge
that life for Englishmen was impossible in the Transvaal after the
retrocession to the Boers of that country in 1881: "Mr. Rider Haggard
has told us that he found it impossible to go on living in the Transvaal
amid the daily insults of victorious Boers, and he also tells us that
Boers look upon Englishmen with contempt, and consider them to be
morally and physically cowards. I travelled slowly through the Transvaal
by bullock-waggon shortly after the retrocession of the country in 1881,
and visited all the farmhouses on my route. I met with no insults nor
the least incivility anywhere, nor ever heard any boasting about Boer
successes over our troops, though at that time I understood the 'Taal'
well. In common with all who really know the Boers, who have lived
amongst them, and not taken their character at second-hand, I have
always been struck by their moderation in speaking of their victories
over our soldiers. As for the Boers having a contempt for Englishmen as
individuals, that is nonsense. They hate the British Government, and
knowing their history, I for one think they have ample reason for doing
so. But the individual Englishman that they know, they take at his real
value. There are of course, unfortunately, certain Englishmen in
Johannesburg, or people who are now put down as Englishmen, who could
not but appear as contemptible to a Boer as they would do to most people
in this country. But, on the other hand, I could name many Englishmen
and Scotchmen, men who have been honest and upright and fearless in all
their dealings with their neighbours, who have been held in immense
respect by all the Boers of their acquaintance. These men, however,
lived amongst the Boers, spoke their language, and took a sympathetic
interest in their lives; whilst one of the troubles of the present
situation in the Transvaal is that the Uitlander population of
Johannesburg is, in its sympathies, its mode of life, and all its hopes
and aspirations, as wide as the poles asunder from the pastoral Boers,
with whom it never mixes, and whom it therefore does not understand."
(Letter to the "Times," October 24th, 1899.)
This was also exactly my own experience as recently as 1893, when I
lived entirely and trekked with Boers for a year. Never was I ever
treated except with the greatest kindness both by my own intimate
friends or casual acquaintances, once I had learnt to speak the "Taal,"
nor did I ever hear them "crow" over their victories of 1881. There was,
however, always the latent fear that the British Government would again
play them false, and they would be once more forced to fight us; but
with individual Englishmen they liked and trusted there was no sign of
animosity.[52]
In June, 1900, Selous was asked to sign a protest, issued by the "South
Africa Conciliation Committee," inaugurated by W. L. Courtney (editor of
the "Fortnightly Review"). In the following letter, however, written to
the Secretary, he manifests his sound common-sense in separating the
"causes of the war" from what could be done at the moment when our
forces were actually fighting and likely to prove victorious. His
grievance was with the authorities who brought about the war and the
methods which had been employed to make it, and not with the conduct
thereof or its natural effects. Wherefore he refused to sign the
protest, and gave his reasons as follows:--
"_August 3rd, 1900._
"I have left your circular so long unanswered because I have
been thinking over it very deeply, and because, although I
realize most fully the force of all the arguments that can be
used against the annexation of the Boer Republics, I still think
that those who sign the protest ought to be able to propose some
scheme of settlement which holds out a better prospect of future
peace. I personally can think of no such scheme. Had honourable
terms been offered to the Boers, and the independence of their
countries been assured to them with certain necessary
limitations, immediately after the occupation of Pretoria, there
might have been great hope for the future peace of the country,
but all that has occurred, not only in the Transvaal and Orange
State, but also in the Cape Colony, must have caused such a
feeling of exasperation amongst the Dutch Africanders against
the British Government, that I cannot but feel that the granting
of a limited independence to the Boer Republics would not now
produce rest or peace. Things have gone too far for that now,
and it seems to me that Great Britain will only be able to hold
South Africa in the immediate future by force. I am of course
convinced of the truth of all you say in the protest, that the
annexation of the Boer Republics is 'contrary to the public
declarations of Her Majesty's Ministers, alien to all the best
traditions of a freedom-loving country, burdensome to the
resources of the nation, and wholly distasteful to the majority
of our fellow-subjects in South Africa,' but that does not blind
me to the fact that the race hatred that has been engendered by
this war is so deep and so terrible that the granting of
independence to the Boer Republics would be more immediately
disastrous to British supremacy in South Africa than unjust
annexation accompanied by the garrisoning of the country with
large numbers of troops. Annexation or no annexation, I firmly
believe that sooner or later the people who actually live in
South Africa--as distinguished from those whose only interest in
the country is the exploitation of its mineral wealth--will
govern the country, and, if they wish it, have their own flag,
and throw off all allegiance to Great Britain. I would gladly
sign any protest against the policy which brought about the war,
one of the results of which is this ill-omened annexation of
independent states, but I am beginning to think, with John
Morley, that annexation was an almost necessary result of a war
pushed to the bitter end. I am very sorry to have troubled you
with so long a letter, but I wish you to understand that,
although my views as to the iniquity of the policy which brought
about the war will always remain the same, and although I think
the annexation of the two Boer Republics a piece of injustice
and a national disgrace, and would most willingly have signed a
protest against it three months ago, I now feel the exasperation
caused by the war is so great that the independence of the Boer
Republics might very possibly be used against British supremacy
in South Africa. It is a very distressing outlook, and I can see
no light in the future; but still I do not feel justified in
signing the present protest. I beg to thank you for the last two
leaflets you sent me, Nos. 53 and 54. The publication of Colonel
Stonham's evidence, as to the humanity of the Boers, ought to
have a very good effect if it could be made widely known."
After this the war drew on slowly to its eventual finish in 1901,
Selous' only public contribution being a letter to the "Speaker," which
was used by the South African Conciliation Committee in its efforts to
influence the Government, and part of this letter, which deals with the
effects of the war on the Boer population and the future, is worth
quoting:--
"Should it, however, be determined to erase the Boer Republics
from the map of Africa and to carry on the war to the point of
practically exterminating the able-bodied male population of
these two sparsely-peopled States, let it not be thought that
the surviving women will bring up their children to become
loyal British subjects. Let Englishmen remember that the men who
prophesied that within a short time after the war was over the
Boers would become reconciled to the British, whom they would
then have learnt to respect, are the same people who also told
us that the war would be a very short and simple campaign, as
the Boers were a degenerate, cowardly race, who could no longer
shoot at all well, and who would be sure to disperse to their
homes after the first battle, if only a hundred of them were
killed. These were the sort of predictions which were very
commonly heard in this country a few months before the war
commenced, and they were the utterances of men wholly ignorant
of the Boer character.
"As showing that there are people whose opinions are entitled to
respect who think differently, I will now quote from memory a
passage in a letter lately written by a well-known and
well-educated Dutch Africander to a friend in this country:
'Those people who expect that the Boers will soon forgive and
forget this war, and settle down quietly under the British flag,
are most terribly mistaken. I think I know my own countrymen,
and I believe that if, after this war is over, the independence
of the Republics is destroyed, the historic episode of Hamilcar
making Hannibal swear eternal enmity to Rome will be re-enacted
in many a farmhouse throughout the Transvaal and Orange Free
State. The Boer women will teach their children to hate the very
name of England, and bid them look forward to the day when their
country will be freed from British domination.' These words,
even if the idea they express is somewhat exaggerated, are
worthy of attention when it is remembered how rapidly the Boers
increase in numbers and fighting strength." ("The Speaker,"
1900.)
After this he only expressed his views to a few personal friends, such
as President Roosevelt, who was in close sympathy with his hopes that
peace on a fair basis might soon be restored. In reply to one of his
letters, Roosevelt, writing March, 1901, says:--
[Illustration: THE WANDERING MINSTREL.]
"It makes me melancholy to see the Boer War hanging on. Your
limit of eighteen months (the time Selous stated it would last)
is rapidly approaching. Of course there can be only one ending;
but it is a dreadful thing to have the ending come only by the
exhaustion of the country and of the fighting men. How I wish
you could be made administrator of all South Africa. Somehow I
feel that you could do what no other man could do, and really
bring about peace. I begin to be afraid you have been right
about this war. I hope we shall see things go right hereafter."
It is interesting too to study both Roosevelt's and the American
attitude towards our policy in the Boer War. In reply to Selous'
explanation of the whole matter the American statesman thus writes
(March 19th, 1900):--
"I appreciate very deeply the trouble you have taken in writing
to me; although in a way your letter has made me feel very
melancholy. My idea of the questions at issue has been mainly
derived from the 'Spectator,' a paper that I take and always
like, and which impresses me as being honestly desirous of
getting at the true facts in any given case. I paid especial
heed to what it said because of its entire disapproval of Cecil
Rhodes and the capitalist gang. Moreover, a friend of mine,
Ferdinand Becker, who was in the Transvaal and who saw very
clearly the rights and wrongs of each side, and for whose
judgment I have great respect, insists that as things actually
were the war was inevitable, _that there had to be a fight, and
that one or the other race had to be supreme in South Africa_.
By the way, much of the pro-Boer feeling here is really
anti-English, and as I have a very warm remembrance of England's
attitude to us two years ago, I have of course no sympathy with
such manifestations. So I thought after Montague White's visit
to me that I should like to hear the other side from someone
whom I could thoroughly trust, and I appealed to you. It is
largely an academic curiosity on my part, so to speak, for the
answer of the English Premier to the communication of
transmissal sent by President McKinley with the letters from the
Presidents of the two Republics shows that any mediation would
be promptly rejected. I do not suppose that the end can be very
far distant now, unless there is a formidable uprising in the
Cape Colony, for it would look as if there had never been fifty
thousand Boers under arms, and Roberts has four times that
number of troops in South Africa. Evidently the Boers are most
gallant fighters, and quite as efficient as they are gallant.
"I had been inclined to look at the war as analogous to the
struggles which put the Americans in possession of Texas, New
Mexico, and California. I suppose the technical rights are about
the same in one case as in the other; but, of course, there is
an enormous difference in the quality of the invading people;
for the Boers have shown that they have no kinship with the
Mexicans. In Texas the Americans first went in to settle and
become citizens, making an Outlander population. This Outlander
population then rose, and was helped by raids from the United
States, which in point of morality did not differ in the least
from the Jameson raid--although there was at back of them no
capitalist intrigue, but simply a love of adventure and a
feeling of arrogant and domineering race-superiority. The
Americans at last succeeded in wresting Texas from the Mexicans
and making it an independent Republic. This Republic tried to
conquer New Mexico but failed. Then we annexed it, made its
quarrels our own, and did conquer both New Mexico and
California. In the case of Texas there was the dark blot of
slavery which rested on the victors; for they turned Texas from
a free province into a slave republic. Nevertheless, it was of
course ultimately to the great advantage of civilization that
the Anglo-American should supplant the Indo-Spaniard. It has
been ultimately to the advantage of the Indo-Spaniard himself,
or at any rate to the advantage of the best men in his ranks. In
my regiment, which was raised in the South-West, I had forty or
fifty men of part Indian blood and perhaps half as many of part
Spanish blood, and among my captains was one of the former and
one of the latter--both being as good Americans in every sense
of the word as were to be found in our ranks.
"If the two races, Dutch and English, are not riven asunder by
too intense antagonism, surely they ought to amalgamate in South
Africa as they have done here in North America, where I and all
my fellows of Dutch blood are now mixed with and are
indistinguishable from our fellow Americans, not only of
English, but of German, Scandinavian, and other ancestry.
"The doubtful, and to my mind the most melancholy, element in
the problem is what you bring out about the Englishman no longer
colonizing in the way that the Boer does. This is a feature due,
I suppose, to the enormous development of urban life and the
radical revolution in the social and industrial conditions of
the English-speaking peoples during the past century. In our
Pacific States, and even more in Australia, we see the same
tendency to the foundation of enormous cities instead of the
settlement of the country districts by pioneer farmers. Luckily,
America north of the Rio Grande and Australia definitely belong
to our peoples already, and there is enough of the pastoral and
farming element among us to colonize the already thinly-settled
waste places which now belong to our people. But the old
movement which filled the Mississippi valley at the beginning of
this century with masterful dogged frontier-farmers, each
skilled in the use of the rifle and axe, each almost independent
of outside assistance, and each with a swarm of tow-headed
children, has nearly come to an end. When Kentucky, at the close
of the eighteenth century, was as populous as Oregon 100 years
later, Kentucky did not have one-tenth of the urban population
that Oregon had when she reached the same stage. Now, urban
people are too civilized, have too many wants and too much
social ambition, to take up their abode permanently in the
wilderness and marry the kind of women who alone could be
contented, or indeed could live in the wilderness. On the great
plains of the West, when I was in the cattle business, I saw
many young Easterners and young Englishmen of good families who
came out there; but not one in twenty, whether from the Atlantic
States or from England, married and grew up as a permanent
settler in the country; and the twentieth was usually a
_declasse_. The other nineteen were always working to make money
and then go home, or somewhere else, and they did not have their
womankind with them. The 'younger son' of whom Kipling sings is
a picturesque man always, and can do very useful work as a
hunter and explorer, or even a miner, but he is not a settler,
and does not leave any permanent mark upon any true
frontier-community with which I am acquainted. After the
frontier has been pushed back, when the ranchman and the cowboy
and the frontier-ganger, who are fitted for the actual
conditions, have come in, then the 'younger son' and the
struggling gentleman-adventurer may make their appearance in the
towns. Of course, there are exceptions to all of this, but as a
rule what I have pointed out is true. I have seen
scores--perhaps hundreds--of men from Oxford and Cambridge,
Harvard and Yale, who went into cattle-growing on the Great
Plains, but they did just as I did; that is, worked with greater
or less success at the business, gained an immense amount of
good from it personally, especially in the way of strength and
gratifying a taste for healthy adventure, learned much of human
nature from associating with the men round about, and then went
back to their own homes in England or New York or Boston,
largely because, when it came to marrying and bringing up
children, they could not well face the conditions; and so the
real population of the future in the valleys of the upper
Missouri, the Platte, and the Rio Grande, will be composed of
the sons of their companions, who were themselves descendants of
small farmers in Texas, Missouri, and Illinois, or of
working-men from Scandinavia and Germany.
"Pardon this long letter, which has wandered aside from the
thesis with which it started. I hope that the language of the
more highly civilized people will, in spite of the evil
influences of to-day, gradually oust the 'Taal' or whatever you
call Boer Dutch in South Africa, and that when the conquest of
the two Republics is succeeded by the full liberty which I
understand the Cape Dutch enjoy, there will come a union in
blood as well as in that between the two peoples who are so
fundamentally alike.
"I am looking forward to the receipt of the three books you have
been so very kind as to send me. I do know a certain amount
about the Boers from the time of their great trek onward, for
it has always seemed to me to be one of the most fascinating
bits of modern history."
In the spring of 1900 Selous went on a bird-nesting trip to the forest
and marshes of the Danube in Hungary, and was successful in getting the
eggs of many new species for his collection. When he arrived home in
June he found his finances in low water, owing to enlarging his house,
and so feared he would be unable to make an extensive autumn hunt, but
later on things improved, and he was able to go West after all.
In September, 1900, he went to Canada to hunt moose, and arrived at
Mattawa, Ontario, on September 24th. On this trip he was fortunate in
securing the services of George Crawford, a half-breed Indian, who was
probably the best moose-caller and hunter in that province. In spite of
the number of American hunters who at this time made the districts of
Kippewa and Tamiskaming their favourite hunting-grounds, Crawford always
knew where to go to secure moose, and it was not long before Selous
reached a hunting-ground, about three days north of Mattawa, on Lake
Bois Franc, where he killed two fine bulls. After this short trip he
went to Snake Lake to try and secure a good white-tailed deer stag, but
was not very successful, as he only secured a four-year-old buck with
moderate horns. On October 26th he landed in Newfoundland and, being
supplied with bad information, went by railway from Port-aux-Basque to
Howley, a station on the main line, where the annual slaughter of
caribou took place late in the season.
It was not long before Selous found that the so-called "sport" of
shooting caribou on migration as they crossed the line in their southern
migration was not sport at all, and that frequently, owing to the number
of bullets flying in all directions fired by enthusiastic meat-hunters,
the shooting was likely to result in human as well as cervine
casualties. Moreover, hardly any good stags come south with the mass of
does and immatures, so, taking his guide Stroud and an old man named
Robert Saunders he left the place in disgust and went south to the Terra
Nova river, intending to strike into the heart of the country and, if
possible, catch up the main body of the migrating deer before they cast
their horns and reached their winter-quarters near the south coast. But
he was too late, and after an onerous tramp, during which he penetrated
beyond the limits reached by other white men, he was forced to return
owing to lack of food, but not before his sharp eyes had seen numerous
trees stripped by "summering" stags in the neighbourhood of St. John's
Lake. These signs convinced him that the local movements of the deer
were unknown even to the hunters in Newfoundland, and that the big stags
would probably be found in autumn in the heart of the island, and not on
migration in the north. In this he was quite correct. He did not,
however, go home without a specimen, for he killed one nice stag on his
journey inland.
Accordingly he made plans to hunt in the neighbourhood of St. John's
Lake in the following autumn of 1901, and procuring two canoes from
Peterborough in Ontario, and enlisting the services of Saunders and his
cousin John Wells, he ascended the rocky Terra Nova river in September.
To the reader it may seem easy to go seventy miles in a canoe up-stream,
but the fact that previous hunters had not been there proves that there
were difficulties. No Newfoundland boats in fact would withstand the
rocky benches of this swift-flowing river, so progress can only be made
for the most part by wading and dragging the canoes, whilst the hunter
has to force his way through dense forest, so thick at times that an axe
has to be used for progress to be made before reaching the higher
plateaux, where lakes and streams are easily passed. Once on Lake St.
John, all was easy, and Selous found game abundant and a small migration
of big stags already in progress.[53]
Moreover, Selous was lucky enough to have struck a good year for
"heads." In less than eight days he shot his five stags, two of which
carried remarkably fine heads--one, in fact, a forty-pointer, which he
killed by a long shot close to his camp, being one of the finest
specimens ever killed in the island by any sportsman. Selous often spoke
afterwards of this trip as being one of the pleasantest he ever had in
his life.
He writes, October 6th, 1901:--
"I am back from Newfoundland. I had a short but very successful
little trip into quite new country, thanks to my canoes, and
shot the five stags my licence entitled me to kill very quickly.
I have got one really remarkable head, a second, very handsome,
with beautiful double brow-antlers, and very fine tops; and a
third, a pretty regular head of medium size--the other two not
much to boast about. But my two good heads are really fine, and
when you see them you will never rest till you go to my new
ground and get more like them. I can give you all particulars
when we meet, and have arranged that my guide--hardly the right
word, as we got into country where he had never been in his life
and where he says no one has ever yet hunted, except a few
Micmac Indians who were out after caribou, but trapping beavers
along the rivers--shall keep himself unengaged for you up to
June next."
In December we had some good days together in Shropshire, at Sir Beville
Stanier's, shooting partridges, and at Swythamley with the Brocklehursts
killing driven grouse in a blizzard. Selous, though then over fifty, was
much fitter and more active than many a man of twenty-five, and the way
he walked and talked was a joy to behold. After dinner he would begin
telling stories, and at 1.30 was still hard at it when most of us were
dying to go to bed. Nothing could curb his enthusiasm once a congenial
topic was started, and his avidity was such both for acquiring and
dispensing knowledge that time itself seemed all too short.
Early in January, 1902, he went to Smyrna for the purpose of
egg-collecting, with the added expectation of getting a shot at a stag
or wild goat, and on March 5th writes:--
"I got back from Asia Minor last week, with a good series of
eggs of the White-tailed Eagle and one Laemmergeier's egg. I
found two Laemmergeiers' nests, both with young birds, but I got
an addled egg which I was able to blow. I had no shooting,
though I made an attempt to get a shot at a stag, but there was
so much snow in the mountains that the Turks would not take
pack-ponies in for fear of getting snowed up."
On August 11th we were all at Swythamley again enjoying the hospitality
of Sir Philip Brocklehurst and having some very excellent shooting. One
day we shot the park and killed 1170 rabbits, and a notice of this event
given in the "Field," as 5851/2 brace of grouse, a good bag, indeed, for
Staffordshire, was a statement so far from the truth that we easily
traced it to the old squire's love of nonsense.
Having some time at his disposal in September, Selous resolved to take a
short run out to Sardinia for the purpose of adding specimens of the
Mouflon to his collection. Most of the English hunters who have killed
this very sporting little sheep have pursued it in March, at which time
of year the Mouflon are mostly hidden in the tall "Maquia" scrub (_Erica
arborea_), where they are difficult both to find and to stalk. Someone,
however, had given Selous the hint that if he went to Sardinia in late
September he would see the sheep on the open hills, when they would
probably afford much better sport. This was quite true, but
unfortunately for the hunter the autumn of 1902 was one of the wettest
on record, and Selous, after the first few days of good weather, when he
killed three fair rams, lived for a fortnight in pouring rain and
discomfort in a leaky tent, and had eventually to give up the chase in
disgust. He came back, however, with a high admiration for the
intellectual abilities of the little Mouflon, and resolved at some
future date once again to visit the "elevated farmyard,"[54] as someone
has termed these mountains of "the Isle of Unrest."
On November 17th he left on his first trip to British East Africa,
taking the German boat at Marseilles to Mombasa. As this trip was
somewhat experimental he made no large plans and merely wished to get a
few specimens of the common species of mammals found there. This he
hoped to do by making short trips in the neighbourhood of the line. At
this time, even so near civilization, British East Africa was truly a
big game paradise.
Writing to Abel Chapman concerning this, Selous says:--
"My trip to East Africa last year (1902-1903) cost me just L300,
but I think I did it cheaper than most people. I got fairly good
heads of Coke's, Neumann's, and Jackson's Hartebeests, Topis,
Impala, Bushbucks, Oribis, Steinbucks, and Cavendish's Dik-diks.
I did not get a Jackson's Wildebeest as, although there were
thousands all along the line when I went up country, when I came
back to try to get one, they had migrated south. I saw lots of
Common and Defassa Waterbucks, but no good heads, so never shot
one. Also hundreds of Elands. I did not actually see a Rhino.,
but often got quite fresh spoor; but I did not want to shoot one
of these animals as I have good specimens from South Africa."
He reached home in March, 1903, and the spring of this year was, as
usual, spent in egg-collecting. He writes, June 30th:--
"I have just finished my egg-collecting season. I got a
Dotterel's nest on the top of Ben Wyvis, also a couple of
Ptarmigans' nests, which are difficult to find. I got too
several nests of Grasshopper Warbler, Wood Wren, and Pied
Flycatcher in Northumberland, but I had a very good local man to
help me."
The year 1904 was a very busy one for Selous, and the following letter
to me gives some idea of his energy in hunting for the eggs of birds of
which he has not yet taken specimens.
"During the last few days I have been marking King-fishers'
nests on the Thames and Water Rails' nests in Thatcham Marsh,
for Major Stirling (of Fairburn), who has been very kind to me
in Scotland and helped me to get all sorts of good eggs. I have
got him two Kingfishers' nests marked that I am sure have eggs
in them, and also two Water Rails' nests. One of these had six
eggs in it yesterday. We go to Wargrave for the Kingfishers
to-morrow, and to Thatcham for the Water Rails on Thursday. On
Friday I am off to North Wales, where I hope to get a Chough's
nest. During the first half of May I shall be here, and will
come over to see you during that time. On May 15th I start for
Ross-shire, to get Crossbills, and then on to Orkney to get eggs
of Hen Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Twite, etc. On May 26th I must
be at Ravenglass, in Cumberland, to get a couple of clutches of
Sandwich Terns' eggs (by permission), and the next day on the
Tyne for Pied Flycatchers, Grasshopper Warblers, etc. Then back
to Orkney early in June for Merlins, Black Guillemot, Eider
Duck, etc. Then I think I shall try for a Scoter's nest near
Melvick, in Sutherlandshire, and I wind up the season with a
trip to St. Kilda with Musters to get eggs of Fork-tailed Petrel
and Fulmar. Are there any old orchards about you? If so, we
might look them over for a Hawfinch's nest about May 10th. I am
not going to lend any of my heads to the Crystal Palace people.
They wrote to me about it, but I have declined to send them any
heads."[55]
Later in the year he wrote one of his characteristic letters, speaking
of his successes in egg-hunting and expressing his sorrow at the death
of our mutual friend, Sir Philip Brocklehurst:--
"I am now home again from my egg-collecting trip to the north. I
have had a fairly successful season. I got two Choughs' nests in
North Wales in April, and several Water Rails' near here in a
nice little swamp I know of. In Orkney I got Hen Harrier,
Short-eared Owl, Merlin, Eider Duck, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Rock
Pipit, and Twite. I have also taken this year in Northumberland
and Cumberland nests of Wood Wren, Grasshopper Warbler, Pied
Flycatcher, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Sandwich Tern, and Shell
Duck. Now I want a nest of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. There are
a few about here, but I cannot find out where they nest. I am
going to the Crystal Palace to-morrow, and shall see your
Caribou heads there I hope. Now I want you to help me. I am
President of our village cricket-club, and have got together a
team to play them on July 9th (Saturday). I am experiencing
great difficulty in getting an eleven together. Will you help me
and play for me on that day? If so, please come here in time for
lunch. We do not play till 2.30 p.m. Now can you come? Do, if
you can, and bring another man with you. Please let me know
about this as soon as possible, as I must now begin to hustle to
get my team together. Isn't it sad to think that poor old Sir
Philip Brocklehurst has gone? If we ever go to Swythamley again,
things can never be as they were in the old Squire's time. I
feel his loss very much. If you are at home now I should like to
come over and see you and have our usual 'crack,' my dear
Johnny."
Just before leaving for Canada on July 14th he writes:--
"What with people coming to see us here, garden-parties,
cricket, political meetings, etc., there seems to be no time for
anything. I hope you will have a good time Whale-hunting in
August in the Shetland Isles. Write us a good account of it and
make some good pictures."
Leaving England on July 14th, 1904, Selous reached Dawson City, on the
Yukon, on August 8th. He went via Vancouver, and much enjoyed the
pleasant voyage up the North Pacific coast, which abounds in islands and
forests, and in scenic effect is much superior to Norway, which it
resembles. Here he joined a party of sportsmen who had chartered a
flat-bottomed steamer to take them up the north fork of the MacMillan
river, a branch of the Yukon. There was, however, a delay of ten days,
and as Selous could not endure inactivity he spent the time, with the
help of a half-breed Indian and a pack-horse, in the Ogilvy Mountains,
where he found and killed a male caribou of the variety which I have
recently described under the name of _Tarandus rangifer ogilvyensis_,
one of the many sub-specific races of reindeer of the North American
Continent as yet somewhat imperfectly known. Selous then returned to
Dawson, and the hunting party being assembled on the little steamer, a
start up-stream was made on August 21st. After proceeding some distance
up the Yukon, the Pelly, and then the MacMillan for five days through
shallow and tortuous channels, the steamer could go no further. At Slate
Creek two Americans, Professor Osgood the Zoologist, and Carl Rungius
the artist of mammals, left to establish a hunting-camp there, whilst
Selous and his friend, Mr. Charles Sheldon, a well-known hunter and
field naturalist, passed up the north fork of the MacMillan, the rest of
the party going up the south fork. Selous soon killed a moose cow for
meat, and in a few days Sheldon, reconnoitring up in the mountains,
found a good camping-place on the edge of timber-line, so Selous and his
friend then left the canoes and carried their heavy packs up the
mountain. Whilst doing so Louis Cardinal, the half-breed hunter, spied a
bull moose lying in the scrub, and Selous soon worked down to it and
killed it at short range. Sheldon's chief object of pursuit was the wild
sheep of these ranges, _Ovis fannini_, whilst Selous' was to obtain good
moose and caribou, and, if possible, grizzly bears and sheep.
In the first two days Selous killed a fine caribou bull of the
sub-specific race _Tarandus rangifer osborni_, a fine form of reindeer
that exists from the Itcha Mountains in British Columbia to the east of
the Kenai Peninsula. This variety, which is only found west of the Rocky
Mountains, intergrades to the south with _Tarandus rangifer montanus_ of
southern British Columbia, and to the north-west with _Tarandus rangifer
stonei_ of the Kenai peninsula. It is by far the finest of the American
caribou, with the exception of the nearly extinct race, a branch of
_Tarandus rangifer labradorensis_, which belongs to the north-east
corner of Labrador, and carries fine massive horns from 50 to 61 inches
long, but not furnished as a rule with many points.[56] Selous was much
cheered in getting so easily two fine specimens of this great deer at
once. One night in the middle of September a fine display of the Aurora
Borealis with its magnificent tongues of flame was observed, and Selous
rightly says, "I count these splendours of the Arctic sky as amongst the
most marvellous of all the wonders of the world," an opinion all who
have seen them will endorse.
In the next few days Selous killed another bull moose, but not a large
one, carrying a head with a span of 50 inches, and then an old bull
with horns evidently going back. At last dawned a day of great good
fortune, for the hunter met and killed a great bull whose horns have
seldom been equalled by any taken out of the Yukon Territory. The horns,
measuring 67 inches across, a width not often surpassed even in the
Kenai peninsula, were very massive, and carried 41 points; the skull and
horns weighed over 75 lbs. "Altogether," he says, "it seemed to me I had
at last obtained a trophy worth a king's ransom," for to a hunter such
as he no bag of gold or diamonds would have seemed more precious.
Meanwhile his friend, Charles Sheldon, had not been so fortunate as he
usually was in finding the big sheep rams, and had only shot a few
immatures and females and young for the extensive collection he
afterwards formed for American museums, and, as the season was now late
and the prospect of the "freeze up" imminent, the two hunters abandoned
their hunting-camp and started down-stream on the return home. After
some disappointments, one in which Sheldon lost a fine bull moose owing
to a misfire, Selous and his companion reached Plateau Mountain, where
Osgood and Rungius, who had enjoyed some good sport with moose and
caribou, were again met. The whole party then went down-stream, and had
some difficulty in getting through the ice which was now forming, but
reached Selkirk safely on October 7th. On the whole this had been a very
successful trip for Selous, but he was a little disappointed in not
getting sheep, grizzly, and black bears.
His own account of the whole trip is as follows:--
"My dear Johnny,--Just a line to tell you that I got home again
from the Yukon country yesterday (November 7th). I shall have a
lot to tell you about it when we meet. The original trip that I
was invited to join fell through, as neither the governor of the
Yukon Territory was able to go nor my friend Tyrrel who invited
me to join the party. There was a lot of delay, and eventually
three Canadians, three Americans, and myself hired a small
flat-bottomed steamer to take us up the Pelly and MacMillan
rivers. This took much longer than was expected, and it was not
till August 30th that we got to the furthest point to which the
steamer could take us. Then we all split up, and an American
(Charles Sheldon, an awfully good fellow, whom I hope I shall be
able to bring over to see you one of these days) and myself (we
had chummed up on the steamer) tackled the north fork of the
MacMillan river. We had each a twenty-foot canoe and one man. My
man was a French half-breed, and Sheldon's a white man, both
first-rate fellows. We had a very 'tough' time getting the
canoes up the river, as the stream was fearfully strong and the
water very cold. We were in the water most of every day for six
days, often up to our waists, hauling the canoes up with ropes.
Then we reached the foot of a big range of mountains. The day we
left the steamer bad weather set in and we had 18 days of filthy
weather, sleet and snow, and the whole country covered with
snow. On September the 6th or 7th we packed up into the
mountains, carrying everything on our backs to close up to
timber-line (about 5000 feet in this northern country, the point
where we left the timber being about 2500 feet above sea-level).
No Indians to pack, no guides, no nothing, and damned little
game either, though we were in an absolutely new country, where
there are no Indians at all, and only four trappers in the whole
district, and these men never go up into the high mountains.
There were any quantity of beavers up the north fork of the
MacMillan. The trappers have not yet touched them and they are
wonderfully tame. We could find no sheep rams in the mountains,
only small flocks of ewes and kids. Moose after September 18th
were fairly numerous, but by no means plentiful. I only saw
three caribou, one a very good bull, whose head will, I think,
interest you. I believe it is the kind that Merriam calls
Osborn's caribou, a very large heavy animal, with horns rather
of the Barren Ground type, but finely palmated at the top. I
shot four bull moose and spared two more. One of my moose has a
right royal head, and pays me well for all my trouble. The
spread across the palms, with no straggly points, is 67 inches,
and it has 41 points (23+18). My second best head measures 581/2
inches across the palms, with 22 points (11+11). I boxed my
heads in Vancouver, and hope to get them some time next month,
and you must come and see them as soon as they are set up."
In the autumn of 1905 he went on his third trip to Newfoundland, in
order to see something more of the interior of the island and to shoot a
few caribou. The country he now selected was that in the neighbourhood
of King George IV Lake, a district that had only previously been visited
by two white men, Cormack, its discoverer, in 1822, and Howley in 1875.
This is not a difficult country to reach, as canoes can be taken the
whole way, and there are no bad "runs" or long portages. The autumn of
1905 was, however, perhaps the wettest on record, and it poured with
rain every day, whilst, as to the caribou stags, they carried the
poorest horns in any season, owing to the severity of the previous
winter. In this trip, in which he was accompanied by two excellent
Newfoundlanders, Joseph Geange and Samuel Smart, Selous saw large
numbers of caribou, but did not obtain a single good head, and though he
enjoyed the journey, the trophies killed were somewhat disappointing,
and especially so as he had broken into quite new country.[57]
Selous' own account, in a letter to me, November 22nd, is as follows:--
"By the time you get this letter I shall be at home again, or at
any rate in London. I have to commence my lecturing on December
4th, but if I can get a spare day before then I will come over
and see you. My experience in Newfoundland was much the same as
yours. I saw a lot of caribou, but no very large heads. I had,
too, terribly bad weather, almost continuous rain and sleet
storms on the high ground near George IV Lake. By-the-bye, Mr.
Howley tells me that to the best of his belief I am the third
white man who has visited that lake. The first was Cormack, who
named it a long time ago, and the second Mr. Howley, who was
there in 1875. The caribou in the country between King George's
Lake and the head of the Victoria river live there. I saw
non-travelling deer there, all the herds were stationary,
feeding or lying down in one spot all day long. Lots of trees
too along the river, where the stags had cleaned their horns.
Packing in from Lloyd's river to the north-west, I struck some
splendid caribou-ground. Here the deer were all on migration
southwards. As a matter of fact, I did very little systematic
hunting, but a lot of tramping, always carrying a 40 lb. pack
myself. I have got one very pretty head of 36 points, very
regular and symmetrical, but not large. In a storm of driving
sleet it looked magnificent on the living stag. I have another
head I like, and some others of lesser merit, one of them for
the Natural History Museum. I have preserved a complete animal
for them."
[Illustration: OSBORN'S CARIBOU.]
FOOTNOTES:
[52] As an instance of this I may mention that the greater number of the
"hunting" Boers I lived with and knew well were captured in the
Middelburg district in 1900 by a party of Steinacker's horse, who
surprised the commando at dawn. All were captured except Commandant
Roelef Van Staden, my former hunter, one of the finest men it has ever
been my good fortune to meet in any land. He fought his way out
single-handed and escaped. When brought into camp these Boers were well
treated by Colonel Greenhill-Gardyne (Gordon Highlanders), who asked
them if they knew me, to which they replied that I was the only
Englishman they had ever known and that they would consider it a favour
if he would kindly send a message of friendship to me, detailing their
capture and certain misfortunes that had befallen some of their families
in the war. They were also particularly anxious that I should know that
Van Staden had escaped. This letter I treasure, for it shows that the
Boers have no personal animosity to those who have once been their
friends.
[53] This is very unusual, for in four seasons' hunting there, I never
found the deer move at so early a date as September 15th.
[54] On the hills of Genna Gentu, the principal home of the Mouflon in
Sardinia, the native shepherds allow their cattle and herds of sheep and
goats to graze amongst the wild sheep and this constant disturbance
keeps all creatures constantly on the move.
[55] Later he was persuaded to lend his heads for the exhibition, but
few visitors saw the collection.
[56] I was so fortunate as to kill one of these caribou in the Tanzilla
Mountains on the borders of Alaska, with fifty-three points, in 1908,
but this was quite an exceptional head of an unusual type.
[57] This year I was hunting in the Gander forests about 75 miles
south-east of King George IV Lake and saw an immense number of caribou
stags, but only one with a first-class head, a 35-pointer, which I was
fortunate enough to kill. Later in the season I saw most of the heads
killed in the island and there was not a good one amongst them.