A Hunter S Wanderings In Africa

A narrative of nine years spent amongst the game of the far interior of South Africa containing accounts of explorations beyond the Zambesi, on the river Chobe, and in the Matabele and Mashuna countries, with full notes upon the natural history and present distribution of all the large mammalia

In The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter, legendary hunter W.D.M. Bell takes readers on a thrilling journey through the African wilderness. With vivid descriptions and captivating anecdotes, Bell shares his encounters with majestic elephants, dangerous predators, and the challenges of survival in the untamed landscape. This compelling narrative offers a glimpse into a bygone era of exploration and the complex relationship between humans and the natural world.

This book is Selous's classic account of big game hunting in Southern Africa, being "a narrative of nine years spent amongst the game of the fair interior of South Africa, containing accounts of explorations beyond the Zambesi and in the Matabele and Mashuna countries, with full notes uponthe natural history and distribution of all the large mammalia".

Brian Herne's White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris is the story of seventy years of African adventure, danger, and romance. East Africa affects our imagination like few other places: the sight of a charging rhino goes directly to the heart; the limitless landscape of bony highlands, desert, and mountain is, as Isak Dinesen wrote, of "unequalled nobility." White Hunters re-creates the legendary big-game safaris led by Selous and Bell and the daring ventures of early hunters into unexplored territories, and brings to life such romantic figures as Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, who walked 4,000 miles for the love of a woman, and Dinesen's dashing lover, Denys Finch. Witnesses to the richest wildlife spectacle on the earth, these hunters were the first conservationists. Hard-drinking, infatuated with risk, and careless in love, they inspired Hemingway's stories and movies with Clark Gable and Gregory Peck.

In 1909, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned ex-President Theodore Roosevelt to collect specimens of African wildlife for the National Museum. Roosevelt went to Africa with his son Kermit, several prominent naturalists, and many journalists, thereby initiating the safari industry and setting the standard for the big game hunt. Yet Roosevelt never killed for thrills, instead hunting only specific animals in the amounts requested by the Smithsonian. Making his way from the Kenyan coast to the Upper Nile, he records his impressions of the African landscape, witnesses a traditional lion hunt by African pastoralists, and recalls his meetings with East Africans, to whom he was known as 'Bwana Tumbo (belly).'

As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes of one of the most renowned professional hunters. Few men can say they have known Africa as Capstick has known it—leading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled jungle paths; running for cover as fear-maddened elephants stampede in all directions. And of the few who have known this dangerous way of life, fewer still can recount their adventures with the flair of this former professional hunter-turned-writer. Based on Capstick’s own experiences and the personal accounts of his colleagues, Death in the Long Grassportrays the great killers of the African bush—not only the lion, leopard, and elephant, but the primitive rhino and the crocodile waiting for its unsuspecting prey, the titanic hippo and the Cape buffalo charging like an express train out of control. Capstick was a born raconteur whose colorful descriptions and eye for exciting, authentic detail bring us face to face with some of the most ferocious killers in the world—underrated killers like the surprisingly brave and cunning hyena, silent killers such as the lightning-fast black mamba snake, collective killers like the wild dog. Readers can lean back in a chair, sip a tall, iced drink, and revel in the kinds of hunting stories Hemingway and Ruark used to hear in hotel bars from Nairobi to Johannesburg, as veteran hunters would tell of what they heard beyond the campfire and saw through the sights of an express rifle.

"Selous is the most famous hunter in all Africa." - THE AMERICAN "Since the days of Baldwin there has not been published a book on South African sporting which equals in value and interest the volume brought out by Mr. Selous." -ACADEMY Frederick Courteney Selous (1851 - 1917) a British explorer, officer, hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. With but very few exceptions, Selous was the last of a long line of oldfashioned pioneer hunters of African big game. By long odds he was the most famous and conspicuous man of his kind. He lived and hunted from the period of the big-calibre smoothbore elephant gun that he loaded at the muzzle with a handful of powder as he ran at full speed, up through the 577 English express rifle of the 70's, to the highly finished Mannlicher of small calibre and tremendous power. In 1881 Selous published his book "A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa: Being a Narrative of Nine Years Spent Amongst the Game of the Far Interior of South Africa." His book, as a matter of course, abounds in hunting stories of the lion, elephant, rhino, ; and, as these are well told, and only just sufficiently flavoured with sporting slang to give them an air of reality or local colour, they are quite as likely to interest stay-at-home readers as sportsmen. We need hardly say that Mr. Selous was a successful sportsman, who made a good thing out of the ivory which he carried away as his spoils. The hunting of big game demands of its devotees many sacrifices. The hunter must be prepared to endure many and varied hardships in the pursuance of his vocation. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, the rigors of climate, the scorching sun by day, the fever-laden mists of night, these and many other trials must he encounter if he would taste to the full the joys of the hunter's life. Going to South Africa when he was 19, Selous travelled from the Cape of Good Hope to Matabeleland, which he reached early in 1872, and where (according to his own account) he was granted permission by Lobengula, King of the Ndebele, to shoot game anywhere in his dominions. From then until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo Basin, shooting elephants and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections. His travels added greatly to the knowledge of the country now known as Zimbabwe. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings-often among people who had never previously seen a white man-he maintained cordial relations with the chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula. In 1890, Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, at the request of magnate Cecil Rhodes, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 miles of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements which brought the country there under British control. Coming to England in December 1892, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys.