A GREAT HUNTER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1683, 8 March 1917, Page 1

A GREAT HUNTER.

CAPTAIN SELOUS’ DEATH,

SLAYER OF BIG GAME FIGHTS THE GERMANS.

Captain F. C. Selous, hip; same hunter, explorer, and guide to more than one of our little “expeditions” to South Africa, has in the end given his life for his country in the greatest adventure of all. He has been killed in action in East Africa. Sixty-six years of age at the time of his death, this gallant tighter joined His Majesty’s army at the age of 64. Characteristically enough, he chose the adventurous Legion of Frontiersmen in which to make his debut as an official soldier, and shortly afterwards received his commission.

Lieutenant-General J. Smuts made specail mention of the gallant conduct of Captain Selous in one of his famous despatches, and later the veteran fighter was awarded the D.S.O.

Captain Selous’ connection with Africa is a long and interesting one. He is popularly supposed to be the original of Alan Qnarterman, the hero of Rider Haggard’s African romance. Whether he was or not, his life was in itself a romance which the most imjaginative writer of adventure would find it hard to improve upon. HUNTED RARE ANIMALS. Between the years 1871 and 1860 he wandered all over South Central Africa, in search of thrills and natural history specimens. On one occasion he travelled 7,000 miles in search of a rare animal, which no man had previously succeeded in bringing complete, after the attentions of a taxidermist, to England. This animal, the Derbian eland, a sort of cousin to the antelope, was tracked with (he help of 20 natives who were at home in the Congo, through country which was hot and dry and covered with prickly scrub. Another time Captain Selous accompanied Mr Roosevelt on his famous hunting expedition in East Africa. The two kindred spirits had a great time of it. and both brought back many splendid specimens of the big game of the districts.

Captain Selous was always certain to bring back strange and wonderful animals for the extraordinary collection which he kept at his home at Worplesdon, Surrey, when he returned to civilisation after a jaunt into the depths of Africa. Between expeditions Captain Selous was .always willing to talk modestly, and with keen appreciation of “the other man’s” prowess, of his adventures. Once lie assured a wondering interviewer that death from a lion’s bile was practically painless. Indeed, he was an expert of the first degree on the subject of lions, and Mr Roosevelt has left it on record that no other single observer has been responsible for such valuable details about the lion as has Mr Selous.

A real spoilsman, Captain Selous always appreciated Ins animal opponents and gave them a fair fight. German methods of waging warfare must have been something of a shock to lids man, who had lived his life in the fairest traditions ot “Sport” and it is probable that he was well pleased (o give his life in chasing the poisoners of wells and the torturers of defenceless women from the hunting fields that he loved so well.