JUNGLE KNIGHT

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4559, 13 April 1942, Page 3

JUNGLE KNIGHT

CHIVALRY OF FREDERICK SELOUS

A VIVID PICTURE

(By

F.W.B.)

Africa is a land of noble memories and stately memorials. From the statue of de Lesseps, on the Suez Canal, to the tomb of Cecil Rhodes, on the wind-swept summit of the Matoppos, the continent is dotted With silent but eloquent tributes to the gallant souls who shaped 'its destinies. A gigantic statue to the immortal memory of David Livingstone was recently erected above Victoria Falls, on the Zambesi, and the great highroad up into Mashonaland is named the Selous Road in honour of one of the really Homeric figures of African story. So romantic was the colourful career of Frederick Courtenay Selous that he enjoyed the unique distinction, while yet-comparatively young, of seeing himself idolised by readers of popular fiction, for Captain Selous was the original of Allan Quartermain, the redoubtable hero of Rider Haggard’s weird but fascinating fictions; and it is difficult to say whether he has earned the greater fame in the realm of actual experience or in the dreamland of daring imagination. But it does not very much matter. The fact that counts is that, on the soil of that vast continent which he knew more intimately than any other ’man living, he closed a fearless and most useful life by a valiant and glorious death. For many a long year Frederick Selous was the world’s greatest sportsman. It was once claimed for him that there was no phase of wild life in Africa that had not contributed a specimen of its weath to the prowess of his unerring rifle. THE LION-HUNTER LIONISED During his later years he disdained to shoot giraffes, gazelles, and similarly defenceless things, confining himself to the fiercer creatures that could put up a fight before adding themselves to the list of his victims. He shot lions and elephants not by scores, but by hundreds. For many years no explorer, soldier, or biggame hunter dreamed of plunging into the African wilds without first seeking from Selous that guidance which nobody else was so well able to furnish. Some, like President Theodore Roosevelt, were fortunate enough to coax him into accompanying them; and they have left it on record that Selous moved among the wildest recesses of the African jungle with the naturalness and confidence with which an English countryman moves about his native village. It never occurred to hint to become confused or alarmed. . But a man cannot live this kind of life for ever. There comes a time when even lions lose their charm and herds of elephants become monotonous. Five years before he died Frederick Selous bade Africa, as he thought, a last farewell. He was then in the seventh decade of a life crowded with excitement of many kinds. He settled down at his beautiful home at Worplesdon, in Surrey. He revelled in the hero-worship of the countryfolk, and kept himself fit by playing cricket with them on the village green. It was said that men liked to be chosen for the Worplesdon eleven for the sake of the tales that Selous would tell while they waited their turn to bat. His more serious hours he cheerfully devoted to the service of the natural history museums and turned his own home into such a museum in the process. BUGLES AT SUNSET Then, after three years of this unwonted tranquility, there came in 1914 the outbreak of war and the call to arms. Selous was an old man, but he was still in excellent health and in the pink of condition. He offered himself at once. As soon as the East African expedition was decided upon, the military authorities saw that his presence would be invaluable. His offer was accepted. Three months later he was gazetted a captain. Three months later still he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for “ conspicuous gallantry, resource, and endurance.” And then, after having rendered services the value of which, according to the official despatch, “ cannot be over-estimated,” he fell. It was once said of him that “ it would be a tragedy if Selous died in bed. A It seems in every way fitting that, within sight of his seventieth year, he should have laid down his life in his country’s service; and it is pleasant to reflect that he sleeps his long sleep in the soil of that huge continent in which his happiest hours were spent; moreover, in that particular section of the continent in which the vegetation is most dense and the wild life most abundant. There is a famous picture representing a couple of lions standing defiantly bn the grave of Cecil Rhodes away on the lonely crest of the Matoppos, and it requires no very reckless flight of the imagination to foresee that the resting place of Frederick Selous must be the frequent haunt of similar visitors. - Selous achieved his triumph by hid

splendid knightliness. The. outstanding fact about Africa is that it swarms with men —men of many types and many colours. The winding old slavetracks along which the grim caravans once passed now form the highroads from tribe to tribe; from almost any eminence the traveller can descry in the distance the smoke of a native settlement. It was the proud boast of Selous that, going to Africa as a boy of nineteen, and dying there as an old man, he never harmed, and was only once harmed by, the dusky natives of the great black continent. Many of the tribesmen of inland Africa are notoribusiy fickle, hasty, and treacherous; yet, with the single exception of an attack made upon his camp by some Marotse rebels in 1888, Selous was never assailed. He always won his way and held the people in the bonds of the fastest friendship. Like Livingstone, he had an uncanny genius for gaining the native confidence. Even when he was unable to speak a word of the tribal language, he was en rapport with the people at once. He trusted them implicitly, abandoned himself to them without reserve, and they invariably respected his obvious trust. For many years he lived among men who had never seen any other white man than himself; he was most punctilious ;in regulating his behaviour and most scrupulous in keeping his word; and, as a result, he was permitted to pass not only scathless but honoured along all the trails of Africa. The coloured men accorded him the freedom of the wilds. Mr George Caustoii, a director of the British South African Company, said, in 1893, that the British occupation of Mashonaland represented the first instance in the history of the world of a civilised people occupying a savage country without having to shed the blood of the aboriginal inhabitants, and he attributed this remarkable and gratifying achievement to the commanding influence over the native mind exercised by Frederick Selous. The great Mashonaianu highway wfilch bears his name, and any other monuments that may be erected to his metnory, will always awaken in then the instincts of the finest chivalry; they will serve as an abiding incentive to patient perseverance, and they will constitute themselves a rousing mspiriitldh to exalted and unselfish endeavour.