THE REAL "ALLAN QUATERMAIN."

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13488, 19 May 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE REAL "ALLAN QUATERMAIN."

Allan Quartermain was not a fiction of letter Haggard's brain; he was a true nesh and blood hunter and adventurer, whose adventures -were -used m, the novel For instance, what tale of fiction is stranger than this ? It h told of the original Allan Quatermain that • once when hunting in Africa he was pursued and thrown off his horse by an enraged elephant. When he fell, everything faded, and it was apparently some minutes before he recovered his senses. Then—the first thing he saw was a huge pillar-like object before him, and he realised that he was lying beside the hind leg of the animal, which was ■*j kneeling and searching around for its victim. Ho lost no time in getting out of this disturbing attitude, and made his escape. Such adventures may be common in fiction, but rarely are' they the lot of real men. Now, a cluster of press clippings recalls to mind that the original Allan Quatermain is dead m London. Of course, his name was not given in the Rider Haggard novels, but the character of that dashing adventurerhunter was drawn directly from the sportsman who has recently gone to other " and better hunting-grounds, Capt. Frederick Courteney-Sclous. Adventure stories, such as the one in which he appeared, have since gone out of fashion; nowadays the youth of the ' world are more interested in tales of a different sort. Yet it may call back the old romances to the mind of m|iny a reader to peruse some, of the memories culled out of the numerous press notices which appeared at the death of Captain Selous. For instance, in the London Daily Telegraph we read: "Rider Haggards's portrait of Allan Quatermain is no unfair likeness of the mighty hunter who has just laid down his life for his country in East Africa. It was such a death as his friends covet- ► Ed for him; such a death as must make the writer of romance feel the timidity of fiction compared with fact. In his sixty-sixth year, a life devoted to the jungle and scrub of South Africa, to the intense observation of wild life, and to the service, of the many empire-build-ers who were his friends, has been cut short on active service against his country's enemy. Only in September last did he receive the D.S.O. tor his "conspicuous gallantry, resource, and endurance," and now those services which "cannot be overestimated" have ended as Selous woulel have wished ended. The story of his life is short, so far as mile-stones are concerned. Immediately after • his school-days at Rugby ho went to South Africa, and plunged at once into the groat life ot nature that he dould nowhere study so well as along these ever expanding frontiers of civilisation which, almost 'as much as any man, he brought within the Empire.' He is the last of the great generation of African hunters, and the opportunities he enjoyed until the formal partition of Africa are not likely to be offered 1 to another matt. Great game hunting was moat and drink to him; he claimed it as his •profession; hundreds and thousands of heads/skins, and teeth rewarded his vigilance and his isolation. Still, as a guide, naturalist, a"nd adviser, he acted in connection with several expeditions into Mashonaland and Matabeleland between 1890 and 1897, and the crown of his life nftfst have been the services he alone could render in German East Africa when the great war broke out. "Half a dozen records of his sporting adventures have been published by him, all, exceptone, dealing with his African experiences. He wrote for magazines with facility and absolute! knowledge. "What Selous says is good enough for me," was a well-known judgment half a dozen years ago." Then we have a picture of the characof the hunter as seen in a speech at a banquet of the Authors' Club. It-is an admirably detailed and sharp sketch of the man's personality. The theme was the adventures of a mi'ssionary in Africa and the address forms a thumb-nail novel of what life in the Dark Continent meant to this proselytiser. It runs: "He was often told that missionaries had done more pioneer work for the Empire than big-game hunters. Far be it from him to say one single word of disparagement of the splendid pioneer missionaries of Africa—(cheers)—but what he would say was that all the best missionaries, from Moffat to Livingstone downward, were big-game hunters. He was once acquainted with a very fine old pioneer missionary, who was not only, to use the picturesque phraseology of young England, a tophole proselytiser—(laughter)— but a most energetic and active big-game hunter. This good man was accustomed! to inspan his yoke of bullocks every Monday morning early, and trek away to the haunts of big game which at time were not far from his station. He spent the week in shooting game, Bartially8 artially drying the meat in the sun. U the Saturday evening late this good man returned to his station, and on the following morning all. the meat was hung over the beams of the, gr%t shed which served him as a church—in his reports if was called a cathedral. (Laughter.) When it was time for service the natives of the, district were notified by three shots from a big elephant gun, and they then commenced to concentrate upon the cathedral from every point. It was really perfectly wonderful to see the enormous gation which this good man brought'together, and the number of converts -...that he was able to make, especially when it was remembered' that he spoke in an African native dialect, which ho only understood very imperfectly. (Laughter.) When the service was over ©very one of his congregation was presented with a largo piece of meat. Ever since that time Mr Selous had believed' that there was something in a meat diet which stimulated the perceptive faculties and possibly increased the power of faith, because' these natives, with this mixed diet of meat and spiritual doctrine, accepted all the most abstruse and difficult doctrines and dogmas of the Christian Church without •the slightest difficulty, and there were even some among them who were able to swallow the Athanasian Creed without a smile." (Laughter.) Tales pf Selous' hairbreadth escapes when on hunting expeditions might be multiplied ad infinitum, for it was a time when men did not hunt in the leisurely Jashion that attends the pursuit of game now, but were as liable to die fronQVant of supplies as from the tusks or claws of wild animals. In fact. the Telegraph remarks: The deep scar in the middle of his rightccheerk r which he bore to the end of his life, was caused by an accident such as modern- hunters could not experience. He had in his early days a 4-bore elephant rifle—a terrific weapon at both ends, even when properly charged—and at a desperate crisis this gun was given to him by his native sen-ant doubly charged. He discharged it, was blown head over heels for yards, and escaped with a lifelong scar, a cruelly maimed shoulder, and a terrific shock that a moment later he had to master to save his life for a second time

In the same paper we find a lengthy editorial comment on his career. Out of the maze of narration aiuf eulogv we cull:

His life had been spent in travel and adventure. He was less than twenty years old when he began his career as a big-game hunter—it became his profession and livelihood—and in 1909 when Mr Roosevelt undertook his hunting expedition in East Africa, Captain Selous accompanied him, thus confessing that he still heard in maturer years the call which had lured him as a youth away from this country into the wilds.

In some respects the career of the sportsman wlto has now given his life for_ his country was probably unique. It is said that in his many wanderings on the African Continent'he had shot nearly a thousand head of big game ; his gun had brought to his feet specimens of practically all the animal families indigenous to that part of the world. A man of retiring disposition in ordinary life, he courted danger, hut except for ft bulk*; in the ribs during the .Matabele campaign he never came bv serious harm, though he experienced many narrow escapes. Will there be opportunities a few years hehcefor men such as Selous to

is not what it was once; the whole of Europe wilL soon he—if it. is. not already—a. '-story that is told." But vast regions, fortunately, are still unexplored. It will be mttay years before parts of Central and "Western Africa, Borneo Sumatra the Dutch .Last Indies and the more remote territories in the vast Chinese Empire will cease to attr-ict the hunter. And it is well tor us that it is so. Big-game shooting is an education—a pursuit which trains the ear, the eye,.the nerve, and the endurance of those who follow it. The fascination is summed up in the plira.se, "a sporting chance." It is the very risks, uncertainties, and dramatic strokes of fortune which attract. It is impossible to foresee what will happen in given circumstances. Animals conform to no rules; they acton sudden instinct, sometimes with curious and' unexpected results, or are seized with panic. During the operations in East. Africa lions have fled from a motor-bicycle piloted by a defenceless man; on the other hand, they have stood up to the gun, revealing cunning which has tested the sportsmanship oi pursuer.,. Keaders of 'The .Mari-Eaters of Tsavo" will recall one strange incident illustrating the force of hunger. A group of lions seized one of three Europeans out of a railway-carriage in Uganda, though all of the men were armed, anu then got away. On another occasion some coolies in Uganda, living ni a closed truck with iron bars, were attacked. The beasts prowled round them, and one day one of them managed to get in, and the coolies, with intuitive qtuckness born of fear, escaped, closing a trap-door, behind them. They had (seemingly caught the man-eater, and forthwith, proceeded to shoot him, but, aiming. badly, broke the trap-door and gave the lion jiis liberty once more. Or again, there is the story of the naval officer who brought down a Grantil buck—his first kill. He went firward to secure it, when first one and .then four other lions, in spite of the noise he had made, crept forward to seize the carcase. The sportsman had with him only a little magazine rule and not many cartridges. Deeming discretion the better part of valor, he mounted a neighboring tree, remained there until the lions, their hunger satisfied, slunk away. It is such experiences of ill-fortune and good, of the unaccountable behavior of animals under seemingly similar conditions, which constitute the allurement of big-game shooting. With the brevity of a moving-picture scenario, the Manchester Guardian tells the story of Selous' first hunting trip in Africa. He was hardly grown, only nineteen, yet he launched on a venture which would have made many an older man hesitate and take thought. It was in 1869, when, according to the account/ Selous commenced his famous career as hunter, explorer, and naturalist, landing at Alpoa Bay, with a capital of £4OO. He lost no time in penetrating into the interior, and during one of his early expeditions in Griqualand came very near to losing his life. While hunting giraffes—which he then saw for the first time—he became lost, and for nearly four days and as many nights was entirely without fcod and water. A strong constitution enabled him to throw off the effects of this trying experience, and soon afterward he entered Matabeleland, and sought King Lobengula's permission to shoot elephants. Lobengula laughed at him, saying he was ''only a boy," but the desired authority being obtained the "boy" justified himself by killing on foot, in the course of his first three seasons, no fewer than seventy-eight elephants. A Hottentot hunter named "Cigar" initiated him in the perils of elephant-hunting, and seems to have been • a reliable and considerate companion. The outfit which satisfied young Selous would scarcely be deemed adequate by modern hunters of big game*. He was accompanied by a solitary Kaffir "boy," who carried his blankets- and

spare ammunition,' Selous himself tak-

ing along a four-bore muzzle-loading rifle, a bag of powder, and twenty bullets of four ounces each. For food ha and Cigar depended on their rifles and what Kaffir corn they could procure. These so-called rifles were in reality smooth-bore duck guns of the cheapest description, carrying round bullets, but, although they "kicked" terribly, Selous found them as well suited for killing elephants as the. best expressrifles.

Selous made a trip home in 1875, but I the spring of the following year found him once again hunting in Matabeleland. Later on he crossed the Zambesi into the Batonga country. An expedition to Mashonaland followed, and during it Selous experienced some of the narrowest of- his escapaes from dan gerousi big game. During this trip he nearly lost oxen, horses, and everything he possessed from thirst, no water being obtainable for a period of about four days. Selous' "bag" of big game from 1877 to 1880, inclusive, consisted of 548 head, among them being 20 elephants, 2 white and 10 black rhinoceroses, 100 buffaloes, 13 lions, and 18 giraffes. In the spring of 1881 he went home. His fame as hunter and naturalist was now well established, and papers on different species of African mammals which he road before the Zoological and other scientific societies attracted much attention. Selous was recognised as an exceptionally careful and reliable observer —a faculty in which some of the greatest African hunters have been singularly deficient—and his investigations set at rest sundry disputed points regarding the species and habits of certain of the African big game."

About this time Selous entertained thoughts of settling to more peacefuL avocations, but the call of the wild was too strong, and for many years after 1882 his life as hunter and explorer was only varied by occasional visits to the Old Country. During an expedition undertaken in 1888 he was treacherously attacked by natives- of the Mashukulumbwi tribe. From his safari of twenty-five only seven escaped unhurt; twelve were" killed outright, and Selous found himself stranded with only the clothes he wore, a rifle, and four cartridges. It was indeed a terrible situation in which he was then placed—alone in the heart of savage Africa, surrounded by hostile natives, and separated by a wide expanse of difficult country from friendly ones. For three weeks he struggled pluckily along, sleeping on the bare ground without blankets, enduring all kinds of privation and hardship. He was providentially saved to reach the country of Sikahenga, a Batonga chief who protected him. Nor are the American journals totally uninterested in the career and passing of this noteworthy character, for, among many comments, we read in the Detroit Free Press the following tribute to that modern Nimrod, with a closing mention of him reprinted in the Chicago Evening Post and taken from the autobiography of Colonel Roosevelt :

Ho was- probably the best known of all the modern big-game hunters; ho was !rVi explorer, an opener of new land--, a fearless soldier, and a writer of prominence. It may b? a matter of gratification to millions of people, young and old, who have revelled in the adventures of hunter Qnatermain and admired his virtues, to know that their hero was very like his original. Yet lie was the gentlest and straightest of men, a description which tallies closely with Mr Haggard's fictional delineation. Captain Selous also was known as a dead shot. Like Quatermain he first tried diamond-mining in South Africa—this was back in 71, but after a time he turned from this to elephant-hunting and early trekked to Mashonaland, in the settlement of which he was largely instrumental. For twenty years he was active in the troubles among the British, the Boers, and the natives, and saw a good deal of fighting. In ]£9o. he guided the expedition of the British South-African Company into Mashonaland across four hundred miles of desert waste, a feat comparable with anything in Haggard. Altogether,

Selous' life was every bit as exciting and adventurous as the life of hunter Quatermain, even if not quite so punctuated with the marvellous and the uncanny.

Alton Quatemcain died many years :o in.a mysterious white empire be-

died from a wound received in action while fighting againsf treason and rebellion; Selous was killed while-leading his soldiers against the enemies of his country.

In his recently published autobiography Colonel Roosevelt says of him- '•■ When Scloue, ihe African hunter, visited n; i had to get him to tell to the younger children two or three of the stories with which they were already familiar from my reading- and as Selous is a most graphic narrator, and always enters thoroughly into the feeling not only of himself 'but of the opposing lion or buffalo, my own rendering of the incidents was east entirely into the shade."

This from the man who thunderboltecl the nature-fakirs is praise, indeed.