he best known of all the professional hunters in pre-occupation Rhodesia was Frederick Courteney Selous. The early hunters found Matabeleland and Mashonaland to be relatively free from malaria during the winter, there were immense herds of elephant to be hunted, ivory was valuable enough to bear the cost of its transport to the coast, and it was in demand in Europe for the manufacture of ornaments, cutlery handles, billiard balls and piano keys. Between 1872 and 1874 alone, Lobengula and white hunters shooting from horseback accounted for 2500 elephants. But the surviving elephants slowly withdrew to fly country and Selous found he had to do most of his hunting on foot.

elous was born in London in 1857. He originally intended to become a doctor but finding medicine uninteresting he set up as a professional hunter in Africa when 20 years old. He hunted extensively in modern Rhodesia and, when it became less profitable, turned increasingly to providing trophies and specimens for museums, guiding hunting parties, prospecting and writing. A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, published in 1881, roused British interest in the far interior. It was one of the best books written on the subject; it turned its author into a legend and Selous is believed to have been the prototype for Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain.

uring 1887 Selous was one of a party which discovered the Sinoia Caves. Later he became adviser to Rhodes when he was considering the occupation of Mashonaland. He persuaded Rhodes to cut a road for the Pioneer Column which would avoid the Matabele heartland and the danger of bloodshed. Selous guided the column to Salisbury in 1890. He returned from a holiday in England when the Matabele War broke out in 1893 and was wounded during the Southern Column’s advance on Bulawayo. Thereafter he managed a land and mining company at Essexvale and played an important part in the fighting during the Rebellion.

e later left Rhodesia to become a renowned author, naturalist and ornithologist, and undertook many hunting trips to all parts of the world. In his 63rd year Selous succeeded in joining up when World War I broke out. He was killed in action during 1917 while fighting in Tanzania.