Life of Frederick Courtenay Selous, D.S.O Part 17

The year 1904 was a very busy one for Selous, and the following letter to me gives some idea of his energy in hunting for the eggs of birds of which he has not yet taken specimens.

"During the last few days I have been marking King-fishers'

nests on the Thames and Water Rails' nests in Thatcham Marsh, for Major Stirling (of Fairburn), who has been very kind to me in Scotland and helped me to get all sorts of good eggs. I have got him two Kingfishers' nests marked that I am sure have eggs in them, and also two Water Rails' nests. One of these had six eggs in it yesterday. We go to Wargrave for the Kingfishers to-morrow, and to Thatcham for the Water Rails on Thursday. On Friday I am off to North Wales, where I hope to get a Chough's nest. During the first half of May I shall be here, and will come over to see you during that time. On May 15th I start for Ross-shire, to get Crossbills, and then on to Orkney to get eggs of Hen Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Twite, etc. On May 26th I must be at Ravengla.s.s, in c.u.mberland, to get a couple of clutches of Sandwich Terns' eggs (by permission), and the next day on the Tyne for Pied Flycatchers, Gra.s.shopper Warblers, etc. Then back to Orkney early in June for Merlins, Black Guillemot, Eider Duck, etc. Then I think I shall try for a Scoter's nest near Melvick, in Sutherlandshire, and I wind up the season with a trip to St. Kilda with Musters to get eggs of Fork-tailed Petrel and Fulmar. Are there any old orchards about you? If so, we might look them over for a Hawfinch's nest about May 10th. I am not going to lend any of my heads to the Crystal Palace people.

They wrote to me about it, but I have declined to send them any heads."[55]

Later in the year he wrote one of his characteristic letters, speaking of his successes in egg-hunting and expressing his sorrow at the death of our mutual friend, Sir Philip Brocklehurst:--

"I am now home again from my egg-collecting trip to the north. I have had a fairly successful season. I got two Choughs' nests in North Wales in April, and several Water Rails' near here in a nice little swamp I know of. In Orkney I got Hen Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Merlin, Eider Duck, Dunlin, Golden Plover, Rock Pipit, and Twite. I have also taken this year in Northumberland and c.u.mberland nests of Wood Wren, Gra.s.shopper Warbler, Pied Flycatcher, Great Spotted Woodp.e.c.k.e.r, Sandwich Tern, and Sh.e.l.l Duck. Now I want a nest of Lesser Spotted Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. There are a few about here, but I cannot find out where they nest. I am going to the Crystal Palace to-morrow, and shall see your Caribou heads there I hope. Now I want you to help me. I am President of our village cricket-club, and have got together a team to play them on July 9th (Sat.u.r.day). I am experiencing great difficulty in getting an eleven together. Will you help me and play for me on that day? If so, please come here in time for lunch. We do not play till 2.30 p.m. Now can you come? Do, if you can, and bring another man with you. Please let me know about this as soon as possible, as I must now begin to hustle to get my team together. Isn't it sad to think that poor old Sir Philip Brocklehurst has gone? If we ever go to Swythamley again, things can never be as they were in the old Squire's time. I feel his loss very much. If you are at home now I should like to come over and see you and have our usual 'crack,' my dear Johnny."

Just before leaving for Canada on July 14th he writes:--

"What with people coming to see us here, garden-parties, cricket, political meetings, etc., there seems to be no time for anything. I hope you will have a good time Whale-hunting in August in the Shetland Isles. Write us a good account of it and make some good pictures."

Leaving England on July 14th, 1904, Selous reached Dawson City, on the Yukon, on August 8th. He went via Vancouver, and much enjoyed the pleasant voyage up the North Pacific coast, which abounds in islands and forests, and in scenic effect is much superior to Norway, which it resembles. Here he joined a party of sportsmen who had chartered a flat-bottomed steamer to take them up the north fork of the MacMillan river, a branch of the Yukon. There was, however, a delay of ten days, and as Selous could not endure inactivity he spent the time, with the help of a half-breed Indian and a pack-horse, in the Ogilvy Mountains, where he found and killed a male caribou of the variety which I have recently described under the name of _Tarandus rangifer ogilvyensis_, one of the many sub-specific races of reindeer of the North American Continent as yet somewhat imperfectly known. Selous then returned to Dawson, and the hunting party being a.s.sembled on the little steamer, a start up-stream was made on August 21st. After proceeding some distance up the Yukon, the Pelly, and then the MacMillan for five days through shallow and tortuous channels, the steamer could go no further. At Slate Creek two Americans, Professor Osgood the Zoologist, and Carl Rungius the artist of mammals, left to establish a hunting-camp there, whilst Selous and his friend, Mr. Charles Sheldon, a well-known hunter and field naturalist, pa.s.sed up the north fork of the MacMillan, the rest of the party going up the south fork. Selous soon killed a moose cow for meat, and in a few days Sheldon, reconnoitring up in the mountains, found a good camping-place on the edge of timber-line, so Selous and his friend then left the canoes and carried their heavy packs up the mountain. Whilst doing so Louis Cardinal, the half-breed hunter, spied a bull moose lying in the scrub, and Selous soon worked down to it and killed it at short range. Sheldon's chief object of pursuit was the wild sheep of these ranges, _Ovis fannini_, whilst Selous' was to obtain good moose and caribou, and, if possible, grizzly bears and sheep.

In the first two days Selous killed a fine caribou bull of the sub-specific race _Tarandus rangifer osborni_, a fine form of reindeer that exists from the Itcha Mountains in British Columbia to the east of the Kenai Peninsula. This variety, which is only found west of the Rocky Mountains, intergrades to the south with _Tarandus rangifer monta.n.u.s_ of southern British Columbia, and to the north-west with _Tarandus rangifer stonei_ of the Kenai peninsula. It is by far the finest of the American caribou, with the exception of the nearly extinct race, a branch of _Tarandus rangifer labradorensis_, which belongs to the north-east corner of Labrador, and carries fine ma.s.sive horns from 50 to 61 inches long, but not furnished as a rule with many points.[56] Selous was much cheered in getting so easily two fine specimens of this great deer at once. One night in the middle of September a fine display of the Aurora Borealis with its magnificent tongues of flame was observed, and Selous rightly says, "I count these splendours of the Arctic sky as amongst the most marvellous of all the wonders of the world," an opinion all who have seen them will endorse.

In the next few days Selous killed another bull moose, but not a large one, carrying a head with a span of 50 inches, and then an old bull with horns evidently going back. At last dawned a day of great good fortune, for the hunter met and killed a great bull whose horns have seldom been equalled by any taken out of the Yukon Territory. The horns, measuring 67 inches across, a width not often surpa.s.sed even in the Kenai peninsula, were very ma.s.sive, and carried 41 points; the skull and horns weighed over 75 lbs. "Altogether," he says, "it seemed to me I had at last obtained a trophy worth a king's ransom," for to a hunter such as he no bag of gold or diamonds would have seemed more precious.

Meanwhile his friend, Charles Sheldon, had not been so fortunate as he usually was in finding the big sheep rams, and had only shot a few immatures and females and young for the extensive collection he afterwards formed for American museums, and, as the season was now late and the prospect of the "freeze up" imminent, the two hunters abandoned their hunting-camp and started down-stream on the return home. After some disappointments, one in which Sheldon lost a fine bull moose owing to a misfire, Selous and his companion reached Plateau Mountain, where Osgood and Rungius, who had enjoyed some good sport with moose and caribou, were again met. The whole party then went down-stream, and had some difficulty in getting through the ice which was now forming, but reached Selkirk safely on October 7th. On the whole this had been a very successful trip for Selous, but he was a little disappointed in not getting sheep, grizzly, and black bears.

His own account of the whole trip is as follows:--

"My dear Johnny,--Just a line to tell you that I got home again from the Yukon country yesterday (November 7th). I shall have a lot to tell you about it when we meet. The original trip that I was invited to join fell through, as neither the governor of the Yukon Territory was able to go nor my friend Tyrrel who invited me to join the party. There was a lot of delay, and eventually three Canadians, three Americans, and myself hired a small flat-bottomed steamer to take us up the Pelly and MacMillan rivers. This took much longer than was expected, and it was not till August 30th that we got to the furthest point to which the steamer could take us. Then we all split up, and an American (Charles Sheldon, an awfully good fellow, whom I hope I shall be able to bring over to see you one of these days) and myself (we had chummed up on the steamer) tackled the north fork of the MacMillan river. We had each a twenty-foot canoe and one man. My man was a French half-breed, and Sheldon's a white man, both first-rate fellows. We had a very 'tough' time getting the canoes up the river, as the stream was fearfully strong and the water very cold. We were in the water most of every day for six days, often up to our waists, hauling the canoes up with ropes.

Then we reached the foot of a big range of mountains. The day we left the steamer bad weather set in and we had 18 days of filthy weather, sleet and snow, and the whole country covered with snow. On September the 6th or 7th we packed up into the mountains, carrying everything on our backs to close up to timber-line (about 5000 feet in this northern country, the point where we left the timber being about 2500 feet above sea-level).

No Indians to pack, no guides, no nothing, and d.a.m.ned little game either, though we were in an absolutely new country, where there are no Indians at all, and only four trappers in the whole district, and these men never go up into the high mountains.

There were any quant.i.ty of beavers up the north fork of the MacMillan. The trappers have not yet touched them and they are wonderfully tame. We could find no sheep rams in the mountains, only small flocks of ewes and kids. Moose after September 18th were fairly numerous, but by no means plentiful. I only saw three caribou, one a very good bull, whose head will, I think, interest you. I believe it is the kind that Merriam calls...o...b..rn's caribou, a very large heavy animal, with horns rather of the Barren Ground type, but finely palmated at the top. I shot four bull moose and spared two more. One of my moose has a right royal head, and pays me well for all my trouble. The spread across the palms, with no straggly points, is 67 inches, and it has 41 points (23+18). My second best head measures 58 inches across the palms, with 22 points (11+11). I boxed my heads in Vancouver, and hope to get them some time next month, and you must come and see them as soon as they are set up."

In the autumn of 1905 he went on his third trip to Newfoundland, in order to see something more of the interior of the island and to shoot a few caribou. The country he now selected was that in the neighbourhood of King George IV Lake, a district that had only previously been visited by two white men, Cormack, its discoverer, in 1822, and Howley in 1875.

This is not a difficult country to reach, as canoes can be taken the whole way, and there are no bad "runs" or long portages. The autumn of 1905 was, however, perhaps the wettest on record, and it poured with rain every day, whilst, as to the caribou stags, they carried the poorest horns in any season, owing to the severity of the previous winter. In this trip, in which he was accompanied by two excellent Newfoundlanders, Joseph Geange and Samuel Smart, Selous saw large numbers of caribou, but did not obtain a single good head, and though he enjoyed the journey, the trophies killed were somewhat disappointing, and especially so as he had broken into quite new country.[57]

Selous' own account, in a letter to me, November 22nd, is as follows:--

"By the time you get this letter I shall be at home again, or at any rate in London. I have to commence my lecturing on December 4th, but if I can get a spare day before then I will come over and see you. My experience in Newfoundland was much the same as yours. I saw a lot of caribou, but no very large heads. I had, too, terribly bad weather, almost continuous rain and sleet storms on the high ground near George IV Lake. By-the-bye, Mr.

Howley tells me that to the best of his belief I am the third white man who has visited that lake. The first was Cormack, who named it a long time ago, and the second Mr. Howley, who was there in 1875. The caribou in the country between King George's Lake and the head of the Victoria river live there. I saw non-travelling deer there, all the herds were stationary, feeding or lying down in one spot all day long. Lots of trees too along the river, where the stags had cleaned their horns.

Packing in from Lloyd's river to the north-west, I struck some splendid caribou-ground. Here the deer were all on migration southwards. As a matter of fact, I did very little systematic hunting, but a lot of tramping, always carrying a 40 lb. pack myself. I have got one very pretty head of 36 points, very regular and symmetrical, but not large. In a storm of driving sleet it looked magnificent on the living stag. I have another head I like, and some others of lesser merit, one of them for the Natural History Museum. I have preserved a complete animal for them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: OSBORN'S CARIBOU.]

FOOTNOTES:

[52] As an instance of this I may mention that the greater number of the "hunting" Boers I lived with and knew well were captured in the Middelburg district in 1900 by a party of Steinacker's horse, who surprised the commando at dawn. All were captured except Commandant Roelef Van Staden, my former hunter, one of the finest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet in any land. He fought his way out single-handed and escaped. When brought into camp these Boers were well treated by Colonel Greenhill-Gardyne (Gordon Highlanders), who asked them if they knew me, to which they replied that I was the only Englishman they had ever known and that they would consider it a favour if he would kindly send a message of friendship to me, detailing their capture and certain misfortunes that had befallen some of their families in the war. They were also particularly anxious that I should know that Van Staden had escaped. This letter I treasure, for it shows that the Boers have no personal animosity to those who have once been their friends.

[53] This is very unusual, for in four seasons' hunting there, I never found the deer move at so early a date as September 15th.

[54] On the hills of Genna Gentu, the princ.i.p.al home of the Mouflon in Sardinia, the native shepherds allow their cattle and herds of sheep and goats to graze amongst the wild sheep and this constant disturbance keeps all creatures constantly on the move.

[55] Later he was persuaded to lend his heads for the exhibition, but few visitors saw the collection.

[56] I was so fortunate as to kill one of these caribou in the Tanzilla Mountains on the borders of Alaska, with fifty-three points, in 1908, but this was quite an exceptional head of an unusual type.

[57] This year I was hunting in the Gander forests about 75 miles south-east of King George IV Lake and saw an immense number of caribou stags, but only one with a first-cla.s.s head, a 35-pointer, which I was fortunate enough to kill. Later in the season I saw most of the heads killed in the island and there was not a good one amongst them.

CHAPTER XI 1906-1907

In April, 1906, Selous went all the way to Bosnia just to take the nest and eggs of the Nutcracker, and those who are not naturalists can scarcely understand such excessive enthusiasm. This little piece of wandering, however, seemed only an incentive to further restlessness, which he himself admits, and he was off again on July 12th to Western America for another hunt in the forests, this time on the South Fork of the MacMillan river. On August 5th he started from Whitehorse on the Yukon on his long canoe-journey down the river, for he wished to save the expense of taking the steamer to the mouth of the Pelly. He was accompanied by Charles Coghlan, who had been with him the previous year, and Roderick Thomas, a hard-bitten old traveller of the North-West.

Selous found no difficulty in shooting the rapids on the Yukon, and had a pleasant trip in fine weather to Fort Selkirk, where he entered the Pelly on August 9th. Here he was lucky enough to kill a cow moose, and thus had an abundance of meat to take him on the long up-stream journey to the MacMillan mountains, which could only be effected by poling and towing. On August 18th he killed a lynx. At last, on August 28th, he reached a point on the South Fork of the MacMillan, where it became necessary to leave the canoe and pack provisions and outfit up to timber-line. Here almost immediately he killed a cow caribou for meat, and a comfortable camp was soon made. During the following days Selous hunted far and wide, and found that Osborn's caribou was as plentiful in these ranges as his friends in the previous year had found them. He killed six splendid bulls, one of which is now to be seen, mounted whole, in the Natural History Museum, and in a short time got all the specimens he wanted. One day he saw a large black animal, which he took to be a bear, coming towards him, and eventually killed it at a distance of 400 yards. It proved to be a black variety of the wolf--a somewhat rare animal to kill with the rifle, and curiously enough he killed another a few days later.

Before leaving the mountains he shot a good bull moose and missed another, whilst going down-stream, at 30 yards. A second shot, however, killed the animal, and gave the hunter another fine specimen with horns 63 inches across. Selous reached Selkirk on September 20th, and so had no difficulty in getting out before the ice formed.

As soon as he got home he wrote to me telling of the results of his trip, and I give it as showing the sympathetic nature of his disposition for the sorrows of others:--

"The first part of your letter awoke afresh all my sympathy for you and poor Mrs. Millais in your sorrow for the loss of your dearly beloved child. I suppose you can never hope to forget what you once possessed and can never have again, nor would you wish to do so; but time is merciful, and whilst never forgetting the sweetness of disposition of your dear child, the sorrow for her loss will gradually hurt you less and less. At least I trust it will be so. I am so glad to hear that you have got such a splendid lot of caribou heads this year. You well deserve them, for you have taken a lot of trouble to get them. You must now have quite a unique collection of Newfoundland caribou heads. I got one good moose this year 63 inches spread (measured by Mr.

Burlace the other day) and another pretty head of 52 inches spread. Besides these two I only saw one other bull moose--a fair-sized head. I saw a good many caribou, but no large heads.

Every big bull I saw seemed to have a well-grown head. On August 29th I saw a single old bull and shot him. The next day I saw another bull with ten cows and shot him. These heads were both in velvet, but fully grown out and the velvet just ready to peel off. On September 1st I saw another single bull and shot him; and on the following day got another close to camp. Both these bulls had their horns quite clean of velvet, not a shred left on any part. I then went away to another range of mountains to look for sheep and moose, returning again to the caribou-ground about the middle of September. On my first day I came across four splendid old bulls all together. They all had big heads, and I got close to them and could have shot them all, but I let two of them go after killing the other two, which seemed to me to have the finest horns. Whilst I was skinning the animals I had shot (with my half-breed Indian) three more big bulls _and a hornless cow_ came and lay down on a knoll about 400 yards away. One of these seemed to have very large horns; but I thought that six was enough, so I let them alone. I think three or four of the heads I have got are pretty good, but much better no doubt could be got if one waited till they got into large herds after the rutting season. Burlace makes my longest head 57 inches, another is 55 inches, and two others just over 51 and 50. Two of them have an inside spread of 48 inches. One head is of quite a different type to the other five. It is only about 40 inches long and very like a Newfoundland head with beautiful tops.

Besides the caribou and moose I only got two wolves--very fine ones, and one of them black. I saw no bears at all, and only female sheep. I am going away on Sat.u.r.day, December 1st, lecturing (with a two days' interlude at Beville Stanier's), and shall not be home again from Scotland till December 15th. On December 17th I go away again till the 20th; but after that I shall be at home for a long time. Let me know when you get your heads home, and I will then come over to look at them, and you must come and see my Yukon heads as soon as I get them from Ward's."

In May, 1907, he went to Asia Minor to take the eggs of sea and raptorial birds, living on or near the Mediterranean coasts.

In June he wrote: "I was very pleased to see the letter you wrote to the 'Field' about poor Arthur Neumann. I had thought of writing something myself, but did not know him as well as you did. I shall never cease to regret his loss. I look upon him as the last of the real genuine hunters of African big game."

Arthur Neumann, the celebrated elephant-hunter, was born at Hockliffe Rectory, in Bedfordshire, in 1850. In 1868 he went to Natal and later to Swaziland, and acted as interpreter during the Zulu war in 1879. From 1885-1887 he hunted much in South Africa, and after a time went to East Africa, where he helped to survey the line from the coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza. After another visit to South Africa he made his first journey after elephants to the East of Mount Kenia and killed large numbers of bull elephants.

In 1896 he was badly injured by a cow elephant, and returned to Mombasa in October, 1896. In 1899 he took part in the second Boer war, and in 1902 returned to East Africa and had another successful hunt, getting some immense tusks.

In 1903-1904, hunting in Turkana, Turkwel and the Lorian swamp, he killed many elephants, and made his last expedition in 1905-1906, when his ivory realized 4500 on sale in London. He was a pioneer like Selous, and wherever he went made a favourable impression on the native--helping greatly to advance our hold on British East Africa. He died suddenly in 1907.

In August, 1907, Selous went on a little hunt after reindeer in Norway, as the guest of his old friend, Captain P. B. Vanderbyl, a hunter who has had perhaps as great a general experience of big game hunting as any man living. In this trip Selous shot five good stags in seven days'

hunting, but was not so fortunate as to get a first-cla.s.s specimen, although some of his heads were good. Of this trip Captain Vanderbyl kindly sends me the following note:

"Although friends of many years' standing, Selous and I only did one shooting-trip together, and that was after Reindeer in Norway. We sailed from Hull to Stavanger in August, 1907, and marched in with pack-ponies a few miles from the head of the Stavanger Fjord to Lyseheien, where a small shooting-box had been recently erected.

"Owing to a five years' close season which had just terminated we found the reindeer fairly numerous, and not too difficult to approach, but as they always feed up-wind, and cover a lot of ground, we had some days to walk long distances before spying any.

"We arrived at Lyseheien a few days before the opening of the season, and spent the time walking after ryper, of which we used to get 12 or 15 brace a day, and although Selous was never a good shot with the gun, he showed the same keenness after the birds as he did for any form of sport. He had to leave Norway a few days before I did, in order to see his boys before they returned to school.

"We were quite successful on this trip, and secured thirteen stags between us, with some good heads among them. When not hunting, we beguiled the time with some French novels Selous produced, and I never knew of his liking for this kind of literature before.

"We both enjoyed the trip thoroughly, and were surprised to find so wild and unfrequented a hunting ground within about three days journey of London."

During this season I was camped on the highest part of the range, some thirty miles to the north. A heavy snowstorm, lasting for six days, occurred on September 1st, and drove all the deer south-west to Lyseheien, which accounted in some measure for the excellent sport enjoyed by my friends.

Reindeer are at all times subject to these sudden local migrations, and the very uncertainty of the sport makes it somewhat fascinating and difficult. In Norway it is now difficult to secure a good reindeer head for this reason, and the fact that indiscriminate poaching, even on what is called strictly preserved ground, prevails.