Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
In the preface to his Travel and Adventure in Southeast Africa Mr.
Selous tells how he had determined, in 1881, upon visiting the ostrich
farm of his friend Frank Mandy, to settle down in Africa for a quiet
life. Then he went home and spent a few months in England. Visiting
the Natural History Department of the British Museum, he was shown by
Dr. Gunther and his associate how old and dilapidated some of the
specimens were, and how many noble forms were not represented at all.
He took note of what he ought to get should he visit the interior of
Africa again. Next we find him in South Africa, not quiet on a farm as
he had intended to be, but in the wilderness, where he spent six years
(1882-'87) engaged principally in collecting specimens "of the
magnificent fauna which once abounded throughout the land," but many
forms of which were now becoming scarce and some were verging on
extinction. He shot and preserved a great many fine specimens of the
larger antelopes, some of which may be seen in the New Natural History
Museum at South Kensington, while others are in the collection of the
South African Museum at Cape Town. Besides the stories of specimen
hunting and adventures with the lions that are always to be found
where game is abundant, the volume contains much matter of more
general interest, such as notes of personal experiences among the
Boers; accounts of two expeditions sent against the Batauweni by
Lobengula; the devastations committed by the Matabele in Mashonaland;
valuable notes on the Bushmen or Masarwas; accounts of journeys beyond
the Zambezi to the countries of the Machukulumbwi and Barotsi tribes;
and a review of the past history and present condition of Mashonaland.
We find here also a notice of the caves of Sinola, with a subterranean
lake in the principal cave having water marked by a deep-blue color
like that of the blue grotto of Capri, an account of which was
published by Mr. Selous in the Proceedings of the Geographical Society
of London for May, 1888. An account of Mr. Selous's Twenty Years in
Zambezia was published in the Geographical Journal in 1893.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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