Chapter II: Preface

In preparing the life of my friend, Fred Selous, I have to thank his brother Edmund, and his sister Mrs. Jones (Ann Selous) for contributions regarding his parents and early life. I am also indebted to his friends, Sir Alfred Pease, Captain P. B. Vanderbyl and Mr. Heatley Noble for certain notes with regard to short expeditions made in his company. Mr. Abel Chapman, a life-long friend, has also assisted me with numerous letters which are of interest. But most of all have I to thank Mrs. Selous, who from the first has given me every assistance in furnishing details of her husband's adventurous life, and allowed me to read and extract from the numerous letters he wrote to different members of his family during a considerable part of his life. Selous had many friends, but none evinced a more keen understanding of his life and work than Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Ex-President of the United States, and I feel grateful to him for the attention he has given to the following pages and the use he has allowed me to make of his numerous letters.

The Author has also to thank Messrs. Macmillan and Co. and Messrs. Rowland Ward and Co. for the use they allowed him to make of two of Selous' works, namely, _A Hunter's Wanderings_ and _Travel and Adventure in S.E. Africa_. He is much indebted to their kindness in this matter, since they give in the hunter's own words accurate details of his life.

J. G. MILLAIS, COMPTON'S BROW, HORSHAM.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
1851-1865

Ancient and modern heroes--The character of Selous--The Selous
family--Edmund Selous' notes--An artistic and ancient
race--Selous' parents--Family life--Selous' father--Some of his
reminiscences--His mother--His uncles--Selous' childhood in
London--Early schooldays--Selous' own story of his youth--His
first battle--Youthful adventures--His athletic prowess--Life at
Belton Page 1

CHAPTER II
1865-1870

He enters Rugby--Love of books of travel--Life at Rugby--Rugby
football in the old days--"Butler's leap"--Excursions in Natural
History--Adventures out of bounds--The Pilton Range
episode--Raid on the Heronry at Coombe Abbey--A cold
swim--Unjust treatment--Wanderings with the rifle--Chased by the
keeper--Mr. Boughton Leigh's broad-mindedness--The ice accident
at Regent's Park--The panic--A narrow escape--Canon Wilson's
recollections of Selous as a schoolboy--"Williamson's"
duck--Neuchatel--Wiesbaden--His friend Colchester--A row with
the forester--He flies to Salzburg--Butterfly
collecting--Chamois hunting--The Franco-German War--Its
unpopularity in Austria--His estimate of the German
character--Visit to Vienna--Back in England 29