Part 1 (1/2)

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

by J.G. Millais.

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 n.o.ble for certain notes with regard to short expeditions made in his company. Mr.

Abel Chapman, a life-long friend, has also a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sistance in furnis.h.i.+ng 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.

CHAPTER I

1851-1865

Men of all ages are apt to set up for themselves heroes. It is their instinct to wors.h.i.+p exceptional force of character and to follow a leader; but as we survey the tempest of human suffering we are now more apt to wonder if there are any great men left in the world and think that perhaps, after all, we have made a mistake in putting on pedestals the heroes of the past; for tried in the light of the present day they would, perchance, not have proved heroes at all. The cynic may even sneer at this lovable trait in human nature and affect to place all men in a commonplace ratio, but then it is easier to be a cynic than a man of faith. Nevertheless, Humanity must have something to trust, to acclaim and admire, and so millions of all ages cling to their wors.h.i.+p of the hero, even though he may wear top hat and trousers. There will always be great men amongst the ma.s.s of pygmies, though many say the age of hero-wors.h.i.+p has gone--doubtless swamped in the scale of colossal events. Still, if the great men of the past were not as large as they seemed, the little men of to-day may be greater, in spite of the fact that the chief actors in the modern drama of life are nations and not individuals.

But what const.i.tutes a great man will ever be the result of individual opinion. In Russia to-day millions, perhaps, think Lenin and Trotsky are demi-G.o.ds, whilst an equal number call them traitors and would prefer to see them hanged. To us, perhaps, the belief that Right will triumph over wrong, and the man who in simple faith gives up all that is sweet and pleasant to serve his country in the most fearful strife the world has ever seen, is the embodiment of heroism. There are tens of thousands of men who have done the same as Frederick Selous and none are less heroes than he; each and all of them are as much ent.i.tled to their pedestal of fame, although they may not have exhibited the mind that influences for years in many lands. They have all counted the cost and endured the sacrifice, and they do not talk about their inner thoughts. This, to our minds, is true heroism.

So in studying the life of one Englishman, great in the sense that everything he did was big, honourable, clever, and brave, we shall realize how character is formed in the iron mill of experience, how a man unhelped by wealth or social advantages and gifted only with exceptional talents in a line, mainly unprofitable in a worldly sense, came to win through the difficulties and dangers of a more than usually strenuous life and reach the haven of completed work. Selous was a type of Englishman of which we are justly proud. His very independence of character and impatience of restraint when once he knew a thing was right was perhaps his greatest a.s.set. He knew what he wanted to do and did it even if it resulted, as it did on one occasion, in his personal unpopularity. It was this fearless striving towards the Light and constant love of what was beautiful in Nature, that forced him into Literature, so that others might see with his eyes the things that he thought were best. And thus he rose and became a type and an influence in our national life, and in time swayed the lives of others.

The Selous family were originally French Huguenots, who settled in Jersey after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Annoyance at being turned out of France caused Gideon Slous to omit the ”e” from the surname, but later this was re-adopted by his son Frederick Lokes Selous, father of Frederick Courtenay. Of the character of his parents and uncles Edmund Selous kindly sends me the following notes:--

”... I can only say generally, that my father was a man of high and varied talents and very high character, of French, or at any rate, Jersey descent, and that he started with nothing in life, and with only such education (beyond what he owed to his mother, an uncommon woman, who probably did better for him) as an ordinary private school had afforded, equipped himself with French and Italian in perfection, entered the Stock Exchange at an early age, had a successful career there, and rose to be Chairman of its Committee. He was a fine whist and chess player (more especially, or more notedly, the latter) and was reputed, I believe, at one time, to be the best amateur player of the clarionet. Music was his constant and greatest delight, but his pen was also an instrument which (though he sought no public beyond his friends) he often used very entertainingly. He was a brilliant--often a witty--talker, with a distinction of manner, more French- than English-seeming in its light debonairness, and his individualities, traits, foibles, etc., were so many and vivid, that to write either of him or of Dr. Johnson with scanted pen, would be much the same thing. My two uncles, the artist and dramatist, who lived next door, on each side of us, would also require portraiture for anything beyond this bare statement. Both were out-of-the-canvas-stepping personalities, carrying with them atmosphere and aroma.

”My mother was an exceptionally thoughtful and broad-minded woman--more advanced, on most subjects, than where they stand now--a vivid and vital being, of great vivacity, gladness (that never was levity) and conversational powers, with a gift for the interchange of ideas (which is not, by any means, always the same thing). She was also a poet, as her little volume of collected pieces, 'Words without Music' (a modest t.i.tle) testifies, at least to myself. She had joyous 'L'Allegro'-like country instincts, a deep inborn love of the beauties of nature (which she sketched charmingly), and great feeling for, and interest in both plant and animal _life_. I underline that word, in its last connection, because killing was quite another thing for her, and her whole soul shrank away from it. But of course, as you know, what, in root and origin, may be the same, is often differentiated in the s.e.xes, and so inherited by each. It was, I think, undoubtedly through our mother (though he did not, personally, much resemble either parent) that my brother inherited everything that made him distinctively himself. By this I mean that though much and that the best--as, for instance, his patriotism and love of truth--may have come to him from both sides, and some from the other only, it was that one that gave to it, and the whole, its original life-shaping turn.

The whole was included in the blood of the Bruces of Clackmannan, representative, I believe, of the elder branch of the family that gave Robert Bruce to the throne of Scotland, but what exact position, in our family tree, is occupied by Bruce, the Abyssinian explorer, I do not quite know. However, he must have been some sort of ancestor of my brother, and Bruce, since the intermingling, has been a family name, though not given to any of us surviving infancy, owing to an idea which had arisen, through several instances of such a.s.sociation, that it had become unlucky. In this regard, it has been rather the patronymic, which, from one war to another, has borne the malevolent influence. None have come back, either wounded, invalided or at all. All killed outright--but this by the way.

Had it not been for my mother, therefore, my brother, in all probability, would either never, or not in any preponderating degree, have felt the 'call of the wild,' for my father not only never felt it, but never was able to comprehend the feeling.

There was, in fact, nothing at all in him of what was my brother's life and being. He was, in the proper evolutionary sense of the word, essentially a civilized man and a Londoner.

Sport was, for him, an unknown (and much disliked) quant.i.ty, and though taking, in an air-tight-compartment sort of way, some interest in insects, he had not much about him of the real naturalist. Those feelings (imperishably summed up by Jack London in the t.i.tle of his masterpiece) which, coming out of a remote past, beckon back the only supposedly or but half-made-up civilized amongst us, from late into early conditions, were not, as I say, his heritage; and this was equally (or even more) the case with his brothers--my two uncles--and as far as I know or have ever heard, all the precedent members of the family. I believe, therefore, that by the intervention--merciful or otherwise--of the Bruce, Sherborn, and Holgate families, between them, my brother was saved, or debarred, from going either into the Stock Exchange or one of the settled professions. Which kind of phraseology best suits the conjuncture I know not, but I think I know what my brother's own opinion would be, since it put the particular circ.u.mstances of that event of his life, in which, of all others, he would esteem himself most happy and fortunate--I mean his death--upon a footing of certainty.

”I have alluded to my brother's independence of home (or, I think, of any) influence. I look upon him as a salient ill.u.s.tration of Darwin's finding that the force of heredity is stronger, in the individual, than that of education and surroundings. So far back as I can remember--at least with any distinctness--he was always just himself, with a settled determination that, in its calm, un.o.btrusive force (giving the idea of inevitability) had in it something elemental. He may not have lisped Africa (which was far from the family thoughts) but, if not, he, at least, came so near to it, as to have made us all almost remember that he did. He seems to have brought with him into this world 'from afar,' a mind long made up as to the part he should play in it, and his career was more than half run before any circ.u.mstance admitted by him as deflective from its true course, arose...”

Mrs. Jones (Ann Selous) also paints a pleasing picture of the early life of the family in their London house:--

”We lived in Gloucester Road, Regent's Park, in a house my father built for himself. At that time there were no other houses near, but all fields between his home and Primrose Hill, some way off; but this superior state of things his children never knew. Our uncles, my father's brothers, lived on either side of us. My father was vice-Chairman of the Stock Exchange for five years, and Chairman for three, until a very serious illness obliged him to resign and give up everything in the way of work. He was a fine chess player, his name is to be seen in the games amongst those of the great players of the day. He was also a very fine clarionet player, which instrument he taught himself when very young, and I well remember his beautiful tone, far beyond that of Lazarus, the chief professional player of the day, who no doubt sacrificed tone to technique. Whenever there was a speech to be made my father was equal to the occasion, having great fluency and humour and real wit. He was a delightful talker and his memory was a store-house of knowledge and recollections that he could draw upon whenever required. He was a very genial and admirable host, very high-spirited and excitable. He could never forget the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, when the Huguenots, his forebears, were driven from France. 'They turned us out! They turned us out!' he used to say to my mother, a real thought of bitterness to him. His greatest pleasure and relaxation was a walking-tour in Switzerland, a land he specially loved. He had often been there with one or other of his brothers, or with his great friend Baron Bramwell, the famous judge. These trips must have been ideal, my father and his brothers having in themselves everything that was necessary to make them gifted in all the arts, and so appreciative of nature and everything else, and with their lively sense of humour and wide interests they were able to extract the most from all they might chance upon in their travels, those being the days before tourists flooded the country and huge hotels swamped the more interesting inns. My father loved the busy life of the City, and had no country tastes such as farming or hunting, but he delighted in the life by the river--in canoeing, specially--and in a farmer's country home in the Isle of Wight, where, when we were children, we spent the summers. He was a fine swimmer and would swim out with one or other of us on his back. I well remember his energy, mental and physical, were remarkable. The loss of sight seemed only to affect his later years. His mind was clear and equal to dealing with his affairs to the last. At a very advanced age he had started tricycling and delighted in it. I think my father and my brother Fred were very dissimilar in character, interests and tastes. There was no 'call of the wild' in my father--nor, I think, in my mother, except through her imagination. My father left a few reminiscences which were never finished, as dictation tired him--he was then over eighty and blind. They are full of interesting memories which end unfortunately when he was still very young.”

”I was born,” writes my father, ”on the 9th of March, 1802.... I was a precocious child, for I was told that I knew my letters at about two years of age, and could read at three and a half and recite on a table at about four. I perfectly recollect declaiming the quarrel between Brutus and Ca.s.sius in Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar.' Also I remember the announcement of the death of Nelson in October, 1805, and witnessing his funeral procession in January, 1806.[1] I was perched on the shoulders of a journeyman baker named Guesnel at the corner of Poland Street, from whence I beheld the catafalque containing the remains of the ill.u.s.trious Nelson, the whole affair resembling much the interment of the Duke of Wellington, which I witnessed in 1852--forty-six years later. My brother Harry (the artist, H. C. Selous), who was thirteen months younger than I, remembers witnessing this spectacle too.... I can recollect weeping bitterly at hearing the first news of our great admiral's death, and the awe and wonder with which I looked upon the ceremony of his interment.... I was sent to school at Islington at the age of seven, and upon the master desiring me to read from a book which he gave to me he expressed himself so surprised at my reading that he told my mother he would not put me into any of the reading cla.s.ses of the upper boys, as I should put them to shame. I was at that time so strong and so hungry that I frequently carried some of the biggest boys round the playground (which was a large one) for an extra slice of bread and b.u.t.ter with which they repaid me. I was at school about a twelve-month and then came under my mother's care for instruction, and to her I owe more than I can possibly express with regard to my early education. She taught me the French language, Greek and Roman history, and the three R's--reading, writing, and arithmetic. When I was ten years, I was sent to a school called the Burlington school, where I improved my French, became a tolerable Latin scholar, and gained a smattering of mathematics. After being for two years at this academy, I was recalled to home rule and education and never had any further instruction from master or professor. At this time my brother and myself were allowed to wander about the streets uncontrolled and might have been considered as a sort of street Arabs, though we always selected our a.s.sociates carefully.” (Later on my father had to work very hard, very long hours, up till midnight four days in the week, but it did him no harm, and he was very strong and active. A great part of his time was occupied in reading every variety of book he could get hold of, from which he gained much general information, having an unusually good memory. Plutarch's lives were his first admired works. Pope, Addison and Johnson came next. He made the acquaintance of some of the celebrated Italian singers and learnt to speak their language fluently. All this part about the Italian singers is very interesting, and many things connected with the theatre likewise.)

”I also witnessed another performance which shocked me more than anything I ever beheld, for I was then very young. It was in 1815 or 16, I think, I happened to be rather early one day in my long walk to Great St. Helen's, which took me past St.

Sepulchre's and the broad opening to the narrow streets of the Old Bailey. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly across Newgate, and on chancing to look towards Ludgate Hill I saw dangling to a beam at the west side of Newgate five human beings suspended by the neck. One of them was a woman, who with a feeling for symmetry had been hung in the centre. All five had white night-caps drawn over their faces to conceal the horrible convulsions of the features. I don't know what their crimes had been, people were hanged in those savage days for stealing a s.h.i.+lling, or even cutting a stick from a plantation. The time appointed for cutting down the bodies had nearly arrived, and the crowd had diminished to an apathetic group princ.i.p.ally engaged in cracking nuts and jokes, and eating brandy b.a.l.l.s all hot; but horror gave speed to my steps and I soon left hideous Newgate behind me. I recollect a great sensation caused by the execution of Fauntleroy for forgery.” Here end these notes by my father.

”I think I remember rightly that at fourteen my father was not only making a livelihood for himself, but supporting his father and mother. He was most charitable and had the kindest heart in the world, and that high sense of honour which so distinguished his son. I think that though these few extracts from his reminiscences are not, perhaps, of importance, yet they throw some light on my father's character, and indirectly it may be on my brother's also, for certainly in strength of purpose, energy, and will to succeed, also in vigorous health and const.i.tution, they were alike. They also had both a great facility for learning languages. We were amused to read in a book on African travel by, I think, a Portuguese, whose name for the moment I forget, that he came across the great hunter (I forget if he put it like that) Selous, 'somewhere' in Africa, who addressed him in the French of the 'Boulevard des Italiens!' As I think this traveller was supposed to have a lively imagination, we accepted Fred's superior accent (after so many years of never speaking or hearing French) with some grains of salt. But not very many years ago at some international meeting to do with sport, at Turin or Paris, Fred representing England, he made a speech in French, on which he was much complimented, for accent, wit, and fluency alike.[2]

”My mother, like my father, had a wonderful memory, and was a great reader, from childhood, her home possessing a big library.