Safari

A personal history, by an active environmentalist, of the development and characters of African safari hunting from its earliest days in 1836, examining the ethic of hunting and documenting the developments in weapons and transport against a background of tribal, wildlife and colonial history.

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This book is an illustrated history of the development of African safari hunting from the first safari in 1836, as Cornwallis Harris discovered the hunters garden of Eden in the Transvaal, to the last of the great professional hunters of today in the swamps of Tanzania and the high forests of Ethiopia. It tells the tale of William Cotton Oswell who taught Livingstone how to survive in the bush, of the elephant hunters of the 1890s, of Denys Finch Hatton and Isak Dinesen, of Theodore Roosevelt who conserved more game than he shot and Frederick Courtenay Selous. Descriptions are given of the animals which the hunters have stalked and of safari clients including the Prince of Wales, Ernest Hemingway and Ava Gardner. The ethics of hunting are discussed against the background of tribal, wildlife and colonial history and the development of weapons and transport are documented. Throughout the attraction of the African bush is described by the author, an active environmentalist and an ex-hunter who now prefers to scout on horseback with an armed guard.