Correspondence: Big Game Hunter Frederick Noble Findlay (1900)

A collection of 30 signed manuscript letters written by Frederick Roderick Noble Findlay, author of 'Big Game Shooting and Travel in South-East Africa - An Account of Shooting Trips in the Cheringoma and Gorongoza Divisions of Portuguese South-East Africa and in Zululand'.

Findlay mentions aspects of his book in some of the letters. Addressed to Mr. Colles of 'The Author's Syndicate' Findlay often mentions Selous, Samuel C. Cronwright-Schreiner, Olive Schreiner, Louis Botha. Caldwell is suggested as the illustrator. Some letter were written from Diyatalawa POW Camp in the Boer War, where he was a censor. There are archival numbers, written in blue pencil on each letter. No provenance available. The Cullen library has the bulk of the Findlay -Schreiner material.

More Info on Frederick Roderick Noble Findlay

Findlay trekked through the virtually unknown recesses of the vast swamp and forest lands of Portuguese Southeast Africa and along the Urema and Massarara rivers. The game encountered included buffalo, waterbuck, hartebeest, lion, leopard, reedbuck, and other game. He then travelled to Zululand and bagged black rhino, buffalo, kudu, hippo, and inyala near the Manzibomvu River.

Findlay also describes a springbok and ostrich hunt in the karoo country of Cape Colony. Though an ardent sportsman, he also realized the limits of wild game in Africa and argues for the preservation of habitat and maintaining healthy numbers of game animals.' Olive Schreiner, the author's aunt, contributes Part I (8 pages) to Chapter 20, The Fauna of Africa: Conservation or Extermination, a paper entitled, Waste Land in Mashonaland in which she describes the destruction of the fauna of Mashonaland, 'For the moment we are so entirely bent on advancing the claims of a material civilisation, which we are inclined to regard as the all in all of life, that more subtle, if equally practical and important, considerations are apt to be forgotten. This view is forced on us when we consider the reckless and entirely wanton destruction of the one form of production for which the African continent, and more especially its southern portions, stand pre-eminent among the world's divisions - our astonishing fauna. Czech (Dr. Kenneth P.)

220mm x 275mm

R25,000