"Listen, and I will give you my reasons for encouraging a love of field sports in those youths that emigrate. Excitement of some kind they must have; so the choice is between the nearest canteen, where drinking to excess and gambling on credit are rampant, or to shooting, fishing and hunting. In pursuit of these last mentioned the sojourner returns home to his unattractive shanty too tired and too hungry to again go forth, yet invigorated and strengthened by his exercise. In the pursuit of the former, property, wealth, and reputation are soon alike lost. Believe me, your boys, when away from paternal control in foreign lands, must have excitement; and the excitement derived from the chase is much healthier than that inhaled in a pot-house."
Thus Parker Gillmore, in his Preface to "The Hunter's Arcadia" justifies his love of field sports. A Captain in the British Army during the Crimean War and in China, he was a prolific hunting writer, author of "Great Thirst Land", "A Ride Through Hostile Africa", "The Amphibian's Voyage", Gun, Rod and Saddle" amongst other titles.
Thus Parker Gillmore, in his Preface to "The Hunter's Arcadia" justifies his love of field sports. A Captain in the British Army during the Crimean War and in China, he was a prolific hunting writer, author of "Great Thirst Land", "A Ride Through Hostile Africa", "The Amphibian's Voyage", Gun, Rod and Saddle" amongst other titles.
In "The Hunter's Arcadia he writes in great detail about the wildlife of South Africa he has observed, and in most cases dispatched with No.5 shot bought from Messrs. Kynoch and Co. of Witton, Birmingham. There is something almost comical about the way Gillmore describes his victims in such careful detail, often accompanying them with quite beautiful illustrations, before inevitably knocking them off. In describing the rufous-backed batelour eagle, he writes:
"Its powers of flight are something marvellous, and this may well be imagined when I state that its wings protrude far beyond its tail. It is only to be found in Africa, and in the locality in which we then were it is the most common of the birds of prey. Morning and evening it can be seen sailing in the heavens at an immense height, its wings apparently motionless, until a victim attracts its attention, when the velocity of its descent is probably unrivalled by any bird of prey. During the heat of noon it rests occasionally upon a rock, more generally upon a tree, but its wariness is so great that it is almost impossible to get within shot of it."
However, one individual was clearly not quite wary enough, and pays the ultimate price for interfering with another bird that Gillmore had his eye on:
"To save the pauw, the gallant eagle had to be knocked on the head, which was a sad necessity..."
I refrained from looking up the "game" animals bagged by Gillmore to see whether any of them are now endangered species, or worse.
Harder to smile at are Gillmore's descriptions of the Africans he encounters, and sometimes employs, during his time in Bechuanaland (now Botswana), but for a British colonial hunter in the late nineteenth century perhaps one is unjustified in expecting anything more enlightened. As a piece of cultural history it is certainly instructive: Gillmore's casual, often brutal, assumptions of racial superiority must have been one of a thousand such narratives that wormed their way into British readers' minds and into our collective image of "Darkest Africa".
"The Hunter's Arcadia" is currently for sale on Ebay for the price of £80.00 (or a close offer):
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