bought a book today...

[IdahoSharpshooter]

We had a nice gun show yesterday and today near Boise, Idaho.

I'm a real junkie for African hunting books, especially those written prior to WWI. The days when Wild Africa existed, and maps showed vast expanses just marked "Unexplored".

The book is titled "Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa", by a nearly unknown Elephant hunter named Arthur H. Neumann. Neumann left Mombasa for a three year Elephant hunting safari. He was an Ivory hunter.

Neumann describes towns never on a map, either in 1896, when his epic journey began, or three years later, when he sold his Ivory and returned to Dunvegan Castle; and even today. Kenya in those days was Kenia, and Kilimanjaro was Kilimenaro.

It is a reprint from 1966, from the library of Abercrombie & Fitch, whose library contained an original printed by Rowland Ward in London in 1898.

Fascinating times then...

Rich

 

[Intheshop]

Good snag on the book,and nice writeup.

 

[Grimstod]

I am a bit of a book worm myself. Nice catch.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Best book i ever bought at a gun show was unintended consequenses by john ross. Everybody should read that.

 

[theMadAlaskan]

Best book i ever bought at a gun show was unintended consequenses by john ross. Everybody should read that.

I've read that one twice.

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

Unintended Consequences is a great book. I helped a bit with some articles I wrote for Precision Shooting Magazine about six months before the book was published on LR shooting.

 

[K22]

Get the Man Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett. Available at Amazon.

It's about hunting man eater tigers in India. Good luck sleeping at night.

 

[hogpatrol]

Idahosharpshooter, et al. If you like that book, you may like W.D.M. Bell's two tales of elephant ivory hunting, Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter and Karamojo Safari. His safaris included whole families with births, deaths and all manner of wheeling and dealing with Arican potentates and colonial governments. Just a sample, he tells a story about two "boys" transporting elephant tusks. They were swept away in a swollen river. The one that could swim got taken by a crocodile. The other, who couldn't swim, got washed up on shore. He killed over 1100 elephants and hundreds of cape buffalo.

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

I have all of his books. Summer of 1959, I was nine, and I used to saddle a horse and ride three miles into town to the library, which was built in 1890-something. They still had part of the parking area in back they left the hitching posts in place. I'd ride in, get a couple books out of my saddlebags, and turn them in. Then, I would read or use the stereograph machine for a couple hours. Then get a couple books to take home. These two brothers who founded the town steel mill were multi-millionaires, and pretty much built the cultural buildings. They hunted all over the world, and had an entire section of shelves on big game hunting. Reading about Cape Buffalo, gave me the hunting virus, which is incurable.

I went back to the gun show today after church, and the same guy brought a dozen more books. I bought two more, one a reprint of the original by George A.F. Ruxton on his travels in the West entitled "Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains 1846-1847. Great book for those with an interest in the era following the Fur Trade heydays.

Better yet, I bought a well worn second edition (1921 (original publish date of 1899) printed by the American Historical Press. of "The Story of South Africa" which chronicles the history of that country from early settlement by the Boers thru the end of the war England started in 1899 when the vast diamond and gold mines caused the British to decide that the Dutch were ill equipped to keep the country and invaded it. It amazes me, to this day that Great Britain just decided many other countries were also ill equipped to govern themselves, and just made war to annex them to the British Empire.

The sub-title is An Account of "The Historical Transformation of the Dark Continent by the European Powers and the Culminating Contest Between Great Britian and the South African Republic in the Transvaal War".
By John Clark Ridpath, LL.D
and
Edward S. Ellis, A.M.

I confess, I am a bookworm...

Rich

 

[CT10ring]

Here's one for you: West With the Night. Beryl Markham's (female) unbelievable SOLO flying exploits across British East Africa in a biplane 1930's. Ernest Hemingway said after reading her accounts of flying- "I am completely ashamed of myself as a writer. She can write rings around all of of us (writers)." Reading will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Those days are gone forever, but some recorded their lives on paper.