26 //A/ GAME SHOOTING 



CHAPTER II 



SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 



BY W. COTTON OSWEU. 



WILLIAM COTTON OS WELL: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

 BY SIR SAMUEL \V. BAKKR 



ONE man alone was left who could describe from personal 

 experience the vast tracts of Southern Africa and the countless 

 multitudes of wild animals which existed fifty years ago in 

 undisturbed seclusion ; the ground untrodden by the Euro- 

 pean foot ; the native unsuspicious of the guile of a white 

 intruder. This man, thus solitary in this generation, was the 

 late William Cotton Oswell. He had scarcely finished the pages 

 upon the fauna of South Africa when death seized him (May i, 

 1893) and robbed all those who knew him of their greatest 

 friend. His name will be remembered with tears of sorrow 

 and profound respect. 



Although Oswell was one of the earliest in the field of South 

 African discovery, his name was not world-wide, owing to his 

 extreme modesty, which induced him to shun the notoriety that 

 is generally coupled with the achievements of an explorer. Long 

 before the great David Livingstone became famous, when he 

 was the simple unknown missionary, doing his duty under 

 the direction of his principal, the late Rev. Robert Moffat, 

 whose daughter he married, Oswell made his acquaintance 

 while in Africa, and became his early friend. 



