BOOK NOTICES. 



AN AMERICAN IN AFRICA. 



\V. T. HORN AD AY. 



It is good to be young and fit to venture. 

 It is good to have the stout heart, the 

 strong limb and the cool head which qual- 

 ifies a man to fare well in savage Africa, 

 and to mix up with wild men and wild 

 beasts. It is good to be a pioneer and to 

 help found a new empire. Incidentally, it 

 is also good to come out alive. 



In 1889, William H. Brown, fresh from 

 graduation at the University of Kansas, was 

 appointed by Professor Goode, of the Na- 

 tional Museum, to serve as naturalist of 

 the U. S. Eclipse expedition to West 

 Africa; and when the Pensacola sailed 

 away from Cape Town, he remained to do 

 further work for the museum. Forthwith 

 he joined the Pioneer expedition then 

 about starting North to take posession of 

 Mashonaland, and with it marched North, 

 1.700 miles from Cape Town, to the rich 

 and salubrious plateau now known as 

 Rhodesia. There he helped to found a 

 new empire. He had no end of adventures 

 in hunting big game, and in hunting sav- 

 ages during the rebellion. He became a 

 landed proprietor, made a small fortune, 

 and in a fine volume entitled. "On the 

 South African Frontier," he tells us all 

 about it. 



This book is not a book of premedita- 

 tion, as are most African books. When the 

 author landed in New York last year he 

 had no thought of writing a book; which 

 . is very much to his credit. It was his 

 friends who led him into the task; and the 

 result is a volume that is by long odds the 

 best and most interesting book about Eng- 

 land's new South African Empire that has 

 thus far been produced. Having seen all 

 of them, I know this to be true. It is an 

 ideal book of adventure and exploration, 

 interesting alike to the general reader, the 

 sportsman, the soldier, the political eco- 

 nomist, the ethnologist, and the business 

 man in search of new fields for enterprise. 



With rare judgment the author has kept 

 his story down to such reasonable limits 

 that the reader is glad to read every word 

 of it; for there is yot a dull page in the 

 book. For the first time, so far as I have 

 seen, the story of the great Pioneer expedi- 

 tion has been adequately told. We are given 

 the salient points of the whole journey from 

 Cape Town to Salisbury, but without a 

 page that we care to skip. Thousands of 

 people, doubtless have wondered what hap- 

 pened during the first year of the occupa- 

 tion of Mashonaland; and now we know. 

 Within 12 miles of the newly founded cap- 



ital, "Fort" Salisbury, Mr. Brown found 

 on the Gwibi Flats great herds of sable 

 antelope, roan antelope, eland, reed buck, 

 zebras, tressebe antelope and ostriches, in 

 the contemplation of which he became so 

 absorbed that night came on him before he 

 had fired a shot. "It was like Africa in the 

 days of Livingston." Nevertheless, during 

 the succeeding 2 years, Mr. Brown hunted 

 and killed all kinds of the large game of 

 that vast region, save the white rhinoceros. 



On one expedition, made to secure skins, 

 skeletons and heads of the African buffalo, 

 he killed 7 buffaloes one morning before 

 breakfast. The king of the herd, probably 

 as large a specimen as ever came out of 

 Africa, is now in the Carnegie Museum, at 

 Pittsburg. The author's hunting adventures 

 would easily have made a volume the size 

 of the present one; but he has wisely re- 

 frained from devoting too much space to 

 this feature of the story. 



Even in Africa, few persons are yet aware 

 of the fact that Mr. Brown was the first 

 white man to be attacked by a hostile Ma- 

 tabele savage in what soon became the na- 

 tive rebellion. The incident occurred while 

 he was hunting buffalo, at a considerable 

 distance from Salisbury, and 30 miles from 

 the nearest white man. On marching past 

 Tchininga's village he and his men were 

 fired on from the edge of the rocky hill on 

 which the village was "situated. Mr. 

 Brown's natives fled for tall timber, but he 

 quickly made a detour, rifle in one hand, 

 revolver in the other, and climbed up the 

 rear side of the Ropji, to give the Ma- 

 shonas a stern lecture on their insolence. 

 As he reached the top, a burly, naked sav- 

 age sprang from behind a rock, poised an 

 assegai and hurled it. The distance was 

 only 10 feet! "Instinctively I pulled the 

 trigger of my revolver, and discharged 

 three shots so quickly as to spoil the aim 

 of my assailant." The native came off 

 second best, and he proved a Matebele spy 

 from the South who, with two others, had 

 come to incite the more peaceful Mashonas 

 to join them on a given day in the pleasing 

 pastime of beating out the brains of their 

 white employers, and of their wives and 

 children. It was a good omen that the 

 first Matabele that attempted to murder a 

 white man chose a wide-awake and well- 

 armed American, who promptly laid him 

 out. 



When the storm of rebellion burst, and 

 white people were being murdered by the 

 score, trusted servants treacherously kill- 

 ing their employers and benefactors, the 

 'Rhodesia Horse" was quickly organized 

 and sent from Salisbury to Matabelelaml. 



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