More On F.C. Selous – His Weapons & the Game Reserve & Rhodesian Scouts Named After Him

By Rolf Baldus and Ludwig Siege

His Weapons: Frederick Courteney Selous’s life as a hunter and naturalist stretches from the time when Africa’s elephant hunters shot lead balls from smooth-bore muzzle-loaders to the introduction of the modern hunting weapons and cartridges of today. This makes his experience incomparable.

Selous, age 23, with one of his 4-bore muzzle-loaders. (From: A Mighty Nimrod, 1989)

In his books and articles Selous also wrote about his weapons.  After arriving in South Africa, his favourite weapon, the Reilly breach-loading double-barrel rifle of the calibre .577 Snider was stolen. Apparently the Snider, with its muzzle energy of 1665 ft/lbs, was known in those days as being powerful enough for big-game hunting. Selous probably was lucky not to have used it on elephants!

After the theft, he bought two 4-bore (four equal-sized spherical lead bullets make up one English pound) Hollis muzzle-loaders. These were modified flintlock duck-hunting guns that had been converted for percussion ignition, shortened in the barrel, and with reinforced stocks. Yet they only weighed 5.5 kg, which made the recoil unbearable. However, these weapons proved themselves ideal for elephant hunting. A third weapon of the same type is shown in his art photo from the mid-1870s. It can be now seen in the national archive in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

The 4-bore muzzle-loaders achieved over 8000 ft/lbs muzzle velocity and a 1450 feet/second muzzle speed with a 112-grain heavy lead ball. After returning from England in 1876 Selous mostly used a single barrel muzzle-loader rifle in 10-bore with a bullet weight of 45.1 grains. This weapon proved itself so reliable and accurate that he kept it until the 1880s. Though the muzzle energy was about half as high as that of the 4-bore, apparently it was good enough for killing elephants.

On a famous safari photo, one can see the replacement of the 10-bore: his single-barrelled Gibbs .461 (or .450, as the producer called the rifle back then, although the actual calibre was .461 inch) with an elegant Farquharson lock (‘falling block’) and a muzzle energy of around 3000 ft/lbs with a muzzle speed of 1910 ft/sec.

In his second book, Travel and Adventures in South East Africa, there is a chapter about the advantages of large and small calibre weapons when hunting African game. Selous points out that at the beginning of the 1880s he stopped using large calibres. Under ‘small calibre’ one understood calibres under .500 inch. Selous describes his Gibbs as completely adequate for elephants, of which he shot another 10 during those years. However, he advises professional elephant hunters not to completely discount the use of the fat 4- or 8-bores in thick bush. He suggests to also try out the then new Paradox guns in 10- or 12-bore. These are large calibre hybrids with smooth barrels and a bit of rifling near the muzzle - apparently good for all kinds of game, from birds to elephants.

It was not until 1893 that Selous fired a small, modern type of bullet for the first time - the .303 British. Its force, accuracy, and the low trajectory pleased him greatly and made him give up his beloved Gibbs.

The Game Reserve:  With an overall area of circa 48,000 km² or 5% of Tanzania’s area, today the Selous Game Reserve is Africa’s largest unoccupied game reserve – larger than all of Switzerland. Founded in 1896 by German East Africa’s colonial administration, it is also the oldest still existing conservation area.

After the First World War, in which General von Lettow-Vorbeck fought a guerilla war with the British in German East Africa without being defeated, Great Britain took control of the German colony. In the early 1920s the British named the game reserve after Frederick C. Selous, who had died and was buried there. The independent Tanzanian government has not changed the old colonial name and a name change has never been considered. In 1982 the United Nations declared the Selous Game Reserve a World Heritage Site.

The reserve lies in the catchment of the Rufiji and Ruaha Rivers. At its mouth by the Indian Ocean, the Rufiji forms the largest mangrove delta in East Africa. In this Delta the German cruiser Königsberg was sunk in 1915, after a legendary battle with the British Marine Corps.

The entire Selous Game Reserve is unoccupied by humans, except for a few game scout stations and the hunting camps of several authorized big-game hunting safari companies. Deforestation by surrounding communities is not allowed and the wildlife resources are utilized according to strictly organized trophy hunting. The north of the reserve, with Selous’s grave in the centre, has been designated for gameviewing tourism.

Long after the creation of the Selous Game Reserve, Germany became active in the management of Selous once again.  Because of the catastrophic poaching and the decline of the Reserve in the 1980s, the German development assistance dedicated itself to rehabilitation through the Selous Conservation Programme (SCP). The Game Reserve, home to 60% of the entire elephant population of Tanzania, was the most affected by poaching.

Its elephant numbers – in 1976 still estimated at about 110,000 animals – had been reduced to 30,000 within 10 years. Government investments in the Game Reserve sank to a minimum, and the game wardens were badly equipped and ineffective. The unhindered poaching had its roots in political and business circles, in neighbouring villages, and even in the wildlife department itself.

The SCP – led during its entire implementation from 1987 to 2003 by Baldus and Siege – has helped the Reserve in establishing the necessary infrastructure and management structures to enable the administration to sustainably protect and utilize the area. This could be achieved only through the support of neighbouring communities. Today, the wildlife protected areas that also exist around the Reserve itself provide an income for the villages, and thus give the inhabitants an incentive to protect both habitat and wildlife. Since then, animal populations have grown and are still growing considerably. Selous Scouts:  The Rhodesian army commando regiment of the same name was founded in 1973 with the goal of developing and using special anti-guerilla tactics in the war against Robert Mugabe’s and Joshua Nkomo’s rebels. Apparently the founders thought that Selous’s name symbolized this task well.

Amongst the Selous Scouts there were many black Rhodesians. Two-thirds of guerilla casualties are attributed to them. They were known as being extremely effective in bush warfare.  However, this did not prevent the minority regime under Prime Minister Ian Smith in Salisbury from having to admit defeat to Mugabe in 1980. That same year the Selous Scouts were disbanded.  Robert Mugabe is still in power today.