His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. Going to South Africa when he was 19, he travelled from the Cape of Good Hope to Matabeleland, which he reached early in 1872, and where (according to his own account) he was granted permission by Lobengula, King of the Ndebele, to shoot game anywhere in his dominions.From then until 1890, with a few brief intervals spent in England, Selous hunted and explored over the then little-known regions north of the Transvaal and south of the Congo Basin, shooting elephants and collecting specimens of all kinds for museums and private collections. His travels added greatly to the knowledge of the country now known as Zimbabwe. He made valuable ethnological investigations, and throughout his wanderings—often among people who had never previously seen a white man—he maintained cordial relations with the chiefs and tribes, winning their confidence and esteem, notably so in the case of Lobengula. In 1890, Selous entered the service of the British South Africa Company, at the request of magnate Cecil Rhodes, acting as guide to the pioneer expedition to Mashonaland. Over 400 miles of road were constructed through a country of forest, mountain and swamp, and in two and a half months Selous took the column safely to its destination. He then went east to Manica, concluding arrangements which brought the country there under British control. Coming to England in December 1892, he was awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his extensive explorations and surveys. Here are some reviews of Selous' "Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa" by publications of the period: "Page after page teems with stirring exploits with lions, elephants, hyaenas, and other animals, and the risks undergone in dealing with the treacherous Matabili and other tribes." "... surpassing…." --- Natural Science: a Monthly Review of Scientific Progress ================================================== "An account of some of the most wonderful feats and adventures that the annals of Africa can show." "This book contains innumerable accounts of hunting, adventure and natural history… carried on beyond the Zambesi and in other little-known parts of the African interior. For these and other researches… Mr. Selous has long since earned the Geographical Society's gold medal." --- Country Life, Volume 22 ================================================== "There is no lack of marvels in Mr. Selous's book: We gape at the magnificent stone ruins of a perished and forgotten civilisation and at hair-breadth escapes from lion or elephant. We are transported to a new atmosphere, with so much of the story-teller's art that we feel as if we ourselves are… in the South African Veld, wondering if there is any water left in the vleys by the last rains, losing everything we possess by a vicious hippopotamus tossing our canoe, having our best ox carried off by a lion under our very noses on a black night, or flying for our own lives from a treacherous attack by the Mashukulumbwi on another such night." "It is what is called 'a rattling good book!'" --- The Literary World, Volume 48 This book published in 1893 has been refor