SAFARI

[ Tanganyika Territory in the nineteen-thirties; Big Game Hunting ] Six long Autograph Letters Signed from Hugo Meynell to his father F. H. Lindley Meynell, including a sixteen-page letter describing a safari in the Serengeti.

Author: 
Hugo Meynell (1909-1960), son of Francis Hugo Lindley Meynell (1880-1941) of Hoar Cross, Burton-on-Trent [ Tanganyika Territory in the nineteen-thirties; big game hunting in Africa; African Safari]
Publication details: 
Four of the letters on letterheads of Mtotohovu, Tanga, Tanganyika Territory; one on letterhead of Union-Castle Line SS 'Durham Castle', and another from Thaba Bosigo, Fouriesburg Rail, Orange Free State. Between 1 September 1932 and 4 January 1933.
£250.00

A total of 46pp., mostly on 4to Mtotohovu letterheads. In fair condition, aged and worn. From the Meynell family papers. In the first letter he describes his preparations for an elephant shoot on the Serengeti: 'I a taking a 400 elephant gun a 300 high velocity gun, and a shot gun. My escort consists of a gun bearer, cook, tent boy lorry driver & skinner.' Of the participants in the '"Ngoma" native dance games' he writes: 'they really were awful, covered in red & yellow clay or mud - they really did look maniacs & I am sure are more than half Savages'.

Carbon typescript of review, for the magazine 'African Affairs', of Wallis's edition of Leask's 'Southern African Diaries'.

Author: 
James Pollock, journalist, of the BBC and accredited Correspondent of Argus South African Newspapers Ltd. [Thomas Leask (1839-1912), elephant hunter; big game hunting; safari]
Publication details: 
Undated [circa 1954].
£56.00

8vo: 3 pp. Lightly creased and aged, but in good condition overall. Text entirely clear and legible. Headed ''African Affairs | Book Review (Pollock)'. A knowledgeable and readable review, for the magazine 'African Affairs', beginning 'Thomas Leask was a modest elephant-hunter with a passion for scribbling. [...] he never seems quite to have got over his surprise at finding himself transplanted from his native Orkney to the land of the lordly Matabele and miserable Mashona.

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