The Lion Hunter

Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming (1820 – 1866) was a Scottish traveller and sportsman, known as the "lion hunter". From his early years he was distinguished by his passion for sport. He was educated at Eton, England, and at eighteen joined the East India Company's service as a cornet in the Madras Light Cavalry. The climate of India not suiting him, after two years he retired from the service and returned to Scotland. During his stay in the East he had laid the foundation of his collection of hunting trophies and specimens of natural history. In 1843 he joined the Cape Mounted Rifles, but for the sake of absolute freedom sold out at the end of the year and with an ox wagon and a few native followers set out for the interior of Africa. He hunted chiefly in Bechuanaland and the valley of the Limpopo River, regions then swarming with big game. In 1848 he returned to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The story of his exploits is vividly told in his book, Five Years of a Hunter's Life in the Far Interior of South Africa." The famous outdoors author and publisher Horace Kephart abridged the original two volume work, titling it as "The Lion Hunter", stating: "The original work is diffuse, and many of its pages are no more than a gruesome and tiresome catalogue of slaughter. I have here selected the best parts of the two volumes, without changing the text, and offer this abridgement under title of "The Lion Hunter," taken from the author's own soubriquet."

This book published in 1915 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.