THIS small volume contains some of the letters I have received during the last thirty years or more from well-known big-game hunters and field-naturalists, many of whom have now passed away. They were so interesting to me that I thought they might interest others who have shot in wilder Africa. Moreover, they describe conditions which are no longer possible considering the way many parts of that continent have been opened up since the Great War. Whether the spread of a so-called civilization is a good thing I do not wish to discuss, but I know there are many men, including myself, who would prefer the older times when things were less complicated and conventional. Many people are now going in for photography more than shooting, and in a way this is a good thing as it will naturally help to conserve the game. It is, however, a much less risky amusement to take animals’ pictures—I mean dangerous animals—than to try to kill them, for game such as lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhinoceros are seldom dangerous until they are wounded and followed up in thick cover. Some people may doubt this statement, but it is nevertheless true, as all experienced hunters can vouch.

In less than four years Edouard Foa covered 7200 miles, mostly on foot--from the Zambezi delta on Africa's east coast to the mouth of the Congo on the west. He risked every form of tropical disease and death from dangerous game and the unreliability of early guns. Foa succeeded in his efforts to create for the Paris Museum one of the finest collections of African animals and plants in the world. his account is full of hard, almost fatally earned bush knowledge. Frederick lee's able translation boosted this entertaining book to U.S. prominence (and two printings) in 1899.

Hailed as the adventure-writing successor to Hemingway and Ruark, only Peter Hathaway Capstick “can write action as cleanly and suspensefully as the best of his predecessors’ (Sports Illustrated). This long-awaited sequel to Death in the Silent Places brings to life four turn-of-the-century adventurers and the savage frontiers they braved. * Frederick Selous, a British hunter, naturalist, and soldier, rewrote the history books with his fearless treks deep into Africa. * English game ranger Constantine “Iodine” Ionides saved Tanganyikan villages from man-eating lions and leopards. He also gained lasting fame for his uncanny ability to capture black mambas, cobras, Gaboon vipers, and other deadly snakes. * The dashing Brit Johnny Boyes who gained the chieftainship of the Kikuyu tribe with sheer bravado and survived the ferocious battles and ambushes of intertribal warfare. * And Scottish ex-boxer, Jim Sutherland, one of the best ivory hunters who ever lived. His tracking skills and stamina afoot became the stuff of African hunting legend. In The African Adventurers: A Return to the Silent Places, Capstick delivers “the kind of chilling stories that Hemingway only heard second-hand...with a flair and style that Papa himself would admire” (Guns and Ammo). The author’s pungent wit and his authenticity gained from years in the bush make this quartet of vintage heroics an unforgettable return to the silent places.

Peter Hathaway Capstick died in 1996. At the time of his death, the world-renowned adventure writer was putting the finishing touches on this, a stirring and vivid biography of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, a man with whom he felt he had much in common. Edited and prepared for publication by his widow, Fiona Capstick, Warrior is Capstick’s riveting farewell to his fans and the final addition to the bestselling Peter Capstick Library. Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen was one of those rare men whom fate always seems to cast in the dramas that shape history. As a young officer, he served in India and Africa during the glory days of the British Empire, defending the crown’s dominions and exploring its darkest reaches. His exploits in the bloody colonial wars of turn-of-the-century East Africa earned him a reputation as one of the most fierce and ruthless soldiers in the Empire, yet it was during those years spent roaming the silent places of the Serengeti, hunting its game and learning its secrets, that Meinertzhagen developed a fascination with Africa that would last a lifetime. But there were other adventures to come, and Capstick narrates them all with his trademark skill and wit: daring commando raids against German forces in Africa and the Mideast during World War I, covert missions to the USSR and Nazi Germany between the wars, work as an OSS agent during World War II, and Meinertzhagen’s ceaseless support of Israeli nationhood are all woven together into an epic adventure. Warrior: The Legend of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen is a powerful chronicle that follows the tracks of a twentieth-century icon.