Adventures of an Elephant Hunter AFRICANA COLLECTABLE. SIGNED 1st Ed 1912 Capt James Sutherland.

TRUE COLLECTORS' ITEM! Scarce, classic of Big Game Hunting. SIGNED: Capt. James Sutherland; The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter. 1912. Firs Edition. 

Publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, London, 1912

Condition is rather worn and well travelled. Restored. Hardcover. Original gilt image of elephant on cover, signed on reverse inside cover. Light staining throughout.No text added to spine. TWO signatures:

Message from author in fountain pen on inside of original hard cover: "Bill/ In memory of many happy hunts and dangers (?) together. Yours ever, James Sutherland. August 1913." Ex Libris GED Stiebel, whose signature appears to be that on the page opposite, under newspaper clipping. THIS IS NOT A LIBRARY BOOK.

Sutherland arrived in Cape Town in 1896 at the age of 24, with no fixed ideas of a career. In 1904 Sutherland moved into German East Africa where he hunted for the next decade. From 1905 to 1906 he became involved in the Maji Maji Rebellion, fought with German colonial forces, and was awarded the Iron Cross for his conduct. Over the course of his life, Sutherland shot between 1,300 and 1,600 elephants. 

In The Adventures Of An Elephant Hunter, Sutherland describes two very close encounters with elephants and one with a buffalo. On one occasion an elephant hurled him into the air and he landed on its back, holding on for dear life he managed to grab an overhanging branch, drop to the ground then, once he had recovered his rifle, follow up and kill the elephant. The largest pair of tusks Sutherland describes from the one elephant he shot weighed 152 pounds (69 kg) and 137 pounds (62 kg), whilst the second largest pair weighed 145 pounds (66 kg) and 140 pounds (64 kg). In 1912 Sutherland published an account of his exploits to that date,The Adventures Of An Elephant Hunter. Upon his arrival in London in 1913, he was feted as the "World's Greatest Elephant Hunter".

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