| Main centres: | 1-3 business days |
| Regional areas: | 3-4 business days |
| Remote areas: | 3-5 business days |
Howard Timmins, Cape Town, 1971 (first edition). Hardcover with dustcover, 254 pages.
Very good condition. Name of former owner in front. Rust spots on top edge. The pages are neat and clean. Tightly bound.
Author Eric Cronje Wilmot came to the Bechuanaland Protect-orate (now Botswana) in the early 1900s, and after a stint as a stock farmer, worked for the Protectorate Government in various capacities in the field, including as a Stock Inspector, Tsetse Fly Control Officer and Ranger. The events documented in this book took place while he was employed on the Tsetse Fly Control programme in the Okavango between 1944 and 1948. He had two sons and a daughter, with his son Bobby becoming a well-known Okavango crocodile hunter, and then founder of Crocodile Camp outside Maun. Bobby was a pioneer in the development of photographic safaris in the Okavango.
Wilmot takes us on crocodile shooting in the mysterious Okavango swamps, relates numerous adventures with buffalo, lion and leopard and other less known game, such as Lechwe and Sitatunga. His account of his mauling by a lion is one of the most vivid chapters in this fascinating book and he has much to say about snakes. Apart from mere entertainment value however he gives us much food for reflection. For instance, his suggestion that the prevalence of Bubonic Plague in Ngamiland and Bechuanaland may result from the intensive persecution of the small carnivorous mammals for their skins, thereby permitting an unnatural increase of rodents as carriers, demands serious consideration.
