Rendezvous in the Bush

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable "First-Hand" Accounting of Big-Game Adventure
Review: Not many people have spent over 28 years big-game hunting in the African bush; and it is even more unusual for the individual in question to be an ordained clergyman. However, such is the case of Henry T. Folsom, a priest of the Episcopal Church, who has taken seven safaris into such places as Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and the Republic of South Africa. His book, "Rendezvous in the Bush", recounts highlights of these trips-complete with both successes and failures in the chase. However, this is not simply a recounting of various incidents involved in the hunting of dangerous game or the exotic antelopes on the veldt. It is essentially an attempt to describe an adventure which is now gone with the wind - the Classic Safari in which the hunter lives in the bush with his professional, the trackers, the skinners,and the retinue which used to accompany the client. But,perhaps even more important in this day of so much anti-hunting sentiment which is so rife in our society is the author's defense or Apologia, of and for big game hunting, provided it is carried out in the spirit of "Fair Chase". 1n such instances the hunted potential prey has more than an equal chance of escaping and in the case of dangerous game, becoming the hunter. In this volume the reader will find several instances of cold fear as the author tells of pursuing a wounded lion or Cape buffalo into thick brush where the roles of hunter and quarry are all too clearly reversed.

One especially interesting chapter is "The Way it Was". This is one which was originally written by the author's father after a six-month safari in 1913 and tells of his terrifying night spent in a boma, or blind, under a full moon, waiting for the lions to come in to feed on a dead zebra which had been staked out as bait; they came and he shot four of them - all within 10 to 12 feet of him. It should be noted, however, that in those day lions were considered vermin and no license was needed; one could take as many as one wished.

Another chapter was written by the author's late wife, Phyllis, in which she reflects the reactions of a non-hunter who dutifully accompanied her husband on four of his seven trips to Africa. The hot and dusty rides, complete with bumps and multitudes of flat tires, the sitting on top of baits in the back of a safari truck, and sometimes long waits alone in the vehicle after dark when the professional and his client pursue some fleeing animal are described in detail. Readers who are hunters will empathize with the author; non-hunters with his long-suffering wife!

"A Day in the Classic Safari", "You Shot Too High", "A Cold Morning in the Swamp", "Crisis", Simba" and "The Year of the Buffalo"- these are six of the 27 evocative, exciting and delightful chapters in this memorable and richly-illustrated book.

If your only exposures to Africa have been Hollywood movies or the gorgeously-illustrated but largely-sanitized "coffee-table" books we see everywhere today, "Rendezvous in the Bush" will provide a thrilling and provocative alternative.