Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming

Roualeyn George Gordon-Cumming (March 15, 1820 – March 24, 1866) was a Scottish traveller and sportsman, known as the "lion hunter". He was the second son of Sir William Gordon Gordon-Cumming, 2nd Baronet and Lady Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming 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 (London, 1850, 3rd ed. 1851). Of this volume, received at first with incredulity by stay-at-home critics, David Livingstone, who furnished Gordon-Cumming with most of his native guides, wrote: I have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Cumming's book conveys a truthful idea of South African hunting (Missionary Travels, chap. vii.). But this comment ought not to be read as implying Livingstone's approval of Gordon-Cumming's 'nauseating details of indiscriminate slaughter of wild animals' (David and Charles Livingstone, "Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And of the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1864", J. Murray, 1865, p. 197).