The journal of a young British colonial-era police officer in remote southern Africa. In 1901 Edwin Gulliver Clarke left behind his comfortable, middle-class life as the son of a bank manager to become a mounted trooper in the British South Africa Police in the new African colony of Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe.
When he died in 1955, Clarke bequeathed a unique handwritten diary of his service in 1906, which is published here over 110 years later. For the first time, read his account of horseback safari across miles of unspoiled African landscape in rural Matabeleland, stalking and hunting big game, and tracking down criminals.
Vivid diary entries bring to life a cast of characters: gold prospectors, legendary farmers and settlers telling yarns around a camp fire at night, friendly African chiefs, and Clarke’s fellow police officers. There is tragedy too – sickness, brutality and violent death, all set against a fascinating journal of the daily life of a colonial police officer in a remote African district in 1906.
When he died in 1955, Clarke bequeathed a unique handwritten diary of his service in 1906, which is published here over 110 years later. For the first time, read his account of horseback safari across miles of unspoiled African landscape in rural Matabeleland, stalking and hunting big game, and tracking down criminals.
Vivid diary entries bring to life a cast of characters: gold prospectors, legendary farmers and settlers telling yarns around a camp fire at night, friendly African chiefs, and Clarke’s fellow police officers. There is tragedy too – sickness, brutality and violent death, all set against a fascinating journal of the daily life of a colonial police officer in a remote African district in 1906.
