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Joined: Oct 2004
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Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
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Safari Press is coming out with a new book of previously unpublished stories by WDM Bell.
If you are into African hunting and have never read "Bell of Africa" or "The Karamojo Safari", you missing out on great reading about the most famous ivory hunter of the all.
If you are a fan, check out the upcoming book.
"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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Any idea of the title? His other book, besides the two you mentioned, is "Wanderings Of An Elephant Hunter". I love reading Bell's books.
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Campfire 'Bwana
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Did you read it yet, Jeff? I had it on my Christmas list, but got a sweater...
A good principle to guide me through life: “This is all I have come to expect, standard lackluster performance. Trust nothing, believe no one and realize it will only get worse…”
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Campfire Regular
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Campfire Regular
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You made out like a bandit with the sweater. I got socks and a hankerchief.
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Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
Joined: Oct 2004
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I have not read it. I believe it is yet to be released. INCIDENTS FROM AN ELEPHANT HUNTER'S DIARY PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS FROM W.D.M. BELL Sometimes one looks at a product and asks, "Is this for real?" Yes! This one is for real: BRAND NEW, NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED book of Walter Bell's short stories. Once again the legendary Karamojo Bell marches through the wilds of Africa-traversing a land virtually untouched by modern civilization in search of adventure and ivory. The Africa Bell knew is now long gone and seemingly very far away, but, in reality, his travels took place only about a century ago. Join us as Bell takes us to a land with vast herds of wildlife living in rough equilibrium with the native human populations.
Through his earlier books Bell gained the reputation for being an excellent marksman who shot small-caliber guns at giant elephants with deadly precision. Bell was best known for his exploits in Karamoja, in what is now largely Uganda, and in these newly unearthed short stories, we again find him in familiar terrain and with his faithful retinue of trackers and camp followers. We also find Bell in unfamiliar terrain. Travel with Bell to the French Congo where he encounters a man-eating leopard, and go along with him to West Africa when he ventures into the rain forest with the Pygmies to test his luck against elephants in dense vegetation. Then there are some wonderfully descriptive stories of an elephant camp and its social life, crocodiles that menace a village, several hunts for elephants on islands in the Ubangi River (not for the faint of heart!), and a trip from Kano to Khartoum via motor car.
These are just a few of our cache of new stories-original adventures never before published. Not only is Africa covered, but we also get a few stories on the calibers, bullets, rifles, and killing power needed for large game. In addition this book will be illustrated by photos and original line drawings by Walter Bell. The cover, design, and format will physically match the 1923 edition of Bell's first book, Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter. Only 1,000 copies of this edition will ever be issued, and while we will publish a trade edition, the first edition will have extra stories, it will contain some of Bell's original line drawings, and it will mirror the cover design of Bell's original Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter. These features will not be reproduced in subsequent editions.
308pp, Line Drawings, Photos, 7.5x10, Hardcover.
LIMITED EDITION NUMBERED TO 1,000 numbered and slipcased copies $125
"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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Joined: Aug 2003
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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Cool! That's one on my wish list!
Ed
"Not in an open forum, where truth has less value than opinions, where all opinions are equally welcome regardless of their origins, rationale, inanity, or truth, where opinions are neither of equal value nor decisive." Ken Howell
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Joined: Oct 2004
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Campfire Ranger
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OP
Campfire Ranger
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Cool! That's one on my wish list!
Ed You can read??
"The Democrat Party looks like Titanic survivors. Partying and celebrating one moment, and huddled in lifeboats freezing the next". Hatari 2017
"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Han Solo
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Incidents from an Elephant Hunter's Diary is already out. I got my copy a few months ago.
I think it's a good read. There are some stories that resemble others already told. It seems that Bell in later years went back and wrote about the same events, but the details worked out differently.
There is an autobiography slated for late 2017.
He went over yonder way
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Campfire Kahuna
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Campfire Kahuna
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Did you read it yet, Jeff? I had it on my Christmas list, but got a sweater... what did the sweater have in it?
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
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Campfire Outfitter
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Campfire Outfitter
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Heller, you are confirming what I suspected, that it's more or less a rehash of accounts already given by Bell in his old books. how much of this books content did you find to be actually new and never before published by Bell? b.t.w. , for those that don't have WDM Bells old publications, here you can find archive digitised versions of >> Wanderings Of An Elephant Hunter. (actual book cover to cover-flip page by page) >> Wanderings Of An Elephant Hunter. (easy to scroll large print) >> Karamojo Safari (scroll down page by page)
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
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Campfire Tracker
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Campfire Tracker
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"Put none but Americans on guard tonight." -George Washington
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Campfire Ranger
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Campfire Ranger
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Of the 3 Bell books I've read....Wanderings Of An Elephant Hunter, Bell of Africa, and Karamojo Safari, I liked the latter book the best. Any thoughts from anyone else?
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Campfire Oracle
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Campfire Oracle
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Thanks for that, Starman.
Ecc 10:2 The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but that of a fool to the left.
A Nation which leaves God behind is soon left behind.
"The Lord never asked anyone to be a tax collector, lowyer, or Redskins fan".
I Dindo Nuffin
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We all know advertising works, we just don’t think it works on US!
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Campfire Member
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I have always wanted a true Mauser in 7x57mm aka 7mm Mauser aka 275 Rigby because of Bell. Not to shoot jumbos,of course not! Just to have an ultra iconic African rifle.
Last edited by Zengela; 03/17/17.
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Of the 3 Bell books I've read....Wanderings Of An Elephant Hunter, Bell of Africa, and Karamojo Safari, I liked the latter book the best. Any thoughts from anyone else? Yes, I agree, I think Bell would as well. He didnt seem to think that Wanderings of an Elephant hunter really caught the essence of what his hunting was about. He write of it later a little dismissively as 'just a collection of essays.' So then in 1949 he chose to write about one specific safari, and describe how it went, and that was Karamojo Safari. This really is the book that you want about WDM Bell, and it comes closest to simply being the book by him thats purely about his elephant hunting. The last one (so far)- Bell of Africa, contains what seems to be an essay divided into a three or four chapters which are purely autobiographical details(Townsend Whelen says it was written for his wife) fascinating nevertheless, about his youth market hunting in Canada, as a pilot in the RFC etc, but then the African chapters of the book are simply reprints of much of Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter. The newly published material might be accounts or chapters that Bell wrote for Bell of Africa, and then didnt include when he sent the manuscript to Whelen. We cant know why. Maybe he thought the ms was too long. Maybe he thought Whelen would tell him what he thought of what he had so far and then he would send these others later. Maybe he considered them unfinished, or not much good. But maybe he planned it exactly as it has happened, that this material might be another book again. Of course he died straight after sending off the ms of Bell of Africa to America, so we cant know. His wife might have had an idea, but she died in the eighties. But then she might not, my wife has no interest in my writing at all. (Perhaps she is right to.) But still, it will be well worth it for anything new and I would like to read what he wrote about the car trip with the Forbes. I still think Karamojo Safari is his best one, and the one closest to what Bell wanted in a book himself. What I would love to do, would be to edit and collate all of it together into one volume. Introduction would be the description by the chap who went to visit with them them in Scotland around 1950.The Bell of Africa autobiographical stuff, followed by his expositions on hunting in Africa, from Wanderings and Karomojo) other incidents and tales - (Wanderings and the new materiel, ac couple of chapter son rifles and shooting collated from books and his other articles, and finishing with one safari entire as an example, from Karamojo Safari. Call it - "Safari!" (With an exclamation mark!) Or more prosaically, maybe just, "Karamojo Bell".
"A person that carries a cat home by the tail will receive information that will always be useful to him." Mark Twain
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Campfire Outfitter
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Re: Bell on the car safari with the Forbes brothers through Chad and Sudan....From what I have gathered, Bell found it wasn't much of a trip dedicated to actual hunting..but Gerrit Forbes had been with Bell on some ivory trips yrs previous, prior to WW1. Im glad Bell went into the details of his life, at sea aged 13, the Yukon at 16-17 ,and later war service, as well as all the different things that were happening around him or effecting him on his ivory jaunts. Some of the more remote ungoverned regions he trekked through were telly untamed wild places both in nature and rouge human activity both native and white European. As opposed to South Africa which by that time had already suffered the effects of widespread obliteration of game stocks. His youth/upbringing interests me because of the very young age he was when his parents died. which I believe effects a persons formative yrs with the lack of parental guidance & presence. Possibly partly why he ran away from schools on various occasions, leading his life on to other things. WDM Bell although typically remembered in hunting circles, to me was more of a man of the word-life adventurer, for he would during periods of his life, drop his lucrative professional hunting career by choice, to also do other things of merit & substance and also at great hazzard, risk and peril. Between signing up for service in WW1 and returning to Africa, was like a gap of 7 years. On the other hand, he at one time also opportunistically joined the military as a way back to Africa after the Yukon didn't work out. Then at the end of his Boer War service 1902, he remained in Africa to begin his ivory career good and proper. Despite all the fuss some make of the Rigby Mauser .275 bore steming from Bells well known use of such, his personal favourite rifle he remarked, was his Daniel Frazer .256 bore Mannlicher carbine.-- And despite all the accolades the Mauser 98 gets in regards to reliability, Bell discovered that in the harsh conditions of pursuing bulls through thick vegetation impacted with mud from elephants -that would unavoidably drop down on him and his rifle, that the sloppy action Lee .303 he had, proved markedly more reliable. -The 10 shot capacity magazine also proved a definite advantage when his objective was to drop as many bulls from a herd as fast as possible. At times he would have a gun bearer close by with his 2nd Lee .303 full mag. ready to go. Bell found SxS rifles were a poor choice for such high contamination dynamic-close-quarter hunting environments, for when he needed to open the breech as he moved about, dust & grit would fall in preventing the gun from closing properly. ..btw: there are some amateur idiots on AR that have never in their life hunted elephant in such manner that have criticised Bell suggesting he didn't know to properly use a SxS rifle....lol....well thats the inter-net for you. Royal Aero Club Aviators Certificate issued close to this 35th birthday.
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
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Campfire Ranger
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Wasn't Bell the one who did a lot of hunting with a 7mm Mauser?
molɔ̀ːn labé skýla
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Wasn't Bell the one who did a lot of hunting with a 7mm Mauser? Yes. A 275 Rigby its the English designation for 7x57mm or 7mm Mauser. He shot something like 800 or so bull elephant with that rifle all with solids. He proclaimed that no soft point ever contaminated his barrel,or something to that effect.
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