"The Scot James Sutherland... reputedly shot 1,200 elephant bulls...the stuff of legends." - Film and the American Moral Vision of Nature (2011)
"James Sutherland...is remembered as one of the greats of Africa's professional elephant hunters." - Great Tuskers of Africa (2006)
"Heavy tusks were secured by the elephant hunter James Sutherland...the heavier of the tusks weighed 152 pounds."-Ivory and the Elephant in Art (1916)
"The memoirs of the elephant hunter James Sutherland abound in tales of jealous Ngindo husbands, thwarted suitors, and medicines deployed and countered." - Maji Maji: Lifting the Fog of War (2010)
"Celebrated elephant hunter Mr. James Sutherland...became a guide and an adviser to the British Army." - Animals in the Great War (2019)As noted by professional African big-game hunter James Sutherland in his 1912 book "The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter":
"there are so many risks, as well as privations, incidental to the life of an elephant hunter, that he has only to keep at the game long enough to meet with an untimely end, and that, as a rule, a violent one.
"Even should he survive the many dangers attendant on the calling, in the long run, he generally undermines his constitution and lives on a mere wreck of his former self. Still, while the life lasts, it is one of the most glorious and exhilarating on earth, for again and again the chase resolves itself into an exciting duel ''twixt man and beast,'' and though the chances, even in dense jungle, are in favour of the man, occasions frequently arise when the latter's life trembles in the balance. The hunter knows absolutely that if his rifle or cunning fails him in the least, he is as good as dead, and it is on this simple understanding that he joyfully sets out."
James Sutherland (deceased 26 June 26, 1932) was a Scottish born professional elephant hunter. "The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter" is a classic elephant-hunting tale regarded as one of the best elephant hunting titles ever written. He is widely considered to be among the most successful professional elephant ivory hunters of the early 20th century.
Sutherland came to Africa from England with a questionable background and while looking for a livelihood fell into ivory hunting as a way to make a fortune. It is said he killed over a thousand elephants in his long spanning life as an elephant hunter. While hunting with natives he formed close relationships and affection for these bush people. The book reveals much about the Sutherland as a person as well as the sport. This great hunting classic has been in demand for over a hundred years!
Describing an attack by an enraged elephant, Sutherland writes:
"A vicious blow from his tusk sent me hurtling against my tracker, Simba, who was a few paces away from me on my right, and together we came heavily to earth. Ere I had time to scramble to my feet, the elephant had turned, and seizing me by my khaki shirt underneath the right shoulder, flung me high above him in the air..."
Elephants are not the only dangerous wildlife in Africa, as Sutherland notes: "People living in the perfect safety of their homes in a civilized country have no conception of the insecurity that is felt by natives in their kraals in the interior of Africa. The cause of this feeling of insecurity is chiefly the man-eating lion, and no other animal of the forest inspires such terror into the black man's heart.... not hundreds but thousands of natives are annually killed by these monsters."
In ranking Africa's big game, according to Sutherland, "all my experience tends to confirm me in the opinion that the pursuit of the elephant is, without doubt, the most dangerous. Second, and on a par, I would classify buffaloes and lions; third, leopards. In comparison with these, very little risk attaches to the hunting of the rhinoceros."
