LITERATURE describing the so-called ‘golden age of African hunting’ invariably focusses on East Africa from the early 1900s to roughly half a century later. However, a hunting paradise which fully equated, and possibly excelled East Africa’s was KwaZulu-Natal – also for roughly half a century, but much earlier – from 1824. In fact, during that time, hunting was really what Natal and Zululand were all about, and it is well documented.
Henry Francis Fynn spent three years at the government’s Somerset farm near Grahamstown, then sailed to Maputo and explored part of the Maputo River where he heard of the great Zulu king, Shaka. In 1824, FG Farewell, in partnership with Fynn and others at the Cape, formed a trading company to operate from the Bay at Natal, trading ivory from the Zulus and also hunting ivory. Fynn was chosen to lead the small advance party to the Bay in March 1824 (Farewell and company followed later). These were Natal’s first settlers and the first whites Shaka had ever seen.
Natal and Zululand remained unexplored, pristine and teeming with game of every kind. Its huge bay and rivers were filled with hippos, and what is now Durban’s Berea was – ‘he who returns’ (from his many journeys). He was present when Shaka was stabbed in an assassination attempt. Fynn had attended London’s Blue Coat School, Christ’s Hospital and worked as a surgeon’s assistant; his knowledge of medicine enabled him to treat the chest wound and restore the king to health. Shaka credited him with saving his life, hence favoured him over the other settlers when granting hunting rights. Fynn thus became KwaZulu-Natal’s first professional ivory hunter.
