The storyof a newspaper "tenderfoot" who followed the trail of the first Rhodesian settlers - with near disastrous but very entertaining results. Charles Edward Finlason, known affectionately as "Fin", was a delightful personality who made his name as a journalist and cricketer in South Africa in the 1880s and 1890s. Born in England, he emigrated to Kimberley when a young man, played for Kimberley Pirates' Cricket Club and, in 1889, represented South Africa against Major Warton's English team at Port Elizabeth. A year after Rhodes's Pioneers had crossed the Limpopo river to occupy Mashonaland, he journeyed to Salisbury by ox-drawn cart, and wrote of his experiences with both humour and an endearing modesty. Being such a novice at the trekking game he was blissfully unaware of the danger in which he often placed himself and was fortunate neither to have been eaten by lions nor to have hopelessly lost his way (he was unable to read his compass correctly!). Following so close on the heels of Randolph Churchill's lavishly-appointed expedition, (see Men, Mines and Animals of South Africa, Volume 7 in this series) his choice of title for this book was almost certainly an oblique tongue-in-cheek reference to the "noble lord"..

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