Selous is a village in Mashonaland West province in Zimbabwe. It is 72 km from Harare on the main Harare to Bulawyo road. The village was named after the British explorer and hunter Frederick Courteney Selous. Selous is a small administrative and trading centre in an area of tobacco farms and mixed farms. If Frederick Courteney Selous were alive today he would be the constant target of attack from nature conservationists. In three seasons alone he personally recorded killing 78 elephants. Selous was the typical gentleman adventurer of Queen Victoria's era, a model for the hero of H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines, Allan Quatermain. Selous took part in the First Matabele War (1893), being wounded during the advance on Bulawayo. Selous is home to the Zimplats Smelter, the only Platinum smelter in Zimbabwe.