PRIZED POSSESSION

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 101, 23 January 1933, Page 10

PRIZED POSSESSION

An Autograph Book With Exceptional Interest

SIDELIGHTS ON HISTORY

Most globetrotters are able to boast of some curio, some strange work of art, or something very much out of the ordinary, which they have come across and secured in some out-of-the-way corner of the world, but the most prized possession of Captain Vladimir V. Verbi, 0.8. E., of East Africa, who is spending a short holiday in New Zealand, is an autograph boftk, a book that is more than a mere collection of autographs, for it records, if one can read between the lines, some of the most important historical events that have taken place in recent years. It contains inscriptions in at least a dozen tongues, in verse and prose, and the signatures of three sovereigns. • ' Apart, from the fact that the book records important historical events, it has itself an. interesting history. It begins with the partitioning of Africa in the latter years of last century. Hitherto the European nations, Germany in particular, had not paid a great deal of attention to colonisation, but with the evolution of the new German Empire, under one Hohenzollern King, the scramble for Africa began. . Early Days in Africa.

* It was in 1890 that a little mission station was established at Moschi, near Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, by Bishop Harrington, the first bishop of Equatorial Africa. Then, when’the Continent was partitioned, Moschi was included in that part of East Africa allocated to Germany. But the natives in the district had become very attached to the Church Missionary Society missioner, one Albert R. Steggall, and violently opposed the intrusion of the Germans. , - Some fighting ensued, and the position became so serious that the German Chancellor asked Lord Salisbury to remove Steggall, as his presence was causing complications. This was done, and after the missioner had gone the natives submitted to the Germans. The mission station was removed to a place called Taveta, a short distance away, in British trritory. The‘Germans established a military fort at Moschi, and it was at this fort that Captain Verbi’s autograph book first came into being. , Its early pages contain signatures of many (well-knojvn German scientists and explorers who ventured into the unknown parts of German East Africa in the 90’s of last century. Visits to Fort Moschi.

For instance, the book records a visit to the forb from Baron Bronsarte Schillendroff, who had been sent out from Hamburg to bring back .wild animals alive. He was the first man to employ scientific methods to do this. Then another, C. G. Schillings, the first man ever to secure photographs of animals in their natural state —this was before the advent of the motion picture—records his visit to the fort. On September 9, 1895, Baron Maurice Versepur,’ and another, two French diplomats, record their visit to Fort Moschi. They had been sent there to endeavour to gain the sympathy of the Germans should trouble follow what has now become known to the world as the “Fashoda incident.” Relations between Britain and France became very strained, as the result of the action of the French commandant. Marchand, In' taking a force into Central Africa’. This visit of the French diplomats is an interesting sidelight to an incident which at the time was of international importance.

And so, throughout the early years of the present century, this little book records the visits of travellers, missionaries, scientists and explorers to the fort. Count Edward Wickenbury, an aide-de-camp to Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, visited the fort during a shooting trip, and the names of Major R. G. Bright and Dr. C.'L. Chevallier, members of the > Anglo-Ger-man Boundary Commission, are inscribed in 1905. Book Claimed as Lost.

But the German fort at Moschi fell to British forces in 1916, and jfrom this date onward the inscriptions’in the book begin to appear not only in English, but in almost every European tongue, not forgetting some African dialects.. Captain Verbi visited the fort in 1916, and claimed the book as loot —his name, had appeared as a visitor in 1896 —and since, then he has been adding things of interest therein. General Smuts’s signature appears under date of April* 2, 1916, when the British seized the fort, together with those of the officers of the forces operating in the territory. Books it would take to tell the story of each inscription in the little brown-covered book —they tell of visits to England in war time, of a visit to South Russia in 1920, where Cape Verbi’s services were requistioned as a-result of his knowledge of Russian, of trips around the Balkans, and of travellers’ calls to Captain Verbi’s estate at Ngereni, in the Taita Hills.

Autographs of Three Sovereigns. *

Captain Verbi has secured the autographs of King George, Queen Mary and Princess Mary, with whom he had audjences toward the end of the war, and in more recent years he has added the signatures of King Boris of Bulgaria and the Sultan of Zanzibar. Captain Verbi is still securing autographs, but one, written by John Ernest Hodgson, chief war correspondent of the “Daily Express,” who was with, the British Military Mission to South Russia in 1920, contains no small measure of meaning. Writing then, he said: “The agonising spectacle of a great nation is-being unfolded to our gaze at close quarters; but it behoves us, when we are discussing the distress, the chaos, which runs in Russia to-day, to keep always before our eyes our own national frailties and blemishes. The function of our abounding strength is not to preen ourselves, or to gloat and pose, but to help.” It is clear why Captain Verbi treasures his little book.