MEN WITH A PAST.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3382, 11 July 1927, Page 7

MEN WITH A PAST.

(By W. J. Makin.) It is one of the cynical sayings of South Africa that this country is a refuge for the broken men of England. I had not been trekking many hours through the wild rugged scenery of Pondoland before I heard the unmistakable English public-school voice hailing me. “My dear fella! What brings you to this forsaken spot?’’ It was a fine figure in khaki shorts and spotless white shirt, standing in the doorway of a corrugated iron shanty, who asked me the question. I told him that I was travelling- for pleasure. “Good heavens! Come inside and have a drink.”

Within an hour my casual friend had told me his history. It had begun fit Ascot six years ago with a delightful English girl at his side; it had ended here, in a tin shanty, whore a black native girl wearing brass earrings discreetly lost herself in the deep shadows while visitor was present. Between the transition there had been horses, cards, the posting of his name in a well-known London club, a tearful letter from the Ascot girl—and then Pondoland and forgetfulness. He was a trader, selling blankets, white clpth , meal and Birmingham trities to the natives. I watched him at work behind his counter, a cigarette between his lips as ho unrolled a bright red checked cloth before a huge, blanketed Pondo native. He accepted an order for film yards with the graciousness of a London shop assistant. Such is the work done by many of the broken men in Pondoland. One meets all sorts filling the role of native trader. There is the son of an earl who slaves eight hours a day behind the counter in a corrugated iron shanty, and many of the younger sons of wellknown English county families. All of them have a past. Sometimes women have figured in it; often it has been just an indiscreet sowing of wild oats. There is one young man here trying to “make good” who was the centre of a big scandal in London clubland a few years ago; another who was “sent down” from Oxford and presented by a disgusted father with a steamship ticket to Africa and fifty pounds. There is a merciful loneliness in Pondoland for these broken men. There are deep forests where a white man can trek for days without seeing one of his own kind.

This isolated community of university men, medical students, ex-Army officers, civil engineers and the like have had a remarkable effect upon the other white men who have settled in the district. Even the trumpeter from the Gordon Boys’ Home or the coster from Whitechapel who find their way into Pondoland take on the manners, polish and bearing of their publicschool neighbours. There are some of these broken men who refuse to allow the wild, rugged barbarity of their surroundings to affect their civilised habits. In _ a lonely trading shanty, thirty miles from the nearest village, there are two men who never sit down to dinner without wearing correct evening dress, including a stiff white shirt, whatever the temperature. There is another lonely exiled trader who has six daily issues of a London newspaper mailed to him weekly. They are a month old when he receives them, hut solemnly at breakfast the native “hoy” places a folded copy on the table for the baas, and, with equal solemnity, the baas reads that one copy. Nothing will induce him to read the next day’s copy until he comes in for breakfast on the following morning.