"MAORI" BROWNE.

Evening Star, Issue 13102, 7 November 1908, Page 11

"MAORI" BROWNE.

ADVENTURES OF A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. [Fnoit Qua Special CoRP.EsroKDP.ST.] LONDON. September 26. “ Maori ” Browne, otherwise Colonel O. Hamilton Browne, .1 New Zealand war veteran ot sixty-three years, in at present destitute in London, and the Salvation Army are trying to find work for him. His ease is a peculiarly hard one. He i« I unable to secure a jvsneion, owing to the fact that hie rank is colonial only, and he: has never acted under direct control of Whitehall. As an officer, and not a private, he cannot oecare a position with the Corps of Commissionaires. The veteran comes of an old North Ireland family. The whole of his life has been adventurous. While a schoolboy at Cheltenham , on his way to shoot at Wimbledon in the old volunteering days, he. was arrested on suspicion of being a Fenian. He subsequently enlisted in the artillery, and after shooting a man in a duel in (rcnnaiiy, he went to New Zealand, wlicre he was engaged in the native wars off and on from 1866 to 1877. It was there that he acquired the nickname of " Maori ’’ Browne. After leaving New Zeanland lie had a turn at hunting bushrangers in Australia. He nest took a schooner in search of a copper island in Polynesia. He earner 1 back to Europe, and fought us a Papal Zouave in the campaign which ended in the collapse of the temporal ] lower of the Pope. Nest in America, he was fighting tho Sioux, under the famous Colonel Dodge. He was afterward* a commandant of irregular troops in the Haiku war, Cape Colony. He was with Pulleino's Rangers, and it is said that when some of the men shot at him whilst he was bathing he jumped out of the water, nuked as he was, took a sjambok and “dispersed” them! He fought subsequently in the Galoka and Zulu wars, for both of winch he holds medals and.clasps. He also commanded the Natal native contingent, whoso white'officers he describes as including “a motley crowd of young colonials, timeexpired soldiers, runaway Bailors, clerks, navvies, and harbor boatmen from East London.” Colonel Browne thus describee tho breaking of a “ British square ” by the panic of the Kaffirs, who formed the principal part of it; thus : As soon as the square was formed I lay down, and, strange as it may scorn, wont, to sleep. I Tbad looesned my revolver belt for a minute, and meant to buckle it too again, when 1 went to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, when I felt myself mshod over and trampled on. I. tried to get to my feet, but was knocked down again and again. I tried to find my revolver, hut could not. I never let go of my horse’s' bridle, which. I held in : my hand, and at last staggered lb my feet among them, running all ways. It was the work only of a moment for mo to wrench a Zulu knobkarric and lay about me, and ooon we found it was only a false alarm.

The stamped® of Kaffirs' Was frequent, and Colonel Browne describes vividly how the white ofttoere -had to tiae “ .fist, and . them whpn on the-march. After the' Borke's firift disaster Colonel Browne accompanied Lord Chelmsford’s relief column, Being iri command of 1,000 natives. Hoi fought an the BasuUv War in 1680-81, -and ■ commanded a squadron in the Bcdnuna-j land expedition of Sir Charles Warren ial 1834, and afterwards was adjutant of th*| Diamond Fields Horae in Kimberley. H*'

had a turn in the ISBB Zulu nbellwQ, ] which ended in Dmimhi being adled. to] St. Helena. Ho fought in the first bele war of 1893, and in the Mf|r«bo3sttdrebellion of 1896-97, under General RadeoPowell. He wan nest-in oommaod of the Umtali Volunteers in Rhodesia, and . afterwards at the head 'of tha MuhodeQa Field Force. The niedak had dkqa he holds for the many fights, be 1 bos been, in are probably unique juj a .retries, but the majority of them havo-Juud iogo temporarily to enable liim to live.