A COMIC-OPERA ENGAGEMENT.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 115, 29 April 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

A COMIC-OPERA ENGAGEMENT.

There was a comic-opera episode at Massa Kes.i. a small and recent Portuguese settlement, then consisting of a lew huts and a stockade; now the frontier railway station of Portuguese East Africa. This little settlement, being in disputed territory, was evacuated by Rhodes’s orders in April 1891. But Captain Heyman and his five-and-forty Pioneers r- treater! but a few miles, to a hill railed Uhun. In a month’s time, says Mrs. Margaret L. Woor’s. in the "Comhill Magazine.” up ci’ine a force of 250 Portuguese soldiers and 500 natives, under a Captain Bettimoiirt and two other officers; ami they occupied Massa Kcssi. Not contented with doing this, they ordered Heymon and his British to clear out of Manicalanrl, Assuredly, any body of regular soldiers in the world would, in the face of such odds, have done so without a blush. But the Pioneers seem to have belonged to the pitiably unenlightened and almost extinct type of the Briton who does rot know w hen he is beaten. They were half-starved, and. besides their rifles, hid only one seven-pounder gun. which, I am credibly informed, they thought more likely to burst and spread ruin among their own ranks than to damage the enemy. Yet they no more contemplated retreat than did ever iive-nnd-forty fighting men of Devon with Francis Drake at their head.

On the contrary, they were considering how best to attack _ the fort or stockade of Massa ’Kessi, when the enemy was seen to be advancing in force. So confident—very naturally—■were the Portuguese that they had left their machi-ie-guns at the Fort. So they came up against Chua Hill, where the old seven-pounder lay quietly smiling. as it were, behind the tents, and they opened fire cheerily on the.little fore- encamped there. The Pioneers replied, and, being all experts with the rifle, hit quite a number of men. This seems to have surprised the enemy, who wavered and paused. Then the old seven-pounder emerging from her hiding-place, spoke, perhaps to the trepidation ot her friends, certainly to the discomfiture of their foes. She' dropped a shot plumb into the midst of the Portuguese troops. Then there was no more -wavering. but the seven hundred and fifty, white and black, turned about and fled a® one man. Some say they ran all the way to Beira; hut a glance at the map shows that this cannot be true. Captain Bcttincourt and the two other officers remained alone upon the field., after they had vainly endeavoured to stem the -tish of their panic-stricken a i my. The Pioneers looked at them, and they looked at the Pioneers. Then, the situation having become manifestly ridiculous, the three Portuguese officers. like gallant gentlemen,' as they doubtless were, took off their hats in ceremonious salute to the Pioneers—imagine the grand inimitable Iberian arm-sweep!--and .‘lowly retreated into the Bu'h.