THE OLD WARRIOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23333, 29 April 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

THE OLD WARRIOR

AN old warrior sits in the African sunshine' of Kenya looking from his verandah over the flowers of his garden to Mount Kenya, 40 miles away. His shrewd kindly eyes see farther than that, for this old Chief, soldier of peace as well as soldier in war, has seen all the countries of the world. In every land' the eager, bright eyes of youth look back at him. You cannot mistake who it is. It is the Chief Scout, Lord Baden-Powell. Should his gaze reach a thousand or more miles to the west it would awake in him memories of Ashanti, where he learnt the art and science of scouting. Should it turn to the south it would come on, as in a vision and a tale that is told, a beleaguered laager surrounding the tents and huts of Mafcking, and Colonel Plumer riding with his horsemen at long last to its relief. ' Many are gone, the old familiar faces the old warrior knew as a fighting man. In their place are the young recruits whom he has bred to the love of adventure and' the quest for friendship. His Scout Army may yet save the world. Should he speak from his garden of peace at Kenya his voice might be carried on the .wings of the wireless to

lisiteners who would sit up to wait for it in every land from China to Peru, from the far north-west of Canada to the plains of the Darling Downs of Australia aud the New Zealand homo of the Canterbury lamb. There he sits beneath the blue sky with the flowers at his feet, and around him, in ever-widening circles which girdle the globe, his family of scouts are going on with the work of the world. They cannot see him, but be sure the Old Warrior's eye is on them. —The Children's Newspaper, London.