The Art of Marching Across Africa.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1056, 26 May 1892, Page 10

The Art of Marching Across Africa.

In the Speaker Mr IL. H Johnston, the distinguished African traveller, who is at present British Commissioner for Zambesi District, tells in detail how he thinks an African expedition ought to be conducted :—* If (Mr Johnston says) the porters of an African caravan will not implicitly obey the reasonable commands of their European leader, the result will probably be disastrous to both leaders and followers. If in passing through a country of suspicious hostile savages, naturally distrustful of strangers and on the alert to destroy them, the men of the caravan obey every order given by the experienced leader, keep compactly together, turn neither to the right nor to the left, heed neither empty menaces nor mocking insults, they will probably emerge from the ticklish situation unattached and without the stigma on them of having shed blood ; but if, on the other hand, they lose all sense of disclipine, _ cease to yield prompt obedience to their officers’ orders, straggle, desert, loot, or squabble among themselves, then the whole expedition will be at the mercy of its watchful foes and be destroyed in detail. Or a waterless tract may have to be crossed on the line of march. The leader thinks over the difficult problem of how this is to be done with the least danger and distress to his men. He decides that so many miles must be

marched in the eai-ly morning and so many in the cool hours of the night; that each carrier must charge himself with such and such a supply of reserve water before starting, and only drink the quantity served out to him by authority. Once in the lawless interior, where nature, like man, is defiant and uncontrolled, a reasonable amount of discipline must be maintained .by tlie leader of the expedition in the interests of all concerned. This can be done in two ways—’just as it is in our army.or navy or in any other organised service —by the fear of punishment and the hope of reward. By ‘ punishment ’ I do not mean by brutal floggings or any other kind or shape of cruelty. On the contrary, I utterly disappi'ove. of that manner of coercion as much with negro porters as with white soldiei-s or sailors But there are a great many reasonable methods of enforcing discipliixe and coercing men into fulfilment of their contract to which no reasonable critic can take objection. These are fines, exti'a loads, hard labour, Livingstone’s ‘ few slxax'p strokes with a cane,’ bitter sarcastic l’ebukes with the tongue (which Africans feel very keenly), and, in the case of conduct of an xxnpardon able kind, expulsion from the expedition. But a firm, quiet manner of addressing his people from the first, a cai'eful consideration befox’e an order is given to be sure that it is not an unreasonable one, patient enquiry into grievances to. see if they are real, hearty commendations when good work is done, and a general conviction that the world is pretty much the same all the world over, and th&t black men and white meix have the same faults, failings, likings, and dislikings, and that all possess, hidden somewhere in theix' ci’ooked natures, that one vital spark of noble humanity. These qualifications in a leader go further towards px-eserving disclipine than the kick, the cuff, the oath, and the whip. It is well, before all things, to be just; never to order a punishment which it is not intended to carry out; and xxot to spoil the effect of your firmness by a lenient obliteration of fines on tlie pay day of the expedition. To avoid the appearance of meanness, or any suggestion of an ulterior mercenary motive, it should be arranged that all these fines deducted from the wages of the bad should found a fund for rewarding the well-behaved with gratuities. Rewards will prove as potent a factor in the inducement of obedience as will the fear of punishment, and both punishment and reward should follow the crime or the good deed as speedily as possible. I have found it a good practice in my journeys to make Sunday (the rest day) the occasion on which those little recompenses should be given to the extra good among my followers. A little tobacco, a new cloth, a few strings of beads, or a tiny present of that description, will delight some huge negro porter immensely, and keep him in a good humour for the whole of the ensuing week; and it acts as a potent incitement to good behaviour on the part of his comrades, if it is only out of a spirit of emulation. The leader of an African expedition should hedge himself round with a certain amount of dignity, and not make himself ‘ too common.’ Yet he should be kindly, sympathetic without foolish softness, and merry at seasonable times without buffoonery. Once his followers know that he is determined, if necessaxy, to punish acts of wrongdoing they will cease to act wrongly ; and a man who has shown himself firm in the beginning will probably seldom be called upon by subsequent circumstances to display any further show of force.