OUR AFRICAN WARRIOR.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1263, 14 May 1896, Page 12

OUR AFRICAN WARRIOR.

By a "Wozzleite, in London Globe

I have lived in "Wozzle, boy and man, and afterwards as registrar, for 50 years and more, but never do I remember more excitement in the place than there is just now We have had one or two hveners lately, but nothing like this. When the Americans wrote ovor to us last December that we had sat down on a corner of the Monroe doctrine, and they would thank us to " hitch backardor," we were more amused than anything, because it is the way of little brothers to want more than half the bed and all the clothes. When the German Emperor telegraphed to those troublesomo Boors that he was their father, and if thoy kept their eye on thoir father he would pull them through, there was some stir in Wozzlo; but it ended in the disappearance from our stationer's window of tbo German-made penknives and stationery. Also, Mr Jones, who was giving a concert just then, changed all the German names of his music into Italian by adding " ini" to the end, in deference to public susceptibilities. But these things were small beer to our present condition. If you would see a peaceful English village all aflame, come to Wozzle. If you would see true patriotic spirit alight, come to Wozzle. Not to keep you in suspense, which I know is painful, and will oven send a chill down the small of the back if too proI will say at once that Jim Brown, our African warrior, has come back to his native W r ozzle, and Wozzlo is full of him. , , His aunt, who keeps the tobacco shop, got the telegram last Monday week, to say that he had just landed at Plymouth with the rest of the heroes. The news, of course, spread like wildfire; in fact, those of us who live near the post ofhee knew it before the aunt. This was the first news the family had had of Jim for more than a year. He left us for Africa three or four years ago under a bit of a cloud, and little did we then think lie would return to shed renown upon us! We immediately decided to give a public welcome to the man who had vindicated the name of Wozzle on the battlefields of distant climes. When we want to honour a man, we draw him on the fire engine from the railway station to hi- home If he happens to be already at home, then he kindly walks to the station, and we draw him back. So wo drew Major Knobkerry, when he went up to London and fought with the manager of our railway company over our carriage rates, and got a penny a ton taken off potatoes. So we drew home Sir Thomas' son and his bride, with a beautiful emblematic quiver of arrows behind, which, unfortunately, came to pieces with the jolting, and fell into the mud. And so we treated Jim, for slaughtering the enemies of one's country deserves quite as much recognition as getting married, and in my view, as registrar of births and deaths, is equally good business. So wo had the engine down at the station ready for ne sis out. We let his aunt meet him on the platform alone, because the overflowings of family feeling are too sacred for a crowd, especially when one party has been frequently writing for money which the other party did not send. But as soon as he emerged into the station yard, an Wozzle cheered, and we had him on the engine in a moment. The modest hero was perfectly surprised at the public

soon took in the situation. Away we drew him, preceded by the town band, in the somewhat tattered clothes in which he had faced the enemy, and with the identical short pipe between his teeth which he afterwards told us had been his only food for weeks in the foul dungeon. His aunt fell on his neck again at the door of the tobacco shop, and Mr Binks, on our behalf, welcomed him homo to the place of his birth, motioning to the barrel of bird's eye in the window as the exact spot, and there we left him to recover.

At first Jim kept very close. We quite understood that, because there is not only the trial to come off, but things are still ticklish with that Emperor, and with the French, too, in Egypt, and indiscretions might put the fat in the fire. However, we gradually wormed most of it out: trust Wozzle for that. It appears that when ho first got to Africa ho was cashier of a diamond mine, but he could not stand the company, having been brought up very i respectable, and went further up the country, where he first made the acquaintance of that splendid body of mounted police. He was ill after this, and spent a twelvemonth in retirement, recruiting his health. He then visited King Gungun Hannah as an agent for a new muzzleloading musket, and German sulphuric acid, called there li hrantwine." He had a good time with Hannah, taught him how to mix gin sling, and the three card trick, and how to blow lire out of his mouth, and gave him. a tossing dollar with two heads; and Hannah made him a chief, and shaved the top of his head and tarred the rest. While there he heard of Dr Scott's noble expedition to Ashanti, and determined to join it. It was not the love of gold which prompted him, but the horrible tales of the Englishwomen and children kept captive by King Premper and his friends the Boors, which fired his blood. His account of the whole thing differs considerably from the newspapers ; but then Jim was there and he ought to know best. Jim does not boast of his exploits on the campaign, but we read between the lines of what ho says. It was our Jim who swam the river with the telegraph on his back, while the crocodiles leaped round him, and wired his safe landing straight to Mr Chamberlain. It was our Jim who stood by the Maxim gun whence all but he had fled, and kept the whole Boor army at a distance, while Dr Scott and Sir Francis Jameson walked safe into Coomassy. It was our Jim who unchained the English captives and the black slaves, and turned their sorrow into a Christy Minstrel entertainment. It was our Jim who disestablished the native church with gun cotton. In short, whatever was done, Jim was there every time. But there is another side to the account which truth compels me to relate also. The fact is, that the Boors popped upon Dr Scott so nicely, and bagged the whole expedition, through our Jim's weakness for the female sex. As soon as Dr Scott had taken King Premper prisoner, he ordered Jim, who was by this time the apple of his eye, to take charge of the Queen Mother. She wa3 a commanding lady, scaling 200 at least, and very impressive in a blue glass necklace and feathers. She was a lady with a past, too, including poisonings and throttlings, so that she would have fetched any price in this country last year. Jim was mighty proud of his charge, but she was one too many for him. He kept watch over her in the starry night, and she rolled tho whites of her eyes at him till they looked like a couple of new laid eggs on the top of a sack of coali. They conversed through a native interpreter, who, though he had been brought up at a mission station, took very kindly to Jim's language. She offered him everything ] heart could wish if he would fly with her. j She would be his Queen Mother with un- | limited daughters-in-law; he should have j tho secret of tho hiding place of fourteen j kegs of the best rum, and a sacrificial grove all to himself, with material. To Jim'3 credit be it said, he rejected all these offers; but he ought never to have listened to them. The rejection turned her budding love into direst hate, she wormed out of him tho path by which they were going back, and then gave the j whole thing away to President Kruger. ; The result was, as we all know, that they ; were taken prisoners. Even then Jim j distinguished himself. It was Jim who ; emptied the last fl i-k of whisky left in : thr, pvpedi'Mun, after evpryno else had i been dry for 24 hours. :

This'is only a tithe of what ho has gone through." He has brought nothing home materially, but morally what lustre had he not shed upon Wozzle ? I need hardly say that Green, our tailor, has been proud to supply him with a new wardrobe on tick till lie draws his share of the prizemoney : he is, of course, free of his auiv's tobacco shop ; and spirituous comfort is offered him wherever he goes as well as anv number of small loans ; so that we do no' show ourselves ungrateful, We have, of course, arranged to give him a dinner and reception at the public hall. When I lay this pen down I am going straight to that dinner, in spite of my housekeeper. She is an awful woman, and not only says that dinners don't agree with me, but that she does not believe an atom Jim says, and that wo have all been made fools of. Of course, this is her spite because we did not invite ladies to tho dinner.

It is my painful duty to re-open my letter to tell you the latest. My housekeeper's spite has somehow spread to the local police. Here's our sergeant been going round to the committee, informing

and reception, ns Jim lias a prior invitation. That invitation is—can you believe it?—to the local lock-up. The wildest rumours are afloat, and if is even said that a warrant for his apprehension, in a little matter connected with a till, has just arrived from the Cape. Of course, there is some mistake somewhere. Of course Wozzle cannot have been taken in. Wozzle! The idea is too absurd. If it should turn out so, however, I must say that, as for myself, I have had my suspicions all the time; but I really did not know I had them till now.