DEATH OF GREAT EXPLORER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10504, 12 July 1910, Page 1

DEATH OF GREAT EXPLORER.

LIEUT. BOYD ALEXANDER'S FATE. j A great explorer has perished in She heart of Africa ill ; circumstances.;;of peculiar pathos. - Lieutenant Boyd; • Xlexander, of the Rifle Brigade,, the trajiic* .'story of whose expedition _ 'j-'ioin the Niger to the Nile" is so brilliantly related in his book with that, title. has met his death upon a new and not less daring expedition. The tragic news came from liis faithful servant and comrade Jose Lopez, the in.!!! who first shot an okapi, in one of the lieutenant's expeditions. Lopez's message, a telegram sent from the: British post of Maiduguri, near Lake Chad, announced that his master had been killed near Abeshr, in the Wadai region oi' the .French Sudan on April | l.t is not long since Captain Claud Alexander, of the Scots Guards, met; I ir~ -lentli while exploring with his brother, v.iid has now shared his fate,, in _ Western Africa. Lieutenant Boyd Alexander started: »« this expedition at the end of 1908. He first explored the island' of San: Thome or St. Thomas, and then went; Through the German Cameroons and' Southern Nigeria to Lake Chad. "There, at the beginning of this, year, he fitted out an expedition" with camels to cross the desert- through Wadai and Darfur, hoping to come out at Khartum. We heard nothing more of him until we received the news of his death." The news received Some five weeks ago from Maiduguri was to the effect, that Lieutenant Alexander was waiting there for Lopez to obtain camels fromTCauo in order to undertake a journey over much the same route as that followed by Naehtigal in 1573. It would iir.is appear i.bat the explorer, had s'.aried oil bis journey and that Lopez had v-ncreeded in getting back to Aiasdiiguri. The fact that Lopez .is sale is lakeii to indicate that LieuU'lianr Alexander must have been attacked alone, as Lopez would never have K it him in the lurch. The country oast of Abeshr, which v. as the scene of the murder, forms pail, of the Sultanate of Wadai, which i" a centre of Semissi activity and has be.'ii the scene of the murders of several white explorers, including Yogel in 1850 and lieunnann in 1861.

!t is not too much to say that his death is a national less. Men of such indomitable patience, such serene courage and good cheer in i'aee of the most crushing difficulties and the blackest tragedy arc exemplars to the nation. Lieutenant Alexander, tall and spare, •.vitli strong features and prominent »<«•:<«. v.as only thirty-seven years old, and bade fair to take the highest position among otir great pioneers. He, as his brother Claud said of himself with a grim humor when lie lay dying in a Nigerian village of an unknown and terrible disease, had had "a short life hut a merry one." At twenty-five the late explorer tmversed the Zambesi territories, and in 1!/00 bore his part in the fighting that led up to the relief of Kumassi. f;i 1.004 he led the Alexander-Gosling expedition from the Niger to the Nile, the tragic Odyssey through Africa, of which he wrote the moving history dedicated "to my lost companions." I\oturuing unscathed from a thousand perils of disease and cannibal warfare arid all the snares of the teeming African forests, Lieutenant Alexander retired to viie village of Stud'iand. on the Dorsetshire coast, arid there compiled tile record of til:' adveiirur'S ill which his brother Claud and his comrade Captain Gosling lost their lives. Ke had travelled -j; lfiO miles and "had shot every variety of big game—lions, eiopiiams. rhinoceroses, and hippopotami Mi.or.g then!, lie solved the geographical problems of Lake Chad and leached the source of the Niger. His discoveries do not as yet appear in our maps. But he found that Lake Chad is much smaller than it is depicted. and consists of two distinct lakes. Dining his expedition Lopez trapped and killed an okani. that rare.'!: «.f African fauna. Lieutenant 1 >\ande;' ate of its flesh., the first whit" nam to taste it. He describes as "M-rv tender and tasting like bt-;." The striped, giraffe-like skin is greatly prir.ed by the natives, and is for j that reason most difiicult to obtain.

On hip. expedition ho had to make siis way through the dense tropical ithat Stnuley found so serious an i'ir-;a:c]-.'. lie thus describes the feeling on entering it: ;he sense;; seem awed, blinded :l'. i; v ere by the sudden earning from the sunlight into the dark of the trees, iiicii gradually out of the gloom the vastness dawns njjon the mind, and although nimble to see more than a few paces through the dense growth one knows instinctively that one is in a region that is forest, as the land is the la'ui, e.r tlie sea tlie sea. . . . Then the darkness, that at first seemed to be peaceful and luishod, grows terrible." In its depths the forest holds many strange creatures. There were ''huge vampire bats with teeth like sharks'," "?.\rrot-facod plmlangers with eyes like saucers and as clear as amber. ' and ."gigantic forest rats with white bellies, two feet from head to tail." He came upon cannibal tribes who hunt and eat "stray men as the white man. hunts and eats the deer. Hut almost always by his tact and kindness and .sympathy he maintained good relations oven .with the most savage tribes. Ho was remarkable for the skill with which ho handled his black "bovs." "Every explorer looks upon the map nf that part of the world which particular! v calls him, and endeavors to find a ' spot that still affords opportunity for the special powers he may possess for finding out the secrets that it hides." They are the lieutenant's own words, and ho perished in the pursuit of his ideal. His brother gave his life to the same "call" at the ago of twenty-six, and his comrade, Captain Gosling, at thirty-throe. Lieutenant Alexander outlived both, yet could not resist "the call." We may bo sure tliat he met his end with tll'at unshaken courage which liis brother and coir.nice maintained until the last.