AFTER 40 YEARS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17407, 4 November 1930, Page 9

AFTER 40 YEARS

PIONEERS OF RHODESIA MEMORABLE REUNION CAPETOWN, Sept. 1. A week of memorable celebrations were held at Salisbury on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the occupation of Rhodesia by Cecil Rhodes and |iis band of pioneers. The surviving members, numbering 100. of tlie 1890 column were the guests of honor, and were, received by the Governor, Sir Cecil Rod well, at Government House. A feature of the evening was a salvo of 40 rockets, which brought to the minds of some of the men the rocket fired in the night before a battle in the- Mntabelo War, which frightened off the attacking impis until dawn, when the men of the column were aide to see them as they attacked.

The ceremony at the Rhodes statue was a simple one, but. it was one that will live long in the memories of those who were present. There is a photograph in Salisbury which shows the first hoisting of the flag before a long line of sturdy young men. Forty years later the flag was again unfurled lie lore the survivors of these men. now in the autumn of their days. The contrast, was brought home to the crowd, and even more so to tho pioneers themselves, surrounded ns they were yesterday, not by the bare veld of 40 years ago, but by modern buildings and a very large crowd, in which lire bright summer frocks of women predominated. For the pioneers it was a great week, and n great week also for the generation of to-day, which has been proud to honor .them. But there was pathos in tiiis reunion, too. for, as Colonel Frank Johnson said at the banquet, attended by 300 people, “these last few days lravo affected me greatly. We parted as young men. We have met again as old, grey-headed men.” The pioneers l«iid tlio foundations of a solid, permanent and noble structure, said the Governor, and Colonel Johnson declared that he could pay no tribute high enough to the officers and men of (he column, who went forward determined to win through—a spirit which lie commended to the Rhodesians of today and Hie future, in tackling the problems llial would arise. Colonel Johnson said he had ahonndjnfaith in the possibilities of Southern Rhodesia, but confessed he was a little disappointed that lirogress had so far not been more rapid. let he saw a day coming when they would, expand ito the north to build up a predominantly British Dominion.