The Chief Scout Talks

Taranaki Daily News, 23 August 1930, Page 25 (Supplement)

The Chief Scout Talks

PIONEERING. (By Lt. Gen. Lord Baden-Powell.) Pioneers are men who go ahead to open up a way in the jungles or elsewhere for those coming after them. When I was on the west coast of Africa I had command of a large force of native scouts and, like all scouts, we tried to make ourselves useful rn every way to our main army, which was coming along behind uh. So not only did we look out for the enemy and watch his moves, but we also did what we could to improve the road for our

own army, since it was merely a narrow track through thick jungle and swamps. So we became pioneers as well as scouts. In the course of our inarch we built nearly two hundred bridges of timber over streams _ When I first set the scouts to do this important work I found that, out of a thousand men, a great many did not know how to use an axe to cut down the trees, and, except for one company of 60 men, none knew how to make

knote—even bad knob?. They wore therefore quite useless for making bridges ae this had to be done by tying poles together. So every scout ought to be able to tie knots. The two hundred bridges which my scouts had to make in Ashanti had to be made out of any kind of material that they could find on the spot, lhera are many ways of making bridges. In the army they are generally made of poles lashed together,, and this is a kind of bridge that can be made very quickly by scouts with their staves. In India, in the Himalaya mountains, the Indians make .bridges out of three ropes stretched across the river and. v connected together every few yards by. V-shaped sticks, so that one rope form© the footpath and the other two make the handrail on each side. These are jumpy kind of bridges to waik across, but they take you over and they are easily made. . The simplest way _ for bridging A narrow, deep stream is to fell a tree, or two trees side by side, on the bank, so that they fall across the stream. With an adze you then flatten the topside; put up a handrail; and there you have a very good bridge. In felting a tree for this purpose, remember first to chop out a chunk of wood near the bottom of the stem on that side to which you want the tree to fall—that is on the river side—then go round to the other side and chop away on the opposite side of the trunk a few inches above the first cut until the tree topples over. ‘ ' ■ . it is a matter of practice no become 'a woodcutter-and you have to be very careful at first lest in chopping you miss the tree and chop off your own ]pnr. Rafts, too, can be used. You build, your raft alongside the bank —in tho" water if the river is shallow; on th® bank if deep. When it is finished you hold on to the down stream- end, push the other out from the bank, , and Jet the stream carry it down into position, Pioneers are always handymen. They must know how to mend, and even to make themselves clothes and boots, because you don’t find tailors and cobblers . in the jungle. I have made myeelf boots <ih well as shoes out of all sorts of materials, but always wished that I had, when a boy, learned to do a bit Of boot-mendin,z from a cobbler.