M'TURK EMPIRE BUILDER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7802, 5 September 1903, Page 2

M'TURK EMPIRE BUILDER.

A Hta who Amuses Simself fey . Annexing Territory. (Next York Sun.) Once in a while an aide-de-camp resplendent in gold lace and white duck breaks into the presence of the Governor of British Guiana with an excited look on his face and a couple of telegrams in his hand. "What ia it?" asks the Governor, who is lying in his hammock enjoying a cigar and a. " swizzle " after the work of the day. "Mac Turk. They've got him again! 1 ' shouts the aide. ' The Governor tumbles from his hammock. - "By Jove !" he exclaims wearily, " will that man never stop trying to enlarge the British Empire? If he were in my place he'd think there's quite enough of it to gov- \ era already. "Which is it this time — Venezuela or Brazil?" " Brazil. Here are two telegrams, one from Mac Turk himself, the other from , £he Commandants of 3?ort San Joaquin. " Mac Turk wires that he was arrested by the Brazilians while 'asserting jurisdiction in British territory.' He says he 'yielded to superior force, after making a formal resistance designed merely to inspire respect for British rights and prestige.' " "That means he mopped up about a dozen Brazilians!" groans the Governor. '"I suppose the Commamdante shrieks for vengeance?" " Yes. H« talks about ' unjustifiable aggression' and an 'aimed invasion of the British.' Unless we do something pretty quiok, sir, Mac Turk will have ai rough time." " He deserves it," answers the Governor, " but I suppose we will have to haul him out again. "Keep the wires 'open all night/ Telegraph peremptorily to the Commandante saying that nothing must be done pending investigation and that he will be held accountable for MaicTurk's safety. " Wire the Foreign Office to make representations at Eio. Tell Mac Turk to sit 1 tight, hold his tongue and shoot nobody." Michael Mac Turk, the man who worries nations in this* manner and is continually disturbing the siestas of the Governor of British Guiana, is a Commissioner in the hinterland of British Guiana and one of the most strenuous servants of the British Empire. He is sidetracked in the remotes: corner of the empire-that can be found for him, but, even so, he makes British dipl> matists sit up late of nights devising phas to conceal his exploits from public notice. Michael Mac Turk, the man who worries sway over some hundreds, of square miles of forest and swamp and Indians. He is not the sort of -man to take orders from) anybody, even the Governor of the colony he serves. He ACTS JttJtST AND ASKS PERMISSION APTEBWARD. " When he gets bored with his kingdom.," says a friend' of his, " he crosses over tfce border into Venezuela or Brazil and amuses himself by annexing territory to the British. Crown entirely upon his own responsibility. " He was the man. who really created the Venezuelan boundary question and) nearly sent England and America to 1 war. Si^oe. that question was settled be has left Venezuela alone asnd transferred activities to- Brazil. "He wanders promiscuously over large tracts of country which Brazil is aocustomr' ed to consider Her own and dots the landscape with British flags." The Brazilian official like most of tlhteir kind in South America, are long-suffering people. While Mac Turk is industriously planting his flags, they shrug their shoulders, sip their aguardiente! and resolve to do something "manana,." But when fee shows signs of establishing a rough-and-ready administration and collecting taxes, they wake up to the situation and send a- file of soldiers after him. T&en there is trouble. Mac Turk is ai little man, not much over five feet tall, but, like Lord Roberts, he's a terror for his size. Every inch of him is fight. He is tie Captain Kettle of thejungle. . , Lithe and active as a jaguar, fearless as a bulldog, strong as a> horse, he is a big proposition for even a file of soldiers bo* tackle. All along the border the natives tell amazing storie3 of bis exploits. /"" Once, they say, he quarrelled with a) crowd of Venezuelans in a village^posada. The Venezuelans set upon him with knives and machetes, but he caught up a hea/vy mahogany chair and dashed into the thick ol them wielding it like a club. There were twenty of them, but in, a couple of minutes those who were able to> k move about had taken to their heels. Thd rest lay around the room witib. BROKEN HEADS AND SMABHED COUAUBONES. He can do sjome remarkably neat tricks with his Winchester rifle and revolver. Bamiling through the jungle one day he met a party or Venezuelan revolutiomst3. There were over a hundred of them, and,; as Ateteanus Wani would sayj only on© ofl fum. They admired his guns and suggested that he should hand them over for the good of tie revolution. He pointed to a wild] orange tree a couple of hundred yaxds away, raised his Wjnchester and fired six shots as quickly as he could pull the trig-) yer. The revolutionists ran to the tree aindl found that an orange had been piefced byeach shot. They passed on without asking for the guna a second time. Prior to ihie Venezuelan boundary dispute, Mac Turk was captured by the Venezuelan soldiers several tames, after desperate battles, and was flung into gaol. Twice ho was sentenced to be shot, and once he was actually led but to execution amd placed against; a stone wall, with a, file of soldiera waiting for the command to fire. A telegram arrived in the nick of time counr tcrnianding the execution, in consequence) of threats made by the British Minister at Caracas. Before letting him go the Venezuelan commandante tried a bluff. "K we show mercy and relecs. you, senor," he said, " will you take an oath never to enter Venezuela again, never to seek to annex our territory, and" never to demand any indemnity for this affair?" i The men with the guns looked threatening but Mac Turk did not turn a hair. - "If you let me go," he replied, " I shall do exactly as I have done before, and certainly I shall do my best to make you pay sweetly for this business. I'm not going to lie in. one of your dirty gaols for nothing." They let him go, and sure enough he managed to secure an. indemnity from the Republic by the aid of the British Foreign Office. Then he went to England, worked up the British case in the boundary dispute, and was made a Companion of the Order of Sfc Michael and Sfc George toy Queen Victoria, wro TOOK KEEN INTEREST IN HIS EXPLOITS. Despite the international complications that he raises, Mac Turk's way of doing things appeals irresistibly to the British temperament. " He is unique." said a high official of the British Guiana Government. "There's only, one Mac Turk, thank goodness ! Life would be too strenuous if there were many like him. But, such as he is, we would not be without him for worlds." Office work is not congenial to this enterprising man. Ho does not care to stay at ihome at the head station of his district writing despatches, collecting taxes and tying all the odds and ends of red tape that fall to the lot of a District Commissioner. After a week or two of that business be takes his rifle and knapsack and walks off into the jungle t leaving the district to be run by an assistant. Nobody knows for weeks, perhaps, where h<> has gone; but he always comes back with something interesting to report,. He has found' a new i J

robber forest or a new diamond field, climbed a. hitherto-unexplored mountain or enjoyed . ■ ANOTHER BRTJSK WITH THE BJUZHiIAKB. Any oth«r official who left his work in. that casual manner would find his services dispensed with, but everybody recognises that it is absurd to try to tie Mac Turk down to an office chair. He does not wait fo' *'*• Indians under his rule to- bring thv>' - quarrels to him to judge in the oaten '*<»r prescribed by law. H« goes into the forest or the native village, sees ftings for himself, and decides them on the spot. His is rough-and-ready justice, like that of an Eastern Cadi. Sometimes be travels among the Indians disguised as one of themselves or as a Venezuelan peon. As he speaks their language perfectly and U a good acfcor t he is never detected. And when, later on, some of the Indians come before him in his capacity of magistrate he surprises them by showing an intimate knowledge of their affairs and detecting their cleverly-con-structed 1 perjuries. MACTUBK's ZiAST BIG EXPLOIT in the annexation business happened about two years ago. The authorities at Bio de Janeiro were alarmed by a report from the frontier of " an armed invasion from British Guiana." On inquiry i£ appeared that the invading force consisted of Mr Mac Turk,, with a shotgun and a servant. He claimed * large stretch of Brazilian territory, adorned it with British flags, and sat down quietly to await developments. The Brazilian Government despatched soldiers to arrest him and the Governor of British Guiana sent a peremptory command to him to recrosa the border. MacTurk did not hurry to obey the\ command. He waited two or three weeks for the soldiers, intending to submit his claims formally to their commandan'te for transmission to Bio, and hoping to enjoy a little physical argument on the subject. But those soldiers knew Mac Turk. They took care to make the slowest journey on record, and when they reached the district he had grown tared of waiting * for them and had gone back to British Guiana. ]Je sent an Indian runner to tell them where- he .was and invite them to come and take him, the commandant* replied with dignity- that he could not dream of . ■■ * VIOLATING THE BRITISH BOBDEB. Mac Turk's 'physical strength is as remarkable as his political strenuousness., He was travelling on a mail steamer once from England to Barbadoes, and the usual athletic sports were got up by the offiaers. "What's the good of needle-thresding competitions and egg-and-spoon races?" asked Mac Turk. "They suit the women, but we men ought to have something more vigorous— weight-lifting and that sort of thing." ■'■'<%./•■''' As the speaker was A very small and very thin man people naturally laiughed; But when th,ey organised the strenuous contests he desired, they soon found out their mistake. ■ ■ Mac Turk won everything. The brawniest sailor aboard could not vie with him in weight-lifting; nobody could stand the grip of his einewy right hind; and in boxing and fencing he was unrivalled.