WONDERFUL WIRELESS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18441, 27 March 1922, Page 4

WONDERFUL WIRELESS

WHERE MESSAGES ARE SENT HUNDREDS OF MILES BY BEAT OF DRUM Long before wireless telegraphy was thought of in Europe, the peoples of Central Africa had in use a system by which a message could bo sent hundreds of miles in a few minutes. Klus seeming miracle is accomplished by beat of a drum. It is difficult for people like ourselves to understand Low extensive a part is played by drums in the daily life of these savages. Not only has each temple its drum with distinctive beats, but the King has a number of drums for his private use. So have his principal chiefs. There are several hundred different beats for drums (the Rev. John Roscoe tells us in “Twentyfive Years in East. Africa”), and each rhythm is known'by the people, and conveys a definite meaning to them. On? particular beat, for example, conveys to the hearer the fact that some particular chief is passing, another that a dance is about to take place, another is a call to war, another a fire alarm, and so forth. SELLING RUPEES FOR SHELLS! In this way messages are carried far and wide as quickly as sound travels, ' since, in the case of an urgent call it is the duty of the first person at a dis- ( tance who hears the sound to repeat the message. From the point of view of the white men —missionaries, traders, and others —dwelling amongst these drum-beating people—the system is not always an unmixed blessing. When, for instance, news of tho death of Queen Victoria reached Uganda, it was made known by these means all over the protectorate in an incredibly short space of time, with the result that the value of British coinage—rupees and pice—dropped to nil. Rupees were immediately sold for two or three cowrie-shells, the regular value being a thousand cowrie-shells for a a rupee. It took some time and a good deal of explanation to convince the natives that there was no depreciation of the coinage through the death of a European sovereign. They had been accustomed to think that eventhing changed when a king or queen died. KILLING OFF HIS BROTHERS. Such indeed was, until recently, the case as regards their own rulers. Seldom, if ever, did the new king succeed to the throne without severe fighting, during which everything was turned topsy-turvy. Once securely seated upon the throne, his first step was to seize all his brothers, often numbering some hundreds.

Then, it being unlawful to shed royal blood, he would shut them all up together inside a high stockade and there they would remain, closely guarded and deprived of food and water, until they died from hunger and thirst. Several ruins of such places still exist, with the remains of the moat which surrounded the stockade, and inside may be found the bones of the dead princes. The object of this wholesale slaughter was, of course, to safeguard the reigning king from possible rivals.