Transmission of News.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 351, 29 January 1903, Page 5

Transmission of News.

An interesting instance of the exercise by Basutos of that faculty for the secret transmission of news which unquestionably civilised people both in Africa and Asia is given by an officer lately returned from South Africa who fought in the battle of Biddulphsberg (May, 1900). The scene of the action was some seventy miles from the Basuto border, with which it was connected by heliograph, there being two intermediate stations. The British, " having accomplished their purpose," began to draw from action shortly after 4 p.m., and a message was tben heliographed to the resident magistrate in Basutoland, which reached him five-and-thirty minutes later. Three days afterwards, when the force entered Ficksberg, the officer in question was informed by the resident magistrate thatV twenty minutes' before the heliograph message arrivedi".: — that is, within a quarter of an hour of the time that the troops came out of action—a Basuto had told him that a great battle bad been fought in the neighborhood where it actually took place, and that the British had been, defeated. : i: Of course, the strategic, retirement -of General Bundle's force presented itself to the native mind as a defeat. ' The affair was a nine days' wonder in Fieksberg, and every possible hypothecs was discussed, but none could be found which would in the very least fit the facts. It is at least possible that the superiority of the Boer Intelligence Department at the commencement of 1 the war was due to their faith in this faculty of the natives, which would naturally not be shared by officers of the Imperial Forces, less experienced in native lore. The only possible clue is to be found in- the fact that Basutos pending cattle on {different hills ata distance from each other which not even the most strentorian European voice can carry, wiP talk to each other without effort, pitching their voices in a peculiar high key, but not by;any means raising them to a shout. It is not altogether impossible that just as -there/are invisible rays of light there are inaudible wares of sound—sort of Rontgen waves,-in fact. •- - |