A ROVING SPIRIT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 771, 21 March 1910, Page 3

A ROVING SPIRIT.

The trained nurse lives a life of real adventure, we all know that, lu her hospital ward, or in a private sick room, she wages a deadly war against disease ami death, and vastly significant is ■ a week in the Jil'c of many a quiet nursb wiio hardly moves beyond four walls. But it is not always" within four walls that their adventures come, and an English journal tells liow one littlo khakicoloured sister now in ihe Argentine has crammed more ot romance anil adventure into her life than would satisfy even the dreams of a ten-yoar-oia toy, finding it all, too, in the '.-.'.v.' -.1 duty, or rather chasing adventure, anil finding duty there. Twenty-six yean; ago, Bessie Sinyt'ne, a bright Irish '. girl, undisciplined as a squirrel, came to Kimberley, and fell under the influence of Sister Henrietta, the first matron of the Kimberley Hospital, who has, says a South Africanwriter, "made a tradition for her profession throughout this land." Ten years of training and longing for adventure, and the first great adventure came. Sister Bessie was put in' charge of a smallpox lazaretto at Pretoria, and for four months the only woman nurse in the camp, she showed her power of organisation and command. Not long after the war followed, and after the war Sister Bessie took charge of a plague camp farfrom Capo Town,, remaining there till the epidemic died awav. Next she went north for a year, and took charge of the Government Hospital at Mombasa, a beautiful site, where from the broad, deep verandah the patients looked down on the glittering Indian Ocean.

But Sister .Bessie grew restless. Things went too smooth in the hospital; the wheels were too well oiled; there was no scope for planning and initiative. She wanted work of another kind, but it did not offer itself. She woiild.seek.it; she did. Other women have boasted of their South African journeys. One, rich, has gone far; another, with a bodyguard, has gone farther. Sister Bessie Smythe, quite unarmed' (for she has all a woman's fear of firearms) and alone, except for the strange carriers engaged day by day, has gone up the river from Chinde, through North-west Rhodesia, cutting into a corner of the Congo Free. State, and so along the shores of the mighty Tanganyika. So on and on she walked, till she came to the great Victoria Nyanza, went across it in an Arab dhow, and so by degrees got back to the sea again, skirting German territory, and . then plunging into British. She went alone, and she carried no stores, (and very littlo money). For supplies- slip depended on the goodwill of the villagers, and rarely in vain. Once, indeed, her carriers had short, commons, and'there appeared to .bo in the headman of the village an unwillingness to .serve. Sister Bessie's knowledge of tongues is riot extensive, p but her , knowledge of humanity is wide. In the morning after the enforced fast she ranged her followers ,in line'. Then she called the village headman, and made him see their leanness—shaming him: He gesticulated, and said many things; and the march began, -without food. ■ However, the chief came too, evidently (the lady thought) with no ill intention. In fact, he, was most assiduous; 1 lie himself, and no other, must carry her over the drifts (where there is a lively danger of crocodiles). So they caino to the next village, where there ,n;as a. plentiful palaver. The result was no lack of supplies, and the .visiting chief returned to his own, smiling and satisfied.

Many is the tale the khaki "sister tells or the beauty of the lakes; of the wonderful convent on the shores of one of them, and of the work and hospitality of the good White Fathers; of strange, midnight vigils in .Arab dhows, herself the only cargo besides ground-nuts; of wonderful hospitality in' savage villages; of weirdly .quiet nights in the little sheltersknown as travellers' rests. ; Slid had a machila, in which she. was sometimes carried, .but most of the journey she, did on foot. At one time, indeed;- she walked three hundred, miles, on end, , .between Usambara and Muanza, on Lake Victoria 3Ia "7 a border did she cross, British, German, Portuguese, and. Belgian. Always she found the savage m courteous, and picturesque. ' Thus she sought work for hundreds of miles, at the ends of railways, in new tninmg centres, mission- stations, and among prospectors, but thero was none. At last the call came. ; The Cape-Cairo railway was slowly forging ahead, and the spanning of the Falls. bogan. It'was a b.ig i task;: there- would be fevers and .sickness.- , A camp hospital was planned,-' with Sister Bessie (and under her no, other woman) in charge. : She was again in her element, in the midst of untamed nature, .with the cry of tlio wild beasts often greeting at night her wakeful ear; and all the time hand and heart and head busy with her 'work of healing. : Sister Bessie is the friend of the lonely man. In many places in the wilds her littlo. tent, with the Bed-' Cross floating, above it, has been the centre of a! kindly influence., Devotedly ■ sho' lias worked; not merely conscientiously.- She has'given of her skill, and-of Her loving sympathy still moro unstintingly: • Many a mail lias, lived to bless her name; - many another poor fellow has gone from' his earthly {oil soothed 'by her gentleness.