FRONTIER HEROES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1436, 10 May 1912, Page 2

FRONTIER HEROES.

/ATE OF TWO INDIAN MISSIONAHIES. Dr. Pennell and Dr. Bennett, two medical missionaries stationed nt Dunn, in tlic Indian North-west. Frontier Province, have (says Router) died there of blood-poison-ing. The name of Dr. Pennell was ono to conjuro with, even among the. wildest and most fanatical of frontier tribesmen. No further details are to hand, but it is possible that both doctors contracted blood-poisoning while actively engaged in their duties. Dr. Pcnncil, who is a medical missionary of the Church of Imgkmd, received the gold medal of the Order of the Kaisar-i-Ilind in 1910. The r.er.l.s and hardships of a missionary's life were described bv Dr. Pennell in his book. "Among the" AYild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier," to which I/ord Roberts wrote n sympathetic introduction. Jlissionariea have often to 'idd the work of a schoolI master to their ordinary duties. Once Dr. Pennell was asked to take a young •VMian of noble descent into his hostel. Me"consented, but the boy did not appear, and later he heard that hope of educating the young Afghan had been abandoned, as ho had just murdered his younger brother. "Once," Dr. Pcnncil wrote, I came to o village across the. border rather late at night. There were numerous outlaws in the village, but the chief, under whose protection I placed myself, took the precaution nf putting my bed in the centre of six of his retainers, fully armed, one or two of whom wore to keep watch in turns. I had had a hard day's work and was soon sound asleep, and this was my safety, because I was told in the morning that "some of tho more fanatical spirits had wanted to kill mo in the night, but i tho others said, 'See, ho has trusted himself entirely to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so soundly; therefore, no harm must be don* to him in our village.'" The religious zeal of Afghans is sometimes as dangerous to co-religionists as to Christian missionaries. "It is related of a certain section of the Afridis that, having been taunted by another tribe for not possessing a shrine of any holy man, thoy enticed a certain renowned Seyyid to visit their country, and at once dispatched and buried him, and boast to this day cf their assiduity in worshipping at his sepulchre." Tho cases treated at mission hospitals are often of a, peculiar nature. In Afghanistan many eases, moro women than men, are treated in which the sufferer has had the nose cut off. This is a very old form of mutilation in India. "In a 1 case where I procured a false nose for a • man the shop in England sent out a . pale, Hesh-coloured nose, while his skin was dark olive! Obviously, this had to be remedied, so I procured'some walnut stain and gave him something not very different from tho colour of the rest of his face. Unfortunately lie started off homo before it was dry and was caught in a rainstorm. Ho was annoyed to find himself the centre of merriment on his arrival at his village, and came back to mo to complain. The nose was all streaky!"