LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3192, 17 September 1917, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A GREAT RIDE

Sir,—Heferring to a paragraph in yc-3--terday's Dominion, describing a ride of 250 miles in three and a half 'lays, ormore particularly 80 hours, done by a gentleman in Australia, and claimed to be a record, this 'is no doubt a •'ery fma performance, and takes beating. But I*. think the performance of Colonel Harry'Smith, a veteran of the Peninsular Wars,, and "one of the most dashing soldiers: that ever carried a sword," beats it. At; the time I write of ho was Chief of Staff.' under Sir Benjamin d'Urban, then Governor of South Africa, in 1834. '.t happened somewhat as' followß. After J t years of trace the Kaffir chiefs gathered Becretly, and on tho night of December 21, 1831, burst over the Bushman's lliver into tho settlement of the Zuurveld andV district of Albany, about ten thousand 1 . 6trong naked crane-plumed warriors advancing along a lino c' thirty miles,, murdering, robbing, and turning as they went. When d'Urban heard of tho outbreak he gave Colonel Smith command', of the frontier, offering him a sloop of war to take him from Cape Town to. Algoa Bay. This was Much too tame a. method of travel for Colonel Smith, who> laid posts to ride the six' Inundred miles:, from Cape Town to Grahamstown, his: orders and warrants sewn into his jacket; by his wifo, who, by the way, ,has hexname immortalised in Ladysmith, which is named'after this most beautiful woman. The first day he went 90 miles, tho heat raging like a furnace. He was in. Swellendam for breakfast next mor,niDj. in spite of "two heavy, lazy brutes of:" horses." After breakfast he did 70 miles,. 30 of them in two hours and twenty minutes. On the third day he rode 100) miles into George. Re met the Grahamstown mails on the way, and reading howterrible the position was he decided t?< reach tho place a day before he hati planned. (It was to lfave been a Severn days' rido.) He crossed mountain after' mountain by villainous roads, fording one ■ river seven times, so tortuous was its bed. Ho found the country in f he wildest state of alarm, families with their herds and flocks "fleeing like the Israelites." That night he reached .UitenajS. where he had to sit through an official dinner and talk over frontier matters; with Colonel Culver, at that time an old! retired officer. Then off next day for: Grahamstown, suffering untold misery-" from the "wretched brutes of knocked-up. horses laid for him," he says. But tne> last ten miles was a luxury. 1 found: awaiting me a neat clipping little baeK of Colonel Somerset's, and ,-n escort oil six Capo Mounted Eiflcs. In ten minutoei I was perfectly revived, and in forty-, minutes was close to the banner of. Grahamstown, fresh enough 'o to; fought a general action after a Tide ot: GOO miles in tix days, over mountains andl exercrable roads, on Dutch horses, lmng:in the fields, without a grain of corn. I performed each day's work at the rate of 14 miles an hour, and had not tlia slightest scratch even on my skin, liifi officer was afterwards given command ol: the frontier province and charge ol 100.000 savages, which charge he carried, out wisely and well, until Lord Glen-. ri«r ordered him to be superseded, which, is another story, and would take too longin the tolling, no doubt, to please Jr.. sMitor -- 1 am " etC r R. OCKENDEN. Maranui. ■