THE GUARDIANS OF OUR FRONTIERS.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1928, Page 4

THE GUARDIANS OF OUR FRONTIERS.

(Bv G. C. DIXON, the Special Correspondeni ot " Th*’ Daily .Mail ” (Loudon). who has been visiting West Africa.) MAKENK. Sierra .Leone Protectorate.

Picture the grey thatched roofs of a village scattered across a mile of levcrhamitcd swamp, with a great mistwreathed rock, a thousand I eel high, background ; palms ri-ing everywhere against dull skies; paths walled in by elephant grass much taller than a man; and everywhere, where the "machete is not continually hacking, the advancing tide of the African jungle, rank, relentless, and impenetrable. Such is Makonc. the headquarters of the West African Frontier I 1 one, know n familiarly as the W.A.I' .I* .’s. I Peso are the men whose job it is to patrol the frontiers of our Protectorate, to prevent slave raids and other undesirable visitations from the Southern Sahara and Liberia, and to suppress warfare between the tribes ol the Protectorate. At Makene there are at the moment, exclusive ol Ihe men al other stations and on leave, two British officers, two British N.C.O.’s. a doctor, and about 12(1 African troops. I only wish that people at home could see this little force -typical of a hundred others in hard and lonely places—and judge the metal on which the Empire leans.

I arrived to find the officers on trek and spent the day with the doctor, a cheerful young Irishman, as he visited the smiting villagers and attended tinlow cases in the little military hospital. Only one fellow .seemed in pain : a sealed and surly leiune who sat staring at the floor with a pain in his chest and fear in his eyes, groaning over and over again the same lament: Boss, my chest il humbug me. 11 I live for hour I die.

Then darkness blotted out the huge mass of Vussem rock, a lantern flitted 'ike a firefly through the trees, we heard £>> cheerful shout, and a minute ~,ter the officers stumbled in. They we;e tired after days on jungle paths; I hey had slept on the ground and been drenched to the skin by the terrific downpour of the night heloro ; and they had lioeii tormented by mosquitoes and (ounlloss ants. But they were cleanshaven. they had bathed in jungle streams, and even in their travei-uoin topees, khaki shirts and shorts, they contrived to preserve that air of distinction which is the hnll-ninrk ol the British officer at his best. In due course I have come to know these men better, and my admiration for them and fur their force steadily grows.

Makene, f find, is full of queer things, fantastic things: malarial mosquitoes; leopards that prowl alter your dogs in the darkness, and even invade your bungalow; boa-constrictors up to .TOft. in length ; vipers that live in the tops of palms and spit venom in the eyes of the native who is imprudent enough to gather nuts without first applying a torch to the leaves; monstrous tarantulas, grey and hairy and very deadly ; scorpions 9in. long that scuttle up the walls with astounding speed (the natives love to match one against a tarantula in mortal combat) ; frogs that hop about the floor ol your hut and come to a horrid end, il you tilt not careful, beneath your hare feet ; a host of things that, “/.ini’ and "boom like aeroplanes, and dash against the lamp, as scores are doing now; and. beneath the officers’ mess, a nest ot the black mamba, the African hooded cobra. •• AVliv not get rid of the mambas? ” I asked, as wo sat in the garden beneath the palms, and the dogs bristled and growled at something in the dark-

The O.C. tossed away his cigarette in a vivid arc and pondered.

“Oh, I suppose because We’re used to them.”

A trifle casual, perhaps; but in time you realise that in no other spirit could you live in this atmosphere and remain sane. Isolated here in the midst" of the jungle, haunted by pests and by malaria, cut off from friends and all amusements save an occasional game of bridge and a little shooting of busli-fowl (a sort of partridge) and bush-cow <a small buffalo... these lonely sentinels of Empire still preserve the nonchalance of manner, the cheerful indifference to danger and discomfort, the standards of dress and thought and speech, which are the makers of their trade and breed. They say the race is degenerating. I wonder. . . ■