MEMOIRS OF A PIONEER

Hokitika Guardian, 15 November 1929, Page 2

MEMOIRS OF A PIONEER

“WITH ROD, POLE, AND PERCH IN DARKEST AFRICA.”

By Sir TEMPLET ON. NUTTS, K.S.Y.O

The publishing season opens auspiciously with this volume of reminiscences by Sir Templeton Nutts.

Like the Major-General whose memoirs were recently reviewed in this column with great care', SB lempleton Nutts has had a lrmiivemente career,’ but his activities cover a widely different field. ’The Major-General was a soldier and had cirrhosis. Sir Templeton is a civilian with catarrh. Nevertheless lie has experienced many adventures, has had every kind of escape has been stung no fewer than three times by the deadly bubu flv and again more recently, by his publisner, and is, in a word one of our stoutest and most hard-bitten pioneers and proconsuls of Empire. From a wealth mf anecdote I select one concerning Livingstone, the great explorer, whom it was Sir Templeton Nutt’s privilege to meet in Cential Africa. The meeting is described with simple vividness. Sir Templeton, strid-. jug through the undergrowth recognised Dr. Livingstone at once and went up to him withoutsrdtched hand. . “Dr. Livingstone, I .presume ■?”• fie. .sgid, .smiling. ( , 1 “J. Podmore Smith.” hissed out t explorer, and vanished - into the bush leaving Sir Temoletort dumbfounded. “ The sturdy common-sense of the British Public,” he writes trulv, “ lyill refuse to accept such n statement without duo caution, and.' in the stirring words of Kini ing, will ‘put out your swipes an foller me ” when 1 reiteiate the undnu' ted fact that it was Dr. Tevingstone.” A week later -ir Temnletnn m°t Livingstone again .by accident in another part of the jungle. Til's time ■T ivingsfcone said his name was Elsie Carrutbers. He seemed gruff. Three weeks later in a clearing at X’Bon go Sir Templeton came across the great man avai’i, eating a ham sandwich. “He laid the sandwich carefully b.v, his side” (says Sir Templeton) “and said ‘What, you again ?! ‘Am ■ I -'speaking to Dr. Livingstone? |He sa'tL; ‘Myi name is Gordon. Gord^i 'Highlanders Good evening.’ I hesitated. He added with a sort of seven in : JThev call .me Erie Battersby. and I have rarely seen a head more like an egg than yours. Go away.’ T then retired.” The reason lor this irritability, as Sir Templeton Nutts later discovered was that Livingstone had recently met ■Stanley, and as neither explorer liked the other at all Livingstone had made no his mind to be just “contrary” On \Sir Temnleton’s return to England he mentioned the matter to Mr Gladstone who observed, “I hardly think .such a name' as * Elsie Carruthers ’ which is a female npppDtion,, pertain to a male explorer, such as Dr. Livingstone.” The matter, then dtoppd. In the autumnjoif d|s9o' Sir _ Templeton wfiile’ sipping a chota-peg before tiffin and humming to. the, bango (‘with as' lie puts it, unconsciously echoing one our grent English poets, “ a plink and a plonk, and a pi inky, plinky, plonk’) saw, Livingstone,, again. This time the explorer dressed like Queen Elizabeth, was climbing a tree, at the same time exchanging jests with a pink grouse performing on a B-flat bassoon.

Sir iempleton retired to bed at once and on emerging convalesent found to his annoyance that another pioneer of Empire had slipped into his outpost during his indisposition. This man was named Carew “Mad Carew, and had a small black moustache; and he soon became very tiresome, perpetually pointing out to Sir Templeton .that. Carew is the only correct name for an explorer, supporting his contention, by producing a huge pile of English short-story magazines and using not a few manly oaths. “ T changed the subject ” (writes S.r Tern pel ton) “by asking him iff he had read ‘ Robert Elsinere.’ He said it was not a book for such as lie, because lie was a little black sheep who had gone astray. He added, ‘ Baa, baa, baa.’ ”

This man Carew occupies a great deal of Sir Templeton’s narrative. He is perpetually biting his small black moustache and laughing mirthlessly, stamping about in jingling spurs, thumbing the banjo (the banjo, makes him dream, for some reason, of Piccadilly), and drinking cliota-pegs. Sometimes lie will stand stiffly at the salute for hours on end, thinking (as he explains) of the Channel Fleet at sea. He is a terrible bore, and bis conversation is nil. We share Sir Templeton’s relief when a new bool; by Hall Caine arrives. Incidentally it is at Page 07 of “ The Bondman ” that a dromedary first bites Sir Templeton, sneering evilly.

in 1895 Sir Templeton Nutts met Garibaldi (“ Honest John ”) in London. In 1P93 he spent an evening with Matthew Arnold, and Pater; and one cannot help thinking that lie lias confused these eminent men in his memory with someone else—Carlyle for one, possibly—for his dialogue is ifar from conviiv ing as may be observed: “ Ay, nion,” (Matthew Arnold speaking) “ it’s a brow wee niclit awn’, ye ken. Havers, fbrbve.” “ Whisht,” replied Pater merrily, “an’ isn’t it, niesilf that’s aftlier tollin’ ye, begol), an’a a dhivil of a bhoy that yez are, at all, at all, begob ! ” Trop de fleurs! To the critical ear there is something wrong with this. T cannot hear the author “ Marius the Epicurean ” using all those “begobs” ; and I seriously doubt the “merrily.” However, there it is. The anecdotes of Herbert Spencer (the philosopher) told

by Sir Templeton are equally somewhat confused. Spencer’s well-known sonnets, “The Fairy Queen,” the fine “Lament for Mrs H. J. lligthorpe,” beginning:

Fair Cleopatra flamed in swarthy grace, But Mrs ltigthorpe had a nicer face; 0 Mrs ltigthorpe! Mr Itigthorpe’s Queen ! Her many friends will gather wlmt 1

mean (etc.), the “Lines to Miss Nutwiek, on her giving tin* Author a Hand-painted Moustache-Cup for his sth Birthday,” beginning:

Thank you. Miss Nutwiek ! You are kind, indeed, And this is inst the sort of thing I

need! For such a gift will obviate needless drip, •And leave no tea-leaves on the upper lip, (etc.) —all these were certainly not written for the lady trick-bicyclist who, as one might infer from Sir Templeton Nutts, was the philosopher’s lifelong admira- j tion. Nor were they written for the Mrs lligthorpe (“La Bella Xono ”) who was shot out of a cannon twice nightly at the Aqarium. What with the man Carew and what with increasing catarrh, the last chapters of Sir Templeton’s memoirs are tinged- with a certain pessimism. In 1907 he met in London an Imperial financier, a Mr Selrmalz, who was about to launch a huge project for extracting radium from live elephants’ (feet. “The sturdy common-sense of the British Public,” writes Sir Templeton truly, “welcomed with-eagerness the possibilities of such a scheme, which had all the marks of success except that it failed at the last moment to materialise,” The liabilities were five millions sterling; Mr Selnn a lx, had been ordered abroad by his doctor a little time before. Sii' Templeton himself lost lieavih-, and fas if this were not enough If the man Carew was constantly nagging and boasting at his elbow, underscoring the “Carew” m adventure-stories with His thumb-nail and sometimes ringing them ostentatiously with blue pencil. Often he would recite “ If ” . . .

But enough has been quoted to make evident the interest and quality of these memoirs. The volume is richly illustrated. There is a possible printer’s. error on Page 158, paragraph three, in a’, reference to General Si’* Reginald Ldbfah. “ This dirty oi l s'ddier,’’"-should doubtless read, “Tins doughty old soldier.” On Page 180, Ladv Boldero’s exclamation should rend: “You big tease !” Not “You big Cheese ! ”