NEW ZEALANDERS AT THE FRONT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 94, 2 May 1900, Page 2

NEW ZEALANDERS AT THE FRONT.

RECOVERY OF FEVER PATIENTS.

Auckland, May 1. The Governor of Capetown wires that the New Zealandore Smith and

I Harding, who have been suffering from ' enteric fever, have recovered. Wklubotov, Majal. The Premier has received the following cable from the Agent-General: " The War Office agent at Oapetomi informs me that many packages of comforts shipped from home have received by the New Zealand Oontinj%j gent and highly appreciated." ™

IN THE WIND. I can hear a distant drum's Dull boatRequiem ol parted chums „ , Ne'er to meet Somewhere out upon the veldt, with inscripUon badly spelt, There i a cross upon a grave, and a Ufa well lost to save England's name. I can hear a bugle's c*ll . , In the mora, And a woman's tears that fall (Heart forlorn!) Bomewhs.e out upon the plain, with but aaj God to share bis pain, Lies She lovsr of Elaine, and the bscle calls ' in vain Evermore 1 I can bear a tender voice Speak low! The sick and dying to rejoice, __ I trow. When the battle's rage is spent, in a pease* ful, silent tent, Thoro ane women Heaven-sent, watching - o'er the boy who wont To the war.

I can hear a trumpet's blast Through the streets they marcntf last, „, (Beok'nlng; day). They obeyed the bugle's call, and tbsyte come to greet Oom Paul: " Ton, who took our blood and gold, it to meet that you be told Aijtw mora, „ „ „ "OomPaaL" Edgar M. Dkll. SOME OF THE GREAT FBATB 0» TH» BRITISH ABUT. . The recent exploit of General PV«noh J in leading his famous cavalry to tht M relief of Kimberley haa natarally ■ called attention to the most wondarf ol ■ marches made by armies and manders in other places and at other fl times. French, it wUI be remembered, ■ set out from the north of Cape OelonyJ to the relief of Kimberley witfcwHmVS eight or ten thousand men, eWeflyß cavalry, under his control. He marched 1 through the Orange Free State, driving the enemy before him whenever he came up with them, and finally raised the siege of Kimberley, after going; over ninety miles in four days, and fighting most of the way as he went along. From the earliest days of history down to the present time tbfcrehas always been a sort of fascinatioo attttit such celebrated marches. It uso difficult to get troops along over ail kinds of ground, encumbered with every kind of baggage, harassed by the surrounding enemy in many cases, j hindered by heavy cannon, stopped by ' the necessities of food and water, that; it requires a born leader of man tocome out of such a trying ordeal successfully. Napoleon's march to Moscow and back, disastrously as it ended for him and France, was a marvellous achievement, and one that only such a leader as himself dared ever have atteaptedJgß Over hundreds of miles of snow hills, through long scores of miles of hostile peoples, harassed by mobile; Cossacks who knew every plane of a security and etch fastness among sterile m Russian steppes, where death lurked every hand—the leader who made such a march, even if he did not attain hi* j object, deserves to be held in high re- 1 spect, and is worthy of great adinira- \ tion. "

in Fa . moua > too. w" that march of th» fl English under Sir John Mosre, to- 1 l( j wards the sea-coast, to get amy Spain, whilst a French army pursued them closely. Moore just managed to get to the coast before the French came up with his troops, and ha fotfebt a battle at Corunna to keep the foe in A check whilst the main army embarked, 4 He won, at the cost-of his life, and our troops were dafely got away, rf Of course, the great march of T«wi d (then Sir Frederick) Roberts, in 1880, 8 from Kabul to Kandahar, ii the finast * feat of the sort in modern days. A severe defeat of our men at Mai wand ® by the Afghans, acd the necessity el >f prompt action, led to General Robot* setting out on that famous daytaa Kabul with an army of twenty thgiuwA a men. The heat was terrific, the geadl average of the thermometer daily e about 88deg. in the I Yet fJ *iT e grand fellows, led by that grand gonial, traversed over a dreadful country, JOS miles, to Robat in twenty days I Ob ooming to Kandahar they set about Afghans in a pitched battle, and soon made matters right again in that quarter. The foe were simply paralysed by ~ that redoubtable march, Nor should we pass by withoot • i , word such oases as the fine patfbr- Jk macces of William Peel, with his trtlfJ brated " Shannon's Brigade," in th» Mutiny. It i« on record how, when in a tight corner, the soldiers sent nsvi to the bluejackets, and, aa usual, " handy man " came along, led by lant young William Beel, dragging guns with them, and they arrived Lucknow even than before regiments which had not as far and had set out earlier. In fact, fMf* band met the Highlanders, to intense astonishment, and played thfgi into camp, for the brave V could hardly believe that the —<>— i had arrived. And Wolseley's night maroh to 3M> el-Kebir was a fine feat. Th B ». desert _ march of well~nigh a soore (2 miles, in a single night, when a whole army was transported with as much stillness as the grave owns, and met the Egyptian rebels face to face whilst the latter thought they were mite&

away—it was an achievement for our men to be proud of! It is something to remember that so many marches of celebrity in war have beta made by British troops. It shows we have yet no rivals to-day in this department of fighting, anyhow.— London Daily Mail. A WAR BTOBT.

A retired military officer who went through the Boer war in 1881 tells the following story of a carious incident which he witnessed daring that campaign :—One of the sentries of a British regiment having been found asleep at his post, was tried by court-martial and condemned to be shot. At the appointed time he was marched to a spot euteide the camp, and the troops were drawn up to witness the execution of the unfortunate man. Just as the officer in charge was about to give the order to fire, a bullet flew into the group of officers and men, and, striking the prisoner, he fell dead at their feet. The shot came from the rifle of a concealed Boer marksman. In "sniping" the British troops, he had unwittingly acted as the executioner of the condemned man, who thus died an honourable death after all WAB JOTTINGS.

Trooper G. L. Heenan (Riverside) of the first New Zealand contingent, writing to a friend in Southland, says:—l ■oppose there will be quit* a number coming from our way in the next conI hope they will never see the front, as I want to see the last of this afiair. War is not the game it it said to be —there is a few minutes' excitement, then a fortnight's hard work. The only fun one gets is galloping for seme of the infantry regiments. The Australian Bushman retains his own code of morals in the matter of horseflesh. A group of Australian squatters were discussing in a Melbourne club the raising of the contingents of Bushmen for service in South Africa. One of them incidentally observed, " There are a few up our way I should like the Government to get i hold of. Let them loose on the Transvaal border, and Paul Kruger wouldn't have a horse to his name in a week. I know 'em." Why has not Mafeking been relieved before now? It cannot be that the feat is impossible. Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who knows the country well, told an Australian interviewer at Kimberley, that "anarmy could march from Kimberley to Mafeking without encountering any kopjes on which a large oppcs ing force amid take shelter, and with such a column as General French has here at present the relief of that place should be an easy matter." Mr. Rhodes expressed surprise that Kimberley was not relieved sooner, as the route taken by General French was open with no kopjes to speak of for the enekiy to shelter in. M. de Villebois-Marenil, the French Mkuiel lately killed, confided some of his impressions to the French press, and of our enemy as a fighting man he ■peaks very highly. The Boers go into action with perfect steadiness and with p ftwi l eyes open; they move easily, and «n so alert that they multiply tbem- [ selves, and they use their rifles with murderous effect, never wasting ammuI uition, and always retaining their fire the decisive moment. In this way, masters of their strength, they apart. Possessing such extracoolness, resolution, endurance, belong to "u species of military long since disappeared." Cecil Rhodes is not inclined to Was done in the defence but one thing he is is manufacture of gun and the shells De Beers Company. "To poor Xabram, whose death we all deplore, we owe all the praise for that really excellent piece of work," he said, " and it was certainly a very fine achievement, considering the difficulties he en- j countered during its construction.! Of coarse, you've seen it in the Gardens, and it would haye dane your heart good to see the clever shooting «nr boys made with it. You know, the/ would'nt let any of the R.H. Artillery fire a shot from it, and were as proud of it as if it had been the largest piece of ordnance in the world. What? Send it Home? Well, Idon't think the people would let it go. You see, Kimberley made it unaided, and it belongs to the place, is a part of it as it were, and we are not likely to lose sight of it for some time. It might certainly serve as an object-lesson to the British authorities, for I may tell you that, absolutely destitute of the proper applknces as we were, we still succeeded in turning it out at a quarter the money a gun of such calibre could be constructed for at Home." r Mr. S. H. Adler, only son of the chief Rabbi of the Jewish race in the British Empire, now visiting New Zealand for his health's sake, after spending some time in Cape Colony, was interviewed last week by the New Zealand Times. Speaking cf the dieaffectum in Cape Colony Mr. Adler said the xeuon of it was that the country is «o essentially Dutch and antiEngliafa. Dutch is the paramount . linguistic influence in Cape Colony, r and the consequence is that the political influence is really a reflex of the linguistic influence. English is to all intents and purposes a dead language in Cape Colony at present, and the atmosphere of Oape Colony struck one as being not only un-Eoglish but anti-JSng- . lish. That being so, it will be understood that we are fighting not so muck lor our inter* sts in the Transvaal as foi the bigger issue of our interests ir Cape Colony. We speak of the Transvaal War, but that is simply a peg ot which to hang the greater question oj whether the English or Dutch shall bi f paramount in South Africa. The tw( together are inharmonious and incom patiVe.