A PERILOUS LIFE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 137, 19 September 1910, Page 6

A PERILOUS LIFE.

A MISSIONARY OX THE INDIAN FRONTIER. Among the Englishmen decorated in the last distribution of honors was Dr. Pennell, of Bannu, of the Indian frontier, who reedved the gold medal of the Order of the Kaiser-i-Hind. Dr. Pennell's career has been backed with adventure and peril. For eighteen years he has been working as a medical missionary of the Church of England among the wild tribesmen of the Afghan frontier, to whom rifles and cartridges are far more precious than human life. The Afghan's hatred of the Englishman and his religion makes Dr. Pennell's work extremely perilous, but he goes among the tribesmen fearlessly without arms of any kind. Naturally he is a goldmine of stories. Once he was summoned to attend the family of an Afridi i chief who had murdered his way to the . head of the clan, all of whom were f u?)- ! tives from justice. , Members gathered . round the doctor in large numbers when > he arrived, and did not all dissemble . their dislike. "Don't mind those rufp fians," said the chief courteously. "If one of them attempts to molest you, I'll . shoot him on the spot!" The chief wore | a book of prayers round his neck, one'of , which besought Allah to send the bullet .I to its mark ev,ery time the faithful one. i raised his rifle to his shoulder. "And ; Allah has been very good to me," said . the ruffian with pious fervor. "I have , never missed a man." He has 400 m'ur- ; ders to his name. Thrilling is the story , Dr. Pennell tells of the martyrdom of : an Afghan priest who was converted to •Christianity at the Bannau mission and went back to almost certain death in Afghanistan. Brought before the Ameer at Kandahar, he refused to recant, and was therefore manacled, and driven on foot to Kabul with a bit in his mout'h. At length he was liberated and ordered to leave the country, but on the way wias recognised at a village and dragged i beiore the Mullah. Three times he was i aslced if he would renounce the new faith, ! and each time he refused. After the I first refusal they lopped off his ri<*hfc ; arm, and after the second his left arm | followed the right. Then they cut his . throat. Such a fate is not at all uncommon among converts.