LEACHMAN, THE MYSTERIOUS

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1920, Page 9 (Supplement)

LEACHMAN, THE MYSTERIOUS

A great man died when Colonel Leaehman, Political ufliecr of one of the divisions of Mesopotamia, was murdered by the son of the. chief of a desert tribe between Bagdad and tke Euphrates. His name was probably unknown to all hut a very small percentage of Englishmen, but every Arab of a vast territory knew it. He had the same power over the wild tribesmen of the deserts as John Nicholson had in Northern India in the middle of the last century. He had the reputation among them, writes one of his fellow officers, of knowing everything. "He was not, as others were, to be put oil' by stories or explanations. The Arab talent for lilaborate, tiction was wasted on him, hecaiise lie probably knew before he asked any (ptestions. lie had gossiped, as an A rail among Arabs in Bagdad coffee shims: he heard, as though the iviiul had told him. of the activities of lonely communities far away in the desert. . . "The lintn who feared him was a man ,o'f crooked ways, and an liunest man in his sphere felt glad that i lie was honest." The desert Arab [ knows little, as the ollicer we have ) iptofed points out, of Britain and her | fleets and armies, and probably cares less. But Leaehman was a dill'eront matter altogether. He was a combination of apparently superhuman knowledge or of decisive action that enforced respect, especially as for a long time he had succeeded in convincing the Arabs to believe that they could not hurt ! liim. "He went among them alone and ! unarmed with the greatest freedom. j He was a man who could stand alone

i ■with no other weapon than a riding | crop, in the centre of n group of armed 1 tribesmen, and coolly tell them that he j would put the whole collection \\\ gaol lif they did not listen to him. Men of ' his hind have, made it, possible to hold civilised law in wild districts." Leachman was killed just at the time when his services would have been of greatest : value, but it is some comfort to think that all over the Umpire Englishmen of his type arc upholding by sheer force of personality British authority over iwild, or half-civilised, races.