THE LIFE OF ARCHIBALD FORBES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1026, 4 November 1882, Page 3

THE LIFE OF ARCHIBALD FORBES.

(Concluded.') On the abdication of King Amadeus, Forbes visited Spain to watch the new republic, the difficulty of directing which was materially enhanced by the purity of its leaders. They would neither bribe nor be bribed, and without bribery no government can live in Spain. Castelar is a dreamer whose aspirations are too good for this work-a-day world. Figureas resigned because, by his own confession, he had not iron enough in his system to be a leader of men. Finding the republic a myth, Forbes, in 1872, went in search of the civil war in Catalonia, and found Contreras in command of the Republican troops at Barcelona. This fat scoundrel, who in a carriage looked as broad as he was long, afterwards conducted the communist insurrection in Carthagena, when a penny postman and a shoemaker were joint presidents. Forbes tried to induce Contreras to march against the Carlists, and finally the fat commander succeeded in getting his army one day's march out of Barcelona, on the conclusion of which feat the army triumphantly mutinied and were gloriously marched back. Disgusted with Contreras, Forbes underwent four months ef bushwhacking with the Carlists, whom he found personally pieasanter than the royalists. The? had little fighting capacity, but died like gentlemen. Returning to England, Forbes suggested the Ashantee war in a letter to the Daily { News. His propositions were adopted immediately, and their utility unofficially acknowledged by military magnates ; but bad health prevented the inventor of this war from describing it. In the beginning of 1874, a famine desolated Tirhoot, a densely populated district where the people swarm like flies. Forbes pabsed the summer among these miserable people, numbers of whom died, though £3,000,000 were expended in mitigating the horrors of the situation. One great difficulty in preventing starvation arose from the existeuce of caste. No food cooked by one caste would be eaten by another. Forbes saw a woman come to a trough for food, who, on observing that the people handling the food were of inferior casce to herself, lay down and died with her infant in her arms !

Atter receiving a sunstroke from which he lay insensible for two days, Forb«s returned home after eight months' absence. He became cognizant of the intrigue for the restoration of Prince Alfonso of Spain, who was then a boyish fellow and a fine rider, possessed of some dignit}', and a certain amount of ready brains. Accompanying Alfonso to Madrid, Forbes assisted at the coronation, and followed the King to Navarre in pursuit of Carlists, who were finally paid to give up a lost cause. Gladly leaving the land of the hidalgos, in August 1875, Forbes went with the Prince of Wales through India, where life was made up of pageants that unrol.'ed themselves like gorgeous panoramas,and displayed the jealousies of native princes, who quarelled about precedence, scowled, sulked and even went away altogether. But though these princes bated each other, they learned to esteem the Prince of Wales, whose manners towards them were irreproachable. He combined tact with dignity, and always did the right thing at the right time, According to Forbes, England's hold on India would not be worth a month's purchase but for military rule. All save traders detest the English, and they are only friendly through interest. British military rule is a semi-despotism, not always wisely directed.

April 1876 found Forbes again in England ; but the breaking out of the Servian war caused him to join General Tchernayeff, a Russian Schlavophil who undertook to organize the Servian militia, and accomplished wonders. By presenting a bold front and throwing up earthworks, he so impressed the Turks with a belief in Servian strength, that a war which should have ended in a fortnight was prolonged for four months. More than one narrow escape from capture and death served to keep Forbes on the alert, while life in camp was curious enough. On the approach of winter officers and men were quartered in holes excavated in the ground and covered over with sod. Piled up in the centre of each subterranean camp was a huge fire round which all slppt. Mice that nibbled hair and whiskers were frequent companions, not to mention les:.; agreeible vermin. Forbes brought to Belgrade the tidings of the Servian collapse, having an that occasion seen a battle that lnsted nine hours, travelled b_v post 150 miles, and telegraphed four columns to the Daily News, in thirty-four hours.

In the Spring of 1877, Forbes joined the Russian army in the campaign against the Turks. Owing to Russian secretireness, he was iorely puzzled to learn where the Danube would be crossed. Thanks to Prince Mirski, who gave him a hint, he was the only English correspondent who solved the problem, and hurrying to Bucharest] with the news, again did his journal great credit. Sole English correspondent present ah the murderous and disastrous Russian assault on Plevna, in July, 1877, Forbes was decorated with the order of Stanislaus for personal intrepidity in rescuing Russian wounded. By desperately riding . his horse to death, Forbes reached Buc-

harest —a distance of 100 miles—the day after the battle, and telegraphed eight columns of description, which appeared in the Daily News the following morning. For sixty hours lie underwent continuous physical and mental exertion, almost without food and entirely without sleep. The narrative telegraphed to London bore so hard on the Russians, that all anticipated the writer's expulsion from th« Moscovite army. Recognising the truth, however, of the English account, the Russian military leaders instructed their Press to accept it as accurate.

Again, having witnessed the fight at Shipka Pass, and being convinced that the Russians could hold tkeir position, Forbes quitted the scene of combat at six o'clock in the evening, on return journey to Bucharest, and riding all night reached the Imperial head-quarters the next momiug, having outstripped the Russian couriers. Taken before the Emperor, who was anxious and careworn, and very shabbily dressed, Forbes gave him all the information at his command, and was warmly thanked for his promptitude. Radetzky had exclaimed at Shipka Pass, 1 I've got this place, and, please God, l']\ keep it as long as I'm alive.' Forbes asrured the Emperor that the Pass would be held ; but as reports of a different nature reached head-quarters during the day, Forbes passed more than one mauaii quart dliewe, the German military attache of the Imperial staff assuring the Emperor that Forbes had led them astray. At last news cme that corroborated his statementb, whereupon the Emperor turned upon Mjaor Lignitz, excluiming, ' Yon were wrong. I believe Ignatieff's Englishman is the only man among you who knows anything abont war.' Forbes wrote vivid descriptions of the Septembar attack on Plevna, which lasted five days, and at their conclusion, shattered by exposure, fatigue, and fever, he left the field and nearly died at Bucharest. The interests, of the Daily News were 3ntrusted to tsvo able American correspondents, M'Gahan aud Millet, the former of whom died at his post. In the summer of 1878, Forbes went with Sir Garnet Wolseley to take possession of that pestiferous island, Cyprus, and, like everybody else fell a victim to fever. Nevertheless he contrived to be at Simla in the Himalayas shortly before the outbreak of the Afghan war, and, at his own peril carried the first dispatches announcing success. The short telegram sent to the Daily News bore the date of ten o'clock a.m. Ten minutes before ten papers containing his despatch were sold in Fleet street. This curious fact was due, of course, to the five hours' difference of time betwe en India and England.

Having eaten his Christmas dinner at Jelalabad, Forbes departed for Bnrmah, intending; to interview King Thebau, the Noble Lord of the White Elephant, Monarch of the Golden Umbrella, etc, etc, who had then just attained the throne. He accomplished his mission one wesk before the young monarch massacred all his relatives. Accordingly, Forbes was accused by the Calcutta Press of having gone to Mandalay for the purpose of bringing about this Christian catastrophe, and thus scoringja sensation ! On his way down the Irrawaddy, Forbes read the telegram which recounted the disaster of Isandula, and in an hour later received the curt message, 'Go and do the Zulu war.' He had a vague notion that the Zulus lived in South Africa, and a geographical friend in Rangoon told him that Durban was the seaport to make for. So for Durban h<s headed—away across India, from Calcutta to Lahore, from Lahore down the Indus to Kurrachee, from Kurrachee to Aden, from Aden to Zanzibar, and from Zanzibar down the south eastern coast to Port Durban. Discovering after the decisive battle of Ulundi, that Lord Chelmsford was sending no immediate courier, the War Correspondent started at sundown from the froatier, rode alone through a trackless country swarming with Zulus, and reached th>3 telegraph wire, a distance of 110 miles, in fifteen hours, whence he sent the earliest account'ef the victory to England, as well as to Sir Garnet Wolseley and Sir Bartle Frere. His report in the Daily News was read aloud in both Houses of Parliament, amid clamorous applause. Anxious to -rive details to Sir Garnet Wolseley, Forbes continued his ride to Piotermaritzburg, 170 miles further on, wlr'ch he accomplished in thirty hours. The entire ride occupied ninerj*six hours, three of'which were given to sleep. All this was done by a man with a contusion on his leg, c.msed by a spent bullet received at Ulundi. which suppurated, and compelled his return to England .

During his enforced vacations, Forbes lectured on the .Franco-German war and the Zulu campaign, and by special invitation addressed the Royal United Service Institution, on ' Russian Military Operations in Bulgaria.' On this occasion H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge paid him the compliment of offering to take the chair. While thanking the Commandorin -Chief, Forbes said it would be more appropriate if his old colonel, now General Wardlaw, should preside. The general did so ; and when the lecturer stated that he was proud to see in the chair a gallant officer who, in times long past, had more than once issued the stern edict, ' Let that man have tea days pack-drill!' the

confession was greeied with shouts of laughter, in which General Wardlaw heartily joined, declaring, on rising to propose a- vote of thanks, that he had no recollection of the little occurrences referred to, but if ever he did give Mr Forbes punishment drill, it was doubtless most richly deserved. Such is the outline of Archibald Forbes's career—a true War correspondent, who thinks a fight the most exquisite delight in the world, and considers a complicated technical battle the most elevated enjoyment of which the human mind is capable.