BAKER AND BURNABY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2074, 22 October 1885, Page 2

BAKER AND BURNABY.

Never adept in small talk, Valentine Baker grows more «ilrnt as the years pass, says the London World. When he does thaw into conversation it is in the company of hit intimates ; the presence of mere acquiuntanancos would free/o him. The only man who could properly draw out Baker, unloosen his tongue for him, set it merrily wagging to the accompaniment of a smile and twinkling i-ye, was his fast and loyal friend Colonel Fred Burnaby. In appearance, manner, ,md temperament there w-is the greatest contrast between the two inseparables — the one prematurely aged, about middle height, monosyllabic, cautions, retiring, sometimes despondent, often melancholy, ■»nd sad ; the other, a youngish, burly giant of six feet three, with a marvellous tjift of fluent speech, expansive, jovially frank, sanguine, full of fight, open to all comers, everlastingly overflowing with good humour, droll fun and merriment Whenever Baker talked gloomily of his chances againut the Arabs, Burnaby would break out with a cherry "Ha, ha !" and wager that, with •• two hundred English gamekeepers " and a corresponding number of double-barrels and buckshot he could go clean through the rebel Arabs and the whole of the dark continent, <»nd emerge at the Cape of Good Hope. Burnaby's jokes kept the camp in capital humour, and many a time dispersed the gloom from his friend Biker's mind. Morning, noon, and eve the two friends tided to tramp up and down the gravel path between Bakor"s reception tent and the two stortyed coraline cockloft which served for head quaiters office — Baker in his blood red turban and undress uniform of grey flannel ; Barnaby m a pith helmet like a flattened beehive, in baggy trousers and short°jacket of dark tweed, with both hands behind his back, and a big cudgel swaying and twirling between finger and thumb— the shorter man walking with stiff, tnfirm-lilte gait, the tall giant with •lastie outward swing of his long legs Burnaby's comradeship is one of the two ••onsohng memories which Baker has carried with him from the Soudan. The second memory is that of a certain afternoon of sunshine and sea breeze in early February, .vhen a great troopship under steam glided into Suakim harbour with the Tenth Hussars on board, and when from the crowded deck the band struck up " Auld Lang Syne," and the Hussars, rushing forward, waved their helmets and cheered and shouted while Baker, with something like a quiver on Ins lips, stepped on board, and after so many long years, met face to face with his old regiment. Having thus crossed each others' path — "the old "conei" from the Balkans and the battlefields of south eastern Europe, and the old "Tenth" from the Indian plains and passes of Afghanistan — they soon after separated and went their ways, the one to England and home, the other to a post of duty among an alien race.