THE STORY OF THE WILSON PATROL. BY ONE OF THE TWO SURVIVORS.
The Westminster Gazette has got hold of the Yankee scout Burnham, who was (writes our London correspondent) one of the two survivors of the ill-fated Wilson Patrol, and is now in London. I give you his account of what happened, commencing from the period the night before the end, when the little party found they had ridden into the midst of the enemy and were well-nigh surrounded. It was then dusk, and they were in the forest with Matabele within earshot. Burnham said :—
Burnham: "When we came to count, on assembling, we found we were three men short. Somewhere or other we had dropped the three detailed to keep back the crowd. Evidently they had lost us. Wilson comes to me and says : 'Burnham, can you follow back along the vei where we've just come?' I was wet and tired, and rather off it at first. But Wilson said : 'Come, I must have those men back. Come along, I'll try with you myself. I want to see how you American fellows work/ He was no bad hand at tracking, Wilson himself, and I was put on my mettle at once. We began, and I was flurried at first, and could not seem to get on to it somehow."
Reporter: "Stop. I want to know how you do this tracking. What's the way of it? You don't boast a dog's scent, I suppose, like the Indians in story books ?’’
Burnham: "The Indians? Well, as much as an Indian can scent, I can. Often when we were creeping forward in bush at night I would stop, sniff, and smell that there were Kaffirs in front. We were always getting into the middle of them — near enough to touch sometimes. But of course it is by sight we go. In daylight, when the ground is too hard to take footsteps, you must go by a leaf turned here, a blade crumpled there, a stick pressed in, and so on, trying on from one bit to another. Always you must carry a map and picture of all you pass in your head. If you think that's easy go and drop your hat in a wood, walk away."
Reporter: "Thanks ; I don't need to waste a hat. I can lose myself, let alone my hat, in ten minutes in a common English hornbeam covert if the drives are alike enough. Does this instinct serve you in a city too ? "
Burnham: " I find my way in London by it."
Reporter: "What else do you go by in the bush besides footsteps?"
Burnham: " Plenty of things. Take horse-droppings. Come upon a horse-dropping, you ought to know very quickly how long before that horse has passed — bearing in mind sun and weather."
Correspondent notes: [And he explained how the wily Indians, aware of this index, carry stale horse-dung with them to plant by the way, the same with intent to deceive. And how, let alone horses, the other debris of a troop will tell you what condition they are in. It may say : " These men are reduced to dead horse, served with boiled grass. Press on, and hit them while they're weak." Over - delicate readers, please skip. But how a little thing brings before one in a flash all the cunning and all the hard, brutal necessity of war !]
Burnham resumes: "So we started off together, Wilson and I, in the dark. It was hard work, for one could see nothing ; one had to feel for the traces with one's hands. Creeping along, at last we stood close to the waggons, where the patrol had first retreated into the bush ; but still no sign of the three men. ' There's nothing for it,' says Wilson, 'we must shout.' Long and low at first, then louder, we stood calling and cooeying for them. Of course there was a great stir along the lines of the Native skerms. They did not know what to make of it. We heard afterwards from Natives that some indunas went along quieting the men, and saying : 'Do you think the white men are on you, you children ? Don't you know a wolf's howl when you hear it?' After calling for a bit, we heard an answering call away down the vlei, and the lost three were soon back with the rest. It had left off raining, but it was a miserable night: we were all wet and tired, and the horses had been under saddle, some of them, twenty hours, and were quite done.
"So we waited for the column.
"During the night we could hear Natives moving across into the bush which lay between us and the column. We heard the branches as they pushed through.
“After some time Wilson says to me: 'Burnham, I wish you'd go and listen out on the track, and see if you can hear them coming.'
"I went. For a long, long time all I heard was just the dropping of the rain off the leaves in the forest, and now and then a dog barking among the skerms.
"But at last, listening close to the ground, I heard a noise of horses' feet. I ran back and said: