The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 10, 1899, Page 25

?7/0&1‘ the swift carries his great Rayts England’s horizon a point of ¥ Aanese soldier scan the desert Bactrian two-humped fleld that lar th awaits the English had stocked thers were horses aggregat e £50,000, and in one brief sea all perished from unknown thout apparent iliness or pain he camel came by necessity to al for the British cavalry in 1 as for the levees made by or pigeon and the carry war into the ath the ground the sap- irrow through wall and ngland's glory goes on he globe soldlers are not saying strange helpers; It is shman to take matter of course that they do not see of their own won- an 4 nation that has been fession of war to turn all ses and we may ex- hear of impromptu t th trained through the arks doing picket duty for a aces and even the Teutonic f the spectacular in war. P ors and gallery play effects are f la vie militaire. Facclo fe- k fierce) was of the com- the itallan manual. J. Bull does care how he looks when war is on; ow an end is sccomplished so » with certainty and effect. pound gun is to him & Lyddite pro- . and nothing more. He gives no L w he mets that gun up a hill, wt by horse pulling, man pushing ephants picking it up with tusks and trunk and carrying it. VWhat a tale the war elephants that fight the Queen's service ocould tell. The largest troop of them now in use In the Indo-British artillery are those which were in the Peshawur columa of the Ti- Jvs were set upon the backs of i from a lmbd pcks and at the ward” the elephants the woman killers eye-witness as ar nade of the ele- rtune, and some of the troops of the Nana § { ow now eat thelr tub of bran mash and bundle of sugarcaune when British trumpets sound the “stable call.” The use of camels, elephants and water se w buffalo as « part of the military equip- ment of a great nation might possibly be 00d to come from a desire ior the rather than from strategic requirements, but the Interior of Africa presents such difficuities in the path of an advancing army as can only be overcome their means Distances in Central Ethiopia are sured by the thousand miles, and the w transportation of an army of 50,000 men with as many tons of baggage, supplies and arms presents an alarming question to the general, who must operate for tue most part beyond the raliroads and often in parts of the country where nature has set the fatal tsetse fly to guard the por- tals of her treasury. The sting of this fiy on horse, mule or ox is in most cases followed by death, though it is not in- clined to sting nor does the sting serious- )]y affect human beings. While this danger confronts horses and mules in Southern Africa, there is the mysterious disease that killed all of the horses in Egypt some fifteen vears ago, and which has practically limited their use there. The natural beast of burden in the Dark Continent will be the elephant, for they have swarmed there in countless millions, and for decades past an aver- age of 100,00 have been killed for their ivory alone. While they once ranged from Sahara to the Cape, they are now confined 1o the central portion of the eountry. The African elephant has not been used much for military purposes since Hanni- bal crossed the Alps, and the more do- clle Indian elephant has taken Iits place. There WAS fgme uncertalnty as tc the Curious HArmy Corps % 4y [ “o abinty of the oS Asiatic sort 7~ 10 live on the l, d rough food which (> Africa produces, for the ma- s feed them always on the dainty food that it is possf such quantities as their to obtain in riment & number of Indian were sent on a thirty days’ up the e from Khartoum, and them s sent one African ele- They swam and forded rapid elephants journey with phant. rivers and miry lakes, picked their w:y over rough mountains and broke their paths through canebrake and jurgle, all the time carrying their riders, their arme and baggage and provisions for all Elephants are particularly -seful in the movement of artillery, as iney use thelr trunks to lift the gun carriages when stalled In mud or otherwise ob- structed. The fact that clephants can, under direction of the mahout, place sawed lumber In regular :iles and bulld walls of rough stone, shows how much intelligence they bring to aid their strength, €nd of what Inestimable value they may be In a wilderness. The draft animals of the siege guns are harnessed with great girths made of ropes tightened around their bodies and securing a saddle-llke arrangement on their backs; from this heavy chains lead back to the gun carriage. This is a sin- gle rig, that is, with shafts like a one- horse buggy, Instead of having a pole, as when two or more horses are used. The wheel animal works between these shafts, and the chains by which the leader draws are fastened to the front of them. The most imposing sight in all of the military pageant is to see elephants drawing cannon. The biggest thing on wheels drawn by the biggest thing on legs. They will, if commanded, go into the midst of action, but as artillery is usually posted at inconspicuous points In the rear of the infantry firing lines, and draws no fire until its own is commenced, the elephants can usually be kept safe The Hindoo mahouts, seated heads of the animals a they are in motion, under wonderful control, partiy by means of thelr affection and when necessary by fear. When all is well the mahout is continually giving the elephant some bit of sweetmeat or per- on the all times when keep them THE - SUNDAY CALL. mitting him to pick up dainty bits of growing canes or grasses, but when the unwieldy monster becomes ugly he is prodded and torn with wild ferocity by means of a steel implement looking like a boat hook, only with larger spear and hook, which are sharpened like knife blades on the edge and fitted with a stout handle about three feet In length. This seems a flerce weapon, but it must be remembered in thickness, and that the greater the front amd top of is light bomy struo- from all vital prin- mahout, when his mount is infuriated, is in almost as bad a position as the hornet that tired himself nearly to death stinging the elephant, and then died of grief be- cause he could not even make him look around. With the eiephaat for the jungls and 1 for the descrt. the armiles have » sy«tem for the While Inalan elephants force English guns to tho westward agalnst Afghan territory to prevent the opening of a Ru sian seaport on the Arablan Sea, the Bir- dar must soon extend his operations based on the Soudan so as to embrace all of the Central African territory which will be traversed by the Cairo to Cape rallway. For this work there is no arm of the service more powerful than the Camel Corps, and upon them will devolve all of the work of protecting the rallroad construction forces at the front from at- tacks by natives, which may be instigated by fanatic Mohammedans, or by French unwilling to see their heroic pioneering In tropical Africa go for naught. The origin of the Camel Corps was a nucleus of seven companies of the Khe- dive's levies, of which two were Fella- heen and five Soudanese. These were mere skelaton companies and have been augmented to full strength, and another corps, consisting of two Fellaheen and four Boudanese companies, has been added by the Sirdar. All of the reconnoitering and flanking from the time that the troops disembark at the second cataract of the Nlile is left to these camel scouts, who are not raw recruits but picked, both officers and men, from line regiments of Sir Herbert Kitchener's forces. They have been drilled in every possible formation that is encountered in desert fighting, for it Is Sir Herbert's ambition that they shall become invincible against the native forces with which they must contend. They have even been taught to fire with accuracy from the backs of mov- ing camels. The beauty of this feat will be appreciated by all who have ridden the heaving, rolling animals or have seen them walking with their long, lurching strides. The thousands of camels in the Sirdar's forces can live for days on the water in their stomachs and the fat in their humps of the .7{ (r on which the blood draws as a reserve. Two or three hundred miles may be made this way at the rate of seventy miles a day without food or water, and some- times, for a single cay, 100 miles has been made. When the camel comes to the end of his journey, usually at some oasis on the edge of the desert, does not seel the shade in haste, but standing in the blazing sun chews with his hatchet-like teeth such dry palm stalks as are in con- venient reach and, refreshed with this and & barrel or more of water, he is ready to- continue his journey. The camel, unitke the elephant, has nel- ther wit nor wisdom. Like most of the animals of the desert he is dull and mo- rol nd ylelds his services to man rather from stupidity than from education. ‘While on the desert they live on leaves and twigs of the coarse shrubs, ends of barren limbs and the tough, paper-like substance of the doum palms, which sesms much like eating an umbreila wrapped in newspaper. The soldiers on camels, who are mostly mounted infantry, take the place of our cavalry arm in doing dispatch work, with the additional advantage that no forage has to be supplied for them owing te the der the supervision of the moet expert stilt walkers of the district. The first ob- Ject was to see how stilts could be made use of in erecting a tele{nph line.. In thi work the Thirty-fourth Regimen® of in. fantry and some skilled telegraph opera- tors took part. Orders were given to be- n_the construction of & line near Mont- le-Marsan, on the bank of the Adour, and to continue it to a certain point, the aim belng to see how quickly communication co% be established between two bodies of troops. Thanks to their stilts, the o erators and soldiers were very soon able o flash the news that the work was done. Inder ordinary circumstances they would have been obliged to use ladders for the purpose of attaching the wires to trees and houses, but stilts enabled them to do the work not only equally well but also with far less loss of time. Another curious experiment was made in a tributary of the Adour. This river is dner in some places, and the captain of an infantry regiment, desiring to cross it with his men, instructed some of them to put on stiits and to walk here and there lhrfluflh it unti]l they found a place where it could be forded. The men, alded by some native ex s, went Into the river and sounded It in various places, with the result that they found a point at which it could be forded with perfect ease and IIfE({. Returning to the bank of the river they made a report to the cap- =7y : ZZEP/rA/vT 84 T7TERY e s . A 77or afld of thelr mounts for eating things which would choke a goat The water buffaloes, the slowest things that mova in harne: are used more for camp drudgery and contract transportation. none of them being regularly attached, whereas the elephants and camels stand In line and drill with Thomas Atkins. From the Military Balloon School of the War Department there has been dispatched to South Africa & balloon corps, with military oalloons and chemicals for producing gas with which to inflate them, and also a number of complete sets of Marconi wireless tele- graph outfits to be used in con- junction with these floating observatories of the air, so that with one of them above headquarters the observations and direction of distant ma- neuvers may be made with as much precision and certaint - as by one on the ground. rious {8 war in its modern panoply. SO CISDIG Pl Novel Experiments on Stilts. Some very interestihg and novel experi- ments with stilts were recently made in France, the object being to ascertain whether stilts could be made useful for military purposes. The French Postoffice Department led the way in this direction by furnishing stilts to the letter carriers of the Landes, an extensive sandy district in the south of France. The inhabitants of this place have used stilts for centu- ries to travel over this country. The postoffice authorities awoke some time ago to the fact that the delivery of mail in the Landes would be much faeill- tated if the postmen went over their routes on stilts, and it Is the striking success of their innovation which has turned the attention of the mllitary au- thorities to this primitive method of lo- comotion. The Eighteenth Army Corps, stationed in'the Landes, made the experiments un- > urally given a great impetus to the arations which are being made at m: chon for the forthcoming tournament of stiit walkers. Of this competition the sulding spirit is Dornon, who is probably the most famous living expert on stilte In March, 1581, he started to walk o stilts from Paris to Moscow, and great was the excitement that he caused in every city and town through which he passed. A baker by trade, he Is now spending much of his time In training competitors for the tournament and for the stilt races which will be held in Mont- de-Marsan and Bordeaux. Light Derived From Car Axles. A new system of train lighting shows an emormous advance on all previous methods. It embodies the old Idea of generating electric current by the revolution of the car axle, but with an effectiveness never before attained. Where, as In early systems current for lghting has bee ted by & dynamo in the baggags ca by power from the locomotive, the car would lose its light as soon 1t was detached from Ji}'anye Helpers of Cnglish Soldiers. the Foreat and Desert. tain, and very soon afterward the entire regiment was wading through the water along the zigzag path indicated by the stilt walkers. ’Iflle soldiers wore canvas shoes while on the stiits and attached their leather shoes to their knapsacks. ‘While they marched from one place to another they carried the stilts on their backs in the form of a cross and were re- leved of their knapsacks, which were placed in wagons at the rear. So pleased were the army officers with these experiments that they finally deter- mined to see whether. stilts could be made really useful at such times as it might be desirable to reconnolter the enemy's country. So they equipped tried soldiers with stilts and sent them out over a pe- culiarly uninviting tract of land, which they were to regard for the nonce as hos- tile territory. 'he men. thoroughly ex- plored this tract, ard the report which they made satisfled the officers that this method ofsreconnnoitering would surely prove useful in actual warfare, and mainly for two reasons—first, because men on stilts can see over a much wider extent of territory than men on foot, and second, because such men can travel easily over morasses and thickets, which soldiers on foot could only cross after much difficulty, If at all. The Interest shown by the French mill- tary authorities in this matter has nat- the train; but now every car carrigs its own light-creating piant, being 4 with a dynamo and a storage battery. Whoen the train is standing 1 the car fis lighted from the storage battery. As s0on as the traln attalns a speed of dynamo is twelve miles an hour the 1 i , which t volving axle directly fro way lessen for any additio A w le ¢ kept_burn merely nominal cost penses of maintena electrician Is ne storage battery automatically A T regula {nspection of the battery meets every requirement battery will keep seventeen lights by ve hours if the car is at re has been raised that If the t >wed in the battery wo fckly ex- hausted, and the cars would £t in darkness. It is pointed out that this objection loses its force from the fact that the number of lights burning could be lighted from the battery alone for over a week much more brightly than they now are by lamps or even gas.