The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-08-19
SMUGGLING LETTERS IN AFRICA,
Means Used by White Men Among Saw
ages to Send News TO Friends.


Means Used by White Men Among Saw
ages to Send News TO Friends.
Three scientific men, Enin Bey, DR..
JunlSer and Signor Casati, have for two
years been virtually prisoners in the
depths of Africa. Hemmed in on one
side by the followers of the Mahdi they
retreated southwark until they were
stopped by hostile blacks not far from
the sources of the Nile. There they now
are in the Unvoro country, waiting for
the succor which two parties sent out
under Drs. Fischer and Lenz are trying
amid great difficulties to carry to them.
Though cut off from all hope Of escaping
by their own exertions, they have been
able to send letter to their friends. The
fact has been frequently illustrated
within the past year or two that the
castaway in savage lands can often make
his sad plight known to the friends
whom it is utterly impossible for him to
reach except by letter.
The messenger who bore the missive
of these unfortunates to Victoria Nyanza
was probably just like those who until
recently were wont to travel over the
same road from the Egyptian outposts TO
the great lake-an almost naked savage
carrying his letter in split stick which
he bore high above his head when walk
ing through the tall wet grass. Postmen
like this have done a great deal of letter
carrying through African jungles, and
they have proved to be faithful and ex-
peditious.
The missionaries at the north end of
e.
have virtually been prisoners in Rubaga,
and until recently none of them was per-
mitted to set his foot outside the town.
Yet in the dark days when no white man
could possibly reach them, and they
hardly dared TO hope that their lives
would be spared from hour to hour, they
managed several times to communicate
with their friends in England. Hidden
in the garments of Arab traders, their
letters safely reached the coast, and were
read in England about three months after
they were written. In the same way a
number of white captives of the Mahdi
have contriyed to send tidings from their
prison huts in Khartoum to friends in
Europe.
Six hundred years ago the man who
wished to send a message north from the
south end of Cochin, China, placed it in
the hands of courier, who was relieved
when about twelve to sixteen miles ON
his way by a second courier, and thus
the letter was transferred from post to
post, the couriers travelling at a sharp
trot, carrying the letter as far in one day
as the ordinary traveller could journey
in three. Exactly the same method is
still employed to carry the mails over
this route. Along the royal road that
skirts the sea from Saigon through An
nam to Hue the couriers still hurry to an
extraordinary place with their mail
snugly slowed away in bamboo tubes.
The method of carrying the mail in
savage lands is here and there improv-
ing. 1t is now possible, for in
stance, 1000 miles up the Congo
river, to affix to letter a postage
stamp bearing the portrait of the King
of Belgium and the words Free Congo
State" put it into civilized mail bag,
and send it on its journey to the sea. This
is decided improvement. on the black
native with his split stick.-New York
Sun.