Evening star., 1923-03-16
AFRICAN MONARCH
WAS DRY PIONEER
King Khama Banned Beer
Among Tribesmen After Set
ting Up Strong Regime.
ESTABLISHED PRICE LISTS
Honesty in Business Was First
Principle of His Gov
eminent.

"African history crops out in queer
places-in the rock tomb of Tut
ankhamen. for example, and again
in the death Of King Khama of Ba-
mangwato. Bechuanaland," says
bulletin from the Washington head
quarters of the National Geographic
Society.
There is some accounting for
Pharaoh Tut, but IL one were seeking
the greatest native of Africa he
would likely look last in the half
mapped, thinly-peopled, malaria-rld-
den and beast-infested region circled
by the Union of South Africa, the
Rhodesias and Southwest Africa.
"A glance at a map of Africa will
show these border countries be-
springled with towns, populous and
historic, whose sons often attain
world fame. Already they are netted
with railways and more are building.
4 South Africa sahara.
ON the other hand. Bechuanaland is
South African Sahara in Its lack OF
settlements and railways. Caps-to-
Cairo line crosses its southern from
tier at Mafeking and elbows its way
along its eastern boundary until it
emerges again at Plumtree.
The latter name sounds like town
of our own west in Bret Harte days,
and appropriately SO. For west OF
Plumtree stretch the bad lands OF
Bechuanaland-a vast waste of salt
salt lake in the foreground and
faItheN inland the Lake Nagami coun-
try. Here, in the Kalahari desert.
live a people who have been called
the most backward in Africa. And
this desert. it has been said. is their
axt-h lie
of water
Through numberlesS isolated CEN
turies the Bakalahari have developed
\ sort of sixth sense for waternnd-
ms. They draw il through reeds
from near-surface streams by suction
and use gourds nd ostrich-e egg shells
TO collect the precious fluid
Bamnngwato's Metropolis.
ITO the south of Bechuanaland s
great salt lake, not far from the great
trunk-iine railways dusty Bechuana-
land sector nor from the crossing OF
Capricorn and the Limpopo, is Serowe,
native metropolis of the Bamang-
wato branch of the country's Bantu-
NeSroid peoples.
Much further advanced than the
northern desert dwellers. Bamang
Wato's patriarchs still can tell CT
times when sickly children were
killed. blind babes were strangled and
girls were introduced to womanhood
Dy spartan tests and bacchanal an
practices
Among this tribe was born, about
1880. bright black boy. who, at the
age OF twelve. met David Livingstone
How one contact with civilization
affected this black son of a backward
tribe Is rare adventure in human
nature. khama is the one native of
Africa whose biography is worth the
writing. one writer asserts.
StickIer for Sobr;ety.
"khama ruled is an autocrat in
peace because he had been mighty in
war. He obtained aid from the Brit
Ish government against incurSionS of
M Beers and he beat back his neigh
Dor Matabele tribesmen so effectually
that his people thereafter were i'm
mune from their periodic raids.
"khama's conversion was no emo
onal Or mystical camp meeting
affair. He seized upon few practl-
cal virtues and enforced them SO lit
rally that visitors to his clean. pros
porous capital usually are amazed
sober and honest. Even missionaries
are said to have demonstrated with
him about his sudden banning of ma
tive beer. but the grim old autocrat
for white folks, but no beer was the
only salvation of his tribe.
Many stories are told of his rigid
honesty. On one occasion he sold
ioi SoOu price, d nurse, which Oleu
few days after delivery to the pur-
chaser. khama returned the pur-
chase price. saying that his inquiries
showed that the horse had contra cted
the fatal illness while still in his pos
session.
"A visitor TO his domain wrote:
khama regulates the price of the
goat you buy. and the milk vender
dare not ask more than the regula-
tion price. nor can you get IT for less.
He has put stop TO the existence OF
witch doctors. He pervades every
thing in his town. He is always on
horseback. visiting the fields, the
stores and the outlying kraals. He
Is a veritable father of his people,
curious and unaccountable outcrop of
mental power and integrity among a
degraded and powerless people
The whole of Bechuanaland, an
area somewhat larger than Texas
affords a lesson in conservation Its
dryness is attributed, in large part,
TO the continual cutting away of it's
trees. Most Of it's rivers are inter
mittent. Many of them seep away
In the desert stretches. Fish burrow
into the moist rivulet beds during the
time the streams go dry"