Baden-Powell of Mafeking

by J. S. Fletcher

Following up the Spoor.

In his youthful days Baden-Powell was very fond of exploring such unknown regions as are accessible to a small boy, and it is related of him that nothing gave him so much pleasure as to find himself and his companions lost and his own ingenuity taxed to restore them to the paths of safety. When he arrived at years of discretion this passion for wandering did not desert him—on the contrary it increased within him, and finally culminated in a devotion to scouting, which has made his name famous all over the world. It is needless to say that in this matter, as in most other matters closely affecting him, Baden-Powell has largely depended upon himself for success and mastery. As he remarks in his "Aids to Scouting," a little military handbook the proofs of which accompanied the last despatches got through the Boer lines at Mafeking, "Scouting is a thing that can be learnt, but cannot be taught. A man must pick up much of it for himself by his own effort." How much of it Baden-Powell has not picked up for himself can only be guessed by a careful perusal of this little treatise, which is packed with the results of keen observation, and gives one perhaps a better notion of what its author really is as a born soldier and leader of soldiers than anything else of his. It was, no doubt, with sublime unconsciousness that he describes himself in describing the perfect scout, the man of pluck, self-reliance, and discretion, the man who can use his ears and eyes, his sense of smell and touch, who can keep himself hidden and track others, who can make his way across strange lands and take good care of himself and his horse, and who in everything he does is always dominated by the desire to secure valuable information. And it is with perhaps still more sublime unconsciousness that he insists that the first three necessary qualifications spring from—confidence in one's own powers.

Of the many wonderful things done by Baden-Powell nothing seems to me so wonderful as the way in which the man who has had so many and such varied occupations has perfected himself in scouting. He seems to be all eyes and ears, to never lose cognizance of anything that happens, and to give an attention to little points of detail which less extraordinary men would feel tempted to ignore. "It should be a point of honour with a scout," he remarks, "that nobody sees any object that he has not already seen for himself. For this your eyes must be never resting, continually glancing round in every direction, and trained to see objects in the far distance. A scout must have eyes in the back of his head. Riding with a really trained scout, such as Buffalo Bill or Burnham, you will notice that while he talks with you his eyes scarcely look you in the face for a moment, they keep glancing from point to point of the country round from sheer force of habit." Then he quotes a slight incident from his own experience to show how a little reflection and common-sense will suggest the most likely point for which to look for the presence of an enemy. He and a Shikari in Kashmir were having a match as to which of them could see furthest. The Shikari, pointing out a hillside rising at some distance, inquired if his opponent could say how many cattle were grazing along its slopes. Baden-Powell could only see the cattle with great difficulty, but he presently astonished the Shikari by asking him if he could see the man who was herding the cattle. He could not see the man himself, but he had argued the thing out and knew where the man was. First of all, where there were cattle there would be a herd in charge of them. Secondly, it was most likely that he would be up-hill, above them. Thirdly, up-hill above them stood a solitary tree. Fourthly, the day was very hot, and the tree was the only means of affording shade. Because of these reasons the man must be under the tree—and when Baden-Powell and the Shikari brought their glasses into operation there the man was.

An instance of Baden-Powell's careful attention to small details is given in the same chapter of "Aids to Scouting." "I was once acting as scout for a party in a desert country," he says, "where we were getting done up for want of water. I had gone out two or three miles ahead to where I thought the ground seemed to slope slightly downwards, but except a very shallow, dry water-course, there was no sign of water. As I was making my way slowly back again, I noticed a scratching in the sand, evidently recently made by a buck, and the sand thrown up was of a darker colour, therefore damper, than that on the surface. I dismounted and scooped up more with my hands, and found the under-soil quite moist, so water was evidently near, and could probably be got by digging. But at that moment two pigeons sprang up and flew away from under a rock near by; full of hope, I went to the spot and found there a small pool of water, which yielded sufficient for the immediate requirements of the party. Had I not noticed the buck-scratching, or the pigeons flying up, we should have had a painful toil of many miles before we struck on the river, which we eventually did come to."

There are abundant evidences in "Aids to Scouting" of the extraordinary patience which its author possesses, and of the way in which he has exercised it in perfecting himself as a scout. He mentions, as if it were a mere nothing, that he once took up a position amongst some rocks overhanging a path, and so close to it that he could have touched passers-by with a fishing-rod, and remained there for two hours in order to see how many people who passed him would perceive him. He took no pains to conceal himself, but merely sat down, a little above the level of a man's eye. During the two hours fifty-four persons passed him, and he was only noticed by eleven of them. But how many of us are there who have the patience to remain motionless for two hours?—all for the sake of an experiment! But Baden-Powell's patience gains a great deal in its value to him as a scout by its being linked with a marvellous power of deduction. He likes to find out everything he can about all that he sees, keeps a sharp eye on the people he meets, tries to deduce what they are from their personal appearance, outward signs, and chance observations, and is all the better satisfied if he finds that his conclusions are true. When he was in India he used to go out in the early mornings looking for what he could find and deducing arguments from signs and things thus found. He gives numerous illustrations of this exercise of his logical faculties in "Aids to Scouting," of which the following is a typical example:—

Example of Deduction from Signs. ("Aids to Scouting," p. 75.)

Locality.—A mountain path in Kashmir.

Weather.—Dry and fine. There had been heavy rain two days before, but the ground had dried the same night.

Signs observed.—Passing a tree stump, I noticed a stone lying on it about the size of a cocoa-nut. I wondered for the moment how it came to be there, and soon discovered the reason.