Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion

Camped in a London flat, sick of the turmoil, rows and worries of the big city, with its pushing, hurrying and ill-mannered crowds, can it be wondered at that I let my thoughts...

Yes, you are quite right in saying that there must have been many queer as well as hard cases in South Africa during the seventies and eighties of the last century. Some of thes...

Scouting, like every other sort of business, has its ups and downs, and a scout may often fail to obtain the information he has gone out to gain, through no fault of his own. He...

It was in April 1864 that Te Ua, the crazy founder of the Pai Marire faith, despatched his apostle and prophet, Matene Rangitanira, to convert the tribes of the Wanganui River t...

Of course ninety-nine out of every hundred old war dogs who have the misfortune to retain their pristine longing for hard work and an active life, when they are rapidly approach...

In Australia, during the early seventies, bushrangers were still to the fore, who with cattle-thieves and hostile blacks made the squatters on the back blocks keep their eyes sk...

In spinning this yarn I wish to warn all new chums that, no matter how clever you may fancy yourself to be, you must, when you enter a bush, keep all your senses on deck, or you...

"So we found no copper island, nor rapid fortunes made, But by strictly honest trading a dividend we paid. And Maori Browne converted, with an ancient flint-lock gun, A mob of r...

By miraculous escapes I mean those escapes from death that have been entirely engineered by the Power above, who has preserved the life of human beings when they were utterly he...

Up to the year 1879 the Victoria Cross was not to be won by any officer or man of H.M. Colonial Forces, although one civilian (Cavanagh) had received it during the Indian Mutiny...

I was proceeding up-country in South Africa with a small party of troopers and led horses. The day before I was to start the bishop came to me and said: "One of my young men has...

It was in June 1869 that Te Kooti, chief of the rebel Hau Haus, caught a party of mounted volunteers on the hop, at a place called Opepe, on the high plateau near Lake Taupo. Th...

In very many parts of the world, which on the map are painted red and collectively called the British Empire, there are huge tracts of country covered with forests of all sorts,...

Yes, I've had the honour and pleasure of serving in the same outfit as H.M. bluejackets, and I will maintain that the British sailor is second to none either as a fighting man o...

New Zealand is, of course, famous for its natural beauties and wonders, among them the hot lakes and the terraces of pink and gleaming white stone. The latter, unfortunately, we...

If you look at the map of the middle island of New Zealand you will see the north coast of it, washed by Cook's Straits, is deeply indented by fiords running inland, and that To...

"Whin a man's that cross and crabbed that his sowle's as black as paint, An' his contrary conversation wud petrify a saint, And he will ate mate on fast days, an scornes the pra...

It has always been a source of wonder to me why so many people change their religion, for, although I have never had the time, opportunity, or perhaps the inclination, to study...

Many of the Hau Haus, bloodthirsty, cruel fanatics as they were, whom the Colonial forces ruthlessly knocked on the head during the latter half of the New Zealand wars, are just...

Years ago in New Zealand there was a chain of forts stretching from the sea to the centre of the island. These forts were intended to keep open the road that had been constructe...

The cold-blooded massacres at Poverty Bay, Mohaka, and scores of other places, as well as the vile tortures practised on any of our men who were unfortunate enough to fall alive...

Years ago on the Taupo line (the road running from Napier to Lake Taupo) everything used by the men garrisoning the forts on the line had to be carried on pack-horses from the t...

It took place in the early seventies. I was in Australia, and was temporarily in command of a body of Mounted Police, doing duty as gold escort--a very necessary precaution in t...

During the east coast war the division in which I was serving landed on the beach to seize a "pah," or native stronghold, two days' march inland. As usual we carried four days'...