Many explorers have commented on the speed with which news
travels among savage tribes, says _Amateur Work_. A
curious observation as to a possible solution of the problem
of their methods has been made by the Rev. A. Rideout, who,
as a missionary among the Basutos, has noticed their method
of sending messages from village to village by means of a
signal-drum or gourd. This gourd, covered with the dried and
stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound which travels and can
be heard at distances from five to eight miles. The transmission
and reception of messages on these drums is entrusted to special
corps of signalers, some one of whom is always on duty, and who
beat on the message in what is practically a Morse alphabet. On
hearing the message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can always
tell whether it is for his chief or for some distant village,
and delivers it verbally or sends it on accordingly, and it is
thus carried on with surprizing rapidity from one village to
another, till it reaches its destination. All that took place in
the Boer War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal and Orange
Free State, were known to us by gourd-line message hours before
the news ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives guarded
the secret of their code carefully. To my knowledge, messages
have been sent a thousand miles by means of it. This is probably
one of the earliest forms of wireless telegraphy.
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