The Log of a Native Commissioner - H. N. Hemans

THE Sebungwe area of Rhodesia is a semi-arid, inhospitable and tsetse fly-infested region south of the Zambesi River. It was to this forbidding and sparsely populated territory that Native Commissioner Hemans was posted prior to World War I.

For him its untamed wildness had a special appeal, not least because of the opportunities for hunting, exploration and study of its primitive peoples. Born in London in 1871 and educated at Dulwich and Balliol, Oxford, he joined the B.S.A. Police in 1898 and later the Native Department. His is an excellent account of the solitary life, responsibilities and routines of a field administrator in the days when a Native Com-missioner walked the length and breadth of his District in the course of his duties.

Highlights of his story are encounters with wild animals and a 200-mile boat trip down the Zambesi to the Kariba Gorge. His ethnological contribution on the Batonka and Bashankwe tribes is of special interest. Hemans was one of the band of dedicated men whose lifetime of service in the Tribal Areas has built the mutual trust which is the corner-stone of Rhodesias racial harmony. Theirs is a story which seldom enjoys the limelight.