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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Impressions of a War Correspondent, by George
+Lynch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Impressions of a War Correspondent
+
+
+Author: George Lynch
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 1, 2007  [eBook #21661]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR
+CORRESPONDENT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Christine P. Travers, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 21661-h.htm or 21661-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/6/21661/21661-h/21661-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/6/21661/21661-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other
+      inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has
+      been maintained.
+
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT
+
+by
+
+GEORGE LYNCH
+
+Author of "The War of the Civilizations"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Photo Bassano_. _Frontispiece._ GEORGE LYNCH.]
+
+
+[Illustration: Arms]
+
+
+
+London: George Newnes, Limited
+Southampton Street, Strand, W.C.
+MCMIII
+
+
+
+
+"TO CARMELA"
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+                                                        Page
+
+    I. The Dance of Death................................. 1
+   II. The Aftermath of War.............................. 15
+  III. Elandslaagte...................................... 31
+   IV. A Glimpse of our Gunners.......................... 49
+    V. In the Tents of the Boers......................... 58
+   VI. The Fellow that felt Afraid....................... 68
+  VII. The Dance of Death in China....................... 79
+ VIII. Certain Comparisons............................... 91
+   IX. The Crucifixion of Christianity in China......... 107
+    X. Ex Oriente Lux................................... 120
+   XI. Night in the City of Unrest...................... 132
+  XII. A Street in the City of Unrest................... 142
+ XIII. A Glimpse of a Southern City..................... 151
+  XIV. The Penalty of their Pace in the City of Unrest.. 158
+   XV. The Million-Master in the City of Unrest......... 166
+  XVI. The Woman who works in the City of Unrest........ 175
+ XVII. The Hou-men of the Dingy City.................... 185
+XVIII. Tired............................................ 196
+  XIX. The City of Dumb Distances....................... 210
+   XX. The Land of the Evening Calm..................... 217
+  XXI. With Some Toilers of the Sea..................... 225
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  George Lynch.
+  Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.
+  Advance of the Gordons at Elandslaagte.
+  Advance of the Devons before the Attack at Elandslaagte.
+  George Lynch Captured by the Boers.
+  Boer Shell bursting among the Lancers at Rietfontein.
+  General French and Staff on Black Monday.
+  General White and Staff on Black Monday.
+  Artillery crossing a Drift near Ladysmith.
+  Naval Brigade passing through Ladysmith.
+  General Yule's Column on the Way to Ladysmith.
+  Hospital Train leaving Ladysmith for Pietermaritzburg.
+  Boer Prisoners.
+  Japs entering Pekin.
+  Relief of Pekin.
+
+We are indebted to the courtesy of the Proprietor of _The Illustrated
+London News_ for permission to reproduce the illustrations facing
+pages 33, 48, 65, 80, 97, 144, 161, 176, and 193, and to the
+Proprietor of _The Sphere_ for a similar permission with regard to the
+illustrations facing pages 224 and 231.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for
+getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the
+special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the
+wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first
+hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first
+night of a play. There are no preconceived opinions for him to go by;
+he ought not to, at least, be influenced by any prejudices; and the
+account of the performance is to some extent like that of the dramatic
+critic, inasmuch as that the verdict of the public or of history has
+either to confirm or reverse his own judgment. There is a peculiar
+and unique fascination about this reading of contemporary history, as
+it grows and develops while one peers with straining eyes through
+one's glasses. There is something like a first night, too, about the
+way the critics view things. Sometimes great difference of opinion. I
+recollect the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek--Black Monday, as it was
+afterwards called--when we returned into Ladysmith half the
+correspondents seemed to be under the impression that the day had been
+quite a successful one; while, on the other hand, one had headed his
+despatch with the words, "Dies Iræ, dies illa!" To get to the heart of
+things; to see the upspringing of the streams of active and strenuous
+life; to watch the great struggles of the world, not always the
+greatest in war, but the often more mighty, if quiet and dead silent,
+whose sweeping powerfulness is hidden under a smooth calmness of
+surface--to watch all this is to intimately taste a great delicious
+joy of life. The researches of the historian of bygone times are
+fascinating--absorbingly fascinating, although he is always
+handicapped by remoteness; but the historian of to-day--of his
+day--this day--whose day-page of history is read by hundreds of
+readers, the day after has set to him a task that calls for all, and
+more than all, that he can give--stimulates while it appalls, and
+would be killingly wearying if it were not so fascinatingly
+attractive. That close contact with the men of this struggling world,
+and the men who _do_ things, and shove these life-wheels round, warms
+up in one a great love for one's kind--a comrade feeling, like that
+which comes from being tent-mates in a long campaign. Two o'clock in
+the morning wake to the tramp, tramp of men marching in the
+dark--marching out to fight--and the unknown Tommy you march beside
+and talk to in low voice, as men talk at that hour, is your comrade
+unto the day's end of fighting; when returning, to the sentries'
+challenge you answer "A friend," and, dog-tired, you re-enter the
+lines, welcomed by his sesame call, "Pass, friend; all is well."
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE DANCE OF DEATH
+
+
+Death from a Mauser bullet is less painful than the drawing of a
+tooth. Such, at least, appears to be the case, speaking generally from
+apparent evidence, without having the opportunity of collecting the
+opinions of those who have actually died. In books we have read of
+shrieks of expiring agony; but ask those who have been on many
+battlefields, and they will not tell you they have heard them. As a
+rule a sudden exclamation, "I'm hit!" "My God!" "Damn it!" They look
+as if staggering from the blow of a fist rather than that from a tiny
+pencil of lead--then a sudden paleness, perhaps a grasping of the
+hands occasionally as if to hold on to something, when the bottom
+seems to be falling out of all things stable, but generally no sign of
+aught else than the dulling of death--dulling to sleep--a drunken
+sleep--drunken death it often seems--very commonplace as a rule. A
+smile as often as, or oftener than, any sign of pain, but generally no
+sign of either. Think of this, mourning mothers of England. Don't
+picture your sons as drowning out of the world racked with the red
+torture from the bullet's track, but just as dropping off dully to
+sleep, most probably with no thought of you or home, without anxiety
+or regret. Merciful Mauser! He suffered much more pain when you
+brought him long ago to the dentist, and his agony in that horrible
+chair was infinitely greater than on his bed on the veldt. Merciful
+Mauser be thanked!
+
+The first man I saw badly hit during the war was a Devon at
+Elandslaagte, just after they had advanced within rifle-range. He was
+shot through the head, and it seemed quite useless for the bearers to
+take the trouble of carrying him off the field; yet they went back
+looking in vain for a field ambulance. They carried him instead to the
+cart belonging to a well-known war correspondent. The owner had given
+the driver strict orders to remain where he was until his return, but
+the shells were falling around the cart, which, in fact, seemed to be
+made a mark of by the Boer gunners--perhaps they thought it belonged
+to one of our generals, whom they may have imagined had taken to
+driving, like Joubert and some others of theirs. The arrival of the
+wounded man was a great godsend to the driver, who immediately, with
+the most humane insistence, offered to drive him to the nearest field
+hospital. Neither cart nor driver was again seen until long after the
+battle was over, about nine o'clock in the evening. Strange to say,
+the man recovered from his wound.
+
+In our first engagements there was rather too much anxiety on the part
+of a wounded man's comrades to carry him to the rear; but it did not
+continue for long. The actuating motive is not always kindness and
+humanity, but a desire to get out of danger. It was soon evident that
+it was only going from the frying-pan into the fire, as the danger of
+walking back carrying a wounded man was immensely greater than
+remaining or advancing more or less on one's stomach. Sometimes it was
+the unfortunate wounded man who was hit again. Men carrying off a
+wounded comrade of course render themselves strictly liable to be
+regarded as combatants.
+
+A still more absurd practice was that of sometimes attempting to carry
+off the dead during an engagement. An instance of this was seen at
+Rietfontein. A couple of men of a Volunteer regiment were coming
+across the open ground below the hill under a pretty brisk fire, when
+Dr. H----, himself one of the most fearless of men, called out to
+them, "S---- has been killed down there; better bring him in." They
+turned back immediately, and one of them, J. Gillespie, got off his
+horse and lifted the corpse on to the saddle, they holding it in
+position by hanging on to a leg on either side, and walked back, while
+the bullets were whistling around them, and knocking up little spurts
+of dirt on the ground in front of them. It was a most ghastly sight;
+the head of the corpse bobbed about with the motion of the horse, and
+the lips of the corpse were drawn back in a horrible grin, as if he
+were laughing idiotically at them for trying to qualify for a Victoria
+Cross with a corpse. I really think they deserved it just as much as
+if he had been alive.
+
+A curious thing happened to a horse of one of the men who were
+performing this feat. The owner found when he had returned to
+Ladysmith that his water-bottle, which was attached to his saddle, had
+been perforated by a bullet. Showing it to another in the evening,
+they came to the conclusion, from the position of the holes, that it
+would be impossible for the holes to be made in the position they
+were without wounding the horse. The next day, on examining the horse,
+he found a bullet had actually passed through and through him, and yet
+apparently he seemed none the worse.
+
+There was another but different instance of a horse carrying a corpse
+at the battle of Lombard's Kop. There was no leering and hideous
+grinning at us, however, as the rider's head had been blown clean away
+by a Boer shell. The 5th Lancers were riding out on our right, when a
+single horse came galloping past them, clattering furiously over the
+stony veldt. No wonder the men stared; it was a sight to be
+remembered. The rider was firmly fixed in the deep cavalry saddle; the
+reins tossed loose with the horse's mane, and both hands were clenched
+against either side of his breast; and the head was cut off clean at
+the shoulders. Perhaps in the spasm of that death-tear the rider had
+gripped his horse's sides with his long-spurred heels; perhaps the
+horse also was wounded; anyhow, with head down, and wild and terrified
+eyes, his shoulders foam-bespewed, he tore past as if in horror of
+the ghastly burden he carried.
+
+How wonderfully expressive are the eyes of these cavalry horses at
+times! There it seemed sheer horror; but often when wounded they look
+towards one with a world of pitiful appeal for relief; in their
+dumbness loud-voicedly reproachful against the horrors of war.
+
+Two men being killed on one horse seems rather a tall order, yet it is
+perfectly true. It happened at the cavalry charge after Elandslaagte.
+Some of the Boers stood their ground with great stubbornness till our
+cavalry were only a few yards away. One middle-aged, bearded fellow
+stayed just a little too long, and had not time to get to his horse,
+which was a few yards away. He scrambled up behind a brother Boer who
+was just mounting, but almost immediately the 5th Lancers were upon
+them. There was a farrier-corporal, an immensely big, powerful fellow,
+who singled them out. They were galloping down a slight incline as
+hard as they could get their horse to travel, but their pursuer was
+gaining on them at every stride. When he came within striking distance
+he jammed his spurs into his big horse, who sprang forward like a
+tiger. Weight of man and horse, impetus of gallop and hill, focused in
+that bright lance-point held as in a vice. It pierced the left side of
+the back of the man behind, and the point came out through the right
+side of the man in front, who, with a convulsive movement, threw up
+his hands, flinging his rifle in the air. The Lancer could not
+withdraw his lance as the men swayed and dropped from their horse, but
+galloped on into the gathering darkness punctured with rifle flashes
+here and there and flitting forms that might be friend or foe. This
+poor fellow was killed a few days after at the battle of Rietfontein.
+How heartily the Boers hated these Lancers! They would have liked so
+much to have had lances barred as against the rules of war; and it
+would certainly have made an immense difference if our side had
+succeeded in getting a few more chances, especially at the
+commencement of the war, of using the lance.
+
+The natives, numbers of whom were looking on at this battle, were
+greatly delighted with the cavalry charge. It seemed to take their
+fancy even more than did the artillery. "Great fight, baas--plenty
+much blood, plenty much blood," one of them described it. He said he
+was crouching down behind a sheltering rock while the Boers were
+running away past him, and then "the men with the assegais" came
+galloping after them. A Boer without his horse came running along,
+and, pulling him out, took his place behind the stone. A soldier
+galloped along and called out, "Hallo, Johnny, what are you doing
+here? You'll get hurt." Then, catching sight of the Boer, he stuck him
+down through the back as he passed. "Ah, baas, great fight--plenty
+much blood."
+
+Wounds or death by Mauser bullets, or even by the thrust of a lance,
+are not to be compared, from the point of view of their
+pain-inflicting possibilities, with what may be done in that way by
+the fragment of a shell. That's the thing that hurts. Shell fire,
+speaking generally, is the "Bogy of Battle" to those not accustomed to
+it. The main purpose it accomplishes is to "establish a funk." When
+the actual damage done by shell fire after a battle is counted up and
+the number of shells fired, the results are most surprising. A poet in
+the _Ladysmith Lyre_ wrote--
+
+  "One thing is certain in this town of lies:
+  If Long Tom hits you on the head you dies."
+
+You do--unquestionably; but perhaps it is worse still to get a piece
+of a shell somewhere else. What frightful wounds they make sometimes!
+what mangled butchery in their track! See some poor fellow stretched
+on the operating-table, stripped for the patching or trimming which
+half-helpless surgery can supply. Apart from head and hands, which are
+sure to be khaki-colour with dirt caked in with sweat, the average
+Tommy usually presents a fine specimen of the human form divine--what
+is there finer in the world than the body of a well-shaped, muscular
+man? I always prefer the figure of the fighting gladiator to that of
+the Apollo Belvedere--and then, when shell fragments tear this body,
+it looks like some unspeakably unhallowed sacrilege. The horribly
+unlucky way these fragments seem to go in--an uncouth and butchering
+way instead of the gentlemanly puncture of the Mauser. One afternoon a
+young fellow galloped past me in the main street of Ladysmith. He had
+just got opposite the Town Hall hospital, when a shell from Bulwana
+burst right under his horse. When the cloud of dust and smoke cleared
+away, we found the horse lying on the road completely disembowelled,
+and the poor fellow flung on to the footpath, with a long piece of
+shell sticking in his side. As he was taken into the hospital he said,
+"This means two more Dutchmen killed." But the wound was obviously
+fatal; there was no use even in removing the piece of shell. The
+clergyman came to him and spoke to him for some time, and told him
+that there was no hope of recovery for him. He seemed to get tired of
+his ministrations, and asked them to "send down for my chum." When
+this chum arrived he was unable to speak, but just pressed his hand
+and smiled, and went off into his death-sleep.
+
+A boy, who could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, was
+lying on the side of the hill with his head on a flat stone. He had
+been hit by a piece of shell, and both his legs were broken and
+mangled above the knee. He was done for, and his life was only a
+matter of lasting some minutes. Another man, wounded somewhere
+internally, was lying beside him. There was no sign of pain on the
+boy's face; his eyes were closed. He just seemed very tired. Opening
+his eyes, he looked downwards intently at his legs, which were lying
+at an oblique angle with his body, from where they had been hit. It
+looked as if his trousers were the only attachment. As he gazed
+intently, a troubled look came over his face, and his wounded comrade
+beside him was watching him and saw it. The tired eyes closed again
+wearily, and then the wounded man alongside him, cursing with
+variegated and rich vocabulary, bent, or half rolled over, and caught
+first one boot and then the other, and lifted each leg straight down,
+swearing under his breath the while. Then he lay back, swearing at the
+blankety blank young blanker, and still watching him. Soon the tired
+eyes opened again, and instinctively looked down at his legs. They
+seemed to open wider as he looked; then he smiled faintly, thinking he
+had been mistaken about them before, and lay back, and the eyes did
+not open any more. The fellow beside him chuckled and said to himself,
+"Well, I'm damned!" but possibly the Recording Angel has put down a
+mark that may help to prevent it.
+
+Times are changed from ages past; there is no longer the mighty "shock
+of arms," the pomp and panoply of glorious war. Men fall to the shrill
+whisper of a bullet, the sound of which has not time to reach their
+ears, fired by an invisible foe. Their death is merely the _quod erat
+demonstrandum_ of a mathematical and mechanical proposition. But with
+bow and arrow, spear or battle-axe, Mauser or Lee-Metford, the heart
+behind the weapon is just the same now as then. Probably faint hearts
+fail now as then, just as much--shrink to a panic that falls on them
+suddenly as cold mist on mountain-top; and the stout hearts wait and
+endure, and perhaps do more of the waiting, and have to sweat and
+swear and endure this waiting longer now than then before the
+intoxicating delight of active battle finds vent for their hearts'
+desire, when, under names like "duty," a monarch's voice in their
+souls cries "Havoc," and lets slip the old dogs of savagery lying low
+in every man's nature, until the veldt of this new land is manured,
+like the juicy battlefields of old, "with carrion men groaning for
+burial."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE AFTERMATH OF WAR
+
+
+Hot, sweating, dusty, and tired, with no inclination whatever to move
+out of camp, everybody would find all the indications of approaching
+disease every day if he were only to think of such a thing. The
+reading of a liver advertisement in one of the home papers would show
+all your symptoms, only they all would be "more so." But every one
+knew it was only the climate, the hard work, and sometimes the
+indifferent food, and so went on; but a day comes when the food
+becomes absolutely distasteful, when the appetite begins to go. A long
+day's riding on the veldt should leave one with a voracious appetite
+for dinner, but when one comes in and can taste nothing, and only
+just lies down dog-tired day after day, then he begins to think there
+is something wrong. The idea of going to the doctor is very
+distasteful, so he struggles on, hoping to work it off, until one day
+he comes very near a collapse, with head swimming and knees groggy,
+and then some comrade makes the doctor have a look at him, and his
+temperature is perhaps 102 to 104. In Ladysmith it was then a question
+of being sent out to Intombi Camp. To most men this seemed like being
+exiled to Siberia; but there was no help for it. Comrades said
+good-bye when it would have been more cheering to have said _au
+revoir_. The train left for Intombi Hospital Camp at six in the
+morning, carrying its load of those who had been wounded in the
+previous twenty-four hours, as well as the sick. It was a sad journey
+out; men could not help cursing their bad luck and wondering what
+would be before them as a result of the journey, wondering if they
+should ever rejoin their regiments or if their next journey would not
+be back to the cemetery they were now passing on their right, growing
+every day more ominously populous. The hospital camp at Intombi was a
+collection of tents and large marquees, civilian doctors attending the
+Volunteers and Army doctors the Regulars. There was also a
+considerable number of the inhabitants of Ladysmith, not alone women
+and children, but men. Hence the reason that it got christened Camp
+Funk by the inhabitants that remained in the town. Situated on the
+flat of the plain, on a level with the river banks, it was by no means
+an ideal situation for a fever hospital, but still it was a great
+thing to be out of the way of these irregularly dropping shells and to
+_know_ one was away from them. "Long Tom," on Bulwana, shook the very
+ground when he fired, and, with the other guns there, often got on the
+nerves of many of the patients to a trying extent, and the Boers, as a
+rule, started firing at sunrise, just about the time when the poor
+devil who has tossed and turned through the long hours of the hot
+night in fevered restlessness now from sheer exhaustion is just
+sinking into sleep, to be startled by the terrific bang above his head
+and the rush of the shell, like the tearing of a yacht's mainsail, as
+it speeds on its arched course towards the devoted town.
+
+A curious passive fight the patient settles down to, with a fatal
+little thermometer keeping score and marking the game--a sort of
+tug-of-war between doctors and Disease. The ground is marked in
+degrees from 98.4 to 106, the former being normal temperature, the
+later the point at which, as a rule, disease wins the game.
+
+Take the case of a fellow the author knows intimately. He had held out
+too long without going to hospital, putting down his weakness,
+lassitude, and general feeling of extreme cheapness to the climate
+instead of the real cause, with the result that he started on the real
+struggle with a temperature of 104.8. At the very start Disease had
+pulled him over nastily close to his line, and was still pulling him
+over, as his temperature was rising point by point. There are various
+methods of treatment--with him they fought it with a drug called
+phenacetin, and to the lay mind a wonderful drug it appears. It is not
+effective with every one. A man in the next bed to him might have been
+taking breadcrumbs for all effect it produced. With him, however, it
+worked like clockwork. No sooner was a five-grain dose swallowed than
+the temperature stopped in its upward course. Then, gradually, like in
+a good Turkish bath, the pores of his skin opened, and a most complete
+and profuse perspiration ensued, which was allowed to go on for a
+couple of hours. Then, with bed and bedclothes drenched, he lay weak,
+limp, and feeling like a squeezed sponge, but with a temperature that
+shows three degrees marked down towards his own line. Should there be
+a nurse available the patient is washed down and put into fresh
+clothes and pyjamas; if not, as was most usually the case, he lies in
+his sweat, his skin chilling in patches for a while, and feeling
+sticky and uncomfortable all over, but too limp to move. The drug has
+a strange and wonderfully clearing effect on the brain. He feels as if
+all his previous life had been passed in some land of twilight. Now he
+lives in a land of glorious light--light that pervades everything. His
+eyelids are closed to shut in the glorious light. He seems to have
+been sitting in some dark theatre when the lights have been turned on
+on a glorious transformation scene. He has circled the world and seen
+its loveliest places, but only now sees how beautiful they were. In
+Samoa, and the Pali at Honolulu, he sees the individual leaves
+shimmering in the clear air, and then on his quickened consciousness
+falls a great sense of the beauty of the world. Separate from the
+beauty of the world seems the life on it, and now for the first time
+his lips are pressed to her bluest veins. "I want to take your
+temperature, please," as he feels the little glass tube at the dry
+skin of his lips. "105.2," he hears whispered when it is withdrawn.
+They think he cannot hear as he lies motionless with eyes closed. All
+the three degrees have been lost, and more--it is a score for Disease.
+Another dose of phenacetin--surely all that glorious, untravelled,
+half-tasted world is too beautiful and rich with promise to leave, too
+full of music he has not heard, too full of pictures he has not seen,
+too full of unplucked laurels, of lips unkissed, of sunsets which have
+not yet painted the clouds in their setting--above all, along the
+passed path of his life are neglected flowers of love lying which he
+has walked on with scarce a smile of thanks for the throwers, whose
+hands, perchance now withering, he longs to kiss.
+
+Temporarily the thermometer score is favourable to him again, but all
+he can do is to lie very still, knowing that every feather-pressure of
+strength will be wanted. Lying sideways, as he has been shifted round
+by his nurse on the pillow, he hears the pump, pump of his heart. He
+never noted that pumping before as he does now--quick and strenuous
+it is, but still strong, without the spur of stimulants. Pump on, old
+heart, he thought-speaks, and on it pumps through the long hours of
+watching and waiting; and he watches as a captain might watch the
+pumping of his water-logged ship. He is lucky to have a heart that
+works like that. The man beside him was being given brandy every three
+hours to help the action of his heart. Another thing he was lucky in
+was in being free from headache. A sufferer farther down from time to
+time called aloud in agony from the terrible splitting pains in his
+head, while his was clear to a supersensitive degree--too clear and
+active to allow of sleep--and soon came the time when he longed with a
+great yearning for the sleep that would not come. It seemed cruel and
+unfair that any beggar, any coolie in the fields, any convict could
+have this sleep that was denied him. How he tried to fix his mind on
+quiet scenes with the sound of falling water, or the sound of falling
+breakers fringing the rocks of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn!
+But sleep would not come; the panorama of the world spun from scene to
+scene all the faster as he tossed limply and wearily. _Custos, quid de
+nocte?_ How slowly passes the night, and night sleepless merges into
+sleepless day, and for a week the struggle hangs on the winning line
+of Disease. Each time the thermometer is drawn from his mouth an ever
+new-born hope which has risen dies with the whispered score, but still
+the heart pumps strenuously, telling of life and hope the while. On
+the morning of the sixth day the score is down a degree. Too good to
+believe in until confirmed by the midday record, and then very, very
+slowly, by fractions of degrees, it shows less than the record of the
+previous days. In the cool quietude of some Continental sculpture
+gallery--he cannot tell where--he has seen a statue of Icarus--Icarus
+just feeling the earth-spurning power of his new-given wings; Icarus
+on tip-toe, with head up and godly-moulded chest and dilated nostrils,
+drinking in the clear air, and extended arms towards his new
+possession of the clouds. The glorious embodiment of god-like life,
+earth-spurning, heavens-enjoying--and as such he feels--he forgets
+that his frame is a skin-covered skeleton, that his legs would not
+bear him upright. He knows only that the spirit of life has been
+breathed into him again, and that it is very good to be alive. The
+feeling of being "half in love with easeful death" has passed. The
+orchestra of life will play for him again. How irksomely slow the days
+pass until the score reaches his winning-line of normal! and in time
+he sees how easily it might have been otherwise. His room-mate on his
+right got delirious, and refused all nourishment. He struggled
+violently even against the stimulants prescribed for him. His nurse
+would spend half an hour trying to get a little down. Then he had seen
+an extreme attempt made to feed him one night. He was held while a
+tube was passed through the back of his nose and so down his throat,
+but no sooner was it down than the strength of fever, like that of a
+maniac, proved too strong for his nurses; they could no longer hold
+him. There was a horrible struggle, with choking coughs and dark blood
+flowing from his nostrils, and the brandy was spilt on his face and
+smarting in his eyes. He spent days dying, and more rapid and more
+feeble grew his pulse, and many times the nurse said there was none
+perceptible, and then the life would flicker up again. One morning
+early a bugle sounded outside. He said, "I am on outpost duty to-day;
+I must get up at once." He half lifted himself in the bed, repeating,
+"I tell you I am on outpost duty." The nurse pressed him back gently,
+and he died. He seemed to have no friends or relatives, no one who
+knew anything about him. There was a letter found in his pocket
+showing that he had a mother in a village in Ireland, and that he was
+her only son.
+
+On the other side of our friend was a poor fellow unceasingly racked
+with pain either in head or abdomen. His temperature was not
+extremely high, but he seemed to be falling away from the pain of the
+poisonous disease. His pulse was weak, and had to be kept going with
+constant stimulants. When in the ordinary course of things the disease
+should have passed he got a series of rigors and shivering fits about
+every third day, with a cold sweat. While the shivering was on him his
+temperature would drop to normal or lower, and then bound up to 103 or
+104. He had a terrible dread of these fits, and it was pitiful to see
+him watching their oncoming. Each one that came left him weaker as it
+passed off.
+
+We are coming back to England in a ship laden with the human wreckage
+of war--the wounded, the maimed, the sick, who to their graves will
+carry the maiming of their sickness. There are, amongst these men,
+those who will crawl about the world lop-sided, incomplete cripples,
+or those who will be perpetually victims to intermittent or chronic
+disease; but there is a worse than any of these disasters to the
+victim. The man without a leg can get along with a crutch. We know one
+who lost both legs in Egypt who goes about on a little four-wheeled
+wooden cart, propelling himself with his hands, and haunts the
+precincts of a certain club, where the members, seeing the badge which
+he still wears in his cap, often give him enough to get drunk on. The
+man who loses his sight from the earth-scattering shell can at worst
+carry a label to tell that he was blinded in the war, and his
+charitable fellow-countrymen will give him enough to keep him enjoying
+life through the channels of the four other senses, and he will still
+admit that it is good to be alive. Blindness is bad, but war deals
+worse blows than in the eyes. It deals blows under which the reason
+itself staggers and is maimed. The lunatic asylum is worse than the
+hospital. We are carrying back nine men who have lost their reason at
+Magersfontein and other battles; two have been mercifully treated and
+have lost it completely--the padded cell must mean a certain
+unconsciousness; but the greatest, deepest pity of which the human
+heart is capable is called forth by those who are maimed in mind. Long
+lucid intervals of perfect sanity give them time to learn the meaning
+of the locks and bars. "Yes, I know; I went off my head after
+Magersfontein," one poor fellow tells you; another repeatedly asks,
+"Will they put me into an asylum when I go home?" What a home-coming!
+Sure enough it is to the asylum they are going. They will be lost to
+what friends or relatives they have in that oblivion of a living
+grave. When their comrades return, not the faintest echo of the
+cheering will reach their cells. Men do not like to talk of madness;
+they will point with pride and pity to chums and comrades bearing
+honourable wounds, but these poor wretches will just disappear, lost
+in the great aftermath of war. We still have the expressions
+"frightened out of his senses" or "frightened out of his wits," and
+here are instances of its actually occurring, the strain on nerves
+being more than the brains of these men could stand. Is it that their
+nervous organisation has become more highly strung and bears the
+strain less sturdily than in times past, or that there is for some
+minds a hidden terror in the sightless, invisible death that whistles
+over them as they lie belly-pressing the earth in the face of an
+unseeable foe? It is not inconceivable that this may have an effect
+like some horrible nightmare amid all the glare of daylight on some
+minds. The man is held there in terror by the worse terror of running
+away; a comrade on his right grows callous by waiting, and to relieve
+the wants of nature raises himself up and gets hit; the thirst of
+another overcomes him, and he runs to fill his water-bottle and falls;
+and all day long, through heat and hunger and thirst, he is held there
+in a vice of increasing terror, like a child left in the dark denied
+the language of a cry. It takes strong nerves to stand that strain, we
+all must admit who have any personal knowledge of what it means; and
+what a gathering up of the reins of self-control we often experience!
+What wonder, then, that weak nerves cannot stand it, but sometimes
+break down under the strain? Such a collapse has a way of being
+regarded as the uttermost sign of abject cowardice, which by no means
+follows--nervous men are frequently the bravest of the brave. The
+refinement of modern shooting-irons seems to call for a certain
+corresponding refinement of courage--the cold, steel-like courage that
+can stand and wait, and win by the waiting of their stand.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+ELANDSLAAGTE
+
+
+Up before daybreak, but still not early enough, as the Imperial Light
+Horse and a battery of Natal Artillery had already gone towards
+Elandslaagte, about sixteen miles from here, at three o'clock.
+
+It was bitterly cold when we started, and for a couple of hours of our
+journey. About half a mile beyond Modder's Spruit Station we met a man
+walking along the road in his socks, carrying a pair of heavy boots.
+He told us he had just escaped from the Boers, after having been, with
+thirty other miners, their prisoner since Thursday last. His feet were
+sore from running in the big boots, and he was nearly exhausted.
+
+The Boers had looted the stores, station, and mining office at
+Elandslaagte, and in addition had looted a lot of luggage taken in
+the captured train. The evening before he had seen a drunken Boer
+strutting about dressed in a suit of evening clothes belonging to an
+English officer. There were a lot of low-class Boers amongst the eight
+hundred there who spent riotous evenings, getting drunk on the liquor
+found in the stores; but others of them seemed decent sort of farmers,
+and all the prisoners were very well treated by General Koch, and were
+allowed to go about on parole, being merely required to report
+themselves once a day.
+
+[Illustration: Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.]
+
+We pushed on, and in the distance could hear the report of cannon. We
+soon discovered a little artillery duel in progress between the Natal
+battery and the Boer guns. The Natals were barking away pluckily, but
+quite ineffectually against their very superior opponents, who were
+making really excellent practice, and they struck an artillery waggon,
+blowing it to pieces, and missed the artillery train by barely twenty
+yards, a shell falling on either side of it. It was clear we could
+remain here no longer, so the order was given to retire. The guns
+limbered up, leaving the shattered wreck of the waggon behind, and the
+trains commenced to move back slowly, keeping pace with the cavalry
+and artillery. The Boer guns kept firing until out of range, and then
+there was a desultory pitter-patter of rifle fire at a sufficient
+distance to be completely ineffectual.
+
+We retired back just behind Modder's Spruit Station and rested there.
+The sun had now broken through the clouds and poured down hot on the
+yellow veldt, where we were. A beautiful scene stretched away before
+us. The veldt was not all yellow, but in low-lying places, after the
+recent rain, was beginning to be streaked with vivid green. Opposite
+us, across the flat or gently undulating veldt in the middle distance,
+were hills and kopjes, while beyond, purple under clouds or light blue
+in sunshine, rose to the far horizon mountains, pointed, or of that
+quite flat-topped shape so characteristic of this country.
+
+No one who has been through this day can ever forget the beautiful
+series of military tableaux, the gorgeous colouring, the constantly
+varying effects of light and shade, under clear, blue sky, or when
+piles of great white cumuli were passing, until, darkening with the
+progress of the fight, an unnatural gloom blackened the heavens, and
+from the inky clouds torrents of rain poured upon the combatants. The
+variety of colour, light, and shade was only equalled by the variety of
+the military movements during the day. A complete series of sketches or
+photographs would serve for illustrations for a handbook of modern
+tactics--the reconnaissance in force in the morning--engagement--orderly
+retreat carried out exactly according to book--march out of main body;
+advance of main body, cavalry on each flank, skirmishing outflanking
+movement on the right, etc., etc., on to the cavalry charging through
+and through retreating and beaten enemy.
+
+At 11.20 two squadrons of cavalry and a battery of artillery arrive,
+and shortly after another train full of troops is seen approaching in
+the distance.
+
+Chatting with Colonel Chisholme, of the Imperial Light Horse, I was
+chaffing him about calling them "light," pointing out a group of
+giants standing near him; but he agreed that their hearts were light,
+anyhow, whatever their weight might be. He had commenced his military
+career when eighteen in the 9th Lancers, and his Imperial Light Horse
+was embodied on the 9, 9, 99. He was telling how all the important
+dates of his life had a 9 in them, as Major Douglas Haig galloped up
+and told him we were going to start. I said, "All these nines clearly
+point to your living to ninety-nine." "Oh no," he laughed back,
+cheerily, "I don't wish to live to be as old as that." His wish was
+gratified.
+
+"Saddle," "Prepare to mount," "Mount." We were going forward again.
+
+At 1.30 we started, after just two hours' rest, in which the main body
+had come up, so that our entire force now consisted of the 5th
+Lancers, Imperial Light Horse, two field batteries of Royal
+Artillery, the Devonshire Regiment, half a battalion of the
+Manchester, and half a battalion of the Gordon Highlanders. At 1.55
+fire opened from the tops of the line of ridges running parallel to
+the railway line, which were all lined with men. Some of the 5th
+Lancers have already gone off to the extreme right. At the foot of the
+first hill, from which firing proceeds, a squadron of the Border
+Mounted Rifles are dismounting, and now two lines of khaki figures are
+climbing steadily up the hill. Long before they reach the top the
+Boers are seen retiring. They have no idea of making a stand yet, and
+as the khaki figures reach the summit the Lancers, sweeping round from
+the extreme right flank, join them. During this time the Devons and
+Manchesters have been pouring out of the train, and are now crossing
+the veldt in dotted lines towards the ridge of hills.
+
+2.15.--Another train now appears, bringing further reinforcements.
+
+2.30.--Quite a hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few
+minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at
+a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers,
+who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump
+the railway line--a pretty stiff little obstacle--the narrow gauge
+metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field
+of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression, which is
+just behind a shouldering billow of veldt. It is hard work for the
+artillery horses over this ground, but it is fine the way they tug and
+strain at their work. The officers urge the men to hurry forward.
+Already a gun is heard from the Boers. They have opened fire. Two
+wheelers of an artillery waggon drop down, apparently dead, from
+exhaustion.
+
+I had just been watching their heavy sweating sides and foam-streaming
+mouths before they collapsed. Already two spare horses are being
+brought round to replace them as we hurry forward.
+
+Now, all of a sudden, things become lively, and do not slacken again
+until the finish. No sooner have the first of the cavalry appeared
+than the Dutch guns open fire. R-r-r-r rip--a shell drops amongst the
+artillery and cavalry just ahead of us. The cavalry wheel and spread
+themselves into more open order none too soon, as now the shells come
+fast. The Boers have got the range exactly. Bang bursts a shell
+amongst the Imperial Light Horse near me. A shell bursts quite close,
+and a piece drops between Bennett Burleigh and me. The life, vigour,
+and swing of movement of these few minutes when we first came under
+fire was magnificent, the cavalry wheeling and circling, infantry
+deploying, the rattle of the artillery waggons, the cracking of the
+drivers' whips on the backs of the straining, struggling horses, the
+rending sound of the shells in the air like the tearing of a great
+canvas mainsail; the loud report when a shell exploded, or the dull
+thud when they simply buried themselves in the veldt.
+
+How lucky for us so few of them exploded! There would have been
+terrible damage done, especially by the first few shots, when the
+cavalry and artillery were massed together. It was now for a while an
+artillery duel, but the Devons were quietly getting forward for the
+front attack. The cavalry had swung out on the extreme right flank,
+and the Manchesters and Gordons were going on to the ridge to take
+them on their right flank there, while the Devons went up the face.
+
+The Boers changed their artillery fire from time to time; first it was
+at our artillery and cavalry, then into the Devons as they advanced or
+as they lay down in the last field of veldt, waiting for the final
+charge; and then they sent a few shells into a body of cavalry that
+was on our extreme left. The very last shot they fired was a good one,
+just when the fight was over, right into our guns.
+
+I saw a little rocky point ahead of me, as if made on purpose for a
+war correspondent. By running across some open ground I was on to it.
+There was good if not ample cover on the top. It was in the middle of
+the angle made by the line of advance of the men along the ridge and
+the line of the Devons' main advance, and quite close to the hill.
+Stretching away on our left over a level khaki-coloured sloping field
+(if I may so call it) of veldt, were the Devons lying behind
+ant-hills, placed as if on purpose to give scant but welcome shelter
+to troops advancing under fire. The colour-scheme of the whole stretch
+was perfect for concealment, and there was Tommy learning more of how
+to take advantage of scant cover in this half-hour, under the bitter
+pitter-patter of Mauser bullets, than he would learn at home in years
+of manoeuvres.
+
+That was a trying wait for Mr. Atkins; yet how steadily he stood
+it--or not exactly stood it, but crouched it, lay it, or
+mother-earth-hugged it! On our right was the level sky-lined hill,
+ending in a rounded, precipitous point, on which the Boer guns were
+stationed. Under that heavy-hanging bank of clouds, yet just behind
+it, a clear steel-like light was showing. Against this, upon the top
+of the hill, silhouetted with most delicately accurate sharpness, were
+the figures of the Manchesters. The Gordons were in the same line over
+the rounded top of the hill. They advanced at a run, crouched, then
+swarmed forward again, and again lay low. Then the little runs became
+shorter, the rests longer, and the fire hotter and more continuous.
+Were they going to take that hill before complete nightfall, or was it
+going to be a two-day job, notwithstanding the five hours' hard
+fighting we had had already? A man near me said to me, "Do you hear
+the steam escaping? I expect it is the Boers letting it off from the
+colliery which they took on Thursday." It was the sound of steam, of
+escaping steam, right enough, but that sound was made by bullets. It
+went on continuously from the time the final infantry advance took
+place, and rose in a crescendo of hissing vehemence as we neared the
+supreme climax of the struggle. How eagerly we watched these creeping
+figures going forward! Would they succeed? Would they ever reach the
+point of the hill? How slow it seemed, but steadily, steadily on along
+the ridge they went.
+
+Now all the great orchestra of battle was playing--from behind us on
+the right our artillery were firing at the hill in advance of the
+Manchesters and Gordons--in one minute that I timed with my watch I
+counted sixteen discharges. How the shells shrieked and whirled over
+us! I found myself somehow humming the "Ride of the Valkyrie," which
+these shells had suggested; then the Maxims would play a few bars, or
+a sharp volley ring from the left. The rocky kopje was vocal with
+rattling echoes, while with piccolo distinctness the air above and
+about us sang with the sharp Mauser notes.
+
+It was now a quarter to six. Rapid movements could be seen amongst the
+Boers on top of the hill; some were beginning to gallop off, over the
+sky line, but others galloped in the opposite direction. Our
+artillery fire had now reached a nicety of deadly accuracy. They were
+firing impact shells. I had my glasses on one horseman who appeared to
+me to be firing from his saddle, and fighting stubbornly. There was no
+sign of running away about him. As I looked the figure became a little
+cloud of smoke--the smoke cleared--horse nor rider was any longer
+there. Chancing to look at another, who was darting about irregularly,
+as if confused and not knowing which way to fly, a fountain of smoke
+flew up in front of his horse as a shell burst. When the smoke cleared
+he and the horse were lying on the ground, and immediately after to a
+third exactly the same thing happened.
+
+The crescendo of battle had now reached a climax in a perfect roar of
+sound. The bugles sounded the charge. God bless the man that wrote
+these heart-cheering notes. Forward--rattling, stumbling, falling over
+the rocks, cheering, swearing, forward anyhow--formation be hanged!
+
+How the Devons climbed these rocks! Following in the right of the
+Devons' wake, passing their wounded across that slopy field of veldt,
+and the flat to the base of the hill, it was a sweating, breathless
+climb up; the men were already cheering on the top above my head. The
+first sign of mortality on the Boer side I encountered was a hairy
+little black pig lying on his side bleeding proverbially--then a tall
+Boer lying headlong down the rocks. On the top--what confusion! Tommy,
+drunk with delight of battle. Prisoners, wounded, Gordons,
+Manchesters, Devons--all mixed inexplicably. A Boer gun still in
+position was a centre for gathering. In another place the ground was
+strewn with rugs, broken provisions, empty and half-empty bottles,
+saddles galore.
+
+"'Av a 'oss, guv'nor, 'av a 'oss?" said a dirty-faced, sweaty, but
+generous Tommy to me, as he led a black Boer steed by the bridle. Not
+liking to take his capture from him, I went off to where he told me
+several were standing, and picked out a likely-looking grey. Darkness
+was now rapidly falling. A Tommy came up and led off another horse.
+
+"I'm taking this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on
+well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but
+I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He
+went off in the darkness, towing the present by the bridle.
+
+At this moment very few officers were at this point of the hill; the
+Gordons, for instance, had lost thirteen. I came then upon General
+French, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line with the
+Manchesters and Gordons, and was glad to have so early a chance of
+offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I
+had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he
+appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of
+war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the
+light when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer shells
+bursting amongst the Imperial Light Horse near us.
+
+General French is deservedly very popular with officers, men,
+correspondents, and all who meet him, and we were all glad at the
+brilliant ending of this hard-fought day.
+
+The 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards were now pursuing the
+retreating Boers. The Dragoons carried lances, which may account for
+the credit which was equally due to them with the Lancers being unduly
+given to the latter. Another hour or half-hour of light and they would
+have played the very mischief with the retreating Boers. The Dragoons
+chased them past a Red Cross tent, where a man was waving a Red Cross
+flag. They respected those gathered about the tent; but one ruffian,
+waiting until they came abreast, shot point-blank at a private. As he
+fell dead from the saddle Captain Derbyshire rode at his slayer and
+shot him dead with his revolver. A big Dragoon would put his foot to
+the back of a Boer and tug to get his lance out. Some of the Boers
+stood firing till the cavalry came within twenty yards. The ground was
+broken veldt with patches of outcropping stones, which, added to the
+fading light, made it terrible ground for charging over. Already Tommy
+on top of the hill and down its sides was groping for the wounded.
+Tommy had behaved magnificently throughout the long fight, and now
+Tommy was finishing the day by behaving well to the Boer wounded. A
+rug here and a drink there, and later on the best place near the camp
+fire. In the previous five hours, Tommy's respect for the enemy had
+risen enormously; now he was treating his wounded with a rough but
+genuine kindness positively chivalrous. One might write for days upon
+the incidents of this glorious day, into which the events of a
+stirring lifetime seem crowded. Our artillery got a good chance, and
+showed up magnificently. The dauntless bravery of English officers we
+seem to take for granted as a national heritage; but in something
+stronger than admiration--in positive love--my heart goes out to Tommy
+Atkins--sweating, swearing, grimy, dirty, fearless, and
+generous--Tommy is a bit of "all right."
+
+[Illustration: Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A GLIMPSE OF OUR GUNNERS
+
+
+Go with the gunners if you want stirring scenes of modern war. You
+will not, as so often happens when one goes with an infantry regiment,
+spend a day lying on your belly in the scorching sun, while the air is
+vocal above you with the singing of bullets from an invisible foe,
+whose position is vaguely located on some quiet and deserted-looking
+kopje in front. Go with the gunners, and every time you go you will
+come back with an increased admiration for them. It is impossible to
+tell the result of rifle or even Maxim fire unless, as at Omdurman,
+the enemy stand up to be massacred; but with the guns you can at least
+see where the shells fall or the shrapnel burst. For this reason the
+Vickers-Maxim automatic--or pom-pom, as it was christened at
+Ladysmith--must be a most delightfully interesting weapon to the
+gunner who operates it. Each little shell on impact throws up a small
+fountain of smoke as it explodes, so that he sees at once if his fire
+is short or too high, and gets his range immediately; then he can
+follow cavalry about and tickle them up, or play around a patch of
+veldt where he knows the enemy are lying, just as a gardener would
+sprinkle with a watering-pot. It is a most demoralising weapon, but
+the explosion is so small that it does much less harm than would be
+expected.
+
+Let us take a typical day with the gunners. Photographs or
+cinematographs are entirely unsatisfactory in giving any idea of the
+"movement" of a battery going into action. There is the rattle of the
+gun-carriages, like a running accompaniment of rifle fire; the jingle
+of the harness; the splendid, strenuous, willing pull of the horses
+straining against their collars. They know all about it, these
+bright-eyed beasts quivering with life and work, and want no whip or
+spur until the work of tugging over the broken ground under a
+sweltering sun staggers them under the strain.
+
+There could not have been a more beautiful day than that of
+Elandslaagte for watching the gunners in action. Before the main part
+of the action was entered on, two batteries were ordered to reply to
+some fire coming from the left of our line of advance. They went
+forward at the gallop, bounding, jolting, and swaying over the uneven
+veldt, and, on a slight rise of ground showing out against the deep
+blue background of some hills, unlimbered and opened fire. A few
+horsemen were seen galloping over the ridge of a hill in front, and
+that was all. Then they limbered up and were ordered across to our
+right; a low but steep little embankment of the narrow-gauge railway
+was in front of them. It was a pretty sight to see them negotiating
+this obstacle--the jolting of the springless wheels up and down the
+stony sides and across the rails on top ought to have been enough to
+shake the teeth out of the men sitting on the limbers, and gripping
+hard to keep their seats. By the way, how loudly the nether part of a
+gunner's anatomy must sometimes cry out for a cushion!
+
+No sooner had they got clear of this jump than the Boer guns opened
+and began to make excellent practice. How every gunner felt longing to
+reply and silence them! Bang, burst, or spinning with whizzing hops,
+the shells came dropping in rapid succession. The Boers had been
+careful to get the exact range the previous day, and were not now
+wasting time or ammunition. Our guns had to go up a sloping depression
+at right angles to the Boer fire before getting into a position for
+opening. Every instant was of value, as the Boer shells were now
+dropping amongst the Imperial Light Horse and the infantry, who were
+just beginning to deploy. Under whip and spur they galloped up the
+slope--Gad! it was a sight to see how these artillery horses pulled;
+there was no taxpayers' money wasted there. One drops down, and the
+sharpness with which he is replaced by one of the spare horses would
+have drawn ringing rounds of applause at an Islington tournament. They
+take up a position at the top of the rising ground, monopolising the
+attention of the Boer gunners as they unlimber.
+
+The gunners jump from their seats sharp as sailors, unhook the
+limbers, leaving the guns pointed towards the enemy. Then the drivers
+trot off about fifteen yards, wheel round, and sit motionless on their
+horses, facing the fire. One cannot but admire the courage required to
+sit coolly like that with nothing to do but watch the enemy firing
+deliberately at them--see the discharge, and then await the arrival of
+the shell as it comes whirring and hurtling through the air. With what
+critical interest they must watch improvement in the enemy's
+shell-bowling! One was forcibly reminded of cricket bowling at
+Elandslaagte. Many of the shells did not burst, and those that were
+not full-pitched came in the manner of swift bowling along the
+rounded, almost flat-topped surface of the rising ground; and these
+gunners sat as steady as if they were the wickets just stuck in the
+ground, with never a duck of the head or a blink of the eye. The men
+working the guns are kept busy all the time, and have no time to think
+of or watch the enemy's shells; but the drivers have nothing to do but
+wait and watch. The horses, with still heaving foam-streaked sides,
+stand panting and tossing their heads. The Boers have got the position
+of our batteries accurately, as it must have been previously obvious
+that it was the one we would have taken up. Three of the gunners have
+already been badly hit; immediately after, with a terrific crash, a
+shell hits an ammunition-waggon fair. Those around hold their breath
+for a still greater explosion, but, wonderful to say, the ammunition
+does not explode. When the dust has cleared, however, the wheel of the
+waggon is found smashed to matchwood, and the vehicle lies helpless
+and useless on its side. But still steady as rocks sit the drivers
+facing the music. This is courage--the real article--and the market
+price of this kind of British pluck is one and twopence a day!
+
+Three days later I was photographing these boys behind their guns on
+the hill at Rietfontein, standing just as quietly under a hot rifle
+fire at 1200 yards' range, which the enemy kept up persistently,
+although we had silenced their guns and actually set fire to a long
+line of grass on the hill from which they were firing. An innocent,
+harmless-looking hill it seemed, with not a Boer visible on it, yet
+the bright summer air simply sang with the notes of Mauser
+bullets--clear and musical notes when they pass high overhead, but
+with a sharp and bitter ping when they pass close.
+
+But the best sight of all is to see our gunners going out of action.
+They go in at a gallop, and retire at a walk. There is something so
+delightfully contemptuous of the enemy's marksmanship in this. One day
+outside Ladysmith was typical. A couple of batteries went out with
+some cavalry for a small reconnaissance in force, located the Boer
+gun, and quickly drove the gunners to cover. The vultures had gathered
+as usual at the sound of their dinner-gong, but there was no fight,
+and soon the guns limbered up, and turned back across the plain.
+Immediately the Boer gunners were back at their gun, and, serving it
+with wonderful rapidity, sent shell after shell at our retiring
+batteries. The first was just short, then the two next went over; but
+on they went quietly, never breaking out of the walk. Then a shell
+fell between a gun and a limber, and did not burst. The great vultures
+wheeled and circled lower, waving their shadows below them on the
+parched plain; but there was no dinner for them that day--not even a
+horse was hit. And so always, when these field guns stop barking and
+limber up, it reminds one of pulling a dog out of a fight by the tail
+as they are dragged slowly, as if reluctantly, away; while the drivers
+don't bother to look round, and don't look a bit like heroes full of
+courage at the magnificent price of one and twopence a day.
+
+Rattle of iron on stones--clear, sharp words of command--clink of
+breech action--coldness of iron will warming the steel throat that
+voices its thoughts--hard, scientific, inhumanly mechanical; yet there
+is a subtle, attractive feeling that draws together the living
+elements that serve the gun. I barely escaped being knocked down one
+day by an artillery horse galloping furiously over the veldt. He had
+got badly torn by a shell; wild with the pain, he raced around until
+exhausted, and then, managing to stagger up to a gun, fell dead, with
+his head against the trail.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+IN THE TENTS OF THE BOERS
+
+
+Late in the afternoon of a day in the early part of last December I
+had ridden out from our lines in Ladysmith towards a certain position
+usually occupied by a Boer outpost, trusting by my going out
+deliberately and unarmed to get one of the men there to have a talk,
+just as one of the Lancers had a few days previously. For some time we
+had been on short rations of "copy" as well as food. I rode along the
+edge of an empty spruit, into the bed of which my spurs would have
+propelled my horse in the unlikely event of a shot being my first
+greeting. The spot where I expected to see the outpost was where the
+veldt, from being bare, commenced to be thickly covered with mimosa
+trees; but there was no one there--no living thing, except a little
+springbuck that started up as I arrived, bounding away over the long
+tufted grass, its little white rump showing like the flutter of a
+girl's petticoat. It stopped and, turning its pretty head, regarded me
+with great brown frightened eyes, as if I were the first human
+apparition to invade its sylvan solitude. It was clear there were no
+Boers immediately about; equally clear that this was a great chance
+unexpectedly offered of having a try to get south to Clery's or
+Buller's force, and be the first white man to bring the news from
+Ladysmith out of the beleaguered town. I was already started on the
+shortest route to the Tugela. I went on, and for about a mile no sign
+whatever of the enemy, and I thought of the theory more than once put
+forward that we were all the time being besieged by a ridiculously
+small but extremely mobile force. It was not until I was well in
+between Bulwana and Lombard's Kop that I caught sight between the
+trees of a laager of miscellaneous tents on the lower slope of the
+latter. Dismounting and going cautiously, I passed it and passed a man
+cutting wood, who was fortunately too industriously intent on his work
+to notice me. Bearing to the right, I was soon south of Bulwana and
+past the Boer lines. The rest would be comparatively easy, as an open
+stretch of country lay before me, where darkness would soon give me
+cover now that I had reached the edge of the trees. While waiting, I
+heard a voice behind me shout something in Dutch. Looking round, I
+found a Boer covering me with his rifle at ten yards, and the dream of
+a journalistic "beat," as they call it in America, vanished as he
+escorted me to his field cornet's camp. After some questioning by the
+field cornet, they gave me supper of meat, bread, and coffee--the
+bread arrived down every morning by train from Dundee, where it was
+baked by a Frenchman at what a short time ago had been our bakery.
+Then, as we sat round the big tent smoking, I gradually learned from
+them the first news of the outer world and the war, after being five
+weeks cut off in Ladysmith. As a running commentary on the news, we
+drifted into a series of discussions on the conduct of the war, and
+the observance of the usages of war by both armies. _Audi alteram
+partem_, and here I was hearing it with a vengeance. Two-thirds of
+them spoke English, as nearly all in this laager were from Heidelberg.
+They had about five charges against us of unfair fighting, and there
+was not the slightest doubt of their complete conviction that each of
+these charges was well founded and true. The worst of it was that in
+every instance they had some circumstance, the result of mistake,
+misconception, or individual wrongdoing, on which to raise a
+formidable superstructure of generalised accusation. "We fired on the
+Red Cross"--they instanced Elandslaagte and the battle of Nicholson's
+Nek; in both instances their waggons were behind kopjes that our
+gunners could not possibly see through. I threw them back their
+similar offences--the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek and their firing
+on the Town Hall hospital at Ladysmith. In the first instance, they
+said our waggons were too far off to be distinguished, which I knew
+was the case; and as regards the second, they argued that we had no
+right to continue to fly the Red Cross over the Town Hall when they
+had given us a neutral hospital camp outside at Intombi. Then had we
+not a right to fly a Red Cross over our sick and wounded while they
+had to wait for the next morning's train to bring them out to
+hospital? I urged. "No; put them in your holes underground," was the
+reply. We drifted into a discussion about dum-dum bullets, which they
+claimed to have found in our abandoned camp at Dundee, and, from
+seeing our doolies bearers, had fully made up their minds that we were
+using Indian troops against them. I then let them have it straight
+about their misuse of the white flag, which they denied.
+
+[Illustration: Advance Of The Devons Before The Attack At
+Elandslaagte.]
+
+Every pause in our talk was filled by the sound of deep, loud chanting
+coming from a tent hard by. Presently I went out to see them at their
+evening service. A big tent was full of men squatting around, the
+short twilight was fast darkening into night outside, and the interior
+of the tent was lit by two candles stuck in the necks of bottles.
+Except a couple of old men, they were all in the prime of life, and a
+splendidly strong-looking set of fellows they were. They sang, without
+any drawl or nasal intonation, straight out from their deep chests.
+The chant rose and fell with a swinging solemnity. There was little of
+pleading or supplication in its tones; they were calling on the God of
+Battles; the God of the Old Testament rather than the Preacher of the
+Sermon on the Mount was He to whom they sang; and sometimes there was
+a strain of almost stern demand about it that gave it more the ring of
+a war-song than a prayer. Entering the door of that tent seemed like
+going into another century. It could not be but luminously evident to
+the onlooker that these men were calling on an unseen Power whose
+actual existence was as real to their minds as that of their Mauser
+rifles stacked around the tent-pole. One could not help contrasting
+this obvious sincerity with the perfunctory church parade on our side,
+and this religion with that of two-thirds or three-fourths of our army
+of careless agnostics. Barring a very small minority, principally
+Irishmen, there is no place for religion in Tommy's intellectual kit.
+It has just degenerated into being an old magazine from which he draws
+his swear-words--a sort of bandolier of blasphemy. It was hot in that
+tent, and the sweat made the foreheads of these deep-voiced choristers
+shine against the dark shadows cast behind them on the canvas. It was
+curious to notice how the knees and elbows of their clothes showed
+signs of wear from their favourite shooting attitude, and there were
+many with buttons missing from their waistcoats that had been scraped
+off by the stones on the kopjes, or with buttons of different patterns
+that had evidently been sewn on by the wearers in place of those worn
+off. All the Boers appear to give up shaving when on the warpath,
+which adds to the wild picturesqueness of their appearance. I found
+the hymns they were singing were old Dutch ones. "We keep this up
+every night in camp," one of them said to me, "just the same as at
+home." When they had finished, they all lit their pipes, and then I
+was put through a catechism, which was the same at every camp or with
+every group of Boers I met for the next week. "What did I think of the
+Boers?" "Did I not expect to meet a lot of savages?" "Was I not
+surprised to hear them speaking English?" And then they were
+everywhere keen to learn if we appreciated the way our prisoners were
+being treated in Pretoria, and equally curious to know our opinion of
+how they were fighting. As I thought the siege of Ladysmith, since
+they would not assault, had become dolorously monotonous, I suggested,
+so that things might be enlivened a bit, that a race meeting or a
+football match might be got up between teams from each army on the
+neutral ground at Intombi. The younger men received the idea of a
+football match with acclamation. "Ya, goot," said a young giant beside
+me, rubbing his big hands enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest
+football match that ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his
+left hand in a sling, bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed:
+"No; the only game we like to play now is the one with cannon-balls."
+No; these dour, stolid men take their fighting sadly and sternly;
+there is none of the "frolic welcome" with which our Irish Tommies,
+for instance, enjoy their fighting or endure the waiting for it. When
+I was a prisoner in Pretoria they used to keep us awake at night with
+fireworks after news such as that of Colenso and Magersfontein, but,
+except amongst the young boys, they were not given to exultation over
+what they had done or to any boasting. Then they talked about lyddite,
+and it was quite clear that it had been a terrible bogy in their
+minds, and that they had imagined it was to have an effect like
+throwing earthquakes at them, and it was equally evident that the
+result of actual experience had fallen short of their apprehensions.
+
+We went out from the stuffy hot tent into the clear sharp air of a
+starlight night on the hills, and from a lighted tent, high above us
+on the slope of Lombard's Kop, came the chant of a psalm taken up by
+many voices outside. "Let God arise, and let His enemies be
+scattered," they sang, like Cromwell's soldiers at Dunbar. As I laid
+down in the field cornet's tent, with his son, a boy of fifteen, at
+one side of me, and a man over sixty on the other, I could not help
+thinking of the great tragedy of all that was yet before these people
+when they would begin to realise that they called in vain on their
+God, that they had no monopoly of the Almighty, that the God of their
+fathers fights no longer on the side of the Boers, but on that of the
+big battalions. This will be the desolation of downfall.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE FELLOW THAT FELT AFRAID
+
+
+He was just a common or garden ordinary sort of chap. He was lying on
+hot, pointed, uncomfortable stones through which long tufts of coarse
+grass protruded. Drops of sweat were trickling down his face, and his
+hands left wet marks where they came into contact with the stock or
+barrel of his rifle. With elbows, with chest, with stomach, with legs,
+he was trying to press hard against the ground. It is a curious
+feeling, that lying down and trying to press against the ground. He
+wished to reduce himself to the substance of a postage-stamp. This was
+the day of his first fight, but since he had got up everything was
+unaccountably unlike his expectation. The reveille had sounded in the
+dark at three o'clock in the morning. It was bitterly cold outside the
+tents, and his hands trembled as he fumbled with his putties. He had
+had a hard struggle to turn out from under that warm rug where he had
+been dreaming the real soldier's dream. Detaille's picture is all
+rot--the soldier's dream is not the picture of victorious battalions
+with banners flying, marching through the clouds. He had been dreaming
+of tripe and onions. Visions of past good meals in comfortable
+quarters washed down with deep cooling draughts of bitter floated in
+procession through sizzling clouds of vapour smelling of invisible
+kitchens. As he fumbled with his putties the rumble of waggons came
+out of darkness from a road hard by, mingled with the sharper rattle
+that tells of the gunners already on the move. The vague rumours of
+last night, he felt, were going to shape into the actuality of fight;
+but what an hour to go out fighting! Why should they be hauled out to
+fight in the dark? Why could not men wait for light? Wait until the
+world was aired? He was thirsty and uncomfortable, with the taste of
+stale tobacco in his mouth, and joined in the variegated imprecations
+muttered by the men when he found there would be only a few minutes to
+get anything to eat and no time for hot coffee. Presently he is a unit
+in a long snake-like column of men that winds along the road through
+the dark into the unknown. As he plods on he speculates how the fight
+will start. Perhaps the kopjes on either side of the road may be
+already full of Boers. Perhaps the beginning of the fight will be to
+find that they have marched into another ambush. It was a nasty
+uncomfortable feeling, that tramping through the darkness into the
+unknown. He felt better as the light spread from the eastern hills,
+and felt companionship and security in being part and parcel of that
+great mass of men that extended before and behind him on the road as
+far as he could see. Suddenly there is the boom of a gun, and he comes
+into collision with the man in front of him, who has stopped dead at
+the sound. A strange tingling feeling goes up his spine. There is a
+hush! No one speaks. The whole essence of vitality strains to listen.
+A faint whir crescendoes rapidly into the shrill whoop of a
+steam-siren, and a great balloon-shaped cloud of smoke and dust has
+already arisen from amidst the marching mass of men ahead. There is no
+sign whence came the shot. Nothing can be more peaceful-looking than
+the shoulders of these hills lying bathed in the quiet morning light.
+There is no sign of an enemy. Sharp words of command ring out while
+the cloud of smoke and dust is still hanging in the air, and in a
+dazed and mechanical way he finds himself deploying over the ground,
+which shakes with the gallop of cavalry as they spread out fan-like on
+either side of the road. The artillery rattle and jolt over the
+stones, and the limbers toss like little punts towed through a choppy
+sea. His company advances in extended order across the stony ground
+tufted with grass, and are ordered to lie down. The captain says,
+"Any men who have got anything to eat, let them eat it now." He has a
+piece of bread in his haversack, but feels no inclination to eat that
+dry and crumby stuff; but he is thirsty, and takes a long and deep
+pull at his water-bottle. The sun has already become very hot. The
+artillery has already got into action on the left, and is engaged in a
+duel with the Boer gunners. The minutes of waiting seem hours to him.
+Then all the men watch with keen interest an officer with a red-banded
+German cap galloping towards them. The result of his arrival is an
+order for them to advance up the gradual slope of this rounded hill.
+Just as he starts there is a light keen whistle in the air overhead
+like the call of a bird, then another and another. Instinctively he
+feels that these are made by bullets flying overhead. As he goes on an
+occasional one rings with a sharp bitterness in its tone, and he ducks
+his head as one might duck to the swish of a riding-whip near the
+face. They go with knees and backs bent, and he longs for the order
+to halt and lie down again. A fellow drops out alongside of him, but
+he does not look to see what has happened--he is afraid to look. Just
+when they have reached the crest of the hill, and when the whistling
+sounds have become more plentiful than ever, they are ordered to lie
+down again. Looking through the streaky stems of grass immediately in
+front of him, he can see a similarly shaped hill about 1200 yards
+away. It looks absolutely deserted. Nothing moves upon the skyline.
+Little puffs of smoke momentarily appear above it, which he knows are
+caused by the bursting of our shrapnel. He begins to feel he is really
+in the fight, but it is just altogether opposite to what he expects.
+It is commonplace and disappointing to a degree. He sees the gunners
+busy on the left, the horses standing behind them as if all the
+whistling sounds are only a rain-shower. There is a small stone in
+front of him, just half the size of his helmet. He knows it is not
+half big enough to cover him. All his preconceived ideas of a fight
+are crumbling away. Here they are being led out to lie on the grass to
+be potted at, and not allowed to reply. But then, as he looks at the
+opposite hill, he sees nothing to fire at. A group of red-capped
+officers walk their horses along the line left behind them. He
+recognises the General in command. They stop, and one of the General's
+aides-de-camp dismounts and opens a paper parcel, from which the
+General takes a sandwich and bites a big semicircular piece out of it.
+He finds it hard to realise that this is a battle and that this is the
+General commanding. In all pictures of battles that he has seen from
+his youth upwards the General is seated on a horse poised on two legs,
+and waving a sword or pointing with a marshal's bâton. And here is a
+General with a sandwich with a big bite out of it, who points with the
+sandwich-hand instead. And then he begins to wonder, with all this
+multitudinous whistling, that nobody seems to be hit. Then the order
+is given to advance again. He feels a tremendous disinclination to
+leave the stone, and waits to see the other men around him get up.
+They all get up except the fellow on his right. Reaching over with his
+rifle, he pokes him in the ribs. He then hits him on the shoulder with
+it. Thinking he is asleep, he tips off his helmet from behind. His
+eyes are quite open; and then, like a douche of cold water, comes the
+consciousness that this man is dead. A feeling to get away from that
+corpse more than any other brings him amongst his comrades a few yards
+in advance, who are already firing and lying flat. He keeps blazing
+away mechanically at the innocent-looking hill opposite. His rifle is
+hot in his moist hands. An order to "cease fire" is given, and then
+there is another long interval of waiting. The whole business seems
+waiting. It isn't a bit like a proper sort of fight. There is nobody
+to fight; but still the bird-like notes are in the air above, and
+bitter little sounds against stones, and tiny little fountains of
+dust spurt from the ground around. And then a great feeling comes to
+him that he would like to be out of it all. There is no glory in it.
+The sun is hotter than he ever felt it before. His water-bottle is
+finished, and his mouth is clammy. A young subaltern with an
+eye-glass, no end of a toff, walks along the front of the line, and he
+watches with interested delight microscopic ducklets of his head,
+synchronising with whistles. Just as the toff is opposite him, he
+spins round suddenly, exclaiming, "By Jove!" and falls down like a
+sack of potatoes all of a heap. He begins to feel a strange sickness
+in the stomach, just the same as coming out on the transport. He feels
+it coming on. He knows he is going to be sick, and as he is going to
+be sick he wants to go away. There is no use in a sick man remaining
+in the fighting line. But then he feels as if he were held down there
+by the weight of the whirring air. There is no room in it for him to
+get up safely. There is no room to go away. Momentarily the noises
+increase. Men are firing about him, and he strains his eyes on the
+opposite hill to see something to shoot at, and empties his magazine
+at what looks like a man but may be a tree-trunk, and then stops again
+and gets sick. Another long period of waiting follows. All the water
+is gone from his water-bottle; an intolerable thirst is scorching his
+throat. He does not reload his magazine, and makes up his mind to say
+that his rifle is jammed, so that he need not go further with any
+fresh stupid advance that may be ordered. This is no time to care
+about what any one may think of him, it is just too awful for
+anything.
+
+The ground has ceased trembling with the cavalry, who have dashed to
+the front. There is no longer any whizzing in the air. The "cease
+fire" is already sounding right along the line. The man who was afraid
+stands up with his comrades, who are already on their legs. The old
+Colonel trots along the line, mopping his red face with his
+handkerchief. "That was a hot business," he says to his Captain, and
+calls cheerily to us, "Well done, C Company! You are damned steady
+boys under as hot fire as I have ever seen." The man who was afraid
+opens his shoulders and pulls out the collar of his tunic and stoops
+down to wipe off the cakes of dirty earth that are sticking to his
+knees.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DANCE OF DEATH IN CHINA
+
+            "A wind of blight
+  From the mysterious far North-west we came,
+  Our greatness now their veriest babes have learned."
+
+
+[Illustration: George Lynch Captured By The Boers.]
+
+It was the day after Tung-Chow had been occupied by the Allies. I was
+riding along a sunken road between the city wall and some high ground
+on which houses were built. There was a sheer drop of considerable
+height between the walls of the houses and the stony road below. The
+shouts of Russians mingling with screams could be heard proceeding
+from the houses. At the base of the cliff two Chinese girls were
+lying. Their legs were bundled under them in a way that showed they
+had jumped from the height above. From their richly embroidered
+silken tunics and trousers, their elaborate coiffure, and their
+compressed feet, they were evidently ladies. They were moaning
+piteously, and one of them appeared to be on the point of death. Their
+legs or hips had apparently been broken, or dislocated, by their jump.
+As I went towards them, the one who appeared least injured shrank from
+me with an expression of loathing and horror until I offered her a
+drink out of my water-bottle. Her delicate, childish little hand
+trembled violently on mine as she drank eagerly from it. The other was
+almost too far gone to swallow. The hoarse cries of the soldiers,
+mingled occasionally with a sobbing scream, came from the houses
+above, telling what they had tried so desperately to escape from. They
+lay there helpless, evidently in excruciating pain, under a brazen sun
+that beat down on the deserted dusty road. There was no one within
+reach to come to their assistance. And there was nothing for it but to
+leave them there, as many under similar circumstances had had to be
+left during our previous march of several days. This scene was typical
+rather than singular. In a large number of Chinese houses in the
+villages we passed through on our way up, at Tung-Chow, and in Pekin
+itself, it was no unusual sight to see an entire family lying dead
+side by side on the Kang, where they had suffocated themselves, or to
+see them suspended from the rafters of their houses, where they had
+committed suicide by hanging.
+
+In the burden of corpses which the river Pei-ho carried downwards from
+Pekin towards the sea were to be seen the bodies of many Chinese girls
+and women. One day I myself counted five. There is no question
+whatever that they had committed suicide. And close to Tung-Chow girls
+were actually seen walking into the shallow water and deliberately
+holding their heads under the surface till they were drowned. Such a
+tale seems very terrible. But to any one who had the opportunity of
+judging of the conduct of portions of the Allied troops it was not in
+the least surprising. Under similar circumstances our sisters and
+wives would have done likewise.
+
+The Russians and French carried off the palm for outrages on women
+during the original march, and subsequently the Germans similarly
+distinguished themselves. This was more particularly the case with
+small bodies of men who were detached from the main force. In a
+village on the way to Paoting-fu, for instance, through which a body
+of Germans had just passed, three girls were taken by our troops out
+of a well, into which they had been thrown before the Germans left.
+They were still alive. This method of disposing of their victims was
+frequently adopted by the soldiers as the safest way of hiding their
+misdeeds and escaping the consequences.
+
+News travels fast in China, and in advance of our march the people
+seemed to be thoroughly aware of the fate that probably awaited them.
+Although nearly the whole population cleared off before our advance,
+there were many, especially women, who could not get away, and who
+were unable to travel with their tiny compressed feet except in carts
+or on the backs of their servants. And it was principally these who
+finally, in the last extremity, committed suicide.
+
+As the Chinese have agreed to erect a monument to Baron von Ketteler
+in Pekin in commemorative apology for his murder, it appears to me
+that there is an opportunity for the Allies to erect one also. It
+might be of pure white jade, which the Chinese women love, which in
+its translucent depths seems to hold the bright Eastern sunlight with
+the detaining lingerage of a caress, and might bear an inscription
+saying that it was erected in honour of the memory of the women and
+girls of the province of Pechili who had sacrificed their lives to
+save their honour.
+
+All the way from the sea to Pekin, and for miles around Pekin itself,
+the whole country was deserted by the inhabitants. A wave of fear and
+horror preceded the advent of the Allies to such an extent that
+hundreds of miles of what was the most thickly populated part of China
+was absolutely deserted. After the relief of the Legations, the people
+who ventured timorously to return were inspired with fresh fear owing
+to the conduct of the Germans, who made up for being late for the
+original expedition by availing themselves of every possible
+opportunity of starting punitive expeditions on any possible pretence.
+Coming at the time of the autumn harvest, the actual loss of money to
+the inhabitants has been enormous.
+
+From August to November a great tract of country was left deserted by
+the inhabitants, who should have been employed in gathering in the
+harvest. When I came down from Pekin in November there was no sign
+whatever of life across the plains on either side as far as the eye
+could reach. Thousands of acres of millet lay prone on the ground, and
+their carefully-tended vegetable gardens were scored with black lines,
+showing where the produce had rotted. When the Germans arrived in
+September I heard one of their officers saying to Major Scott, who was
+in charge of the river station at Tung-Chow, pointing to the fields of
+millet which surrounded the camp, "Why don't you burn down all these
+crops?" Major Scott replied that, besides not wanting to make life
+harder for these unfortunate farmers, they wanted the fodder for their
+own cattle. But, as a matter of fact, the destruction effected by the
+absence of the people was just as great as if the wish of that German
+had been carried out.
+
+In all the discussions of the question of the amount of indemnity we
+never hear anything of the amount of counterclaim which the Chinese
+might rightfully make against us. The greater part of all this
+destruction was absolutely contrary to every rule of civilised
+warfare. In a district of about the extent of from London to Oxford
+the inhabitants have lost the entire produce of the harvest, all the
+villages and towns on either side of the river have been burned, so
+that on the march up our path at night was literally torch-lit with
+burning villages.
+
+As was natural to expect, and as we have subsequently learned, many of
+the inhabitants have been forced by the absolute necessities of
+subsistence to band themselves together in companies of brigands,
+whose depredations afford a fresh excuse to the Germans for continuing
+hostile operations. The losses inflicted on the country in this way
+are entirely outside the irreparable losses which were inflicted by
+the destruction and despoiling of temples and innumerable works of art
+which it will be impossible to replace. As regards these last
+outrages, there was no officer in command of any section of the Allies
+who personally exerted himself to a greater degree for the
+preservation, or at least to prevent the destruction, of the art
+heirlooms of the country than did General Sir Alfred Gaselee.
+
+Some curious things happened in his efforts in this direction. On the
+Paoting-fu expedition, for instance, when the troops were to pass in
+the neighbourhood of the Imperial Tombs, a few British soldiers were
+sent on in advance, and quietly informed the custodians that the
+Germans were coming. Readily acting on the information, they removed
+all the jewels and easily portable valuables from the tombs, and they
+were kept concealed in a village on the other side of the hill under
+the guard of a few Bengal Lancers until the Germans had passed. In
+recognition of this friendly message the Chinese wanted to make a
+present of some magnificent strings of pearls to Captain Maxwell, a
+nephew of Lord Roberts.
+
+In civilised warfare there is generally some little respect shown for
+the priests and places of worship of the conquered people, but here
+there was none whatever. Horses were stabled in the temples, and the
+art heirlooms of thousands of years of the nation's life to be found
+therein were frequently mutilated and destroyed when they were not
+stolen. In the street where I lived in Pekin for a whole week were to
+be seen, day by day, carts passing backwards and forwards laden with
+books which were being brought to be consumed in a huge fire kept
+burning in a yard outside the palace wall. Thousands of books were
+thus treated, so that the whole street was littered with their
+fluttering leaves to such an extent that I could not get my little
+Chinese pony to pass there without getting off and leading him, for he
+shied continually at the fluttering papers. Day after day this
+literary holocaust continued. When the wind was in the direction of my
+house a fine black snow kept perpetually falling, and covered the
+roofs and courtyards with these ashes of dead thoughts. Hundreds of
+the books were written in the quaint characters which showed that they
+belonged to, and were written by, Lama priests; many of them had
+probably found their way there from the bleak steppes of far Tibet.
+
+They were printed with those wooden blocks by which these barbarians
+practised the art of printing for centuries before the time of
+Caxton. Many of them also were in manuscript, which must have meant
+years of labour, and hand-painted pictures illustrating some were
+occasionally to be found. They were all alike consigned to the same
+funeral pyre, and thousands of volumes of unascertained, but perhaps
+considerable, value were thus lost to the world for ever. As the
+bleak, cold winds from the plains swept down the deserted street at
+night, and moaned dolorously through the ruined houses, rattling
+doors, and flapping paper windows, it lifted these torn book-leaves,
+and swirled them round in a fantastic dance of death, until one could
+almost imagine one heard the lamentation of the ghosts of their
+long-dead authors--priests, hermits, and scholars--mourning over the
+ashes of their life-work.
+
+The whole of this campaign is the reverse of flattering to our Western
+civilisation. Many of the details of the conduct of the Russian,
+French, and German soldiers do not bear publication. But what it
+broadly amounts to is the treatment of a venerable civilisation
+absolutely foreign to our own as if its members belonged to a low
+class of pestiferous beasts whose most desirable fate would be
+extermination.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+CERTAIN COMPARISONS
+
+
+After spending five months with the British forces in the early part
+of the war in the Transvaal, and then having an opportunity of
+campaigning with the allied forces in China, it was extremely
+interesting to make comparisons between them. The greater number of
+the troops we employed in China were drawn from the Army of India. As
+regards the French forces, they, at all events during the original
+march to the relief of the Legations, were drawn from the troops which
+were stationed at Tonkin. But the French troops that subsequently
+arrived direct from France, as well as the German contingent, may
+naturally be taken as average samples of their respective armies. It
+is true that outside the siege of Tientsin there was very little
+serious fighting. The engagements on the march up were not severe
+ones, except that outside the eastern gate of Pekin itself. The action
+here, however, was entirely confined to the Japanese. If this campaign
+did not afford opportunities of observing the various troops under
+severe strain of battle, it made up for it in a way by testing their
+qualities, resources, and equipment for campaigning under
+exceptionally trying circumstances. The weather during August, when
+the march for the relief took place, was exceptionally hot, far
+surpassing anything that I experienced in South Africa. The roads,
+where there were any that might be dignified by that name, were
+extremely bad, the dust was intense, the supply of water of the most
+inferior quality, and the expedition, not being under the command of
+one general, added irksome difficulties by the uncertainty of the
+movements of its constituent parts from day to day.
+
+Fighting is not the sole duty of soldiers in the field, and in almost
+all their other duties apart from that we had ample and varied
+opportunities of contrasting their merits. The Japanese infantry were
+a surprise and a revelation to most of the Allies. Notwithstanding the
+enormous trouble they have taken with their cavalry, it is immensely
+inferior to every other arm of their service. This is not to be
+wondered at when we reflect how little the Japanese are accustomed to
+horse-riding at home, and what small opportunities they have of
+acquiring that knowledge of the management of horses which comes
+instinctively to the English groom, to the Irish farmer's son, or to
+the field labourer. The defect of a want of efficient cavalry is with
+the Japanese largely compensated for by the extreme mobility of their
+infantry. They appear to do everything at the double. All their
+soldiers seem to be perpetually kept in the best of hard training. If
+they have not horses at home, they have plenty of rickshaw men, who
+consider thirty to thirty-five miles of running not an excessive
+day's work.
+
+Often watching the Japanese manoeuvring in the field, it occurred to
+me that if the men of her entire army had not served an apprenticeship
+between the shafts of the rickshaw, they must at least have passed
+through some training equally severe. On the expedition to Pekin they
+carried with them a number of light calibre guns, which they pulled
+into action, without horses, right into the firing line. In every
+detail of their camp equipment, food-supply, and field hospital corps,
+there was a neatness of packing and arrangement which apparently
+resulted in their carrying all their requirements in about a third
+less space than any of the others. The simple fare of the Japanese
+soldiers was ideal for campaigning. Broadly speaking, it consists of
+rice, with what might be called a flavouring of strong-tasting dried
+fish and mysterious brown condiments suggestive of curry. As they have
+modelled their fleet on our own, so they have drawn from the French
+and German armies a selection of their uniform and equipment. The
+colour of their uniform at home is dark blue. But during the
+expedition to Pekin their uniform was white, which would have been
+murderously conspicuous in operations against any force that was
+composed of less bad marksmen than the Chinese. This is now to be
+abandoned, and is to be replaced by something in the nature of khaki,
+as will be the heavy round German caps by something in the nature of
+straw hats or helmets, which will give more protection against the
+sun, although not looking so smart.
+
+Although the officers of all the Allies were immensely struck by the
+discipline and equipment of the Japanese, close observers were still
+more attracted by the underlying soldier spirit which animates them.
+An inherent spirit of soldiering seems to possess every little Jap as
+a natural heritage. They seem to love fighting for fighting's sake.
+They appear to enjoy the whole thing like schoolboys do their games.
+They take their killing much more kindly than the others, and appear
+to be much more familiarised with the idea that it is part of the
+game. Indeed, there is a zest and a verve and go about them when in
+action that I have never seen in any other troops. There were numerous
+instances in the siege of Tientsin of disregard of death. And outside
+the gates of Pekin ten men who were killed in their attempts to blow
+it up might apparently have been indefinitely multiplied at the
+command of their officers without any danger of faltering. When at ten
+o'clock at night they advanced to take the gate by assault which they
+had failed to force in the morning, it was immensely attractive to
+observe the gaiety, almost amounting to hilarity, with which they
+advanced to the attack. All movements such as this they accompany with
+singing. And after forcing the gate, when they met with opposition
+going along the wall and had to lie down before a hot fire from the
+Chinese, who made a final stand about half a mile from the gate,
+the Japanese buglers stood up and played some of their quaint
+war-songs.
+
+[Illustration: Boer Shell Bursting Among The Lancers At Rietfontein.]
+
+At night, in the camps on the way up, what I had mistaken for some
+Buddhist evening prayer, when the soldiers tramped round like a human
+prayer-wheel, was, I subsequently discovered, the chanting of a
+war-song which had been composed by General Fukushima himself.
+
+The interesting thing to observe will be to see how the Japanese
+behave when they are getting the worst of it, how they will conduct
+themselves when they are outnumbered, or when under the strain of a
+losing fight. From a sporting standpoint, I'll be inclined to lay six
+to four on a Japanese against a Russian regiment. I met some people on
+the way to Pekin who regarded the Russians as the best war soldiers of
+the lot. The Russians were intensely like the preconceived idea one is
+inclined to form of Russians. Solid, deep-chested, heavy and hardy,
+they gave one the idea of big, heavy farm labourers with a rifle
+instead of a spade upon their shoulders. They never moved with
+anything like the quickness which characterised the Japanese, yet they
+plodded on with a dour stubbornness which gave the impression that if
+their movements were not quick, they represented a weighty momentum
+difficult to arrest. Although uncouth, and frequently savage in their
+behaviour, they yielded a child-like, or almost slavish, obedience to
+their officers, and on these officers should lie the blame of the
+innumerable outrages committed by them, from which they might have
+been restrained if kept properly under control.
+
+Of the many tips which one force got from another, the Russians had an
+admirable system of carrying with them on the march a sort of
+locomotive kitchen, which consisted of a huge cauldron underneath
+which was a coal fire. The contents of the cauldron, which appeared to
+be the Russian equivalent for Irish stew, were hot and ready for the
+men at any halt in the march. How delightful such an institution
+would have been to Tommy in the miserably cold hours between two and
+four o'clock on the veldt of a South African morning!
+
+As regards the French force on the expedition to Pekin, in discipline
+and in equipment and the conduct of the men composing it, it was
+absolutely beneath contempt. Unless the art of foraging and looting
+can be considered soldier-like qualities, they appeared to me to lack
+every one.
+
+I looked forward to seeing great things from the Germans. But I must
+say that I was immensely disappointed. As far as parade-ground drill
+was concerned they were admirable; as the mechanical and automatic
+resultants of the efforts of the drill-sergeant they were possibly
+unequalled. But they appeared to be heavy and slow in their movements.
+On one little expedition outside Pekin for the purpose of surrounding
+a body of Boxers, which was undertaken by a combined force of British,
+Americans, Japanese, and Germans, the encircling movement proved a
+failure owing to the Germans arriving an hour late at their appointed
+position. Discussing the Germans one day with a Japanese officer, his
+criticism on them was, "Very good soldiers, but I tink too much drill
+drill."
+
+If the Germans suffer from too much mechanical "drill drill," the
+Americans certainly suffer from the opposite. Self-reliance,
+independence, and individuality of action are all very desirable
+qualities, but the Americans suffer immensely from the want of
+discipline and drill. Perhaps the democratic feeling of the States
+does not lend itself so easily to discipline. Each one of Napoleon's
+soldiers was supposed to carry a marshal's bâton in his knapsack. The
+American soldier has taken it therefrom, and is rather inclined to be
+a marshal unto himself, thinks himself quite as good as his superior
+officer, if not better, and, more than any other soldier, is given to
+grumbling, and spends a lot of his attention, which should be
+concentrated on merely obeying, to expressing his individual opinion.
+The United States soldiers are far and away the best fed in the
+world. Their standard of comfort, not to say luxury, is immensely
+higher, and would be absolutely ruinous in an army the size of any of
+those of Europe.
+
+Comparing the various forces--as I had an opportunity of observing
+them in China--with those of our own in South Africa, I am filled with
+a much higher idea of the latter than before I had such a standard of
+comparison. Our army, composed as it is in part of Colonial regiments,
+is now a combination of various admirable qualifications. The
+resourcefulness and individuality of action, which is the most
+admirable thing to be found in the American army, was quite equalled
+by men who composed such regiments as the Imperial Light Horse, the
+South African Horse, Brabant's Horse, the New Zealanders, and the
+Canadians.
+
+The inspiring, ingrained fighting spirit of the Japs is to be found in
+the Irish regiments, who are probably the best fighting men in the
+world; the chivalrous gallantry of artillery in action, which Zola
+wrote of in _La Débâcle_, I saw in quivering vitality at Elandslaagte
+and Rietfontein, and not by the hastening of a step was the old
+tradition of our artillery (to go into action at a gallop and come out
+at a walk) forgotten in actions outside Ladysmith. Superior-speaking,
+long-range critics talk disparagingly of our soldiers in the
+Transvaal. Germans talk of how things should have been done,
+forgetting that the little expedition they sent out to China was kept
+waiting for a month at Tientsin before the men could start for
+Paoting-fu, owing to the non-arrival of some essentials of their
+equipment.
+
+Far be it from me to think of posing as a military expert or a sort of
+composite military _attaché_ to the allied forces. I speak merely as
+an observant outsider. In riding to hounds one soon learns the men one
+would select to ride against the pick of another pack. One feels in
+his "innards" the man he would like to go tiger-shooting with,
+although it would be another matter to put down his reasons in
+writing, and much more so with soldiers in the field.
+
+From what I have seen in South Africa and China, I feel and know
+it--luminously know it in the marrow of my intelligence--that for that
+South African job, if it were to be done over again, I would select
+the British; that they have done, not alone as well, but better than
+any other nation would have done. Many things might have been done
+better. But apart from the question of transport, when I saw the
+others there were everywhere signs of their probable failures being
+infinitely more numerous.
+
+There are only two armies that, granted the possibility of their being
+landed in South Africa, could have conceivably tackled the job. These
+are the Japanese and the Germans. The Japs would probably have failed
+from their want of efficient mounted infantry or cavalry; the
+beer-blown Germans would have been worn down by men of better physical
+training. The war-knowledgeable brain, looking out through spectacled
+eyes, would droop tired in its physical limber until it was brought
+on a level with the less scientific but more practical weapon of the
+polo-playing, cricketing, footballing British officer.
+
+The Chinese had reached that ideal which we, at the end of the past
+century, were making an initial attempt to attain to in the calling
+together of the Hague Conference. For they had reached the stage of
+advanced development where the pen is really mightier than the
+sword--where the highest class in the community is that of the
+scholar, the next that of the man who tills the soil, and the last
+that of the man whose occupation it is to kill his fellow-man. Thus
+the Orientals were naturally at the mercy of the Western countries,
+the largest expenditure of whose revenue is absorbed by the cost of
+killing-machines and men to work them.
+
+The Chinese have a saying that, as the best iron is not made into
+nails, so the best men are not made into soldiers. With our Western
+civilisation, the best men and steel and soldiers found them an easy
+victim. There are no people in the world who have a higher regard for
+abstract justice and right than the Chinese. It is admitted by every
+man who has had large commercial dealings with them that there are no
+people who have a greater regard for straightforward, honest dealing.
+In our dealings with them, as regards this campaign, right and justice
+in every case have given place to might.
+
+When the German officer I have referred to above pointed towards the
+fields of millet which he wished to have burned, I was strikingly
+reminded of a certain mysterious picture which some years ago had been
+inspired or drawn by his Emperor and Kaiser. It had been called by
+some "The Yellow Peril," and depicts the figure of Germania,
+surrounded by the nations of Europe, standing on a pinnacle, and
+pointing to a broad plain below traversed by a river, and from the
+plain volumes of smoke rose skywards. No one seemed to know quite
+definitely what the actual meaning of the picture was. But since this
+latest crusade towards Pekin, the real meaning of it is suggested. In
+this campaign of revenge, with the Germans as the leading performers
+in it, animated and inspired by the speeches of their Emperor, the
+picture, now illustrative of recent history, might bear a more actual
+meaning.
+
+  "And Cæsar's spirit raging for revenge,
+  With Até by his side, come hot from hell,
+  Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
+  Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war,
+  That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
+  With carrion men, groaning for burial."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA
+
+
+It was the garden of the Mission of Peitang. Not a blade of grass was
+showing above the ground. The roots of the grass itself had been torn
+up, eaten by the last few starving animals within the besieged
+compound before they had been killed, and the trees were absolutely
+stripped of their bark as high as the beasts could reach. At one side
+of the garden a great open crater, fringed with the ruins of
+buildings, showed where a mine had exploded. The cross on the
+Cathedral hard by was broken, and its Gothic architecture additionally
+fretted by the scoring marks of shot and shell. But I think nothing
+told more forcibly the tale of the ordeal through which the garrison
+had passed than did these gnawed, naked tree-trunks.
+
+I was shown round the day after its relief by one of the Sisters,
+which, by the way, was effected by the Japanese, but not until the
+third day after the Legations had been relieved, although it was only
+twenty minutes' ride distant from them. The Mother Superior,
+seventy-four years of age, who had spent thirty-eight years of her
+life in Chinese mission work, lay dying--a daughter of Count Barais,
+of Château Barais, near Bordeaux. She had belonged to the Order of
+Sisters of Charity since her eighteenth year. Three mines had exploded
+within the Mission enclosure, and walls and roofs were riddled and lay
+tossed about in grotesque confusion. I went into the Cathedral church,
+which they were using as a hospital.
+
+Coming from the glare of white light outside, it was some moments
+before I could distinguish anything in the gloom within. By degrees
+one made out rows of rounded forms of little children lying on the
+floor. Above, the stained-glass windows were broken in many places,
+and the roof perforated where shells had entered, letting in shafts of
+light that fell aslant the gloom. High up on the wall one lit up a
+figure of Christ that with bowed head and extended, nail-pierced hands
+seemed to point in eloquent silence to the little suffering children
+below. The entire floor of the church, even up to the extinguished
+lamp of the sanctuary, was occupied with them. In one explosion alone
+eighty children were killed, and a still greater number injured. Many
+more were ailing for want of sufficient food, because when the actual
+relief came they had been reduced to only two ounces of rice per day,
+and had but two days' rations left. Other children, who were helping
+the nuns, moved noiselessly about among the prostrate forms. The
+hushed silence of sanctuary was broken only by low moaning, or the
+querulous sobbing of little children weary with pain. The Sister
+brought me to see one little mite, whom she called the "first fruit"
+of their recommenced labour.
+
+It was a strange story, that of this little child. The French soldiers
+who occupied that quarter of the city had come across a house where,
+stretched on the kang side by side, were the bodies of all its
+occupants. They had committed suicide on the advent of the Allies. As
+the soldiers had not time to bury them immediately, intent as they
+were on pillaging and looting the neighbourhood, they threw lime on
+the bodies. After two days, when they came to throw their remains into
+a pit which had been dug for their burial, they found that the
+youngest victim was yet alive, and carried her, with her hair still
+caked with lime, to the nuns.
+
+In the midst of these ruins these good women, mostly of gentle birth,
+were striving to recommence their labours, and nurse, and feed, and
+teach the children that remained. But, conversing with them, one
+perceived, underlying their heroic resignation, a strain of very human
+despondency and disappointment. Their talk here was not of
+compensation. It was merely of how they could get their ruined
+mission-house fit for work again--the work for which they had left
+father and mother and friends, and their homes in far-off France.
+
+It was not quite the same elsewhere, however. There were some
+missionaries who appeared to take a different view of the situation.
+Already they were lodging claims with their respective Consuls, and in
+order to guard themselves against the dilatoriness or uncertainty of
+action of their various Governments they were taking measures to
+secure immediate compensation.
+
+One reverend gentleman, for instance, was to be seen day after day
+holding a sale of loot in a house that he had taken possession of.
+Another, an American, was carrying on a similar sale in a palatial
+mansion which he had commandeered. The latter was to be seen
+surrounded by jade and porcelain vases, costly embroideries from the
+spoiled temples, sable cloaks and various other furs, and rows of
+Buddhas arranged like wild-fowl in a poulterer's shop. As his stock
+became depleted he was in a position to ask any unsatisfied customer
+to call in again, as his converts were bringing in fresh supplies of
+loot almost every day!
+
+Indeed, not satisfied with the proceeds of his loot sale, this worthy
+man was enterprising enough to levy compensation on the Chinese, and,
+in addition to recovering the full value of the damage sustained by
+his converts, inflicted fines that exceeded that amount--according to
+his own admission--by one-third.
+
+[Illustration: General French And Staff On Black Monday.]
+
+There are others who took possession of Chinese houses wholesale, and
+found a source of income in letting or leasing them. The fact of their
+having a number of converts to support was given by them as a
+justification of their actions. Unquestionably they had a large number
+more or less dependent upon them, but some other means might surely
+have been found. They were very busy in those days. And perhaps that
+accounts for their taking no notice of the actions of various portions
+of the Allied soldiery. Wholesale robbery, cruelty, and the raping of
+women were going on all round; a regular orgy of rapine surged through
+the captured city. Yet not one solitary voice of protest was heard.
+
+It would be gratifying to think that, amidst all these exponents of
+the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount, there was one who called for
+mercy on the conquered, or asked that even common humanity should be
+shown them, or even reminded the generals of their own rules of war
+and fair fighting, or who raised his voice for justice, even if he did
+not in compassion. What an opportunity lost, which would not have been
+thrown away on the Chinese, of showing in practice what they had been
+preaching--"Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
+pray for them that despitefully use you." If, instead of selling
+images of Buddha, they had used their influence to preserve his
+temples from desecration and defilement, or offered sanctuary to his
+priests, it is certain that they would have more materially furthered
+the cause they have in hand.
+
+It would be wrong to say that not one solitary voice was raised. 'Tis
+true it was not raised by any missionary. But there is a rough-looking
+soldier with a strong face that looks as if it had been hewn out of a
+block of red sandstone with a blunt hatchet--General Chaffee, of the
+United States Army. He would be called in England a "ranker." He, not
+content, as Sir Alfred Gaselee was, with keeping his own men from
+disgracing their country's flag, wrote a letter of remonstrance to
+Count Waldersee, and received a snub in return for an action which,
+nevertheless, redounds immensely to his credit.
+
+Christianity in China has received a staggering blow, from which it
+will not recover during the lives of the present generation. Its
+progress, so far as any one can see, in the immediate future is at an
+end. It is even questionable whether it will not be wiped out
+altogether in Northern China. The terrible assaults by Boxers will
+largely decrease the number of converts. The temporal advantages that
+formerly ensued from its profession are now more than counterbalanced
+by the hatred and persecution that Christianity entails. The worst
+blow it has received has been through the conduct of the Allied
+soldiery during the late invasion. These men have crucified it in
+China as truly as the soldiers of Pilate did its Founder. And even the
+Christian missionaries raised no protest against the crucifixion.
+
+Let us hear what a Chinaman says in a book just published, the author
+writing under the name of "Wen Ching." I heard the identical opinions
+expressed by many intellectual Chinese.
+
+"For their gifts," he says, "to the West in the shape of silk, tea,
+and the magnetic compass, the Chinese have so far in return received
+opium, missionaries, and bombardment." "The _literati_, the backbone
+of China ... are not kindly spoken of by missionaries, nor are they
+liked by foreigners."
+
+It is only "the lower orders that have always been very susceptible to
+the teaching of foreigners. Their ignorance and their poverty furnish
+ample reasons for their willingness to join the churches of the
+Europeans."
+
+Also "the claims of missionaries to a right of travel and residence in
+the interior ... are founded on no higher authority than an
+interpolation by a missionary translator into the Chinese text of the
+treaty between France and China." That "the disturbance of a local
+_fengshui_ by a church spire is considered as much of a grievance as
+the erection of a hideous tannery beside Westminster Abbey would be."
+
+He says that "the Christian religion spread chiefly, if not entirely,
+among the poorer people, until it was discovered that political
+advantages accrued to the convert." For "in many places the missionary
+intrudes himself into the Chinese court, and sits beside the
+magistrate to hear a case between his convert and a non-Christian
+native. The influence of the missionary is very great, and the
+official is often pestered and worried by the messengers of the
+Gospel." Therefore the Christian converts are voted a "source of
+trouble and a nuisance."
+
+Still, in this writer's opinion, "nothing has done so much harm to the
+cause of the missionary as this forcing the opium trade on the
+people." "If there are honest missionaries," he remarks, "there are
+also sincere believers in the ancient faiths of Cathay to resent the
+insidious encroachments of blatant foreign priests, who preach to the
+heathen the doctrines of self-imposed poverty and mendicancy, and yet
+themselves live sumptuously enough in comfortable houses, surrounded
+by a wife and a numerous progeny, in the midst of heathen squalor and
+misery."
+
+These are just a few extracts from the views of an intelligent
+Chinaman as regards the question of missionaries in his country. But
+in conversation with others I heard similar opinions more forcibly
+put. They point out that the various exponents of Christianity insist
+that each alone expounds the right version, which is puzzling to the
+Chinese, and that the missionaries actually have not agreed as to the
+name of their God, as they use five different characters.
+
+Within the radius of an eighteen-penny cab fare from where I write, I
+think there is plenty of spiritually productive work for all the
+missionaries in China; work for all the sincere, self-sacrificing
+missionaries--and there are still many of them in China--men animated
+by the spirit of the Twelve Fishermen, who have not adopted their
+profession as a means of livelihood, in addition to a secure income
+getting an extra £30 for every baby born in their families. And
+within the radius I speak of, they would not first have the task of
+weaning the people away from the doctrines of Confucius or
+Buddha--"Him all wisest, best, most pitiful, whose lips comfort the
+world," which doctrines are the very breathing--the life--of their
+social as well as spiritual being. When the Chinese see the German
+Emperor using missionaries as live-bait to catch a province, and the
+French insisting upon being given another as the price of a few
+members of one of those religious orders they have expelled from
+France, it is no wonder that from that stricken, bullied, cheated
+people the cry goes up to the empty heavens--
+
+      "To my own Gods I go.
+  It may be they shall give me greater ease
+  Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+EX ORIENTE LUX
+
+
+What is a barbarian? In many of the Chinese edicts we see the term
+perpetually applied to those people outside the Celestial Kingdom, and
+to all those who are not Chinese. The Japanese are far too polite to
+use such a word. Yet I have spoken to Japanese artists who, in
+referring to European taste in Art, used a word equivalent to
+barbarous. The average free-born Briton travelling round the world
+carries with him, or is supposed to carry with him, his Bible, and a
+taste for Bass's beer and beefsteak. According as a country does or
+does not possess these essentials, and according as its own attributes
+of civilisation are removed from his own standards of perfection, so
+does he regard its inhabitants as more or less barbarians. (I was
+rather amused watching a play in Tokio once, where the villain of the
+piece was a red-whiskered Englishman, in a loud crossbar suit and a
+fore-and-aft cap, who was always shown on the stage with half a dozen
+bottles of Bass on a table beside him.) When we bear in mind how much
+Britishers despise their next-door neighbours across the Channel for
+their defective beefsteakiali-ties, it is not surprising that such a
+feeling should be greatly intensified when they come in contact with a
+civilisation so much more alien and remote from their own as that of
+China and Japan. It needs only a quiet observation and the smallest
+degree of intellectual elasticity to be forced to the conclusion that
+the advantages are not altogether on our side, and that there is great
+scope for the East to send social missionaries to the West. Socially,
+I think we have far more to learn from them than they have to learn
+from us. And, curiously enough, if such a mission were started, it
+would not be entirely to teach us new things, but in many ways it
+would be recalling us to points which we have hurried away from in the
+rapid progress of our material civilisation for the last couple of
+hundred years.
+
+The central idea, the social pivot, the focus of the life, of the
+civilisation of the East is to be found in their idea of the home. The
+home is the centre of gravity of their existence, round which
+everything else revolves. In China it is the all-pervading,
+all-vivifying idea of social life, of religion, and of government. The
+life of the family is not only of to-day, but extends back into a
+venerable past, and is the hope and care of the future.
+
+For us, the dead past buries its dead, and the flowers that we lay on
+the newly-made grave quickly wither on the freshly-turned clay on
+which we have left them--except where the place of natural ones is
+taken by those deliciously ironical representations in the shape of
+tin--waterproof imitations which save the mourner the trouble of
+renewal.
+
+As to the love of the Chinese and Japanese for their children, it has
+to be seen to be appreciated. Those wise-eyed little mites, who before
+they can walk sit perpetually enthroned upon their mothers' backs
+throughout the livelong day, are a source of so much joy and adoration
+to their parents that one feels no surprise at not hearing them cry as
+other children do. I only recollect hearing a child cry once during a
+two months' stay in Japan, and then there was an excuse for its
+dolorous plaint, because its mother was shaving its little head with a
+blunt razor and no soap. It must be obvious to the student of our
+Western civilisation that the cult of family life is on the decline.
+The ties and obligations which hold children and parents together are
+visibly slackening, and this is the more obvious amongst those nations
+which have been taking the lead in the material progress of our time.
+
+Take the United States, for instance. There, up to a certain point,
+the father is regarded as the dollar-grinding machine. The tendency is
+for both sons and daughters to cast themselves loose from parental
+ties, and strike out afresh for themselves. And their parents are as
+little responsible for them as they are for the maintenance or
+happiness of their parents.
+
+Any one who is familiar with life in the East End of London will
+appreciate how little these worn-out toilers, when old age
+incapacitates them from work, can rely on being kept out of the Union
+by their children. With the experience of nearly two thousand years of
+the progress of Christendom, it is not surprising that a short time
+ago we should hear the present occupant of the Papal Throne raising
+his aged voice to recall the attention of the West to how rapidly the
+idea of the family was being lost, as Leo XIII. did in the Encyclical
+Address to the Catholic Church on the subject of the Holy Family.
+
+From the more important teaching as regards family life, these
+Oriental missionaries might then endeavour to tell us something of the
+Fine Arts in the East, and yet more of the spirit which animates their
+artists. They would be able to show us that "art for art's sake" with
+them is no empty phrase. It would doubtless surprise many Westerners
+to know that a Chinese painter would not think of selling his pictures
+for money, but paints them for his own pleasure, and gives his work as
+presents to his friends, and would no more dream of selling a picture
+than an English girl would of selling a kiss.
+
+The Japanese would have a lot to tell us about bringing art, and that
+their highest and best art, into the utensils of everyday life, and
+that there is nothing demeaning in expending the best work on things
+one handles and uses every day. What a lot they would have to tell us
+of the cultivation and their love of flowers--a love which seems
+instinct in the poorest peasant, and which in the more cultivated
+classes is carried to an exquisite degree of refined development! And
+again, a Japanese incense party, where different qualities of
+delicately aromatic incense are passed round--and the pastime consists
+in placing the different qualities in the order of the beauty of their
+perfume--would almost suggest that the West had neglected the
+cultivation of one of the five senses.
+
+At a dinner-party at a well-known restaurant, the other night, it was
+forcibly brought to my mind what a lot they would have to teach us
+regarding the enjoyment of such social functions. A perfect din and
+rattle of plates and knives filled the air, a mob of undisciplined
+servants charged about tumultuously, garish lights lit up vulgar
+ornamentation, and one almost had to shout to be heard across the
+table, while a band of music outside ineffectually endeavoured to
+drown the din within. There were flowers, it is true, but their
+profusion was no compensation for an utter lack of artistic
+arrangement. But there was a complete absence of that repose, that
+restfulness, that calm, which is considered, and justly considered,
+amongst Easterns as the essential atmosphere for the enjoyment of a
+social repast. The Japanese have raised entertainment to the level of
+a fine art. Their tea ceremonies, as we have badly translated the
+"Cha'-no-yu," but which might be preferably rendered as "The Fine Art
+of Welcome and Hospitality," have been a strong influence in
+preventing them from drifting into the meretricious gaudiness so
+blatantly _en évidence_ in restaurants like the Carlton, and minister
+to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so characteristic of
+Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best number for a
+dinner-party, as with a larger number separate conversational groups
+are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has rooms specially built
+for these parties, and rooms only just large enough to hold his guests
+comfortably. One scroll is hung in the kakemono, and in front of it
+one ornament, and afterwards a solitary flower. It would be
+considered by them extremely bad taste to confuse or dissipate the
+attention by a variety of ornaments.
+
+A Japanese lady once showed me a photo of the drawing-room at
+Sandringham, which greatly amused her, and which she kept as a
+curiosity. (She was too polite to say as a curiosity of barbarism.)
+But she said, laughing, "Is it not just like a curio-dealer's shop?"
+
+The dinner, which actually precedes the tea-drinking, is served by the
+host in person, thus doing away with the intrusion of even their deft
+and quiet-moving servants. Every cup, every plate, is an individual
+art treasure, from the Godown in which the host's artistic treasures
+are kept in a seclusion that his most intimate friends have never
+penetrated. They have probably never seen the same picture or the same
+ornament twice in the kakemono. From the soft mellow music of the old
+gong which summons them to the repast, on through its various stages,
+until the rare and beautiful bowl out of which they have had tea is
+passed round for appreciative inspection, an air of refined repose
+has characterised the whole proceedings.
+
+[Illustration: General White And Staff On Black Monday.]
+
+These social missionaries might progress from giving us some insight
+into these things to the introduction of another institution which
+would be an unquestionable advantage to our civilisation--I refer to
+the Geisha. Supposing that they were successful in grafting this
+Japanese idea, the Western edition would work out somewhat thuswise.
+Take, for instance, a bachelor coming up from Oxford or Cambridge, or,
+say, a merchant up from Liverpool or Manchester, instead of having a
+solitary dinner at his club, if he wished for the relaxation of
+vivacious female companionship, he would go to the telephone, and ring
+up "Geishas, Limited," and send word that he wanted one, or more, for
+dinner that evening. There would in due course, at the restaurant
+appointed, appear a girl with the dress, appearance, and manners of a
+lady. Whatever her looks might be, whatever her attractions, she would
+unfailingly be bright, intelligent, well-mannered, and, above all,
+entertaining, for her being entertaining would be her _métier_, her
+occupation, her _raison d'être_. And, contrary to what is frequently
+supposed from a mistaken acquaintance with this Japanese institution,
+she would not be in the least facile or accessible. Our ideas of
+feminine Japan are too much based on the circumscribed experiences of
+holiday travellers, or books of the bad taste of Pierre Loti's "Madame
+Chrysanthème." We do not judge the women of England by Leicester
+Square, nor of Paris by those of the Moulin Rouge. Amongst the
+accomplishments of these Geisha girls music and singing would be most
+important. There seems much more refinement and comfort in bringing
+the music and singing to you than in going to the singing and music. A
+party of men dining together would not be driven to adjourn to a
+music-hall after dinner. They could order it as part of the menu.
+
+But these Oriental missionaries, in addition to introducing such an
+institution, would have a field for their labours in raising their
+clients and customers to the standard of Japanese civilisation in the
+enjoyment of it. I present the idea gratis to any enterprising people
+who are troubled with the question. What to do with our girls!
+
+But Orientals would have little to teach us in what the Chinese call
+"make face," which enters into many of the actions of our daily life
+quite as much as it does into theirs. How thankful we should be that
+it does not also enter into our religious life! How thoroughly the
+Chinese must be impressed with this by their recent experiences of our
+Latest Crusaders! I was listening the other day to a gentleman
+descanting "on the darkness that enveloped those Pagan barbarians,"
+and I was thinking of another darkness or blindness which prevented
+the speaker, and many like him, from seeing the least gleam of light
+in the East. Yet it does not require much hand-shading of our
+intellectual eyes to see EX ORIENTE LUX.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+NIGHT IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+  "How beautiful is night!
+  A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
+  No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
+  Breaks the serene of heaven:
+  In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
+  Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
+    Beneath her steady ray
+    The desert-circle spreads
+  Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
+    How beautiful is night!"
+
+
+Night really unrobes her beauty only in silence, the silence of the
+desert. Never can I forget nights spent in Western Australia, far
+beyond Kalgoorlie, away back in the Never-Never Land, where no rain
+falls. That is the land of great thirst, where for hundreds of miles
+one sees no living thing, where no birds sing, not even the mournful
+call of the jackal echoes across the waste, and not even the chirping
+ticking of an insect is to be heard to break the utter stillness. Gum
+trees, whose roots strike down a hundred feet for water, lift up their
+sparsely-covered branches into the motionless air above, their
+tongue-like leaves silently saying "I thirst." In that stagnant air
+they remind one of the giant seaweeds that grow in the depths of the
+great oceans where the water never moves; and the silence there is the
+silence of ocean depths, and so has been from the beginning. To-day my
+horse's tracks made five years ago are probably as fresh as were those
+which I followed that had been made two years before that time. It
+must be experienced to be realised, that dead silence; when lying on
+the ground at night the sound of one's heart-beats or the breathing of
+one's horse, tethered yards away, alone tells one that the sense of
+hearing is not lost. It must be experienced to be loved, that wonder
+of a silent world, where the Spirit of Solitude in his own domain for
+ever almost palpably seems to brood with finger on pressed lips. It
+is the contrast with the scene that lies below me that forcibly
+recalls these nights in the desert. Now, as I write, I am at the
+Antipodes, and focus points of contrast in every sense to these
+scenes; the same moon that shines on that far-off desert is the only
+thing in common.
+
+The city of New York is in the form of a wedge, the point of the wedge
+being the down-town end, a great black mass that now looks driven into
+the moonlit water. Down here, as if with sheer weight of pressure of
+crowding humanity, the houses seem driven upward. There being not
+enough room on the end of the wedge for the people, they are forced
+upwards for room, as one would squeeze paint from an artist's tube.
+They rise up in tall, irregular-shaped shafts of various heights, as a
+child might stand its long toy bricks on end anyhow. As I write I am
+looking down from the thirtieth story of one of the highest, feeling
+as if I had been "set on the pinnacle of the Temple" (of Mammon?).
+The great city lies below me, but though it is night it does not
+appear to lie in repose. If it sleeps, it is a restless, troubled
+sleep. The air is vocal with many noises that come up from below as an
+exhalation; white flames of steam wave from the tops of buildings
+below me. Up here on this giddy height a hot wind of the upper air is
+blowing, and a vibrating, murmurous throbbing pulsates through the
+building itself. This latter is caused by the elevators, those veins
+and arteries of the structure, and their motion must never cease or
+else a clot of humanity would be left marooned in the upper storeys.
+Across the river on the west side a row of lights are moving in one
+direction, and alongside them a row moving in the opposite, like ants
+at work. These are the trolly-cars crossing Brooklyn Bridge. North and
+south, to the sound of a jangling rattle, the trams on the Elevated
+are moving, and along the streets the trolly-cars, with their booming
+note, which crescendoes up the scale with increasing speed and
+diminuendoes with the slackening of it. Out on the water the red and
+green lights of the steamers move about in irregular tracks. The
+booming, mournful call of these steamers, like the lowing of a cow for
+her lost calf, goes on for ever. There are times in the desert when
+the coyote and the jackal are silent; on forlorn coasts in the hours
+before the first of dawn the seagulls cease their screaming; but these
+voices are never silent, calling, circling, and cawing, calling around
+the City of Unrest. Different notes they sound--the angry scream of
+the steam siren, the deep boom of the incoming ocean liner, and the
+note one hears oftenest--a mournful, lost wail, as of a damned soul
+calling out, "Custos, quid de nocte?" "Custos, quid de nocte?" The
+feverish hours pass troublously, but there is no response in the night
+of the City of Unrest.
+
+Now a great change has come over the scene; the moon has been
+curtained off by a heavy mass of clouds, and its light is shut off
+from the water. The lights of the city shine out with increased
+distinctness; the moonlight that whitened the sides of the buildings
+now has left them black masses of vague shadow, and all at once one
+gets the impression of looking down into an inverted firmament studded
+with countless stars of as various magnitudes as in the heavens, from
+the bright electric arc-lights to tiny gaslights; and from this height
+of over 400 feet one gets the impression, familiar to those who have
+looked at the world from a balloon, that the rim of the horizon rises
+all round. "Around the circle of the desert spreads," but the desert
+now is of the cloud-covered sky, and far as the eye can reach are the
+stars of this great city, and now through that firmament of stars
+there is a dark path in an unilluminated Milky Way which marks the
+course of the river.
+
+As one looks down from here and listens to the combination of
+throbbing sounds that come up from below, there is a certain
+impressiveness in the thought of being in the centre of such focused
+activity. One seems to be pressing the ear close to the heart of a
+great country. I wonder what that other city looked like from the
+pinnacle of whose temple He looked down on the other great cities that
+had their day? What Carthage looked like? The present edition of Rome
+and Paris and London, and Pekin from the Imperial pagodas on the top
+of Coal Hill, I have looked down on at night, but none of them is like
+this. From the Capitol Rome lies quietly wrapped in the memories of
+past greatness; from the hill of Montmartre the electric lights here
+and there give suggestive glimpses of the City of Pleasure. In Pekin,
+looking across the lotus-pond and the marble bridges, all that is
+squalid in the city is shrouded in a veil of foliage, and above the
+tops of the trees only what is beautiful emerges, and the city sleeps
+in the enjoyment of thoroughly Oriental repose; and, like a
+solidly-built, healthy man, London sleeps soundly; but the strenuous,
+restless activity of this city can hardly be said to sleep. I watched
+it make an attempt at a pause for five minutes on the day of the
+President's funeral. At an appointed time all the street traffic was
+supposed to stand still. My! what an effort it was! It was not a real
+pause; it seemed more like the gasping holding of the city's breath,
+holding for these five minutes as if something were going to burst;
+and then at the second when the clock marked the end of the five
+minutes on went everything spinning with a feeling of absolute relief.
+As one looks down from here one cannot help speculating as to what is
+to be the future of what lies below. Is it going to be the greatest
+city that the world has ever seen--in real greatness, or only in acute
+development of material civilisation; and are the multitudes that
+populate it going to get more happiness from the arcs of their little
+lives than those of Carthage and Rome, or Pekin, or Babylon, or
+London? Or are they going at the pace that kills? Or at least the pace
+that tires into premature exhaustion?
+
+But leaving these speculations, as it is now one o'clock, I get into
+the cage of the elevator and drop down whirring as the floors toss
+upwards beyond me--"Down twenty-eight," and we pull up with a jerk,
+and a pale-faced man gets in. "Down twelve," and two tired-looking
+women and a small boy get on board; and then the floor on which is a
+newspaper office, and a crowd is waiting to descend. The paper is just
+going to press, and their work is done. And then right down below the
+level of the street I go to see the paper actually printed. Immense
+rolls of paper are being lowered from the street level and handled as
+easily as if they were of no more weight than a lead pencil, put
+before machines which devour them to a deafening noise of machinery.
+The room reminds one of the lower deck of an ironclad in action, and
+the workers there seem fighting for their lives--fighting against
+time, fighting against the machine, fighting against the paper, which
+would fill up the room if it were left at the discharging end of the
+machines without being sent rapidly aloft; and there on the floor
+above the men are fighting hand to hand with great bundles of papers
+that must be sent out in time for the morning trains. Outside in the
+square stand horses sufficient for the artillery of an army corps
+awaiting their burdens, and as I go up town by the surface car,
+although there is not yet any sign of light, I pass hundreds of men on
+their way down town to make an early start in the battle struggle of a
+new day in the City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+A STREET IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+It was a very wonderful sight last night, looking down from that
+height at the black pool of New York specked with star-like lights--a
+pool of darkness, where three million people slept, or tried to sleep;
+but it was like looking into a cup of ink to read destinies. Now,
+twelve hours afterwards, let us step down below into the centre of the
+city, when the limelight of a glaring, cloudless sun is turned full on
+it--when the living microcosm of its active life is thrown on the
+magic-lantern screen of our retina. Now we are at the base of these
+high buildings, and no city in Europe can show anything like them. It
+is difficult to know what to compare them to. We cannot compare
+Broadway to an avenue of poplars in stone, for the poplars are out of
+proportion to the avenue--far too high and far too irregular. There is
+no regular design, no continuous outline; immense, costly, new, they
+sprout upwards--sprout as if under the drawing-up power of a tropical
+sun, sprout as if fed with the superabundant fecundity of virgin soil.
+Unless they were as high, there would not be room for the people down
+at this crowded end of the wedge-shaped town. The want of finality
+about them is no less apparent in their irregularity of size than in
+their sides, generally blank of windows, in expectancy of buildings
+going up beside them probably higher still. Some of them are to be
+seen with white marble façades crowned with Corinthian pilasters, and
+the sides are of red or yellow brick, on which is probably some huge,
+ugly advertisement announcing that some fine five-cent cigar is
+"generously good," or holding out hope of relief in the shape of a
+pill to liver-troubled humanity. Parenthetically, I may remark that
+this city is, if anything, rather worse than London in the way of
+placards that scar the face of it. The goblin-like advertisements that
+spit soap and other things at unoffending eyes at night in Trafalgar
+Square are bad enough, but the advertisements in New York are worse
+still. There is a fine square here called Madison, in the centre of
+which trees rise from fountain-watered grass, and statued figures of
+people who were men in their day and did things, palatial buildings,
+dignifying commerce, form the square. Yet while I have been here I
+have watched, right over a house on one side of it, a huge white
+hoarding being erected, and have watched a great vulgar advertisement
+of cigarettes being daubed upon it. A beastly, ugly smear on one of
+the beauty-spots of the city.
+
+[Illustration: Artillery Crossing A Drift Near Ladysmith.]
+
+Bang-bang; bang-bang; bang--loud, insistent; ping-ping--sharp,
+piercing; the first from the trolly-car, the second from a
+steam-trailing automobile; a booming roar from the ground
+accompanying the first, a buzzing rattle the second. Just a block away
+a far louder rattle still comes from the elevated railway. Here, down
+town, the streets are paved with cobble stones, and the severity of
+the climate in the winter is given as the excuse for the irregularity
+of the surface. Heavy lorries and wheels of horsed vehicles jangle
+over them, but the general uproar is so great that the bells on the
+horses' collars are inaudible, and sight is the only sense that makes
+their approach perceptible. The stream of trolly-cars passes and
+re-passes, perpetually making short pauses for the passengers to nip
+in quickly or--get left. Across from where I write is a restaurant
+with a legend above it, "Quick Lunch." This, I think, is rather
+peculiar to New York; in other cities it would be either "Good Lunch,"
+or "Cheap Lunch;" here the attraction is that it is "quick." It is
+only necessary to watch the way that the customers hurry in and hurry
+out to see the significance of it. The day is not half long enough
+for the workers down here, and the work is at such high pressure that
+time for feeding can hardly be spared; it is not feeding or taking a
+meal, it is just stoking the human engine, and quick stoking at that.
+
+The streets of London, even in the City, are calm and peaceful in
+comparison with those here in New York. The very ground throbs with
+vibration, the air throbs with the medley of noises, the buildings
+throb with both. It is not quite obvious why the streets should be so
+noisy. All the bells and gongs and danger-signals, one would think,
+would be equally effectual if they were not so loud, but now the
+competition of sounds is so great that any warning must almost be
+explosive in its violence to be audible at all. It is no wonder that
+we find in this city so many people suffering from nerves; it is quite
+surprising the number of men I have met who dare not drink coffee, men
+who have had to give up smoking, men and women who were too nervous
+to travel in a hansom, and who at frequent intervals have to retire to
+the country owing to various kinds of nervous trouble. There seems to
+be no question but that this suffering from nervous disorders is on
+the increase; it would be surprising if it were otherwise, considering
+the pace at which these people live; and when one sees thin, pallid,
+spectacle-wearing little children, one sees specimens of the rising
+generation who are destined to be still greater sufferers. As against
+this, and off-setting it, the taste for outdoor games seems to be on
+the increase, and for young business men who have little time for
+taking exercise nothing can be more admirable than clubs such as the
+athletic and the racquet clubs here, which give opportunities of
+taking indoor exercise on a scale unapproached by any similar
+institution in London.
+
+When I left London in August and came here, it would be difficult to
+determine in which city the streets were more torn up. The
+construction of the underground railway here is in evidence all over
+the city; explosions from blasting are to be heard at intervals
+throughout the day, and in various directions huge caverns yawn, at
+the bottom of which hundreds of men and steel drills are hard at work.
+I have noticed within the last few years how the power of the street
+policeman has increased for regulating traffic. In return for the
+potatoes which Ireland originally received from America, she has ever
+since been supplying this country with policemen and politicians, and
+these former great burly, beltless Milesians now despotically rule the
+traffic as effectually as the London bobbies. It is characteristic
+that the youngsters about the streets should be keener, sharper, more
+active even than the youngsters of London. The lithe, thin,
+cigarette-smoking _gamins_ that sell newspapers down town are a study
+in themselves as they dart and double through the traffic and the
+crowded sidewalks, selling innumerable editions of voluminous papers
+throughout the day.
+
+Early in the morning going down town, during the luncheon hour, or
+going up town in the evening, one is struck by the enormous number of
+women workers who now find employment in this great city--in some
+offices hundreds of women, forming almost the entire staff, are
+employed. Their competition must make it harder still for the male
+clerks. Independent, self-reliant, business-like, a curious type is
+being developed of these bread-earners--a type that suggests the
+evolution of a neutral sex. Perhaps it is not altogether to be
+wondered at, and is only a manifestation of the idea of equality, that
+in the down-town cars the man no longer gives up his seat to the woman
+who stands holding on to the leather strap over her head in the
+crowded car, and does not remove his hat in the elevator when a woman
+enters.
+
+Now a black-plumed vehicle comes spinning round the street corner,
+followed by three or four carriages with the crape-wearing drivers:
+apparently it is only the denseness of the traffic that prevents the
+hearse galloping and compels the driver to be content with a quick
+trot. Quick lunch, rapid life, fast funeral, devouring cremation, or
+else the weary toiler is laid down to have a first try at a real long
+sleep in the quivering bosom of the City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A GLIMPSE OF A SOUTHERN CITY
+
+
+Every variety of climate, pace, and people is to be found in this
+great tract of country which has for its flag the Stars and Stripes,
+and any variety of taste ought to be capable of being gratified within
+its confines. If I were to come to live on this side of the Atlantic I
+think I should elect to settle in a Southern city. New York has many
+attractions; it has drawn to it, vortex-like, much of the best that is
+bright, able, active, powerful, but, vortex-like, the life swirls,
+spinning ceaselessly at a terrific rate, in that noisy city of unrest.
+Chicago accentuates the worst features of life in New York while
+having few of its compensations, and the large cities in the East and
+centre are blends of the life of both diluted with dulness. San
+Francisco is a thing apart--the air of the Pacific seems to blow
+different impulses on the people, and great and glorious air and
+climate and scenery are there, bracing with the breeziness of the
+West. Florida and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico are too near the
+tropics for my taste, tending towards hammock-basking too much.
+
+Give me a Southern city, say in Georgia; and I have one in my mind's
+eye. There the people do not live so fast as to have no time to enjoy
+their life, while they have all that makes life enjoyable. Successful
+effort is my nearest approach to a definition of what constitutes
+happiness. There, there is every scope for various effort. The city
+and country around are still in process of active growth. "Fecundity"
+is writ large across the surface of the State, on fields, in mills, in
+mines. All the men are busy the livelong day. Here it is different
+from in England; you do not find a large section of men who spend the
+day either at various kinds of sport, at cricket, or loitering
+listlessly about the clubs. An idle man would be a solitary of his
+own sex. But it is not the material conditions that constitute the
+chief attraction of life in a Southern city, excellent as they are;
+the principal charm of the South is the character of the people
+themselves. There is an undefined flavour of old-world politeness and
+courtesy perfuming their environment The bow of a Southern gentleman
+does not appear to be the jerk of a string-pull; it suggests having
+been learned remotely from the bow that brought the sword projecting
+through the long coat-tails as the hat was removed from the powdered
+wig.
+
+There is an indefinite something that tells one that all these people
+have had grandfathers and grandmothers, instead of as in New York,
+where the suggestion is that they are the offspring of stock-market
+tickers or have been shot into the world through a pneumatic tube.
+
+That almost universal formula in America on a man being introduced
+bears here a real significance, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Blank."
+The English equivalent is "How-d-do?" and, although inarticulate,
+there is frequently a silent suggestion of the phrase, "Bored to meet
+you," "Awfully bored to meet you." In the South they are glad to meet
+and welcome the stranger at their gates, and he must be hard to please
+if he does not have a good time within them.
+
+The general rule that the men are at work all day has its effect in
+various ways on the life of the community. The social life differs
+from that of England in many marked features, in none more than in the
+part played by the Southern girl. At the first reception given by the
+mother of the young _débutante_, the men of the set in which she is to
+move are presented to her, and tacitly it is a presentation to them,
+by the mother, of what she holds most tenderly precious; to them, in
+trust in their honour, in full confidence in their courtesy, and,
+although their hearts are covered with the immaculate shirt-front of
+latter-day conventionality, with as full reliance on knightly service
+as if that stiff shirt were the armour of the day of chivalry. This
+social feature or condition of things strikes me as especially
+admirable. It strikes me as so infinitely preferable to the constant
+espionage of chaperonage, so much more above board and honourable
+towards both the young men and girls alike. They can go driving, to a
+theatre--where boxes are much more open and less like bathing-machines
+than ours--to lunch in the big club-room--an annexe to the exclusively
+male portion to which ladies are admitted--and will be driven to and
+from a dance, and will receive afternoon calls without a chaperon.
+Results point overwhelmingly to its success from every point of view.
+A breach of that code of conduct which needs not to be written would
+mean eternal social damnation. It is being perpetually borne in on me
+what a much better time the American girl has than our English
+sisters, and in many ways she deserves to have it so. If the man keeps
+horses and carriages so that he may take her out for drives in the
+afternoon, bring her to the theatre, take her to and from dances, if
+he keeps her supplied with flowers to an extent unknown Englandwards,
+if he is constantly giving dinner-parties and supper-parties for her,
+it is because she is worthy of it all and more.
+
+To begin with, she is never _blasée_; and, thank goodness, it is not
+yet considered in America "good form" to appear _blasé_, even if one
+is not. Being full of interest and constantly _au courant_ with
+events, she is always companionable, and is able to talk intelligently
+of many things. Being gifted with a heaven-sent sense of humour, she
+is never dull; and what closer bond of social sympathy is there than a
+sense of humour in common? In conversational fence the thrust and
+parry of her play is as quick and keen as her touch is true and light,
+and through it all ripples a sunny Southern gaiety that is as fond of
+giving pleasure or amusement as she is readily susceptive of either.
+But be not tempted in this summer region, O wanderer from the chilly
+North, to wear your heart upon your sleeve for the sun to shine on,
+or else she will pluck it off, saying, with laughing eyes, that it is
+no place for it, and she will put it with a row of probably half a
+dozen already on hers, and from time to time she will pick morsels
+from it at her pleasure; and the reason that it does not hurt more is
+because of the prettiness of her lips.
+
+It is when one meets the mothers of these girls that one sees whence
+comes their charm; an old-world queenliness of motherhood, mingling
+with warm-hearted cordiality, renders them immediately as lovable as
+their daughters.
+
+The billion-dollar trust is very adollarable, and so is the Tobacco
+and Standard Oil and the rest; but in the assets of the nation, more
+valuable, to my mind, is the heirloom of the tradition of gentle
+manners and cordial kindliness held so well in trust by the people of
+that city of the South.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE PENALTY OF THEIR PACE IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+A dinner-party at Sherry's--twenty people sat around a table beautiful
+with the choicest flowers--the room was full of diners; there was more
+noise and clatter than one would hear even in the Carlton or Prince's;
+and the Hungarian band was playing--seemed the suitable panting
+life-breath of the scene--sensuous a little--strenuous--feverishly
+restless. Bright, gay, quick, and keyed loudly in order to be audible,
+were the voices of the diners; exchange of repartee, quick as the fire
+of a pom-pom, was shot and returned. Well-aimed marksmanship it was,
+too--no cartridges wasted. Flash of costly jewels or still brighter
+eyes as the shots were sped at marks worth firing at and well capable
+of replying. Men who had done things were there: the senator--a great
+lawyer--several of America's greatest business men, and the women who
+had helped or spurred or hindered them, but who were all worth working
+for or helpfully hinderous blast-furnaces to ambition. But one seat
+away was a man who was one of the greatest mine-owners in America, and
+controlled railways that were connected and dependent on these mines.
+Pale and sallow, with sparse hair over his big bulging forehead, power
+and decision and resolution were stamped on every line of his face; a
+small army of men worked for him--worked underground or on railroads,
+or looked to him as the donor of dividends, the regulator of their
+incomes, the arbiter of their financial destinies.
+
+He drank no wine at dinner, yet now and again a curious up-and-down
+lifting movement of the table could be traced to one of his knees,
+which he kept crossed over the other. He waved away the coffee with
+the remark that it was years since he dared indulge in it; but when,
+after obviously impatient waiting, the time came when he might light a
+long cigar, he puffed out a stream of smoke with a sigh of relief, and
+the table was no longer shaken from that on. Presently some remark
+drew from him the reply, "No; the most desirable things in the world
+are health and sleep. I would give two million dollars to be able to
+sleep six hours each night. I would give twice that to be able to
+digest a good meal properly. I would give I don't know what to be able
+to rest, just rest quietly again."
+
+And the lady next him said: "How well I understand that feeling! I
+don't see why we should be compelled to go on, on, on at that pace.
+Sometimes now when I have to drive in a cab I can barely keep myself
+from shrieking out aloud from sheer nervousness. I have not dined at
+home in my own house for three months except once, and that was when,
+in reply to a remonstrance to my daughter for going out so much, she
+said she would dine at home on Christmas Day. It is this perpetual
+rush, I expect, makes us so nervous; but it is so hard to stop, even
+when our nerves pay the price."
+
+[Illustration: Naval Brigade Passing Through Ladysmith.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Coming out of a newspaper office in New York I happened to meet an old
+friend of the Cuban war times. Paler, thinner, and more drawn his face
+looked in the V of his turned-up collar than when I had seen him last.
+After talking for a few minutes I asked him whither he was going, and
+found he was going to take a special kind of bath and rubbing, which
+was part of the treatment he was undergoing for the desperate nervous
+trouble he was suffering from.
+
+"It is pretty hard lines," said he. "As you know, I never drank, and
+took fairly good care of myself. I have not slept more than an hour or
+two for the past week."
+
+Then he told me how, going home to Brooklyn a few evenings before, the
+nervousness had come so badly on him that he had to hire a
+boy to go with him. He could not go across the bridge alone.
+
+"At the present moment," said he, "there are nine men in our office
+suffering from the same complaint."
+
+He seemed to think that the treatment was doing little good; that
+doctors could do next to nothing.
+
+"Rest, long rest, is what we want, I suppose; but how can a fellow get
+rest working in a big newspaper office in this city?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Remington machine had been rattling on like a Maxim gun in action,
+the operator taking down dictation on to the machine so quickly that
+it was almost as good as short-hand. It stopped suddenly, and the
+fragile anæmic woman who was working it laid down her hands in her
+lap, saying she was afraid she could not continue. In reply to the
+question if she was ill she said no--that it was simply she was
+nervous. She said she had only just returned from the country, where
+she had been resting for a week--a rest that she could ill afford, but
+it evidently had not been long enough.
+
+"It is terrible, especially for those who have to keep working for a
+living, who have to work on to keep their heads above water."
+
+"I suppose it is the penalty we pay for all this," she said, looking
+out from the window at which she sat.
+
+Down far below was one of the busiest squares in New York; a double
+line of trolly-cars perpetually running through it that clanged their
+bells as they swung around the corner; automobiles that pinged their
+warning gongs and darted in and out amongst the stream of traffic
+fish-like; labouring horses struggling under heavy loads; the cars
+packed with people like cattle, standing up and hanging from the
+straps in the roof, toilers coming back from work; the sidewalks
+crowded with hurrying people. The seats in the centre of the square
+held slouching figures with bent heads, figures of dog-tired
+men--dog-tired with work or the looking for it. A sharp insistent
+clanging arose above the other sounds like a wailing scream of pain as
+an automobile ambulance rushed hospital-wards, carrying off one of
+those wounded in the struggle.
+
+No one can quietly watch the seething life of the City of Unrest
+without being struck with the prevalence of nervous troubles amongst
+the people. Every day one meets instances. "I dare not drink coffee; I
+have not drunk it for years," one so often hears--then the piteous
+longing for sleep denied. "I am not going to any dances this winter;
+my doctor will not allow me, on account of my nerves," one of the most
+charming girls in New York said to me a few days ago. The doctors all
+declare that this nervousness is alarmingly on the increase, and
+throughout every class of the community--from those who work hardest,
+through the longest hours, to earn their bread, to those who work at
+the pursuit of pleasure--the mad social rush of the Charge of the
+Four Hundred. It is obvious that this pace cannot slacken--every year
+adds fresh impetus. What will it be in fifty years--at the end of the
+century? What will the offspring of these quivering, twitching, highly
+strung men and women be like? _Quo vadis, Americane?_
+
+Already there are antidotes or remedies for this growing
+evil--sanatoria where the worn-out over-worked are compelled to seek
+refuge, asylums of repose for those who have long lost the art of
+enjoying it. More useful, perhaps, are the facilities for getting
+healthy exercise which are offered by athletic clubs, gymnasia, and
+the squash courts and tennis courts now being laid out on the tops of
+so many of the best houses. But these are only trifling against the
+magnitude of the menacing evil. Thousands have not the time to enjoy
+them, and must pay the penalty of the pace of their progress in the
+City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE MILLION-MASTER IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+Seven-thirty o'clock: the coffee and toast had been placed by the
+valet on the table beside his bed; the warm water was already running
+into the bath in the adjoining room; three suits of clothes, carefully
+brushed and ironed, were laid on the sofa when he was called. He
+seemed to be awake all of a sudden--quite awake. As he was called, a
+young man came into the room with a bundle of newspapers. "Let me
+see," said Mr. X., "I think I can take half an hour extra this
+morning--read away;" and then the young man began reading rapidly from
+the papers. He had from long training learned to know what interested
+the boss, and read selections from one paper after another which he
+had previously gone over--some closing prices of particular stocks
+first, then some foreign and general news summary, and then X. asked
+him to read particulars of what he wanted to learn more about. After
+about fifteen minutes he had had enough, and one of his secretaries,
+with a bundle of letters in one hand and a notebook in the other, came
+in. As he read the letters, X. dictated, or mostly just indicated, the
+replies; they were all business letters. Then his place was taken by
+another. His letters were mostly invitations, charitable appeals,
+letters from his steward and the head of his stables at Lakewood, from
+the skipper of his yacht, from dealers who had pictures that he ought
+to buy, from the caretaker of his house in Newport, and letters from
+house-agents in London about a house he wanted there for the
+Coronation. At eight he took his bath, and while drying and dressing
+the litany of letters and responses continued, punctuated at intervals
+by the bell of the telephone on the table by his bedside, and so on
+through the breakfast, now laid in an adjoining study, until it was
+time to telephone to the stables for his automobile. Same telephone
+message occupied fifteen minutes. Just before leaving he sent to his
+wife's room to find out where he was dining. Madame was being
+massaged, but sent word that they were giving a dinner-party at
+Sherry's, having three boxes at the theatre afterwards, and that then
+she expected him to come to the Astorbilts' ball. Long cigar, fur
+coat, gloves, and into the automobile, his secretary sitting beside
+him, still going through the unfinished letters.
+
+Three inches of snow had fallen during the night--hard, dry snow, on
+which the horses slipped and struggled as it was being beaten flat,
+and on which his automobile would have skidded ungovernably if Fifth
+Avenue had not been already well sprayed by the sand-sprinklers.
+Progress in the upper part of the Avenue was rapid enough; but from
+Madison Square slow, halting, and intermittent, horses were falling
+in all directions, stopping the surface-cars packed with a multitude
+of toilers, all going city-wards; the gong of the automobile clanged
+petulantly. Down town the upper altitudes of the sky-scrapers were
+lost in a vague mist of swirling snow that eddied through the
+chasm-like clefts between them--there were gaps where other gigantic
+iron frames were rising up to the rattling Maxim-gun-like sound of the
+steam riveters.
+
+At length they arrived at the high pilloried portico of the immense
+building in which his office was situated; passing through the
+revolving doors--mill-wheels perpetually kept turning by a stream of
+humanity--one of a number of elevators brought him to the floor
+entirely occupied by his offices. The walls and counters were of white
+grey-lined marble; polished mahogany desks and burnished brass
+railings glistened everywhere. Through waiting-rooms and offices he
+passed to his private office. It was a plain room, richly carpeted,
+soft leather chairs, a big table on which were only a few papers; a
+telephone stood on the right-hand side of the blotter. There were some
+maps on the walls, nothing more. On a mahogany stand against the wall
+in the centre of the room, near his desk, stood the ticker, like a
+sacred image on a pedestal. Strange little god, mysterious little
+oracle--I don't think I would have felt surprised if on entering he
+had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated
+himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There
+was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office
+which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without
+the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one
+after the other. Then his confidential clerk came in with a number of
+papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the oracle was speaking
+all the time, but he took no notice of its remarks--still it went on,
+as if knowing that sooner or later he would be drawn towards it; and
+so he was, and passed the tape through his fingers, pausing here and
+there; and so throughout the day that little chattering fetish
+dominated him and every one that entered the room. Men came in, and
+while waiting, or in a pause in conversation, would be drawn to see
+what was on its tongue. There is nothing more striking about business
+in New York than the ease and rapidity with which business is carried
+out. There had been a bad break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to
+have some if it came to a certain figure. All the morning down, down,
+it toppled. Within a few seconds of the time a deal was made from the
+centre of the Stock Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office.
+It dropped to his price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy
+me 5000 sugar at 92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message,
+and I am holding the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on
+his private wire to the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has
+already his number on the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately
+available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the
+reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min.
+35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the
+telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and
+so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it
+would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all
+the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators
+suddenly go on strike.
+
+A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the
+building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during
+it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much
+time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at
+during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a few moments' chat
+with some friends--change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's--inside
+the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people he knows.
+"Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with you."
+"Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to see how
+many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a Worth
+gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives--it is the first time
+he has seen her during the day.
+
+"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a
+slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he
+sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest
+him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes--plots that, instead of
+play, can be made into reality--real live characters that he could
+make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in
+one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects,
+painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury
+such as Rome never equalled.
+
+Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who,
+though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which
+we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he. "No wonder; out
+every night now for four months; lunches, bridge, calls, dinners,
+theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never stops. I sometimes
+wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had to cook his dinner
+for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off pork and beans."
+"You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I am," said he, "but I
+am not master of millions, it is the millions who are my
+master--slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly
+toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and
+fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on
+my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was
+beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of
+blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not
+one kiss from the lips of love."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE WOMAN WHO WORKS IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+At a quarter to seven the alarm-clock went off next her bed--how she
+would have liked to sleep for another hour, or lie warm and cosy under
+the clothes! The training in the habit of doing what she did not like
+helped her into a little tin bath, and to dress close to the radiator,
+as it was a bitterly cold morning. At 7.30 she stepped out into a
+snow-covered street and then hurried across Washington-square.
+Bitterly cold wind shivered through the white coral-like branches of
+the trees. The snow brought out the carving on the Washington Arch;
+the snow seemed to suit the whole square, and make it seem still less
+a part of the City--the Sleepy Hollow in the City of Unrest, with the
+solid big houses around it where ladies and gentlemen lived who had
+refused to be hustled into joining in the general dollar scramble.
+
+In the street on the other side of the square she entered a
+restaurant, already full of breakfasters. She sat down at one of the
+marble tables with a couple of men she knew, ordered an orange,
+coffee, porridge, roll, two eggs--total, thirty cents. Her friends
+were in offices down town, one of them not earning as much as she was.
+They were comrades, chums, so much that he often borrowed a dollar
+from her during those critical days at the month's end.
+
+[Illustration: General Yule's Column On The Way To Ladysmith.]
+
+Breakfast finished, and a glance at the paper--at least, enough to
+read the headings--and then out on Broadway to take the down-town car.
+Two passed as she stood at the corner, so packed that there was not
+standing-room even on the platform for another; then one stopped from
+which a few passengers struggled out, and she got in. All along the
+centre of the car men and women were standing, holding on to the
+straps, swaying backwards and forwards as the car swooped forward, and
+jerking forward every time it stopped. No idea in such a car of the
+men sitting down, against whose knees hers rubbed, to get up and
+relinquish their seats--why should they? She did not expect it. Was
+she not by her very going down town taking the place of a possible man
+there? was she not showing that she could do a man's work?
+Equality--he might think himself called on to give up his seat to one
+of the weaker sex. But there is no sex in the City. Swaying,
+squeezing, jostling, twenty minutes of uncomfortable cattle-truck-like
+journey brought her to the big office where she worked.
+
+Men do not doff their hats in the down-town elevators which brought
+her up to the big office where she was employed, a great room near the
+top of one of the high down-town buildings; the windows looked out on
+the river, now a white mass of down-flowing ice, through which the
+calling steamers worked their way laboriously towards the harbour, to
+the Statue of Liberty standing beside what now looked a white gravel
+path of entry to the city.
+
+There were about fifty people at work in the room, three-fourths
+women, seated at desks and tables, and some occupied the dignified
+position of little glass-partitioned rooms. She had one of these to
+herself, in which there was also a table for a stenographer. It was a
+publishing-house; books, illustrations, manuscripts, were in evidence
+everywhere. Near the door was a sort of railed-in pen where men with
+bundles of manuscript under their arms were usually to be seen seated,
+waiting. Some of these were even shown into her office, and left minus
+their bundles, or more often with them. There was a hum of chattering
+typewriting machines constantly in the air, like the chirruping of
+insects heard from tropical trees. Constantly her telephone rang and
+she had to make excursions to the manager's office, and head printers
+and printers'-ink-marked men came to her with proof-sheets, and so on,
+till 12.30, when she went out to lunch at the women's cafe and had
+lunch not unlike her breakfast.
+
+The room was full of girls similarly employed, ten to thirty cents
+being the average of their expenditure; all real workers, none of them
+the fancy stenographers that their employers frequently take out to
+little lunches at the smarter restaurants at safe distance from their
+wives up town. They were not a very attractive crowd--thin,
+flat-chested, and often anæmic, occasionally with pretty faces, hair,
+or eyes; but work, daily work, had left its impress on them all. Some
+(their luncheon bills did not exceed ten cents) looked, with their
+thin fingers and arms, like human attachments to typewriting machines.
+There was a something not in the least mannish, but still not
+appealingly womanly, in these self-reliant, quiet business beings. Was
+it a sort of neuter gender, a sexless being that was there in course
+of development? Somehow, they did not strike one as beings who would
+bear and suckle and nurse children. Was this severe struggle and
+necessity of existence to eliminate the supreme joy of motherhood from
+their lives?
+
+Back to the office, where they joined their fellow men-workers; they
+were just fellow-workers, no quarter given or looked for in the
+failure to do their work. Some of them earned fine salaries, yet there
+seemed a limit-point--thus far and no farther--men were always in the
+highest positions. Put it down to tenacity of possession, jealousy,
+prejudice--anything but want of perseverance, circumspection,
+industry: the obviousness of the fact remains.
+
+Until half-past five her work goes on just the same as before lunch,
+and then up town on the elevator. Dry snow is spotting the swirling
+wind that eddies round the corners; the sidewalks are thick with
+hurrying people; the elevator is packed to the platforms with men and
+women tightly crushed together, worse even than coming down. She
+dines at a little Italian restaurant, where the proprietor, his wife,
+and children personally attend on their customers; it is known only to
+a few who mostly know each other--constant _habitués_--magazine
+writers and magazine artists, and miscellaneous, but interesting,
+nondescripts; and her dinner, with Italian wine included, costs forty
+cents. It is the pleasantest part of the day for her--men and women of
+that little writing, artistic, thoughtful, and, in a way, thoughtless
+set she had known for years; men who could never boom themselves or
+others, or keep up a bluff even enough to advertise themselves; the
+slow steps of actual merit made their progress seem like marking time.
+Ruggles, commonly known to his friends as Rembrandt, saw her home--old
+Ruggles, who painted better pictures than half the foreigners who came
+to New York, but who would never be a prophet in his own country. Nice
+old boy, Ruggles; but the fire was burning low in him, its only fuel
+being the ashes of disappointment.
+
+The sky had cleared, and the moon shone out on the glorious old
+square, and red lights suggestive of old port and big wood fires
+streaked the silent snow from the windows. "Bully, isn't it?" And the
+silent pressure of her arm was affirmative of complete understanding.
+Her tiny sitting-room was warm; the cheap eastern rugs and dark green
+background of the walls and some clever original sketches, all were in
+the harmony of taste that loved restfulness. She lit the gas-stove of
+imitation logs; Ruggles wheeled a chair in front of it and filled his
+pipe; from his match she glowed a cigarette, and with a great sigh of
+relief and tiredness lay back on the sofa.
+
+Then they chatted chum-like of many things. She was doing well--doing
+a man's work and getting a man's pay, supporting her mother and the
+two younger girls in the country. It was a strain; but is not
+successful effort Brian L'Estrange's definition of happiness? So they
+chatted on until it was time for Ruggles to go.
+
+"Thank you so much for coming, dear old Ruggles; it is so lonely when
+I come back here by myself."
+
+"Why don't you get married?"
+
+"Ah! I don't know. Perhaps I'm getting old working, and the men I
+would like to marry don't care for me, and those that would I don't
+like. I don't think I want really to marry any one, either."
+
+As he shook hands at the door he said, "You ought to get married,
+girlie. What a good, and true, and beautiful mother you would make for
+a boy-child!"
+
+The shooting of the door-hasp seemed to let go the flood-gates of her
+heart. There was the great longing of her heart--to bear a boy-child.
+"For joy that a man is born into the world" seemed vaguely ringing in
+her ears. Like a deep-down spring surface-seeking, that old desire
+welled up, the perfect reward and crown of valiant womanhood--and she
+felt how good and tender and true a mother she could be; and as the
+desolation of denial flooded her soul she threw herself on that sofa
+made of empty cases, held the cushions to her, and cried--cried as if
+her heart would break.
+
+Being independent and alone in her own room, she could cry out her
+lone cry without any one interfering with unwelcome comforting. Then,
+pale-faced and red-eyed, she got up, the sobs still coming in little
+gasps. She looked in the glass as she pushed the black hair back from
+her blue-veined forehead. With one of those strange revelations of
+reality that come to people in life when in solitude they look at
+their own reflection in a mirror--she thought--spoke. "It is too
+late--too late--for me to be the mother of a boy-child."
+
+Then she went and set her alarm-clock to a quarter to seven in the
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE HOU-MEN OF THE DINGY CITY
+
+
+How they call with different voices, these cities of men--from the
+Maxim-gun-like rattle of New York, with its chorus of strenuous
+steamers calling from the water, on over the gamut of different
+capitals to Tokio, where the city voice is the tinkling of stilted
+wooden shoes; not "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," but "Tinkle,
+tinkle, little feet," go the small wooden shoes on the wide firmament
+of pavement.
+
+Most strident are the American cities; the most sweet-sounding are
+those of Japan, except in those few streets raided by tram-cars.
+
+What is the voice of London? Is it not the plod, plod, dumping plod of
+the horses' hoofs and the jangling rattle of harness and bells, which
+last we hardly hear, so close is the sound to our ears, like things we
+cannot see because they are so close to our eyes? As it is a murmurous
+and noisy city in comparison with those of Japan, so it is peaceful
+and quiet in comparison with Chicago or New York. A friend of mine
+from that City of Unrest says that the sound of the London streets has
+a soothing, lulling effect on him, and makes him sleepy, like the
+sound of falling water.
+
+As I went up to Euston to-day to meet an Oriental visitor, I fell to
+speculating how the city might look to him. A very cultured,
+intellectual fellow he is, who looks into the backs of the eyes of
+things. A Chinaman born, he had been through college in America, and
+knew American cities; he had also been studying in Paris, but this was
+his first visit to London. A wet, drizzling day was not the most
+propitious for his first impressions. Slopping along in a cab through
+the muddy streets, as I went under the portico of Euston Station I
+was forcefully reminded of one of the big gates of Pekin. There is a
+suggestion of the same massiveness; but the massiveness is only
+make-face, like the painted cannon on a Chinese city gate. It was an
+imposing portico to a shamble of sheds.
+
+The railway terminus is the real gate of the modern city.
+
+Yet what absurdly incongruous things these London city gates are--a
+salad jumble of architecture and machinery with a mayonnaise of
+train-oil and soot!
+
+As I waited for my friend long trains came rumbling in under a canopy
+of smoke that hung about the grim iron rafters of this labyrinth.
+Fifteen minutes ago these trains had been spinning along through the
+green fields and across the shady lanes of what looked like "Merrie
+England," although now shaved down and trimmed to intense
+respectability of cultivation. The heavens darkened and the air
+thickened as they came close to their journey's end, until they slow
+down as if gropingly finding their way into the cavernous gateway of
+the great dingy city.
+
+What a strange conglomeration of people was waiting on each platform!
+There was a train leaving to catch the steamer for New York, there was
+a line of people waiting to take tickets for a close-by station, there
+was a line of soldiers waiting to be entrained; an American girl was
+standing on an automatic machine, and getting the railway porter to
+translate from stones into pounds how much she weighed after her visit
+to Europe. A couple of Oriental servants seemed to have lost
+themselves in the labyrinthine station, and were wandering round with
+Oriental indifference. Porters, with hands and faces and uniforms
+toned down to the universal greyness of things, trundled their
+hand-lorries to the monotonous calling of "B' your leave, b' your
+leave"; and variegated specimens of humanity were looking around after
+their luggage as one might imagine disembodied souls looking for
+their bodies in the Valley of Jehoshaphat on the Last Day. There were
+not a few touches of cosmopolitanism suggestive of that gathering.
+
+My Oriental alighted from the train. As his Japanese servant was quite
+capable of looking after his luggage and bringing it to his hotel, his
+master was left free to come right on with me and exercise his
+industrious curiosity--a curiosity that seemed never to be surprised
+at anything he saw, but took everything as a matter of course. He was
+a man of the world in his own estimation. Nevertheless, what an
+important part of it he had not yet seen! Was it not a great epoch in
+his life, this arrival of his in London?
+
+"This is our North Gate."
+
+"Ah, yes, Hou-Men," he said. "A very dark day, is it not?"
+
+We drove away in a cab under that sepulchral prison-like portico; we
+had the glass down, it was raining so hard, and even he, whose
+Westernisation was principally confined to New York, noticed the
+absurdly asphyxiating arrangement of the London cab, which
+hermetically seals its frame-bound occupants. The New Yorkers got
+their idea of the cab from us, but they have improved upon the window
+by having it slanting outwards, so that, while protecting people from
+the rain, it admits air. For Londoners there is no alternative between
+spatteration and suffocation. In the New York cabs they can have
+shelter and fresh air.
+
+It was not an inspiriting entrance through these first streets outside
+Euston into London. The pavement of Melton Street was little better
+than that of Pekin, and from each side those dreary-looking small
+hotels blinked out of their closed windows on the muddy street as if
+wondering when a God-forsaken guest would come and occupy them. And
+then on through grimy Gower Street, looking like the empty bottom of a
+drained canal.
+
+It's not very inspiriting, this entrance into London from this North
+Gate of ours.
+
+The people we passed there were not an interesting lot; they seemed
+all to belong to the two-storeyed houses. They were two-storeyed
+people, apparently keeping themselves moderately busy making a
+moderate amount of money, but hampered in the money-making by the mud
+and rain. We passed a little square carpeted with fresh grass, but the
+trees on the other side were vague in mist, and the square and its
+vegetation gave the suggestion of a tank with seaweeds in it. It was a
+day for studying men and women by their umbrellas and boots. Boots
+tell confessions for the most Low Church Protestants, and the
+umbrellas above them generally corroborate the sins of the boots.
+
+My Oriental friend was gazing out gravely.
+
+It was on a warm evening in a tea-garden that he had talked about his
+coming visit to London. I recollect his enthusing over the phrase
+
+  "Beneath the rule of men supremely great
+  The pen is mightier than the sword."
+
+A great motto for a great country, he then said it was. He professed
+an anxiety to see or meet some of the great English writers, our
+_literati_, as he called them. He liked the honesty of Englishmen in
+business, and wanted to see them at work. He had helped to show me
+something of the life of the East--that part of the life most
+difficult to see, the life of the home--and in return I promised to
+show him something of the life of the West, how and where people work
+and play, and pray--when they do so.
+
+"Show me the house of one of your _literati_ if we pass one," he said.
+"Is that one, there?" pointing to a gorgeous public-house, as we
+passed a street corner.
+
+I saw the probable toppling of an ideal. We passed a couple of
+quick-driving vans with a green placard of an evening paper, and I
+explained to him what a reading public we were, and how many editions
+of the papers were quickly distributed during the afternoon, how the
+appetite for them had grown, like the craving for cheap cigarettes, as
+a relief from being obliged to inhale pure literary air. The
+newspaper habit and the cigarette habit are about on a par after all.
+
+[Illustration: Hospital Train Leaving Ladysmith For Pietermaritzburg.]
+
+We passed a church with closed doors, and he seemed surprised. I
+explained to him that the churches were open on Sunday, on which day
+the more numerous temples of Bacchus were closed for a while.
+
+We reached the Strand, where he was greatly interested in a line of
+'buses. "Have you no street cars like in New York?" I submitted that
+these were kept on chiefly in order to have a supply of artillery
+horses in times of war.
+
+"And have you no high buildings either?"
+
+The explanation of ancient lights and the overhead space wasted in
+London was too much to go into. His attention was diverted by a
+newspaper placard.
+
+"Ah," said he, "another earthquake, is it not?"
+
+"Collapse of Australia" stared from that vermilion placard. It began
+to dawn on me that I had undertaken rather a large order in showing
+this Oriental London life.
+
+"And you have not shown me any of your _literati_ yet, or any of their
+houses."
+
+We were stopped in a block of omnibuses and cabs. A line of
+sandwich-men were straggling along between vehicles and the curb. One
+of them stopped just by our cab; the rain was trickling down his nose;
+he looked as dismal as the weather. I could not resist the temptation
+of explaining that these were some of our _literati_ undergoing
+punishment for some of the books or plays they had written. In China
+the crime is set forth on a board hung on the neck of the criminal,
+called the _cangue_. It was only a very mild surprise he showed when I
+gave him the names of the line of sandwich-men. "How like the head of
+your Shakespeare!" he said of one.
+
+We were received at the hotel door by a brass-bound German in the
+undress uniform of a British admiral, who pays the hotel £500 for
+receiving tips. The rooms and corridors of the big building did not
+look hospitably cheering. There were no fires in the grates, because,
+being June, the weather ought to have been warm; and the electric
+lights were not turned on, because, being daytime, there ought to have
+been light. He liked the smoking-room. "It is more like one of our big
+tea-houses," he said. "Men do business here," pointing to a man with a
+sheaf of papers talking earnestly to another beside him.
+
+"Yes, that is a company promoter."
+
+"What is a company promoter?"
+
+The nearest definition that occurred was, "A man who sells something
+he hasn't got to another who does not want to buy it."
+
+"I think London is a very interesting city," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+TIRED
+
+
+It was the fag end of the week in the Dingy City. A heavy weight of
+dusty grey cloud lay oppressively inert, vaguely resting on the house
+and tree tops, and underneath the cloud the air seemed stagnantly
+confined; in its lowest strata people had been breathing it all
+day--all the week, in fact--in and out of their lungs, so that it was
+no wonder it felt tired and second-hand and used up.
+
+The air-thirst of their lungs had impelled those who were energetic to
+go away to where fresh air was to be breathed; but the very tired, and
+those who lacked the energy for initial impetus, remained. The shops
+had been closed, and the sunlight beat upon the shuttered eyelids of
+their windows on the Phryne side of Piccadilly. By that hour on
+Saturday afternoon Regent Street and Piccadilly were wearing almost a
+Sunday appearance; Ranelagh and Hurlingham and the new club at
+Roehampton were crowded with smart people, and for hours past trains
+from Paddington and Waterloo had been carrying thousands of
+Panama-hatted, white-trousered men and summer-clad women riverwards.
+Though the shops were closed, some belated workers, in ones or twos or
+threes, continued to dribble out from their doors.
+
+Going westward, along Piccadilly, a slight, dark-haired young girl
+stepped out from one. She was dressed in a thin white blouse that
+showed the outline of her arms and shoulders; she did not join the
+crowd of others who were scaling the 'buses on the opposite side of
+the street, but turned to walk along the pavement parkwards. One fell
+to speculating as to why she walked. There was no spring or elasticity
+in her step as if she were doing so for the enjoyment of the
+exercise. Her feet, in boots with heels slightly rounded on the
+outside, seemed to drag on that hot pavement. Possibly the 'bus fare
+was an item of consideration, even though she looked as if she had
+spent all the morning on her feet in the shop. With thick, dark hair
+and good eyes, it would have taken very little aid in the way of dress
+to make her appear quite good-looking. As it was, men turned to look
+at her as she passed, and one even came across the street, followed,
+and leered at her as he came abreast; she held on the even tenor of
+her way, taking no notice of them. On, past the clubs, through the
+street vocal with the clanking stamp of the horses' hoofs--horses with
+shining flanks, who cocked their ears, and tossed their foam-dripping
+mouths as they passed the water-trough.
+
+Wooden stands here and there still disfigured some of the house
+fronts, and here and there a red pole, looking like a sugar-stick that
+a child had been sucking, stood as a memento of one of the most
+hideous schemes of tawdry decoration that a civilised city has ever
+shown.
+
+At Hyde Park corner she turned in towards the trees, following the
+stream-crowd direction of other pedestrians. She stopped near the
+railings, watching the procession of carriages going by. A girl, so
+like herself that they might almost have been sisters, passed in a
+high C-springed carriage. Looking from one to the other, the great
+difference made by little things was apparent. An application of
+powder-puff to the moist face of the girl at the railings would have
+worked improvement; her cotton gloves hung down flaccidly from the
+bare hand which held up her skirt; perhaps some such thought as that
+of the unfair distribution of C-spring carriages in this world crossed
+her mind, as she turned away and languidly continued her journey
+westward under the trees.
+
+The seats were full of a heterogeneous collection of people, all more
+or less under the drowsy influence of that stagnant air. Here and
+there men were to be seen asleep in the chairs. Heads in tall hats
+nodded, debarred the luxury enjoyed by those tramps who lay at full
+length under the trees on the grass behind. Between those luxuriating
+on the grass, men lying in their shirt-sleeves, with heads a-resting
+in the laps of tired-faced women, whose children played or cried
+noisily around, and those who passed in the procession of carriages,
+was the intervening line of people from which all sorts of specimens
+could be taken of the great mediocracy of England--those who could no
+more afford a carriage than they could afford to lie on the grass. The
+men's heads were branded with tall hats, remnants and summer sales
+were suggested in the costumes of many of the women; an occasional
+glimpse of shoes or hosiery explained why the graceful holding up of
+the skirts should be unstudied or unknown on this side of the Channel.
+And their gloves were of the same character as the hose.
+
+Curious specimens were to be found amongst that crowd. A man passed
+whom I recollect seeing there as long as I can recollect going to the
+park. Go round the world and back, and here one was certain to find
+him. I know his income--it is just three hundred a year; except that
+his whiskers had got a little whiter, he looked just the same as
+usual. The frock-coat he wore I have a sort of suspicion was the same
+as I saw on him two years ago. I could swear to the umbrella--at least
+the handle, because possibly it had been recovered. The frock-coat
+would obviously not see another season--not that it was showing any
+tinge of green about the shoulders, far from it. But perhaps it was a
+feeling of doubtfulness about the coat, which prompted a startling
+departure in his costume. He had gone in for a pair of those yellow,
+chamois-coloured gloves which have made their appearance this season.
+He sauntered along leisurely, watching the people and the carriages
+with apparently the same degree of interest as he had done for the
+past ten years. I have heard that long ago he had a good tenor voice,
+and he used to speak authoritatively of great singers, when they
+really were great singers, not such as now.... I've never seen him
+talking to anybody in the park, and I've never seen him smoke; yet his
+lips are seldom at rest. They have now got a motion something between
+that of a nervous American with a cigar and a cow chewing the cud.
+This is the result of the movableness of his artificial teeth. Perhaps
+an extra visit to his dentist was an item of expenditure not to be
+lightly incurred.
+
+What appeared to be corresponding feminine types were to be seen in
+profusion. Women with incomes of one hundred, two hundred, three
+hundred a year, women who had passed the age either of matrimony or
+naughtiness. What thousands of friendless and lonely people there must
+be in this great Dingy City! The class that lies on the grass is more
+sociable; they are free from a thousand tyrannies that oppress the
+mediocracy.
+
+The face of a woman dressed in black, seated between two children,
+seemed familiar; not until she bowed did I recognise her as the wife
+of an old friend who had been killed in Ladysmith. She used to be the
+prettiest officer's wife of his smart regiment; and from her account
+it would have been better if she had not been so pretty, or the
+regiment so smart. She was now left with barely his pension for
+herself and the two children to live on.... Yet very bravely,
+apparently, she had faced the change!
+
+"Oh, I have tried various things for the last couple of years," she
+said, "but I am afraid there is nothing I can do. I even tried the
+stage for a time." She used to have a good voice. "But the managers
+were horrid, and the pay was very small. Then I tried to give music
+lessons; but what I got was hardly worth the distances I had to go; so
+now I have to settle down to working out daily problems in domestic
+economy."
+
+"And all your friends?"
+
+"Oh, they all were very nice and kind; but one cannot go about without
+being properly dressed, and when one keeps refusing invitations, one
+gradually becomes forgotten in time. I felt rather lonely just now
+when I saw the people driving down to Hurlingham. Come along, chicks,
+we must be going now. You see," she said, "it is a long 'bus ride to
+our little flat."
+
+At the end of the long free seat, beyond where they had been sitting,
+was a strange, haggard-looking woman; a pair of cheap cotton gloves
+showed her thin white wrists, and her black dress looked dusty and
+draggled. She had a strange haunted look on her face, as if she had
+left some tragedy behind her at home. Every time a carriage with
+scarlet-liveried coachmen passed, she got up and stood on the seat.
+Perhaps she had journeyed there to see the Queen. She looked cross and
+disappointed each time she stepped down again. On the other side a
+couple of girls were discussing those that passed in the carriages,
+and speculating as to who they might be. It was interesting to follow
+their surmises.
+
+"I think that's Lady X.," one of them said, as a lady, driving a pair
+of high-steppers, passed.
+
+But it wasn't. The little fellow sitting beside her glowed with the
+importance of proprietorship; but, smart little chap that he was in
+Throgmorton Street, he had no idea how many understudies there were to
+his part, and did not realise that there are syndicates outside those
+of the City.
+
+"What an awfully common-looking woman!" the other said, as an old lady
+passed in her carriage behind a sleepy pair of horses, sleepily
+driven, the fat pug dog at her feet suffering eclipse by the
+jelly-shaking arc of her redundant figure. She happened not to be
+common by any means, but one of the brightest and most good-natured
+members of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in
+England.
+
+"My goodness, isn't that Lord Roberts?" said the other, as a pair of
+chestnuts passed, with a rigid and angular lady in the carriage
+sitting beside a red-faced, white-moustached little man with his nose
+in the air.
+
+It was not Lord Roberts. He really looked much too important for
+"Bobs," although he was a military man in a sense, being colonel of a
+Volunteer regiment.
+
+And how nasally obviously numerous in the procession was the
+proportion of Jews, and the Jewesses whose plumpness seemed the
+retribution inflicted by prosperity.
+
+As the smart carriages passed and the high-stepping horses, which were
+indeed the exception, for the majority ambled along half somnolent
+from careless coachmanship, one sought in vain for some idea of what
+they were doing it all for. They did not seem to enjoy it. If they did
+not enjoy it, why did they do it? The expression that was common and
+universal to almost all was their seriousness. The Volunteer colonel
+took himself seriously, as did the fair frailty behind the
+high-steppers, no less than the best ladies of the land who seemed to
+be doing it as a traditional duty; but each and every one looked so
+serious.
+
+How was it that no one seemed to be laughing and enjoying himself out
+of all the crowd? The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to belong to
+another planet. The listless languor of these girls did not at least
+obviously claim Transatlantic cousinship; the gaiety of a Japanese
+street seemed so remote as to belong to a planet of another system;
+and the seriousness seemed reflected in the faces of the great
+mediocracy sauntering along inside the railings or solemnly seated in
+the chairs with their faces turned carriagewards.
+
+Here it did not seem the Dingy City; there was colour enough--bright
+splashes of colour, both colour in movement and colour from the
+rhododendron bushes, backgrounded with the fresh grass, that an artist
+was making a picture of over the way; it was not the Dingy City here.
+At least this was an oasis in it. But here, in this oasis, playground
+or pleasure-ground, the People of the Serious City was what was writ
+on their faces.
+
+Five hours later the park was almost deserted, and the gleam of white
+shirt-front or tulle-foam was caught as a closed carriage passed.
+
+The old bachelor was asleep in his chair at an open window looking
+across the narrow street at the familiar sooty face of the house
+opposite.
+
+"Good-night, Tom; I do hope it will be fine for to-morrow," the
+black-haired girl was saying at her door, holding in her hand the new
+hat she had been trimming.
+
+The Volunteer colonel was discussing Buller and port across the
+glittering dinner-field.
+
+The little fair-haired boy had climbed softly out of his cot, and,
+going over to his mother's bed, whispered coaxingly, "Will 'oo let
+me sleep with 'oo, mummy?" and when he had nestled his head on her
+arm, "Now tell me the story how daddy died," and was asleep before the
+familiar story was finished.
+
+[Illustration: Boer Prisoners.]
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE CITY OF DUMB DISTANCES
+
+
+I am sure there must be many to whom the idea occurs at such times of
+the year as this, at the end of the season, when people are scattering
+out of London, that friends are leaving whom we would like to have had
+the time to have seen before they went. How often, looking over the
+pages of one's address book, one says, "I wonder how it is I have not
+seen So-and-so for an age," and one feels that people we used to enjoy
+meeting, if they do not happen to move in the same orbit of
+metropolitan existence, are vanishing from our ken. They are being
+lost in the Limbo of long distances. An hour of Underground in very
+hot weather may give the remoteness of Styx-ferryage.
+
+It would be nice even to be able to speak to one's friends who are not
+conveniently visitable. In other cities this is possible, but not
+here. The telephone service of an American town or a Norwegian village
+is a thing of which London has never got even sufficient sample-taste
+to realise what she is deprived of, or what she ought very reasonably
+to demand. There is no reason why London should remain telephonically
+deaf and dumb. There is nothing which strikes the visitor more
+forcibly, however, than the long-suffering patience of the Londoner.
+The exasperatingly slow, inefficient apology for a telephone service
+that would not be tolerated anywhere else is good enough for London.
+It is no excuse to plead in apology the great size of the City, when
+there is the example of New York before one, where there are more
+telephones, where they are cheaper, and where the average time to get
+into communication with another subscriber appears to be a third or a
+fourth of the time taken in London. It is only when one has had actual
+experience of a thoroughly telephoned town that one appreciates the
+convenience of it. Look what it means for saving time in shopping,
+doing business, making appointments, and speaking to one's friends. "I
+got a telephone put right into my room the day I arrived," said an
+American friend, "but the people I want to speak to most often don't
+seem to use them, and it is so darned slow getting on to those that do
+that now I am keeping a cab by the day; it is quicker in the end, and
+makes me swear less."
+
+It will only be a matter of time, and that not so very far off, when
+wireless telegraphy will replace the telephone. The principle of
+sending messages in a multiplicity of keys, so that a message sent
+will only be received on the instrument keyed for it, has been
+established, and only requires practical working out. Until that time
+London will probably have to remain as deaf and dumb as it is.
+
+As regards getting from one part to another, it is not a cheerful
+thing to contemplate that what should be the most agreeable way of
+traversing London--I mean the pathway of the river--should just now be
+closed, and while Mr. Yerkes looks out on it from his offices in the
+Hotel Cecil, Londoners have to look to him to see if he or Pierpont
+Morgan will not open it to them again. What a pleasant alternative
+from the asphyxiating Underground or the tortoise-moving omnibus would
+not a fast, comfortably fitted line of river steamers be! It seems
+inconceivable that, with such a waterway and such primitive and
+inadequate alternative means of travel, the people should stand its
+being closed. What a great, stimulating, suggestive pathway it is
+through the Dingy City! Coming from a dance early the other morning I
+walked along the Embankment, to see a carpet of blue and silver being
+laid along the river as if by the angels of the dawn; and at evening
+in ever-varying schemes of sometimes gorgeous colour a richer carpet
+is laid sunsetwards, while the smoke and dust exhalation of the City
+is glorified to an incense offering by the stained rose window to the
+west. At such times the Dingy City looks great, robed in vague
+organ-tones of colour. But you must no longer walk on that carpet,
+even though the angels have laid it for you; you must no longer see
+your city from that pathway; you must burrow homewards from your work
+in a sewer-pipe of stink, and deeper rabbit-warrens of burrowing are
+being prepared for you, and you have no Declaration of Independence
+that secures to you the undeniable right to breathe fresh air.
+Long-suffering, patient Londoner! To whom does the City belong, and
+the river? If you reward with honours the men who make beer or whisky
+for you, or supply you with cheap tea, or signalise themselves by
+successfully struggling against disease, there ought to be the
+inducement of honours and reward waiting for the man or men that would
+help the millions in their daily struggle with this plague of long
+distances. Is there no knight to champion the cause of the toilers of
+London and in earnest tackle this dragon problem of distances? That
+is left to enterprising Americans who come over from pure philanthropy
+(?) to help you. Three years of his life are spent by the
+average-lived Londoner in the Underground, who has to take a daily
+half-hour's journey in it to get to his business. A man with an office
+in the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange and a dwelling-house in
+South Kensington will spend about four or five years of his life going
+to and fro. To an extent it is a necessary evil. We cannot transport
+ourselves by telegraph, but there are things that the people of the
+largest city in the world might reasonably expect. They might expect
+to have as good facilities for getting about as the people of the most
+progressive cities in the world; they might expect to have the power
+to speak when they will with the same quickness, cheapness, and
+facility as people of other cities. But there is a dull feeling of
+resigned apathy about them. They will not insist on making any one
+"get a move on" them to get these things done; will no more think of
+hustling themselves than a cab-horse in a growler hired by the hour.
+
+If London may be considered the head--the brain of the Empire--the
+blood-circulation of that brain is surely of vital importance. When
+keen competitors seize every time-saving, labour-saving weapon as it
+is offered to help them in the conquest of trade, can we afford to do
+without them? The business methods of twenty years ago will not do for
+to-day, still less will they do for twenty years to come. The methods
+which our competitors are practising are what will tell, and they
+cannot be imitated and acquired in a hurry when their importance will
+become suddenly alarmingly apparent. I think the position is far more
+serious than the stay-at-home Englishman realises. Perhaps from these
+passing years the future historian will get material for the opening
+chapters of his work on "British Trade: its Decline and Fall."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE LAND OF THE EVENING CALM
+
+
+It is difficult to think this morning that it was only last evening I
+left London. Lying on one's back on a soft carpet of pine spirules on
+the slope of the hill, the deep green of the water in the harbour
+shows through the pine branches. There is a plumage of bracken around
+wonderful green feathers, that are rising on their slender stems from
+the thick brown carpet of nature's plush, which hushes one's footsteps
+through the wood and makes them noiseless, except when one treads on a
+crisp tory top. There is a delightful hush under this cool roof
+pillared by the brown tree-trunks, but it is not silence. There is a
+soft hum that comes ceaselessly to one's ear, sometimes anear,
+sometimes afar, from one knows not where, from bees, perhaps, busy
+amongst the hurts or honeysuckle just below. Up above a wood-pigeon
+keeps cooing that ceaseless question, or is it a question, or the
+plaint call of his pigeon heart for love? or has he lost his love, and
+croons a mourning for her? Distinct from and louder than the murmur of
+the bees is a rustling of the water from below where the outgoing tide
+from the river meets the water of the harbour; and mingled with that,
+one can just faintly catch the hushed sound of an occasional wave on
+the rocks. It is a holiday with the breakers, and the sea moves its
+fringe as gently as if fanning itself to sleep. The river winds around
+below, and down to its edge the hills are tree-covered--not there
+altogether with pines, but with rounded luxurious clumps of dark
+trees, recalling Doré's idea of a forest--they are exactly Doré's
+trees. It does not look from here as if the river went up farther, but
+around that bend is the deep green water called Drake's Pool. It was
+there that Admiral Drake, outnumbered and chased along the Irish coast
+by the Spanish fleet, hid from them. The Spaniards came into the
+harbour and searched around, but never thought there was an opening
+through the trees. And there Drake waited with his high-pooped ships
+until they went away. Close to the trees that grow around the steep
+margin of the pool and always darken the green water, even in daytime,
+fishermen who go there at night to fish for conger tell that when the
+moon has been clouded at midnight they have seen the shapes of
+queer-looking ships, and on their high sterns the forms of men in
+outlandish costumes, sitting around drinking.
+
+Right on the summit of this hill which commands the harbour is the
+Giant's Grave; and _à propos_ of commanding the harbour, Napoleon I.
+knew of it, and had a plan for the invasion of Ireland, in which was
+included the idea of occupying this hill, from which he could command
+from the rear the forts at the harbour's mouth. He would have planted
+his guns on the Giant's Grave. We know little of the history of that
+giant, except that he carried off the wife of another giant who lived
+on the Great Island opposite, and held her here in his fastness amid
+the pine trees against all efforts to wrest her from him. A huge rock
+that he hurled back in one of these fights is still to be seen on the
+shore of Spike Island.
+
+A twittering flutter of white and grey below me a few yards away. It
+is a rabbit--and now another. Their ears are cocked, but they do not
+appear to notice me in the least. They hop about quite noiselessly on
+the brown carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost
+musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to
+be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder
+what these rabbits are saying to each other. They seem very alert and
+interested. Now a third appears on the scene. Two of them are
+beginning to play, at least I thought so at first--and I feel in this
+peaceful wood I should have left it at that, but having to recollect
+the heading of these chapters I have to record the fact that they are
+fighting. I never saw rabbits fight before, but they are fighting like
+mad. I now see, in fact, the origin of the expression making "the fur
+fly." The third is just skipping around watching intently with big
+round eyes and its ears erect--perhaps the third is timekeeper, or
+perhaps it is the story of the giants over again. The new-comer was
+getting the best of it. I am sorry now that I could not resist the
+temptation of taking a shot at them with my fountain pen. They fled
+instantly. Perhaps the little rabbit lady is glad--she may be licking
+the wounds of her Lancelot in their burrow a few yards away while he
+is telling her that he would have beaten the other fellow all right in
+the end if that darned fool hadn't thrown his fountain pen, while she
+agrees, as she works her little rabbit tongue soothingly, although
+privately she has her "doots."
+
+How interesting it would be to be able to study the lives of all these
+little people in this wood! There are terrible weasels here who wage a
+sanguinary warfare against the rabbits--a guerilla war that no war
+correspondent I know of has yet got his pass for. The seagulls are
+beginning to talk now in a New York pitch of voice, and one can get an
+occasional gleam of their wings through the blue-green pine branches.
+I think it is their dinner-time when the tide goes out and spreads a
+table-strip of slob for them on the shore.
+
+How thankful we ought to be to have such dear stupid neighbours as the
+English, who don't come in hordes of tourists to desecrate this
+delightful land! Those who love it with intimacy of knowledge--this
+wild coast with its rock fingers stretching into the Atlantic and
+harbours around which the trees nestle for shelter from the winter
+storms--the ruined castles with empty "magic casements, opening on the
+foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn"--own it still for
+their pleasure, moss-grown with history as vivid as the lichens on its
+rocks or ruins.
+
+Perhaps from a sense of justice, our neighbours think the invasion of
+Cromwell's army was enough, and that we ought to be spared from
+something worse, so that the hordes rush off perspiring over the
+Continent and elsewhere, and just a few nice people come and come
+again to the South of Ireland, and say they like that cordial greeting
+that always is waiting for the Englishman personally, who only in the
+abstract is disliked. Then the Irish railways and hotel-keepers act in
+a very nice and gentlemanly fashion; the former do not force on the
+notice of the tourist hordes that a train leaves Euston or Paddington
+every evening which would land them here at 10.30 in the morning for a
+few shillings. The latter are quite content with the knowledge they
+have themselves that they possess now as comfortable and
+well-fitted-up hotels as any in the world.
+
+A little old Irish lady was reduced to selling apples in the street.
+"Fresh apples, fresh apples!" she would call out; then, to herself, "I
+hope no one will hear me."
+
+I do not know, indeed, whether we have to thank most our kind
+neighbours or the railway and hotel people for the blessing we enjoy
+in this Land of the Evening Calm that still keeps
+
+  "A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+  Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
+
+One fills one's lungs with the delicious air, aromatic with pine
+perfume, to send it out in a sigh of infinite content.
+
+From across the water comes a sound of music; it is some one playing a
+cornet. The air the unseen musician is playing sounds familiar. He is
+only practising--learning---- Ye gods! Is there no place where one can
+get away from that air? But yet, does not it speak volumes for the
+remoteness of this harbourage of repose to realise that the unseen
+musician is only now _learning_ "The Honeysuckle and the Bee"?
+
+[Illustration: Japs Entering Pekin.]
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+WITH SOME TOILERS OF THE SEA
+
+
+"Stop makin' a noise wid your face, man, and cook the spuds; 'tis time
+for dinner." Thus Tim to Mike, who had been expounding a theory of his
+on the wayward habits of mackerel. Tim occasionally comes out with
+quaint phrases worthy a wider audience. "Mr. Speaker, the right hon.
+member who has just been making a noise with his face on this
+amendment"--how would that sound?
+
+There are three men in the boat, not including the writer--Tim, Mike,
+and Dennis--engaged in lobster-fishing. They have lived in her now six
+weeks from the time they left Baltimore; "doin' purty well, thank
+God," they admit. The fishing and the weather and the price all "purty
+fair." They get ten shillings a dozen for the lobsters, small or
+large, from the cutters that sail along the coast to collect them and
+take them to England, and they consider a couple of dozen lobsters a
+very good day's fishing. They don't get as good a price in the middle
+of the summer, however. They are going to stop the lobstering just now
+for the autumn mackerel-fishing, which they hope will be as good as
+the mackerel-fishing of last spring, which was the best for the past
+four years. The open boat, which they own in partnership, is a
+strongly built one about twenty-two feet long, with a lug and foresail
+of brown canvas and great flat stones for ballast. The whole outfit,
+including the lobster-pots, cost them twenty-five pounds. The pots
+have been set and baited with gurnet; during the two hours' interval
+we are anchored. A curious thing about the craft is the galley. On a
+spar which stretches from the bow to about four feet up the mast is
+stretched a piece of brown canvas just forward of the mast, on a flat
+stone some lumps of turf are burning, and under this canvas is spread
+the straw on which my friends sleep. Mike is now washing a prodigious
+quantity of potatoes in a large iron pot, "a grate crop of praties
+this year, but the salt water plays the divil with the keeping av
+them, like that," and he holds up one with a red mark on it in his
+gigantic paw. I kept wondering if they were really going to eat all
+these potatoes at one meal. They did, however, washed down with milk
+from a big tin jug which they passed around. They make their own bread
+or griddle-cake, but that was to be taken with their tea for breakfast
+or supper. Tim is a teetotaler, and his two partners have a limit of
+three pints (of porter) when they are ashore. They always go ashore on
+Sundays, when two of them go to Mass, while the other minds the boat
+and the lobsters. Three great, simple, almost child-like giants they
+are, yet not without a certain natural courtesy--a core of genuine
+politeness within a rough rind.
+
+It was great to see how they made that heavy boat move with their
+long oars, coming out of the harbour this morning; and yet they hardly
+ever eat any meat. Potatoes and milk are their chief diet; fish
+sometimes--"an' thin we has to sample the lobsters sometimes; it
+wouldn't do not to sample what we are daling in." They cooked one in
+honour of their visitor, who never tasted a better. Then they lit the
+pipe, which they smoked in turn, and soon it was time to pick up the
+pots. Three lobsters and a crawfish were the haul. What magnificent
+colour in the strong yet delicate armour of their shells! Deep blue
+shaded into brown, mottled in yellow spots, with deep red at the
+joints. They were put into the big basket, which already contained
+over three dozen. What a terrible time the poor brutes must have
+there! Two or three weeks in this boat, probably the same time in the
+tank of the cutter, and a week or two more in another ashore before
+they are eaten. I asked if they ever gave them any food, but found
+they never did. "One av them dies off an' on, and thin the others ate
+him, an' they are always atin' the small claws off each other." Talk
+of the lobster blushing because it saw the salad dressing; but ought
+it not to make a member of the S.P.C.A. blush to eat lobster
+mayonnaise? We set the brown sails to lay the pots again further along
+the coast. It is a glorious day, the wavelets dancing on the surface
+of the long Atlantic swell that heaves ponderously; for, as Tim
+remarked, "the adjacent parish wesht is Ameriky." A glorious
+translucent green under the shadow of the leaning sails, and beyond,
+under our lee, the line of breakers on the rocks, tapestried in the
+rich brown of autumnal seaweed, and above them, in more broken
+billows, fields that make the island called "Emerald."
+
+While waiting after laying the pots again, the wind kept freshening,
+and heavier clouds in big battalions kept hurrying up from windward.
+The trio seem unanimous that we are in for a bit of a blow. Tim says
+'tis going to be a nasty night, and we must go in somewhere, although
+night is the best time for their fishing. Only one jack-lobster out of
+all the pots this time. It was now blowing hard and beginning to rain,
+so, with one reef in, we started again. It was a ripping breeze; I
+knew of old how quickly the wind can rise along that coast. The last
+time I was in Baltimore--picturesque old place, with its ruined abbey
+and the memory of the sacking of it by Moorish pirates, and the
+carrying-off of the women from only the eighteenth century back--was
+when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer, designed by Watson.
+She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on her keel. As I was
+nearing the harbour just such a breeze sprang up, and, being
+single-handed, I could not take in a reef, so had to carry on; right
+outside the harbour my foresail carried away, but I got in all right
+under the mainsail, and anchored alongside the Baroness
+Burdett-Coutts's yacht that was there at the time. I asked Tim about
+the money she had lent to the men there for buying fishing-boats.
+"Ah, thin, she's a good woman, God bless her; there's many rich or
+well-to-do men in Baltimore to-day through the means of her, an' ivery
+penny paid back--divil a penny av a bad debt."
+
+[Illustration: Relief Of Pekin.]
+
+The smaller the boat the greater the delight of sailing; you get
+closer to things than in big boats. It is part of yourself, half in
+the sea and half in the air, and with the sea and breezes you play or
+fight. White sails standing patiently upright, waiting, and adown from
+over the hills comes along the breath of the wind, breathing across
+the mirror; gently, ripplingly, comes the wind to play, and would try
+to pass, but you catch it in your white wings--catch it and hold it,
+leaning over to its fleeing passage, and press the trembling
+tiller-pulse, now throbbing with life, and luff as the boat darts
+forward in joy of possession of the wind, but she passes, gently,
+gently up again with the tiller till she leaves the sails with the
+lingerage of a caress.
+
+But more fun is the fight and tussle in that wonderful surface
+fighting-line between sea and wind, which laugh as they fight, blowing
+and buffeting, with you between and the little boat-part of you, now
+intensely alive and glad like you to be alive, to sing back to the
+wind any old song as she passes her fingers through your hair.
+
+One unique sensation of the almost uncanny mingling of the two
+elements I can never forget, when once, at daybreak, I went down into
+the Cave of the Winds under Niagara Falls; on along the slippery path,
+the spray streaming down the oilskins; within a few feet that
+shimmering, glistening wall of falling water, the sense of hearing
+gone in intoxication, of most musically thunderous noise. One seemed
+breathing water, so finely spray-saturated was the air. One seemed to
+have passed the portals into a strange, eerie, watery world.
+
+Every moment the wind came up, piping louder and louder, scudding
+across the now darkening water. The entrance to Oyster Haven was only
+half a mile on. It was too far to go to Kinsale. The Old Head was
+invisible in blue-grey mist.
+
+How things find voice in music! I recollect in the climax of the fight
+at Elandslaagte, when the uproar of various sounds was simply
+terrific, from the shrill treble of the whimpering bullets to the
+trumpet-like whoop of the shells as they arched overhead, to alight
+with a drum-boom and burst with a cymbal crash; the whole orchestra of
+battle was playing--it seemed that everyone must recognise the
+air--"The Ride of the Valkyrie;" and now the driving rain and the salt
+spindrift, the flapping of the leech of our brown sail, every note of
+accompaniment is being given to that great air that runs through
+Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, which the wind is singing louder and
+louder. Tim sits up well to windward, the tiller quivering in his
+hand, the rain beating on one side of his face, his beard blowing out
+from the other. Tim doesn't think what a good model for a Viking he
+makes just now. The real actual Viking must have been very little
+different in appearance from Tim.
+
+We were not long in making that last half-mile, and dropped anchor
+close inshore. At once on doing so the many advantages of the canvas
+cabin were apparent. The boat, riding head to wind, made the bow under
+the canvas quite snug. Mike blew the bellows on the smouldering sods
+of turf which had never quite gone out; it is true the eddying smoke
+resulting therefrom was smarting to the eyes, but the resulting hot
+tea was compensation. It was useless for me to try to explain that it
+would be a real pleasure for me to sleep outside in my waterproof--that
+it would make me dream of being outside Santiago in the trenches, or
+on the veldt. It was only a matter of which of the three--who all
+wanted to--should give up his berth on the straw. Dennis succeeded
+eventually. It was a bad night. It was snug and "comfy" inside on the
+straw as the boat cradled on the broken aftermath of swell. The rain
+played in sheets of notes on the flapping canvas, and from its edge
+wraiths of smoke shuddered off into the darkness; and, dropping off to
+sleep, I listened to the Storm moaning the air of the Waldstein to the
+ear of Beethoven.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
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+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Impressions of a War Correspondent, by George Lynch</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Impressions of a War Correspondent, by George
+Lynch</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Impressions of a War Correspondent</p>
+<p>Author: George Lynch</p>
+<p>Release Date: June 1, 2007  [eBook #21661]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT***</p>
+<br><br><center><h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Christine P. Travers,<br>
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br>
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3></center><br><br>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>Transcriber's note:<br>
+<br>
+Obvious printer's errors have been corrected,
+all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has been
+maintained.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" noshade>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<a id="img001" name="img001"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="300" height="432" alt="George Lynch" title="George Lynch">
+<p><i>Photo Bassano</i>.<span class="add4em"> <i>Frontispiece</i></span>.<br>
+GEORGE LYNCH.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1>IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR
+CORRESPONDENT</h1>
+
+<p class="center">BY</p>
+<h2>GEORGE LYNCH</h2>
+
+<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "THE WAR OF THE CIVILIZATIONS"</p>
+
+<a id="img002" name="img002"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="150" height="139" alt="Arms" title="Arms">
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p2">LONDON: GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED<br>
+SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.<br>
+MCMIII</p>
+
+<h2>"TO CARMELA"</h2>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>(p. vii)</span></h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#page001"><span class="smcap">The Dance of Death</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page015"><span class="smcap">The Aftermath of War</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page031"><span class="smcap">Elandslaagte</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page049"><span class="smcap">A Glimpse of our Gunners</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page058"><span class="smcap">In the Tents of the Boers</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page068"><span class="smcap">The Fellow that felt Afraid</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page079"><span class="smcap">The Dance of Death in China</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page091"><span class="smcap">Certain Comparisons</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page107"><span class="smcap">The Crucifixion of Christianity in China</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page120"><span class="smcap">Ex Oriente Lux</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page132"><span class="smcap">Night in the City of Unrest</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page142"><span class="smcap">A Street in the City of Unrest</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page151"><span class="smcap">A Glimpse of a Southern City</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page158"><span class="smcap">The Penalty of their Pace in the City of Unrest</span></a></li>
+<li><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageviii" name="pageviii"></a>(p. viii)</span>
+<a href="#page166"><span class="smcap">The Million-Master in the City of Unrest</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page175"><span class="smcap">The Woman who works in the City of Unrest</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page185"><span class="smcap">The Hou-men of the Dingy City</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page196"><span class="smcap">Tired</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page210"><span class="smcap">The City of Dumb Distances</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page217"><span class="smcap">The Land of the Evening Calm</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#page225"><span class="smcap">With Some Toilers of the Sea</span></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS <span class="pagenum"><a id="pageix" name="pageix"></a>(p. ix)</span></h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#img001"><span class="smcap">George Lynch</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img003"><span class="smcap">Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img004"><span class="smcap">Advance of the Gordons at Elandslaagte</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img005"><span class="smcap">Advance of the Devons before the Attack at Elandslaagte</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img006"><span class="smcap">George Lynch Captured by the Boers</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img007"><span class="smcap">Boer Shell bursting among the Lancers at Rietfontein</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img008"><span class="smcap">General French and Staff on Black Monday</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img009"><span class="smcap">General White and Staff on Black Monday</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img010"><span class="smcap">Artillery crossing a Drift near Ladysmith</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img011"><span class="smcap">Naval Brigade passing through Ladysmith</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img012"><span class="smcap">General Yule's Column on the Way to Ladysmith</span></a></li>
+<li><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagex" name="pagex"></a>(p. x)</span><a href="#img013"><span class="smcap">Hospital Train leaving Ladysmith for Pietermaritzburg</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img014"><span class="smcap">Boer Prisoners</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img015"><span class="smcap">Japs entering Pekin</span></a></li>
+<li><a href="#img016"><span class="smcap">Relief of Pekin</span></a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<p class="small">We are indebted to the courtesy of the Proprietor of <i>The Illustrated
+London News</i> for permission to reproduce the illustrations facing
+pages 33, 48, 65, 80, 97, 144, 161, 176, and 193, and to the
+Proprietor of <i>The Sphere</i> for a similar permission with regard to the
+illustrations facing pages 224 and 231.</p>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexi" name="pagexi"></a>(p. xi)</span></h2>
+
+<p>There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for
+getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the
+special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the
+wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first
+hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first
+night of a play. There are no preconceived opinions for him to go by;
+he ought not to, at least, be influenced by any prejudices; and the
+account of the performance is to some extent like that of the dramatic
+critic, inasmuch as that the verdict of the public or of history has
+either to confirm or reverse his <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexii" name="pagexii"></a>(p. xii)</span> own judgment. There is a
+peculiar and unique fascination about this reading of contemporary
+history, as it grows and develops while one peers with straining eyes
+through one's glasses. There is something like a first night, too,
+about the way the critics view things. Sometimes great difference of
+opinion. I recollect the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek&mdash;Black Monday,
+as it was afterwards called&mdash;when we returned into Ladysmith half the
+correspondents seemed to be under the impression that the day had been
+quite a successful one; while, on the other hand, one had headed his
+despatch with the words, "Dies Iræ, dies illa!" To get to the heart of
+things; to see the upspringing of the streams of active and strenuous
+life; to watch the great struggles of the world, not always the
+greatest in war, but the often more mighty, if quiet and dead silent,
+whose sweeping powerfulness is hidden under a smooth calmness of
+surface&mdash;to watch all this <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexiii" name="pagexiii"></a>(p. xiii)</span> is to intimately taste a great
+delicious joy of life. The researches of the historian of bygone times
+are fascinating&mdash;absorbingly fascinating, although he is always
+handicapped by remoteness; but the historian of to-day&mdash;of his
+day&mdash;this day&mdash;whose day-page of history is read by hundreds of
+readers, the day after has set to him a task that calls for all, and
+more than all, that he can give&mdash;stimulates while it appalls, and
+would be killingly wearying if it were not so fascinatingly
+attractive. That close contact with the men of this struggling world,
+and the men who <i>do</i> things, and shove these life-wheels round, warms
+up in one a great love for one's kind&mdash;a comrade feeling, like that
+which comes from being tent-mates in a long campaign. Two o'clock in
+the morning wake to the tramp, tramp of men marching in the
+dark&mdash;marching out to fight&mdash;and the unknown Tommy you march beside
+and talk to in low voice, as men talk at <span class="pagenum"><a id="pagexiv" name="pagexiv"></a>(p. xiv)</span> that hour, is your
+comrade unto the day's end of fighting; when returning, to the
+sentries' challenge you answer "A friend," and, dog-tired, you
+re-enter the lines, welcomed by his sesame call, "Pass, friend; all is
+well."</p>
+
+<h2>IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT <span class="pagenum"><a id="page001" name="page001"></a>(p. 001)</span></h2>
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+<h5>THE DANCE OF DEATH</h5>
+
+<p>Death from a Mauser bullet is less painful than the drawing of a
+tooth. Such, at least, appears to be the case, speaking generally from
+apparent evidence, without having the opportunity of collecting the
+opinions of those who have actually died. In books we have read of
+shrieks of expiring agony; but ask those who have been on many
+battlefields, and they will not tell you they have heard them. As a
+rule a sudden exclamation, "I'm hit!" "My God!" "Damn it!" They look
+as if staggering from the blow of a fist rather than that from a tiny
+pencil of lead&mdash;then a sudden paleness, perhaps a grasping of the
+hands <span class="pagenum"><a id="page002" name="page002"></a>(p. 002)</span> occasionally as if to hold on to something, when the
+bottom seems to be falling out of all things stable, but generally no
+sign of aught else than the dulling of death&mdash;dulling to sleep&mdash;a
+drunken sleep&mdash;drunken death it often seems&mdash;very commonplace as a
+rule. A smile as often as, or oftener than, any sign of pain, but
+generally no sign of either. Think of this, mourning mothers of
+England. Don't picture your sons as drowning out of the world racked
+with the red torture from the bullet's track, but just as dropping off
+dully to sleep, most probably with no thought of you or home, without
+anxiety or regret. Merciful Mauser! He suffered much more pain when
+you brought him long ago to the dentist, and his agony in that
+horrible chair was infinitely greater than on his bed on the veldt.
+Merciful Mauser be thanked!</p>
+
+<p>The first man I saw badly hit during the war was a Devon at
+Elandslaagte, just after they had advanced within rifle-range. He was
+shot through the head, and it seemed quite <span class="pagenum"><a id="page003" name="page003"></a>(p. 003)</span> useless for the
+bearers to take the trouble of carrying him off the field; yet they
+went back looking in vain for a field ambulance. They carried him
+instead to the cart belonging to a well-known war correspondent. The
+owner had given the driver strict orders to remain where he was until
+his return, but the shells were falling around the cart, which, in
+fact, seemed to be made a mark of by the Boer gunners&mdash;perhaps they
+thought it belonged to one of our generals, whom they may have
+imagined had taken to driving, like Joubert and some others of theirs.
+The arrival of the wounded man was a great godsend to the driver, who
+immediately, with the most humane insistence, offered to drive him to
+the nearest field hospital. Neither cart nor driver was again seen
+until long after the battle was over, about nine o'clock in the
+evening. Strange to say, the man recovered from his wound.</p>
+
+<p>In our first engagements there was rather too much anxiety on the part
+of a wounded man's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page004" name="page004"></a>(p. 004)</span> comrades to carry him to the rear; but it
+did not continue for long. The actuating motive is not always kindness
+and humanity, but a desire to get out of danger. It was soon evident
+that it was only going from the frying-pan into the fire, as the
+danger of walking back carrying a wounded man was immensely greater
+than remaining or advancing more or less on one's stomach. Sometimes
+it was the unfortunate wounded man who was hit again. Men carrying off
+a wounded comrade of course render themselves strictly liable to be
+regarded as combatants.</p>
+
+<p>A still more absurd practice was that of sometimes attempting to carry
+off the dead during an engagement. An instance of this was seen at
+Rietfontein. A couple of men of a Volunteer regiment were coming
+across the open ground below the hill under a pretty brisk fire, when
+Dr. H&mdash;&mdash;, himself one of the most fearless of men, called out to
+them, "S&mdash;&mdash; has been killed down there; better bring him in." They
+turned back immediately, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page005" name="page005"></a>(p. 005)</span> and one of them, J. Gillespie, got
+off his horse and lifted the corpse on to the saddle, they holding it
+in position by hanging on to a leg on either side, and walked back,
+while the bullets were whistling around them, and knocking up little
+spurts of dirt on the ground in front of them. It was a most ghastly
+sight; the head of the corpse bobbed about with the motion of the
+horse, and the lips of the corpse were drawn back in a horrible grin,
+as if he were laughing idiotically at them for trying to qualify for a
+Victoria Cross with a corpse. I really think they deserved it just as
+much as if he had been alive.</p>
+
+<p>A curious thing happened to a horse of one of the men who were
+performing this feat. The owner found when he had returned to
+Ladysmith that his water-bottle, which was attached to his saddle, had
+been perforated by a bullet. Showing it to another in the evening,
+they came to the conclusion, from the position of the holes, that it
+would be impossible for the holes to be <span class="pagenum"><a id="page006" name="page006"></a>(p. 006)</span> made in the position
+they were without wounding the horse. The next day, on examining the
+horse, he found a bullet had actually passed through and through him,
+and yet apparently he seemed none the worse.</p>
+
+<p>There was another but different instance of a horse carrying a corpse
+at the battle of Lombard's Kop. There was no leering and hideous
+grinning at us, however, as the rider's head had been blown clean away
+by a Boer shell. The 5th Lancers were riding out on our right, when a
+single horse came galloping past them, clattering furiously over the
+stony veldt. No wonder the men stared; it was a sight to be
+remembered. The rider was firmly fixed in the deep cavalry saddle; the
+reins tossed loose with the horse's mane, and both hands were clenched
+against either side of his breast; and the head was cut off clean at
+the shoulders. Perhaps in the spasm of that death-tear the rider had
+gripped his horse's sides with his long-spurred heels; perhaps the
+horse also was wounded; anyhow, with head down, and wild and terrified
+eyes, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page007" name="page007"></a>(p. 007)</span> his shoulders foam-bespewed, he tore past as if in
+horror of the ghastly burden he carried.</p>
+
+<p>How wonderfully expressive are the eyes of these cavalry horses at
+times! There it seemed sheer horror; but often when wounded they look
+towards one with a world of pitiful appeal for relief; in their
+dumbness loud-voicedly reproachful against the horrors of war.</p>
+
+<p>Two men being killed on one horse seems rather a tall order, yet it is
+perfectly true. It happened at the cavalry charge after Elandslaagte.
+Some of the Boers stood their ground with great stubbornness till our
+cavalry were only a few yards away. One middle-aged, bearded fellow
+stayed just a little too long, and had not time to get to his horse,
+which was a few yards away. He scrambled up behind a brother Boer who
+was just mounting, but almost immediately the 5th Lancers were upon
+them. There was a farrier-corporal, an immensely big, powerful fellow,
+who singled them out. They were galloping <span class="pagenum"><a id="page008" name="page008"></a>(p. 008)</span> down a slight
+incline as hard as they could get their horse to travel, but their
+pursuer was gaining on them at every stride. When he came within
+striking distance he jammed his spurs into his big horse, who sprang
+forward like a tiger. Weight of man and horse, impetus of gallop and
+hill, focused in that bright lance-point held as in a vice. It pierced
+the left side of the back of the man behind, and the point came out
+through the right side of the man in front, who, with a convulsive
+movement, threw up his hands, flinging his rifle in the air. The
+Lancer could not withdraw his lance as the men swayed and dropped from
+their horse, but galloped on into the gathering darkness punctured
+with rifle flashes here and there and flitting forms that might be
+friend or foe. This poor fellow was killed a few days after at the
+battle of Rietfontein. How heartily the Boers hated these Lancers!
+They would have liked so much to have had lances barred as against the
+rules of war; and it would certainly have made an immense difference
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page009" name="page009"></a>(p. 009)</span> if our side had succeeded in getting a few more chances,
+especially at the commencement of the war, of using the lance.</p>
+
+<p>The natives, numbers of whom were looking on at this battle, were
+greatly delighted with the cavalry charge. It seemed to take their
+fancy even more than did the artillery. "Great fight, baas&mdash;plenty
+much blood, plenty much blood," one of them described it. He said he
+was crouching down behind a sheltering rock while the Boers were
+running away past him, and then "the men with the assegais" came
+galloping after them. A Boer without his horse came running along,
+and, pulling him out, took his place behind the stone. A soldier
+galloped along and called out, "Hallo, Johnny, what are you doing
+here? You'll get hurt." Then, catching sight of the Boer, he stuck him
+down through the back as he passed. "Ah, baas, great fight&mdash;plenty
+much blood."</p>
+
+<p>Wounds or death by Mauser bullets, or even by the thrust of a lance,
+are not to be compared, from the point of view of their
+pain-inflicting <span class="pagenum"><a id="page010" name="page010"></a>(p. 010)</span> possibilities, with what may be done in that
+way by the fragment of a shell. That's the thing that hurts. Shell
+fire, speaking generally, is the "Bogy of Battle" to those not
+accustomed to it. The main purpose it accomplishes is to "establish a
+funk." When the actual damage done by shell fire after a battle is
+counted up and the number of shells fired, the results are most
+surprising. A poet in the <i>Ladysmith Lyre</i> wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "One thing is certain in this town of lies:<br>
+  If Long Tom hits you on the head you dies."</p>
+
+<p>You do&mdash;unquestionably; but perhaps it is worse still to get a piece
+of a shell somewhere else. What frightful wounds they make sometimes!
+what mangled butchery in their track! See some poor fellow stretched
+on the operating-table, stripped for the patching or trimming which
+half-helpless surgery can supply. Apart from head and hands, which are
+sure to be khaki-colour with dirt caked in with sweat, the average
+Tommy usually presents a fine specimen of the human form divine&mdash;what
+is <span class="pagenum"><a id="page011" name="page011"></a>(p. 011)</span> there finer in the world than the body of a well-shaped,
+muscular man? I always prefer the figure of the fighting gladiator to
+that of the Apollo Belvedere&mdash;and then, when shell fragments tear this
+body, it looks like some unspeakably unhallowed sacrilege. The
+horribly unlucky way these fragments seem to go in&mdash;an uncouth and
+butchering way instead of the gentlemanly puncture of the Mauser. One
+afternoon a young fellow galloped past me in the main street of
+Ladysmith. He had just got opposite the Town Hall hospital, when a
+shell from Bulwana burst right under his horse. When the cloud of dust
+and smoke cleared away, we found the horse lying on the road
+completely disembowelled, and the poor fellow flung on to the
+footpath, with a long piece of shell sticking in his side. As he was
+taken into the hospital he said, "This means two more Dutchmen
+killed." But the wound was obviously fatal; there was no use even in
+removing the piece of shell. The clergyman came to him and spoke to
+him for some time, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page012" name="page012"></a>(p. 012)</span> told him that there was no hope of
+recovery for him. He seemed to get tired of his ministrations, and
+asked them to "send down for my chum." When this chum arrived he was
+unable to speak, but just pressed his hand and smiled, and went off
+into his death-sleep.</p>
+
+<p>A boy, who could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, was
+lying on the side of the hill with his head on a flat stone. He had
+been hit by a piece of shell, and both his legs were broken and
+mangled above the knee. He was done for, and his life was only a
+matter of lasting some minutes. Another man, wounded somewhere
+internally, was lying beside him. There was no sign of pain on the
+boy's face; his eyes were closed. He just seemed very tired. Opening
+his eyes, he looked downwards intently at his legs, which were lying
+at an oblique angle with his body, from where they had been hit. It
+looked as if his trousers were the only attachment. As he gazed
+intently, a troubled look came over his face, and his wounded comrade
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page013" name="page013"></a>(p. 013)</span> beside him was watching him and saw it. The tired eyes closed
+again wearily, and then the wounded man alongside him, cursing with
+variegated and rich vocabulary, bent, or half rolled over, and caught
+first one boot and then the other, and lifted each leg straight down,
+swearing under his breath the while. Then he lay back, swearing at the
+blankety blank young blanker, and still watching him. Soon the tired
+eyes opened again, and instinctively looked down at his legs. They
+seemed to open wider as he looked; then he smiled faintly, thinking he
+had been mistaken about them before, and lay back, and the eyes did
+not open any more. The fellow beside him chuckled and said to himself,
+"Well, I'm damned!" but possibly the Recording Angel has put down a
+mark that may help to prevent it.</p>
+
+<p>Times are changed from ages past; there is no longer the mighty "shock
+of arms," the pomp and panoply of glorious war. Men fall to the shrill
+whisper of a bullet, the sound of which has not time to reach their
+ears, fired by <span class="pagenum"><a id="page014" name="page014"></a>(p. 014)</span> an invisible foe. Their death is merely the
+<i>quod erat demonstrandum</i> of a mathematical and mechanical
+proposition. But with bow and arrow, spear or battle-axe, Mauser or
+Lee-Metford, the heart behind the weapon is just the same now as then.
+Probably faint hearts fail now as then, just as much&mdash;shrink to a
+panic that falls on them suddenly as cold mist on mountain-top; and
+the stout hearts wait and endure, and perhaps do more of the waiting,
+and have to sweat and swear and endure this waiting longer now than
+then before the intoxicating delight of active battle finds vent for
+their hearts' desire, when, under names like "duty," a monarch's voice
+in their souls cries "Havoc," and lets slip the old dogs of savagery
+lying low in every man's nature, until the veldt of this new land is
+manured, like the juicy battlefields of old, "with carrion men
+groaning for burial."</p>
+
+<h3>II <span class="pagenum"><a id="page015" name="page015"></a>(p. 015)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE AFTERMATH OF WAR</h5>
+
+<p>Hot, sweating, dusty, and tired, with no inclination whatever to move
+out of camp, everybody would find all the indications of approaching
+disease every day if he were only to think of such a thing. The
+reading of a liver advertisement in one of the home papers would show
+all your symptoms, only they all would be "more so." But every one
+knew it was only the climate, the hard work, and sometimes the
+indifferent food, and so went on; but a day comes when the food
+becomes absolutely distasteful, when the appetite begins to go. A long
+day's riding on the veldt should leave one with a voracious appetite
+for dinner, but when one comes in and can taste nothing, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page016" name="page016"></a>(p. 016)</span>
+only just lies down dog-tired day after day, then he begins to think
+there is something wrong. The idea of going to the doctor is very
+distasteful, so he struggles on, hoping to work it off, until one day
+he comes very near a collapse, with head swimming and knees groggy,
+and then some comrade makes the doctor have a look at him, and his
+temperature is perhaps 102 to 104. In Ladysmith it was then a question
+of being sent out to Intombi Camp. To most men this seemed like being
+exiled to Siberia; but there was no help for it. Comrades said
+good-bye when it would have been more cheering to have said <i>au
+revoir</i>. The train left for Intombi Hospital Camp at six in the
+morning, carrying its load of those who had been wounded in the
+previous twenty-four hours, as well as the sick. It was a sad journey
+out; men could not help cursing their bad luck and wondering what
+would be before them as a result of the journey, wondering if they
+should ever rejoin their regiments or if their next journey would not
+be <span class="pagenum"><a id="page017" name="page017"></a>(p. 017)</span> back to the cemetery they were now passing on their
+right, growing every day more ominously populous. The hospital camp at
+Intombi was a collection of tents and large marquees, civilian doctors
+attending the Volunteers and Army doctors the Regulars. There was also
+a considerable number of the inhabitants of Ladysmith, not alone women
+and children, but men. Hence the reason that it got christened Camp
+Funk by the inhabitants that remained in the town. Situated on the
+flat of the plain, on a level with the river banks, it was by no means
+an ideal situation for a fever hospital, but still it was a great
+thing to be out of the way of these irregularly dropping shells and to
+<i>know</i> one was away from them. "Long Tom," on Bulwana, shook the very
+ground when he fired, and, with the other guns there, often got on the
+nerves of many of the patients to a trying extent, and the Boers, as a
+rule, started firing at sunrise, just about the time when the poor
+devil who has tossed and turned through the long hours of the hot
+night <span class="pagenum"><a id="page018" name="page018"></a>(p. 018)</span> in fevered restlessness now from sheer exhaustion is
+just sinking into sleep, to be startled by the terrific bang above his
+head and the rush of the shell, like the tearing of a yacht's
+mainsail, as it speeds on its arched course towards the devoted town.</p>
+
+<p>A curious passive fight the patient settles down to, with a fatal
+little thermometer keeping score and marking the game&mdash;a sort of
+tug-of-war between doctors and Disease. The ground is marked in
+degrees from 98.4 to 106, the former being normal temperature, the
+later the point at which, as a rule, disease wins the game.</p>
+
+<p>Take the case of a fellow the author knows intimately. He had held out
+too long without going to hospital, putting down his weakness,
+lassitude, and general feeling of extreme cheapness to the climate
+instead of the real cause, with the result that he started on the real
+struggle with a temperature of 104.8. At the very start Disease had
+pulled him over nastily close to his line, and was still pulling him
+over, as his temperature was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page019" name="page019"></a>(p. 019)</span> rising point by point. There
+are various methods of treatment&mdash;with him they fought it with a drug
+called phenacetin, and to the lay mind a wonderful drug it appears. It
+is not effective with every one. A man in the next bed to him might
+have been taking breadcrumbs for all effect it produced. With him,
+however, it worked like clockwork. No sooner was a five-grain dose
+swallowed than the temperature stopped in its upward course. Then,
+gradually, like in a good Turkish bath, the pores of his skin opened,
+and a most complete and profuse perspiration ensued, which was allowed
+to go on for a couple of hours. Then, with bed and bedclothes
+drenched, he lay weak, limp, and feeling like a squeezed sponge, but
+with a temperature that shows three degrees marked down towards his
+own line. Should there be a nurse available the patient is washed down
+and put into fresh clothes and pyjamas; if not, as was most usually
+the case, he lies in his sweat, his skin chilling in patches for a
+while, and feeling sticky and uncomfortable <span class="pagenum"><a id="page020" name="page020"></a>(p. 020)</span> all over, but
+too limp to move. The drug has a strange and wonderfully clearing
+effect on the brain. He feels as if all his previous life had been
+passed in some land of twilight. Now he lives in a land of glorious
+light&mdash;light that pervades everything. His eyelids are closed to shut
+in the glorious light. He seems to have been sitting in some dark
+theatre when the lights have been turned on on a glorious
+transformation scene. He has circled the world and seen its loveliest
+places, but only now sees how beautiful they were. In Samoa, and the
+Pali at Honolulu, he sees the individual leaves shimmering in the
+clear air, and then on his quickened consciousness falls a great sense
+of the beauty of the world. Separate from the beauty of the world
+seems the life on it, and now for the first time his lips are pressed
+to her bluest veins. "I want to take your temperature, please," as he
+feels the little glass tube at the dry skin of his lips. "105.2," he
+hears whispered when it is withdrawn. They think he cannot <span class="pagenum"><a id="page021" name="page021"></a>(p. 021)</span>
+hear as he lies motionless with eyes closed. All the three degrees
+have been lost, and more&mdash;it is a score for Disease. Another dose of
+phenacetin&mdash;surely all that glorious, untravelled, half-tasted world
+is too beautiful and rich with promise to leave, too full of music he
+has not heard, too full of pictures he has not seen, too full of
+unplucked laurels, of lips unkissed, of sunsets which have not yet
+painted the clouds in their setting&mdash;above all, along the passed path
+of his life are neglected flowers of love lying which he has walked on
+with scarce a smile of thanks for the throwers, whose hands, perchance
+now withering, he longs to kiss.</p>
+
+<p>Temporarily the thermometer score is favourable to him again, but all
+he can do is to lie very still, knowing that every feather-pressure of
+strength will be wanted. Lying sideways, as he has been shifted round
+by his nurse on the pillow, he hears the pump, pump of his heart. He
+never noted that pumping before as he does now&mdash;quick and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page022" name="page022"></a>(p. 022)</span>
+strenuous it is, but still strong, without the spur of stimulants.
+Pump on, old heart, he thought-speaks, and on it pumps through the
+long hours of watching and waiting; and he watches as a captain might
+watch the pumping of his water-logged ship. He is lucky to have a
+heart that works like that. The man beside him was being given brandy
+every three hours to help the action of his heart. Another thing he
+was lucky in was in being free from headache. A sufferer farther down
+from time to time called aloud in agony from the terrible splitting
+pains in his head, while his was clear to a supersensitive degree&mdash;too
+clear and active to allow of sleep&mdash;and soon came the time when he
+longed with a great yearning for the sleep that would not come. It
+seemed cruel and unfair that any beggar, any coolie in the fields, any
+convict could have this sleep that was denied him. How he tried to fix
+his mind on quiet scenes with the sound of falling water, or the sound
+of falling breakers fringing the rocks of perilous seas <span class="pagenum"><a id="page023" name="page023"></a>(p. 023)</span> in
+fairy lands forlorn! But sleep would not come; the panorama of the
+world spun from scene to scene all the faster as he tossed limply and
+wearily. <i>Custos, quid de nocte?</i> How slowly passes the night, and
+night sleepless merges into sleepless day, and for a week the struggle
+hangs on the winning line of Disease. Each time the thermometer is
+drawn from his mouth an ever new-born hope which has risen dies with
+the whispered score, but still the heart pumps strenuously, telling of
+life and hope the while. On the morning of the sixth day the score is
+down a degree. Too good to believe in until confirmed by the midday
+record, and then very, very slowly, by fractions of degrees, it shows
+less than the record of the previous days. In the cool quietude of
+some Continental sculpture gallery&mdash;he cannot tell where&mdash;he has seen
+a statue of Icarus&mdash;Icarus just feeling the earth-spurning power of
+his new-given wings; Icarus on tip-toe, with head up and godly-moulded
+chest and dilated nostrils, drinking <span class="pagenum"><a id="page024" name="page024"></a>(p. 024)</span> in the clear air, and
+extended arms towards his new possession of the clouds. The glorious
+embodiment of god-like life, earth-spurning, heavens-enjoying&mdash;and as
+such he feels&mdash;he forgets that his frame is a skin-covered skeleton,
+that his legs would not bear him upright. He knows only that the
+spirit of life has been breathed into him again, and that it is very
+good to be alive. The feeling of being "half in love with easeful
+death" has passed. The orchestra of life will play for him again. How
+irksomely slow the days pass until the score reaches his winning-line
+of normal! and in time he sees how easily it might have been
+otherwise. His room-mate on his right got delirious, and refused all
+nourishment. He struggled violently even against the stimulants
+prescribed for him. His nurse would spend half an hour trying to get a
+little down. Then he had seen an extreme attempt made to feed him one
+night. He was held while a tube was passed through the back of his
+nose and so down his throat, but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page025" name="page025"></a>(p. 025)</span> no sooner was it down than
+the strength of fever, like that of a maniac, proved too strong for
+his nurses; they could no longer hold him. There was a horrible
+struggle, with choking coughs and dark blood flowing from his
+nostrils, and the brandy was spilt on his face and smarting in his
+eyes. He spent days dying, and more rapid and more feeble grew his
+pulse, and many times the nurse said there was none perceptible, and
+then the life would flicker up again. One morning early a bugle
+sounded outside. He said, "I am on outpost duty to-day; I must get up
+at once." He half lifted himself in the bed, repeating, "I tell you I
+am on outpost duty." The nurse pressed him back gently, and he died.
+He seemed to have no friends or relatives, no one who knew anything
+about him. There was a letter found in his pocket showing that he had
+a mother in a village in Ireland, and that he was her only son.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of our friend was a poor fellow unceasingly racked
+with pain either in head <span class="pagenum"><a id="page026" name="page026"></a>(p. 026)</span> or abdomen. His temperature was not
+extremely high, but he seemed to be falling away from the pain of the
+poisonous disease. His pulse was weak, and had to be kept going with
+constant stimulants. When in the ordinary course of things the disease
+should have passed he got a series of rigors and shivering fits about
+every third day, with a cold sweat. While the shivering was on him his
+temperature would drop to normal or lower, and then bound up to 103 or
+104. He had a terrible dread of these fits, and it was pitiful to see
+him watching their oncoming. Each one that came left him weaker as it
+passed off.</p>
+
+<p>We are coming back to England in a ship laden with the human wreckage
+of war&mdash;the wounded, the maimed, the sick, who to their graves will
+carry the maiming of their sickness. There are, amongst these men,
+those who will crawl about the world lop-sided, incomplete cripples,
+or those who will be perpetually victims to intermittent or chronic
+disease; but there is a worse than any of these <span class="pagenum"><a id="page027" name="page027"></a>(p. 027)</span> disasters to
+the victim. The man without a leg can get along with a crutch. We know
+one who lost both legs in Egypt who goes about on a little
+four-wheeled wooden cart, propelling himself with his hands, and
+haunts the precincts of a certain club, where the members, seeing the
+badge which he still wears in his cap, often give him enough to get
+drunk on. The man who loses his sight from the earth-scattering shell
+can at worst carry a label to tell that he was blinded in the war, and
+his charitable fellow-countrymen will give him enough to keep him
+enjoying life through the channels of the four other senses, and he
+will still admit that it is good to be alive. Blindness is bad, but
+war deals worse blows than in the eyes. It deals blows under which the
+reason itself staggers and is maimed. The lunatic asylum is worse than
+the hospital. We are carrying back nine men who have lost their reason
+at Magersfontein and other battles; two have been mercifully treated
+and have lost it completely&mdash;the padded cell must mean a certain
+unconsciousness; <span class="pagenum"><a id="page028" name="page028"></a>(p. 028)</span> but the greatest, deepest pity of which the
+human heart is capable is called forth by those who are maimed in
+mind. Long lucid intervals of perfect sanity give them time to learn
+the meaning of the locks and bars. "Yes, I know; I went off my head
+after Magersfontein," one poor fellow tells you; another repeatedly
+asks, "Will they put me into an asylum when I go home?" What a
+home-coming! Sure enough it is to the asylum they are going. They will
+be lost to what friends or relatives they have in that oblivion of a
+living grave. When their comrades return, not the faintest echo of the
+cheering will reach their cells. Men do not like to talk of madness;
+they will point with pride and pity to chums and comrades bearing
+honourable wounds, but these poor wretches will just disappear, lost
+in the great aftermath of war. We still have the expressions
+"frightened out of his senses" or "frightened out of his wits," and
+here are instances of its actually occurring, the strain on nerves
+being more than the brains <span class="pagenum"><a id="page029" name="page029"></a>(p. 029)</span> of these men could stand. Is it
+that their nervous organisation has become more highly strung and
+bears the strain less sturdily than in times past, or that there is
+for some minds a hidden terror in the sightless, invisible death that
+whistles over them as they lie belly-pressing the earth in the face of
+an unseeable foe? It is not inconceivable that this may have an effect
+like some horrible nightmare amid all the glare of daylight on some
+minds. The man is held there in terror by the worse terror of running
+away; a comrade on his right grows callous by waiting, and to relieve
+the wants of nature raises himself up and gets hit; the thirst of
+another overcomes him, and he runs to fill his water-bottle and falls;
+and all day long, through heat and hunger and thirst, he is held there
+in a vice of increasing terror, like a child left in the dark denied
+the language of a cry. It takes strong nerves to stand that strain, we
+all must admit who have any personal knowledge of what it means; and
+what a gathering up of the reins <span class="pagenum"><a id="page030" name="page030"></a>(p. 030)</span> of self-control we often
+experience! What wonder, then, that weak nerves cannot stand it, but
+sometimes break down under the strain? Such a collapse has a way of
+being regarded as the uttermost sign of abject cowardice, which by no
+means follows&mdash;nervous men are frequently the bravest of the brave.
+The refinement of modern shooting-irons seems to call for a certain
+corresponding refinement of courage&mdash;the cold, steel-like courage that
+can stand and wait, and win by the waiting of their stand.</p>
+
+<h3>III <span class="pagenum"><a id="page031" name="page031"></a>(p. 031)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>ELANDSLAAGTE</h5>
+
+<p>Up before daybreak, but still not early enough, as the Imperial Light
+Horse and a battery of Natal Artillery had already gone towards
+Elandslaagte, about sixteen miles from here, at three o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>It was bitterly cold when we started, and for a couple of hours of our
+journey. About half a mile beyond Modder's Spruit Station we met a man
+walking along the road in his socks, carrying a pair of heavy boots.
+He told us he had just escaped from the Boers, after having been, with
+thirty other miners, their prisoner since Thursday last. His feet were
+sore from running in the big boots, and he was nearly exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>The Boers had looted the stores, station, and mining office at
+Elandslaagte, and in addition <span class="pagenum"><a id="page032" name="page032"></a>(p. 032)</span> had looted a lot of luggage
+taken in the captured train. The evening before he had seen a drunken
+Boer strutting about dressed in a suit of evening clothes belonging to
+an English officer. There were a lot of low-class Boers amongst the
+eight hundred there who spent riotous evenings, getting drunk on the
+liquor found in the stores; but others of them seemed decent sort of
+farmers, and all the prisoners were very well treated by General Koch,
+and were allowed to go about on parole, being merely required to
+report themselves once a day.</p>
+
+<a id="img003" name="img003"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img003.jpg" width="400" height="553" alt="Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith." title="Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.">
+<p>Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We pushed on, and in the distance could hear the report of cannon. We
+soon discovered a little artillery duel in progress between the Natal
+battery and the Boer guns. The Natals were barking away pluckily, but
+quite ineffectually against their very superior opponents, who were
+making really excellent practice, and they struck an artillery waggon,
+blowing it to pieces, and missed the artillery train by barely twenty
+yards, a shell falling on either side of it. It was clear we could
+remain <span class="pagenum"><a id="page033" name="page033"></a>(p. 033)</span> here no longer, so the order was given to retire.
+The guns limbered up, leaving the shattered wreck of the waggon
+behind, and the trains commenced to move back slowly, keeping pace
+with the cavalry and artillery. The Boer guns kept firing until out of
+range, and then there was a desultory pitter-patter of rifle fire at a
+sufficient distance to be completely ineffectual.</p>
+
+<p>We retired back just behind Modder's Spruit Station and rested there.
+The sun had now broken through the clouds and poured down hot on the
+yellow veldt, where we were. A beautiful scene stretched away before
+us. The veldt was not all yellow, but in low-lying places, after the
+recent rain, was beginning to be streaked with vivid green. Opposite
+us, across the flat or gently undulating veldt in the middle distance,
+were hills and kopjes, while beyond, purple under clouds or light blue
+in sunshine, rose to the far horizon mountains, pointed, or of that
+quite flat-topped shape so characteristic of this country.</p>
+
+<p>No <span class="pagenum"><a id="page034" name="page034"></a>(p. 034)</span> one who has been through this day can ever forget the
+beautiful series of military tableaux, the gorgeous colouring, the
+constantly varying effects of light and shade, under clear, blue sky,
+or when piles of great white cumuli were passing, until, darkening
+with the progress of the fight, an unnatural gloom blackened the
+heavens, and from the inky clouds torrents of rain poured upon the
+combatants. The variety of colour, light, and shade was only equalled
+by the variety of the military movements during the day. A complete
+series of sketches or photographs would serve for illustrations for a
+handbook of modern tactics&mdash;the reconnaissance in force in the
+morning&mdash;engagement&mdash;orderly retreat carried out exactly according to
+book&mdash;march out of main body; advance of main body, cavalry on each
+flank, skirmishing outflanking movement on the right, etc., etc., on
+to the cavalry charging through and through retreating and beaten
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>At 11.20 two squadrons of cavalry and a battery of artillery arrive,
+and shortly after another <span class="pagenum"><a id="page035" name="page035"></a>(p. 035)</span> train full of troops is seen
+approaching in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>Chatting with Colonel Chisholme, of the Imperial Light Horse, I was
+chaffing him about calling them "light," pointing out a group of
+giants standing near him; but he agreed that their hearts were light,
+anyhow, whatever their weight might be. He had commenced his military
+career when eighteen in the 9th Lancers, and his Imperial Light Horse
+was embodied on the 9, 9, 99. He was telling how all the important
+dates of his life had a 9 in them, as Major Douglas Haig galloped up
+and told him we were going to start. I said, "All these nines clearly
+point to your living to ninety-nine." "Oh no," he laughed back,
+cheerily, "I don't wish to live to be as old as that." His wish was
+gratified.</p>
+
+<p>"Saddle," "Prepare to mount," "Mount." We were going forward again.</p>
+
+<p>At 1.30 we started, after just two hours' rest, in which the main body
+had come up, so that our entire force now consisted of the 5th
+Lancers, Imperial Light Horse, two field <span class="pagenum"><a id="page036" name="page036"></a>(p. 036)</span> batteries of Royal
+Artillery, the Devonshire Regiment, half a battalion of the
+Manchester, and half a battalion of the Gordon Highlanders. At 1.55
+fire opened from the tops of the line of ridges running parallel to
+the railway line, which were all lined with men. Some of the 5th
+Lancers have already gone off to the extreme right. At the foot of the
+first hill, from which firing proceeds, a squadron of the Border
+Mounted Rifles are dismounting, and now two lines of khaki figures are
+climbing steadily up the hill. Long before they reach the top the
+Boers are seen retiring. They have no idea of making a stand yet, and
+as the khaki figures reach the summit the Lancers, sweeping round from
+the extreme right flank, join them. During this time the Devons and
+Manchesters have been pouring out of the train, and are now crossing
+the veldt in dotted lines towards the ridge of hills.</p>
+
+<p>2.15.&mdash;Another train now appears, bringing further reinforcements.</p>
+
+<p>2.30.&mdash;Quite a hot fire now opens on the extreme <span class="pagenum"><a id="page037" name="page037"></a>(p. 037)</span> left, and
+in a few minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns
+pass us at a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at
+some Boers, who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber
+up and jump the railway line&mdash;a pretty stiff little obstacle&mdash;the
+narrow gauge metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a
+level field of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression,
+which is just behind a shouldering billow of veldt. It is hard work
+for the artillery horses over this ground, but it is fine the way they
+tug and strain at their work. The officers urge the men to hurry
+forward. Already a gun is heard from the Boers. They have opened fire.
+Two wheelers of an artillery waggon drop down, apparently dead, from
+exhaustion.</p>
+
+<p>I had just been watching their heavy sweating sides and foam-streaming
+mouths before they collapsed. Already two spare horses are being
+brought round to replace them as we hurry forward.</p>
+
+<p>Now, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page038" name="page038"></a>(p. 038)</span> all of a sudden, things become lively, and do not
+slacken again until the finish. No sooner have the first of the
+cavalry appeared than the Dutch guns open fire. R-r-r-r rip&mdash;a shell
+drops amongst the artillery and cavalry just ahead of us. The cavalry
+wheel and spread themselves into more open order none too soon, as now
+the shells come fast. The Boers have got the range exactly. Bang
+bursts a shell amongst the Imperial Light Horse near me. A shell
+bursts quite close, and a piece drops between Bennett Burleigh and me.
+The life, vigour, and swing of movement of these few minutes when we
+first came under fire was magnificent, the cavalry wheeling and
+circling, infantry deploying, the rattle of the artillery waggons, the
+cracking of the drivers' whips on the backs of the straining,
+struggling horses, the rending sound of the shells in the air like the
+tearing of a great canvas mainsail; the loud report when a shell
+exploded, or the dull thud when they simply buried themselves in the
+veldt.</p>
+
+<p>How <span class="pagenum"><a id="page039" name="page039"></a>(p. 039)</span> lucky for us so few of them exploded! There would have
+been terrible damage done, especially by the first few shots, when the
+cavalry and artillery were massed together. It was now for a while an
+artillery duel, but the Devons were quietly getting forward for the
+front attack. The cavalry had swung out on the extreme right flank,
+and the Manchesters and Gordons were going on to the ridge to take
+them on their right flank there, while the Devons went up the face.</p>
+
+<p>The Boers changed their artillery fire from time to time; first it was
+at our artillery and cavalry, then into the Devons as they advanced or
+as they lay down in the last field of veldt, waiting for the final
+charge; and then they sent a few shells into a body of cavalry that
+was on our extreme left. The very last shot they fired was a good one,
+just when the fight was over, right into our guns.</p>
+
+<p>I saw a little rocky point ahead of me, as if made on purpose for a
+war correspondent. By <span class="pagenum"><a id="page040" name="page040"></a>(p. 040)</span> running across some open ground I was
+on to it. There was good if not ample cover on the top. It was in the
+middle of the angle made by the line of advance of the men along the
+ridge and the line of the Devons' main advance, and quite close to the
+hill. Stretching away on our left over a level khaki-coloured sloping
+field (if I may so call it) of veldt, were the Devons lying behind
+ant-hills, placed as if on purpose to give scant but welcome shelter
+to troops advancing under fire. The colour-scheme of the whole stretch
+was perfect for concealment, and there was Tommy learning more of how
+to take advantage of scant cover in this half-hour, under the bitter
+pitter-patter of Mauser bullets, than he would learn at home in years
+of man&oelig;uvres.</p>
+
+<p>That was a trying wait for Mr. Atkins; yet how steadily he stood
+it&mdash;or not exactly stood it, but crouched it, lay it, or
+mother-earth-hugged it! On our right was the level sky-lined hill,
+ending in a rounded, precipitous point, on which the Boer guns were
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page041" name="page041"></a>(p. 041)</span> stationed. Under that heavy-hanging bank of clouds, yet just
+behind it, a clear steel-like light was showing. Against this, upon
+the top of the hill, silhouetted with most delicately accurate
+sharpness, were the figures of the Manchesters. The Gordons were in
+the same line over the rounded top of the hill. They advanced at a
+run, crouched, then swarmed forward again, and again lay low. Then the
+little runs became shorter, the rests longer, and the fire hotter and
+more continuous. Were they going to take that hill before complete
+nightfall, or was it going to be a two-day job, notwithstanding the
+five hours' hard fighting we had had already? A man near me said to
+me, "Do you hear the steam escaping? I expect it is the Boers letting
+it off from the colliery which they took on Thursday." It was the
+sound of steam, of escaping steam, right enough, but that sound was
+made by bullets. It went on continuously from the time the final
+infantry advance took place, and rose in a crescendo of hissing
+vehemence as we neared <span class="pagenum"><a id="page042" name="page042"></a>(p. 042)</span> the supreme climax of the struggle.
+How eagerly we watched these creeping figures going forward! Would
+they succeed? Would they ever reach the point of the hill? How slow it
+seemed, but steadily, steadily on along the ridge they went.</p>
+
+<p>Now all the great orchestra of battle was playing&mdash;from behind us on
+the right our artillery were firing at the hill in advance of the
+Manchesters and Gordons&mdash;in one minute that I timed with my watch I
+counted sixteen discharges. How the shells shrieked and whirled over
+us! I found myself somehow humming the "Ride of the Valkyrie," which
+these shells had suggested; then the Maxims would play a few bars, or
+a sharp volley ring from the left. The rocky kopje was vocal with
+rattling echoes, while with piccolo distinctness the air above and
+about us sang with the sharp Mauser notes.</p>
+
+<p>It was now a quarter to six. Rapid movements could be seen amongst the
+Boers on top of the hill; some were beginning to gallop off, over the
+sky line, but others galloped <span class="pagenum"><a id="page043" name="page043"></a>(p. 043)</span> in the opposite direction. Our
+artillery fire had now reached a nicety of deadly accuracy. They were
+firing impact shells. I had my glasses on one horseman who appeared to
+me to be firing from his saddle, and fighting stubbornly. There was no
+sign of running away about him. As I looked the figure became a little
+cloud of smoke&mdash;the smoke cleared&mdash;horse nor rider was any longer
+there. Chancing to look at another, who was darting about irregularly,
+as if confused and not knowing which way to fly, a fountain of smoke
+flew up in front of his horse as a shell burst. When the smoke cleared
+he and the horse were lying on the ground, and immediately after to a
+third exactly the same thing happened.</p>
+
+<p>The crescendo of battle had now reached a climax in a perfect roar of
+sound. The bugles sounded the charge. God bless the man that wrote
+these heart-cheering notes. Forward&mdash;rattling, stumbling, falling over
+the rocks, cheering, swearing, forward anyhow&mdash;formation be hanged!</p>
+
+<p>How <span class="pagenum"><a id="page044" name="page044"></a>(p. 044)</span> the Devons climbed these rocks! Following in the right of
+the Devons' wake, passing their wounded across that slopy field of
+veldt, and the flat to the base of the hill, it was a sweating,
+breathless climb up; the men were already cheering on the top above my
+head. The first sign of mortality on the Boer side I encountered was a
+hairy little black pig lying on his side bleeding proverbially&mdash;then a
+tall Boer lying headlong down the rocks. On the top&mdash;what confusion!
+Tommy, drunk with delight of battle. Prisoners, wounded, Gordons,
+Manchesters, Devons&mdash;all mixed inexplicably. A Boer gun still in
+position was a centre for gathering. In another place the ground was
+strewn with rugs, broken provisions, empty and half-empty bottles,
+saddles galore.</p>
+
+<p>"'Av a 'oss, guv'nor, 'av a 'oss?" said a dirty-faced, sweaty, but
+generous Tommy to me, as he led a black Boer steed by the bridle. Not
+liking to take his capture from him, I went off to where he told me
+several were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page045" name="page045"></a>(p. 045)</span> standing, and picked out a likely-looking grey.
+Darkness was now rapidly falling. A Tommy came up and led off another
+horse.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm taking this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on
+well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but
+I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He
+went off in the darkness, towing the present by the bridle.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment very few officers were at this point of the hill; the
+Gordons, for instance, had lost thirteen. I came then upon General
+French, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line with the
+Manchesters and Gordons, and was glad to have so early a chance of
+offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I
+had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he
+appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of
+war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the
+light <span class="pagenum"><a id="page046" name="page046"></a>(p. 046)</span> when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer
+shells bursting amongst the Imperial Light Horse near us.</p>
+
+<p>General French is deservedly very popular with officers, men,
+correspondents, and all who meet him, and we were all glad at the
+brilliant ending of this hard-fought day.</p>
+
+<p>The 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards were now pursuing the
+retreating Boers. The Dragoons carried lances, which may account for
+the credit which was equally due to them with the Lancers being unduly
+given to the latter. Another hour or half-hour of light and they would
+have played the very mischief with the retreating Boers. The Dragoons
+chased them past a Red Cross tent, where a man was waving a Red Cross
+flag. They respected those gathered about the tent; but one ruffian,
+waiting until they came abreast, shot point-blank at a private. As he
+fell dead from the saddle Captain Derbyshire rode at his slayer and
+shot him dead with his revolver. A big Dragoon would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page047" name="page047"></a>(p. 047)</span> put his
+foot to the back of a Boer and tug to get his lance out. Some of the
+Boers stood firing till the cavalry came within twenty yards. The
+ground was broken veldt with patches of outcropping stones, which,
+added to the fading light, made it terrible ground for charging over.
+Already Tommy on top of the hill and down its sides was groping for
+the wounded. Tommy had behaved magnificently throughout the long
+fight, and now Tommy was finishing the day by behaving well to the
+Boer wounded. A rug here and a drink there, and later on the best
+place near the camp fire. In the previous five hours, Tommy's respect
+for the enemy had risen enormously; now he was treating his wounded
+with a rough but genuine kindness positively chivalrous. One might
+write for days upon the incidents of this glorious day, into which the
+events of a stirring lifetime seem crowded. Our artillery got a good
+chance, and showed up magnificently. The dauntless bravery of English
+officers we seem to take for granted as <span class="pagenum"><a id="page048" name="page048"></a>(p. 048)</span> a national heritage;
+but in something stronger than admiration&mdash;in positive love&mdash;my heart
+goes out to Tommy Atkins&mdash;sweating, swearing, grimy, dirty, fearless,
+and generous&mdash;Tommy is a bit of "all right."</p>
+
+<a id="img004" name="img004"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img004.jpg" width="500" height="334" alt="Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte." title="Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte.">
+<p>Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>IV <span class="pagenum"><a id="page049" name="page049"></a>(p. 049)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>A GLIMPSE OF OUR GUNNERS</h5>
+
+<p>Go with the gunners if you want stirring scenes of modern war. You
+will not, as so often happens when one goes with an infantry regiment,
+spend a day lying on your belly in the scorching sun, while the air is
+vocal above you with the singing of bullets from an invisible foe,
+whose position is vaguely located on some quiet and deserted-looking
+kopje in front. Go with the gunners, and every time you go you will
+come back with an increased admiration for them. It is impossible to
+tell the result of rifle or even Maxim fire unless, as at Omdurman,
+the enemy stand up to be massacred; but with the guns you can at least
+see where the shells fall or the shrapnel burst. For this reason the
+Vickers-Maxim automatic&mdash;or <span class="pagenum"><a id="page050" name="page050"></a>(p. 050)</span> pom-pom, as it was christened at
+Ladysmith&mdash;must be a most delightfully interesting weapon to the
+gunner who operates it. Each little shell on impact throws up a small
+fountain of smoke as it explodes, so that he sees at once if his fire
+is short or too high, and gets his range immediately; then he can
+follow cavalry about and tickle them up, or play around a patch of
+veldt where he knows the enemy are lying, just as a gardener would
+sprinkle with a watering-pot. It is a most demoralising weapon, but
+the explosion is so small that it does much less harm than would be
+expected.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take a typical day with the gunners. Photographs or
+cinematographs are entirely unsatisfactory in giving any idea of the
+"movement" of a battery going into action. There is the rattle of the
+gun-carriages, like a running accompaniment of rifle fire; the jingle
+of the harness; the splendid, strenuous, willing pull of the horses
+straining against their collars. They know all about it, these
+bright-eyed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page051" name="page051"></a>(p. 051)</span> beasts quivering with life and work, and want no
+whip or spur until the work of tugging over the broken ground under a
+sweltering sun staggers them under the strain.</p>
+
+<p>There could not have been a more beautiful day than that of
+Elandslaagte for watching the gunners in action. Before the main part
+of the action was entered on, two batteries were ordered to reply to
+some fire coming from the left of our line of advance. They went
+forward at the gallop, bounding, jolting, and swaying over the uneven
+veldt, and, on a slight rise of ground showing out against the deep
+blue background of some hills, unlimbered and opened fire. A few
+horsemen were seen galloping over the ridge of a hill in front, and
+that was all. Then they limbered up and were ordered across to our
+right; a low but steep little embankment of the narrow-gauge railway
+was in front of them. It was a pretty sight to see them negotiating
+this obstacle&mdash;the jolting of the springless wheels up and down the
+stony sides <span class="pagenum"><a id="page052" name="page052"></a>(p. 052)</span> and across the rails on top ought to have been
+enough to shake the teeth out of the men sitting on the limbers, and
+gripping hard to keep their seats. By the way, how loudly the nether
+part of a gunner's anatomy must sometimes cry out for a cushion!</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had they got clear of this jump than the Boer guns opened
+and began to make excellent practice. How every gunner felt longing to
+reply and silence them! Bang, burst, or spinning with whizzing hops,
+the shells came dropping in rapid succession. The Boers had been
+careful to get the exact range the previous day, and were not now
+wasting time or ammunition. Our guns had to go up a sloping depression
+at right angles to the Boer fire before getting into a position for
+opening. Every instant was of value, as the Boer shells were now
+dropping amongst the Imperial Light Horse and the infantry, who were
+just beginning to deploy. Under whip and spur they galloped up the
+slope&mdash;Gad! it was a sight to see how these artillery horses pulled;
+there was no taxpayers' money wasted <span class="pagenum"><a id="page053" name="page053"></a>(p. 053)</span> there. One drops down,
+and the sharpness with which he is replaced by one of the spare horses
+would have drawn ringing rounds of applause at an Islington
+tournament. They take up a position at the top of the rising ground,
+monopolising the attention of the Boer gunners as they unlimber.</p>
+
+<p>The gunners jump from their seats sharp as sailors, unhook the
+limbers, leaving the guns pointed towards the enemy. Then the drivers
+trot off about fifteen yards, wheel round, and sit motionless on their
+horses, facing the fire. One cannot but admire the courage required to
+sit coolly like that with nothing to do but watch the enemy firing
+deliberately at them&mdash;see the discharge, and then await the arrival of
+the shell as it comes whirring and hurtling through the air. With what
+critical interest they must watch improvement in the enemy's
+shell-bowling! One was forcibly reminded of cricket bowling at
+Elandslaagte. Many of the shells did not burst, and those that were
+not full-pitched came in the manner of swift bowling along the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page054" name="page054"></a>(p. 054)</span> rounded, almost flat-topped surface of the rising ground; and
+these gunners sat as steady as if they were the wickets just stuck in
+the ground, with never a duck of the head or a blink of the eye. The
+men working the guns are kept busy all the time, and have no time to
+think of or watch the enemy's shells; but the drivers have nothing to
+do but wait and watch. The horses, with still heaving foam-streaked
+sides, stand panting and tossing their heads. The Boers have got the
+position of our batteries accurately, as it must have been previously
+obvious that it was the one we would have taken up. Three of the
+gunners have already been badly hit; immediately after, with a
+terrific crash, a shell hits an ammunition-waggon fair. Those around
+hold their breath for a still greater explosion, but, wonderful to
+say, the ammunition does not explode. When the dust has cleared,
+however, the wheel of the waggon is found smashed to matchwood, and
+the vehicle lies helpless and useless on its side. But still steady
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page055" name="page055"></a>(p. 055)</span> as rocks sit the drivers facing the music. This is
+courage&mdash;the real article&mdash;and the market price of this kind of
+British pluck is one and twopence a day!</p>
+
+<p>Three days later I was photographing these boys behind their guns on
+the hill at Rietfontein, standing just as quietly under a hot rifle
+fire at 1200 yards' range, which the enemy kept up persistently,
+although we had silenced their guns and actually set fire to a long
+line of grass on the hill from which they were firing. An innocent,
+harmless-looking hill it seemed, with not a Boer visible on it, yet
+the bright summer air simply sang with the notes of Mauser
+bullets&mdash;clear and musical notes when they pass high overhead, but
+with a sharp and bitter ping when they pass close.</p>
+
+<p>But the best sight of all is to see our gunners going out of action.
+They go in at a gallop, and retire at a walk. There is something so
+delightfully contemptuous of the enemy's marksmanship in this. One day
+outside Ladysmith was typical. A couple <span class="pagenum"><a id="page056" name="page056"></a>(p. 056)</span> of batteries went
+out with some cavalry for a small reconnaissance in force, located the
+Boer gun, and quickly drove the gunners to cover. The vultures had
+gathered as usual at the sound of their dinner-gong, but there was no
+fight, and soon the guns limbered up, and turned back across the
+plain. Immediately the Boer gunners were back at their gun, and,
+serving it with wonderful rapidity, sent shell after shell at our
+retiring batteries. The first was just short, then the two next went
+over; but on they went quietly, never breaking out of the walk. Then a
+shell fell between a gun and a limber, and did not burst. The great
+vultures wheeled and circled lower, waving their shadows below them on
+the parched plain; but there was no dinner for them that day&mdash;not even
+a horse was hit. And so always, when these field guns stop barking and
+limber up, it reminds one of pulling a dog out of a fight by the tail
+as they are dragged slowly, as if reluctantly, away; while the drivers
+don't bother to look round, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page057" name="page057"></a>(p. 057)</span> don't look a bit like heroes
+full of courage at the magnificent price of one and twopence a day.</p>
+
+<p>Rattle of iron on stones&mdash;clear, sharp words of command&mdash;clink of
+breech action&mdash;coldness of iron will warming the steel throat that
+voices its thoughts&mdash;hard, scientific, inhumanly mechanical; yet there
+is a subtle, attractive feeling that draws together the living
+elements that serve the gun. I barely escaped being knocked down one
+day by an artillery horse galloping furiously over the veldt. He had
+got badly torn by a shell; wild with the pain, he raced around until
+exhausted, and then, managing to stagger up to a gun, fell dead, with
+his head against the trail.</p>
+
+<h3>V <span class="pagenum"><a id="page058" name="page058"></a>(p. 058)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>IN THE TENTS OF THE BOERS</h5>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon of a day in the early part of last December I
+had ridden out from our lines in Ladysmith towards a certain position
+usually occupied by a Boer outpost, trusting by my going out
+deliberately and unarmed to get one of the men there to have a talk,
+just as one of the Lancers had a few days previously. For some time we
+had been on short rations of "copy" as well as food. I rode along the
+edge of an empty spruit, into the bed of which my spurs would have
+propelled my horse in the unlikely event of a shot being my first
+greeting. The spot where I expected to see the outpost was where the
+veldt, from being bare, commenced to be thickly covered with mimosa
+trees; but there <span class="pagenum"><a id="page059" name="page059"></a>(p. 059)</span> was no one there&mdash;no living thing, except a
+little springbuck that started up as I arrived, bounding away over the
+long tufted grass, its little white rump showing like the flutter of a
+girl's petticoat. It stopped and, turning its pretty head, regarded me
+with great brown frightened eyes, as if I were the first human
+apparition to invade its sylvan solitude. It was clear there were no
+Boers immediately about; equally clear that this was a great chance
+unexpectedly offered of having a try to get south to Clery's or
+Buller's force, and be the first white man to bring the news from
+Ladysmith out of the beleaguered town. I was already started on the
+shortest route to the Tugela. I went on, and for about a mile no sign
+whatever of the enemy, and I thought of the theory more than once put
+forward that we were all the time being besieged by a ridiculously
+small but extremely mobile force. It was not until I was well in
+between Bulwana and Lombard's Kop that I caught sight between the
+trees of a laager of miscellaneous <span class="pagenum"><a id="page060" name="page060"></a>(p. 060)</span> tents on the lower slope
+of the latter. Dismounting and going cautiously, I passed it and
+passed a man cutting wood, who was fortunately too industriously
+intent on his work to notice me. Bearing to the right, I was soon
+south of Bulwana and past the Boer lines. The rest would be
+comparatively easy, as an open stretch of country lay before me, where
+darkness would soon give me cover now that I had reached the edge of
+the trees. While waiting, I heard a voice behind me shout something in
+Dutch. Looking round, I found a Boer covering me with his rifle at ten
+yards, and the dream of a journalistic "beat," as they call it in
+America, vanished as he escorted me to his field cornet's camp. After
+some questioning by the field cornet, they gave me supper of meat,
+bread, and coffee&mdash;the bread arrived down every morning by train from
+Dundee, where it was baked by a Frenchman at what a short time ago had
+been our bakery. Then, as we sat round the big tent smoking, I
+gradually learned from them the first news of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page061" name="page061"></a>(p. 061)</span> the outer
+world and the war, after being five weeks cut off in Ladysmith. As a
+running commentary on the news, we drifted into a series of
+discussions on the conduct of the war, and the observance of the
+usages of war by both armies. <i>Audi alteram partem</i>, and here I was
+hearing it with a vengeance. Two-thirds of them spoke English, as
+nearly all in this laager were from Heidelberg. They had about five
+charges against us of unfair fighting, and there was not the slightest
+doubt of their complete conviction that each of these charges was well
+founded and true. The worst of it was that in every instance they had
+some circumstance, the result of mistake, misconception, or individual
+wrongdoing, on which to raise a formidable superstructure of
+generalised accusation. "We fired on the Red Cross"&mdash;they instanced
+Elandslaagte and the battle of Nicholson's Nek; in both instances
+their waggons were behind kopjes that our gunners could not possibly
+see through. I threw them back their similar offences&mdash;the afternoon
+of Nicholson's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page062" name="page062"></a>(p. 062)</span> Nek and their firing on the Town Hall
+hospital at Ladysmith. In the first instance, they said our waggons
+were too far off to be distinguished, which I knew was the case; and
+as regards the second, they argued that we had no right to continue to
+fly the Red Cross over the Town Hall when they had given us a neutral
+hospital camp outside at Intombi. Then had we not a right to fly a Red
+Cross over our sick and wounded while they had to wait for the next
+morning's train to bring them out to hospital? I urged. "No; put them
+in your holes underground," was the reply. We drifted into a
+discussion about dum-dum bullets, which they claimed to have found in
+our abandoned camp at Dundee, and, from seeing our doolies bearers,
+had fully made up their minds that we were using Indian troops against
+them. I then let them have it straight about their misuse of the white
+flag, which they denied.</p>
+
+<a id="img005" name="img005"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img005.jpg" width="500" height="319" alt="Advance Of The Devons Before The Attack At
+Elandslaagte." title="Advance Of The Devons Before The Attack At Elandslaagte.">
+<p>Advance Of The Devons Before The Attack At Elandslaagte.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Every pause in our talk was filled by the sound of deep, loud chanting
+coming from a tent hard by. Presently I went out to see them <span class="pagenum"><a id="page063" name="page063"></a>(p. 063)</span>
+at their evening service. A big tent was full of men squatting around,
+the short twilight was fast darkening into night outside, and the
+interior of the tent was lit by two candles stuck in the necks of
+bottles. Except a couple of old men, they were all in the prime of
+life, and a splendidly strong-looking set of fellows they were. They
+sang, without any drawl or nasal intonation, straight out from their
+deep chests. The chant rose and fell with a swinging solemnity. There
+was little of pleading or supplication in its tones; they were calling
+on the God of Battles; the God of the Old Testament rather than the
+Preacher of the Sermon on the Mount was He to whom they sang; and
+sometimes there was a strain of almost stern demand about it that gave
+it more the ring of a war-song than a prayer. Entering the door of
+that tent seemed like going into another century. It could not be but
+luminously evident to the onlooker that these men were calling on an
+unseen Power whose actual existence was as real to their minds
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page064" name="page064"></a>(p. 064)</span> as that of their Mauser rifles stacked around the tent-pole.
+One could not help contrasting this obvious sincerity with the
+perfunctory church parade on our side, and this religion with that of
+two-thirds or three-fourths of our army of careless agnostics. Barring
+a very small minority, principally Irishmen, there is no place for
+religion in Tommy's intellectual kit. It has just degenerated into
+being an old magazine from which he draws his swear-words&mdash;a sort of
+bandolier of blasphemy. It was hot in that tent, and the sweat made
+the foreheads of these deep-voiced choristers shine against the dark
+shadows cast behind them on the canvas. It was curious to notice how
+the knees and elbows of their clothes showed signs of wear from their
+favourite shooting attitude, and there were many with buttons missing
+from their waistcoats that had been scraped off by the stones on the
+kopjes, or with buttons of different patterns that had evidently been
+sewn on by the wearers in place of those worn off. All the Boers
+appear <span class="pagenum"><a id="page065" name="page065"></a>(p. 065)</span> to give up shaving when on the warpath, which adds
+to the wild picturesqueness of their appearance. I found the hymns
+they were singing were old Dutch ones. "We keep this up every night in
+camp," one of them said to me, "just the same as at home." When they
+had finished, they all lit their pipes, and then I was put through a
+catechism, which was the same at every camp or with every group of
+Boers I met for the next week. "What did I think of the Boers?" "Did I
+not expect to meet a lot of savages?" "Was I not surprised to hear
+them speaking English?" And then they were everywhere keen to learn if
+we appreciated the way our prisoners were being treated in Pretoria,
+and equally curious to know our opinion of how they were fighting. As
+I thought the siege of Ladysmith, since they would not assault, had
+become dolorously monotonous, I suggested, so that things might be
+enlivened a bit, that a race meeting or a football match might be got
+up between teams from each army on <span class="pagenum"><a id="page066" name="page066"></a>(p. 066)</span> the neutral ground at
+Intombi. The younger men received the idea of a football match with
+acclamation. "Ya, goot," said a young giant beside me, rubbing his big
+hands enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest football match that
+ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his left hand in a sling,
+bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed: "No; the only game we
+like to play now is the one with cannon-balls." No; these dour, stolid
+men take their fighting sadly and sternly; there is none of the
+"frolic welcome" with which our Irish Tommies, for instance, enjoy
+their fighting or endure the waiting for it. When I was a prisoner in
+Pretoria they used to keep us awake at night with fireworks after news
+such as that of Colenso and Magersfontein, but, except amongst the
+young boys, they were not given to exultation over what they had done
+or to any boasting. Then they talked about lyddite, and it was quite
+clear that it had been a terrible bogy in their minds, and that they
+had imagined it was to have <span class="pagenum"><a id="page067" name="page067"></a>(p. 067)</span> an effect like throwing
+earthquakes at them, and it was equally evident that the result of
+actual experience had fallen short of their apprehensions.</p>
+
+<p>We went out from the stuffy hot tent into the clear sharp air of a
+starlight night on the hills, and from a lighted tent, high above us
+on the slope of Lombard's Kop, came the chant of a psalm taken up by
+many voices outside. "Let God arise, and let His enemies be
+scattered," they sang, like Cromwell's soldiers at Dunbar. As I laid
+down in the field cornet's tent, with his son, a boy of fifteen, at
+one side of me, and a man over sixty on the other, I could not help
+thinking of the great tragedy of all that was yet before these people
+when they would begin to realise that they called in vain on their
+God, that they had no monopoly of the Almighty, that the God of their
+fathers fights no longer on the side of the Boers, but on that of the
+big battalions. This will be the desolation of downfall.</p>
+
+<h3>VI <span class="pagenum"><a id="page068" name="page068"></a>(p. 068)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE FELLOW THAT FELT AFRAID</h5>
+
+<p>He was just a common or garden ordinary sort of chap. He was lying on
+hot, pointed, uncomfortable stones through which long tufts of coarse
+grass protruded. Drops of sweat were trickling down his face, and his
+hands left wet marks where they came into contact with the stock or
+barrel of his rifle. With elbows, with chest, with stomach, with legs,
+he was trying to press hard against the ground. It is a curious
+feeling, that lying down and trying to press against the ground. He
+wished to reduce himself to the substance of a postage-stamp. This was
+the day of his first fight, but since he had got up everything was
+unaccountably unlike his expectation. The reveille had sounded in
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page069" name="page069"></a>(p. 069)</span> the dark at three o'clock in the morning. It was bitterly
+cold outside the tents, and his hands trembled as he fumbled with his
+putties. He had had a hard struggle to turn out from under that warm
+rug where he had been dreaming the real soldier's dream. Detaille's
+picture is all rot&mdash;the soldier's dream is not the picture of
+victorious battalions with banners flying, marching through the
+clouds. He had been dreaming of tripe and onions. Visions of past good
+meals in comfortable quarters washed down with deep cooling draughts
+of bitter floated in procession through sizzling clouds of vapour
+smelling of invisible kitchens. As he fumbled with his putties the
+rumble of waggons came out of darkness from a road hard by, mingled
+with the sharper rattle that tells of the gunners already on the move.
+The vague rumours of last night, he felt, were going to shape into the
+actuality of fight; but what an hour to go out fighting! Why should
+they be hauled out to fight in the dark? Why could not men wait for
+light? <span class="pagenum"><a id="page070" name="page070"></a>(p. 070)</span> Wait until the world was aired? He was thirsty and
+uncomfortable, with the taste of stale tobacco in his mouth, and
+joined in the variegated imprecations muttered by the men when he
+found there would be only a few minutes to get anything to eat and no
+time for hot coffee. Presently he is a unit in a long snake-like
+column of men that winds along the road through the dark into the
+unknown. As he plods on he speculates how the fight will start.
+Perhaps the kopjes on either side of the road may be already full of
+Boers. Perhaps the beginning of the fight will be to find that they
+have marched into another ambush. It was a nasty uncomfortable
+feeling, that tramping through the darkness into the unknown. He felt
+better as the light spread from the eastern hills, and felt
+companionship and security in being part and parcel of that great mass
+of men that extended before and behind him on the road as far as he
+could see. Suddenly there is the boom of a gun, and he comes into
+collision with the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page071" name="page071"></a>(p. 071)</span> man in front of him, who has stopped dead
+at the sound. A strange tingling feeling goes up his spine. There is a
+hush! No one speaks. The whole essence of vitality strains to listen.
+A faint whir crescendoes rapidly into the shrill whoop of a
+steam-siren, and a great balloon-shaped cloud of smoke and dust has
+already arisen from amidst the marching mass of men ahead. There is no
+sign whence came the shot. Nothing can be more peaceful-looking than
+the shoulders of these hills lying bathed in the quiet morning light.
+There is no sign of an enemy. Sharp words of command ring out while
+the cloud of smoke and dust is still hanging in the air, and in a
+dazed and mechanical way he finds himself deploying over the ground,
+which shakes with the gallop of cavalry as they spread out fan-like on
+either side of the road. The artillery rattle and jolt over the
+stones, and the limbers toss like little punts towed through a choppy
+sea. His company advances in extended order across the stony ground
+tufted <span class="pagenum"><a id="page072" name="page072"></a>(p. 072)</span> with grass, and are ordered to lie down. The captain
+says, "Any men who have got anything to eat, let them eat it now." He
+has a piece of bread in his haversack, but feels no inclination to eat
+that dry and crumby stuff; but he is thirsty, and takes a long and
+deep pull at his water-bottle. The sun has already become very hot.
+The artillery has already got into action on the left, and is engaged
+in a duel with the Boer gunners. The minutes of waiting seem hours to
+him. Then all the men watch with keen interest an officer with a
+red-banded German cap galloping towards them. The result of his
+arrival is an order for them to advance up the gradual slope of this
+rounded hill. Just as he starts there is a light keen whistle in the
+air overhead like the call of a bird, then another and another.
+Instinctively he feels that these are made by bullets flying overhead.
+As he goes on an occasional one rings with a sharp bitterness in its
+tone, and he ducks his head as one might duck to the swish of a
+riding-whip near the face. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page073" name="page073"></a>(p. 073)</span> They go with knees and backs
+bent, and he longs for the order to halt and lie down again. A fellow
+drops out alongside of him, but he does not look to see what has
+happened&mdash;he is afraid to look. Just when they have reached the crest
+of the hill, and when the whistling sounds have become more plentiful
+than ever, they are ordered to lie down again. Looking through the
+streaky stems of grass immediately in front of him, he can see a
+similarly shaped hill about 1200 yards away. It looks absolutely
+deserted. Nothing moves upon the skyline. Little puffs of smoke
+momentarily appear above it, which he knows are caused by the bursting
+of our shrapnel. He begins to feel he is really in the fight, but it
+is just altogether opposite to what he expects. It is commonplace and
+disappointing to a degree. He sees the gunners busy on the left, the
+horses standing behind them as if all the whistling sounds are only a
+rain-shower. There is a small stone in front of him, just half the
+size of his helmet. He knows <span class="pagenum"><a id="page074" name="page074"></a>(p. 074)</span> it is not half big enough to
+cover him. All his preconceived ideas of a fight are crumbling away.
+Here they are being led out to lie on the grass to be potted at, and
+not allowed to reply. But then, as he looks at the opposite hill, he
+sees nothing to fire at. A group of red-capped officers walk their
+horses along the line left behind them. He recognises the General in
+command. They stop, and one of the General's aides-de-camp dismounts
+and opens a paper parcel, from which the General takes a sandwich and
+bites a big semicircular piece out of it. He finds it hard to realise
+that this is a battle and that this is the General commanding. In all
+pictures of battles that he has seen from his youth upwards the
+General is seated on a horse poised on two legs, and waving a sword or
+pointing with a marshal's bâton. And here is a General with a sandwich
+with a big bite out of it, who points with the sandwich-hand instead.
+And then he begins to wonder, with all this multitudinous whistling,
+that nobody seems to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page075" name="page075"></a>(p. 075)</span> be hit. Then the order is given to
+advance again. He feels a tremendous disinclination to leave the
+stone, and waits to see the other men around him get up. They all get
+up except the fellow on his right. Reaching over with his rifle, he
+pokes him in the ribs. He then hits him on the shoulder with it.
+Thinking he is asleep, he tips off his helmet from behind. His eyes
+are quite open; and then, like a douche of cold water, comes the
+consciousness that this man is dead. A feeling to get away from that
+corpse more than any other brings him amongst his comrades a few yards
+in advance, who are already firing and lying flat. He keeps blazing
+away mechanically at the innocent-looking hill opposite. His rifle is
+hot in his moist hands. An order to "cease fire" is given, and then
+there is another long interval of waiting. The whole business seems
+waiting. It isn't a bit like a proper sort of fight. There is nobody
+to fight; but still the bird-like notes are in the air above, and
+bitter little sounds against stones, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page076" name="page076"></a>(p. 076)</span> and tiny little
+fountains of dust spurt from the ground around. And then a great
+feeling comes to him that he would like to be out of it all. There is
+no glory in it. The sun is hotter than he ever felt it before. His
+water-bottle is finished, and his mouth is clammy. A young subaltern
+with an eye-glass, no end of a toff, walks along the front of the
+line, and he watches with interested delight microscopic ducklets of
+his head, synchronising with whistles. Just as the toff is opposite
+him, he spins round suddenly, exclaiming, "By Jove!" and falls down
+like a sack of potatoes all of a heap. He begins to feel a strange
+sickness in the stomach, just the same as coming out on the transport.
+He feels it coming on. He knows he is going to be sick, and as he is
+going to be sick he wants to go away. There is no use in a sick man
+remaining in the fighting line. But then he feels as if he were held
+down there by the weight of the whirring air. There is no room in it
+for him to get up safely. There is no room to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page077" name="page077"></a>(p. 077)</span> go away.
+Momentarily the noises increase. Men are firing about him, and he
+strains his eyes on the opposite hill to see something to shoot at,
+and empties his magazine at what looks like a man but may be a
+tree-trunk, and then stops again and gets sick. Another long period of
+waiting follows. All the water is gone from his water-bottle; an
+intolerable thirst is scorching his throat. He does not reload his
+magazine, and makes up his mind to say that his rifle is jammed, so
+that he need not go further with any fresh stupid advance that may be
+ordered. This is no time to care about what any one may think of him,
+it is just too awful for anything.</p>
+
+<p>The ground has ceased trembling with the cavalry, who have dashed to
+the front. There is no longer any whizzing in the air. The "cease
+fire" is already sounding right along the line. The man who was afraid
+stands up with his comrades, who are already on their legs. The old
+Colonel trots along the line, mopping his red face with his
+handkerchief. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page078" name="page078"></a>(p. 078)</span> "That was a hot business," he says to his
+Captain, and calls cheerily to us, "Well done, C Company! You are
+damned steady boys under as hot fire as I have ever seen." The man who
+was afraid opens his shoulders and pulls out the collar of his tunic
+and stoops down to wipe off the cakes of dirty earth that are sticking
+to his knees.</p>
+
+<h3>VII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page079" name="page079"></a>(p. 079)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE DANCE OF DEATH IN CHINA</h5>
+
+<p class="poem20">
+<span class="add8em">"A wind of blight</span><br>
+  From the mysterious far North-west we came,<br>
+  Our greatness now their veriest babes have learned."</p>
+
+<a id="img006" name="img006"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img006.jpg" width="500" height="361" alt="George Lynch Captured By The Boers." title="George Lynch Captured By The Boers.">
+<p>George Lynch Captured By The Boers.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was the day after Tung-Chow had been occupied by the Allies. I was
+riding along a sunken road between the city wall and some high ground
+on which houses were built. There was a sheer drop of considerable
+height between the walls of the houses and the stony road below. The
+shouts of Russians mingling with screams could be heard proceeding
+from the houses. At the base of the cliff two Chinese girls were
+lying. Their legs were bundled under them in a way that showed they
+had jumped from the height above. From their richly embroidered
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page080" name="page080"></a>(p. 080)</span> silken tunics and trousers, their elaborate coiffure, and
+their compressed feet, they were evidently ladies. They were moaning
+piteously, and one of them appeared to be on the point of death. Their
+legs or hips had apparently been broken, or dislocated, by their jump.
+As I went towards them, the one who appeared least injured shrank from
+me with an expression of loathing and horror until I offered her a
+drink out of my water-bottle. Her delicate, childish little hand
+trembled violently on mine as she drank eagerly from it. The other was
+almost too far gone to swallow. The hoarse cries of the soldiers,
+mingled occasionally with a sobbing scream, came from the houses
+above, telling what they had tried so desperately to escape from. They
+lay there helpless, evidently in excruciating pain, under a brazen sun
+that beat down on the deserted dusty road. There was no one within
+reach to come to their assistance. And there was nothing for it but to
+leave them there, as many under similar circumstances had had to
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page081" name="page081"></a>(p. 081)</span> be left during our previous march of several days. This scene
+was typical rather than singular. In a large number of Chinese houses
+in the villages we passed through on our way up, at Tung-Chow, and in
+Pekin itself, it was no unusual sight to see an entire family lying
+dead side by side on the Kang, where they had suffocated themselves,
+or to see them suspended from the rafters of their houses, where they
+had committed suicide by hanging.</p>
+
+<p>In the burden of corpses which the river Pei-ho carried downwards from
+Pekin towards the sea were to be seen the bodies of many Chinese girls
+and women. One day I myself counted five. There is no question
+whatever that they had committed suicide. And close to Tung-Chow girls
+were actually seen walking into the shallow water and deliberately
+holding their heads under the surface till they were drowned. Such a
+tale seems very terrible. But to any one who had the opportunity of
+judging of the conduct of portions of the Allied troops it was not in
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page082" name="page082"></a>(p. 082)</span> least surprising. Under similar circumstances our
+sisters and wives would have done likewise.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians and French carried off the palm for outrages on women
+during the original march, and subsequently the Germans similarly
+distinguished themselves. This was more particularly the case with
+small bodies of men who were detached from the main force. In a
+village on the way to Paoting-fu, for instance, through which a body
+of Germans had just passed, three girls were taken by our troops out
+of a well, into which they had been thrown before the Germans left.
+They were still alive. This method of disposing of their victims was
+frequently adopted by the soldiers as the safest way of hiding their
+misdeeds and escaping the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>News travels fast in China, and in advance of our march the people
+seemed to be thoroughly aware of the fate that probably awaited them.
+Although nearly the whole population cleared off before our advance,
+there <span class="pagenum"><a id="page083" name="page083"></a>(p. 083)</span> were many, especially women, who could not get away,
+and who were unable to travel with their tiny compressed feet except
+in carts or on the backs of their servants. And it was principally
+these who finally, in the last extremity, committed suicide.</p>
+
+<p>As the Chinese have agreed to erect a monument to Baron von Ketteler
+in Pekin in commemorative apology for his murder, it appears to me
+that there is an opportunity for the Allies to erect one also. It
+might be of pure white jade, which the Chinese women love, which in
+its translucent depths seems to hold the bright Eastern sunlight with
+the detaining lingerage of a caress, and might bear an inscription
+saying that it was erected in honour of the memory of the women and
+girls of the province of Pechili who had sacrificed their lives to
+save their honour.</p>
+
+<p>All the way from the sea to Pekin, and for miles around Pekin itself,
+the whole country was deserted by the inhabitants. A wave of fear and
+horror preceded the advent of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page084" name="page084"></a>(p. 084)</span> the Allies to such an extent
+that hundreds of miles of what was the most thickly populated part of
+China was absolutely deserted. After the relief of the Legations, the
+people who ventured timorously to return were inspired with fresh fear
+owing to the conduct of the Germans, who made up for being late for
+the original expedition by availing themselves of every possible
+opportunity of starting punitive expeditions on any possible pretence.
+Coming at the time of the autumn harvest, the actual loss of money to
+the inhabitants has been enormous.</p>
+
+<p>From August to November a great tract of country was left deserted by
+the inhabitants, who should have been employed in gathering in the
+harvest. When I came down from Pekin in November there was no sign
+whatever of life across the plains on either side as far as the eye
+could reach. Thousands of acres of millet lay prone on the ground, and
+their carefully-tended vegetable gardens were scored with black lines,
+showing where the produce had rotted. When <span class="pagenum"><a id="page085" name="page085"></a>(p. 085)</span> the Germans
+arrived in September I heard one of their officers saying to Major
+Scott, who was in charge of the river station at Tung-Chow, pointing
+to the fields of millet which surrounded the camp, "Why don't you burn
+down all these crops?" Major Scott replied that, besides not wanting
+to make life harder for these unfortunate farmers, they wanted the
+fodder for their own cattle. But, as a matter of fact, the destruction
+effected by the absence of the people was just as great as if the wish
+of that German had been carried out.</p>
+
+<p>In all the discussions of the question of the amount of indemnity we
+never hear anything of the amount of counterclaim which the Chinese
+might rightfully make against us. The greater part of all this
+destruction was absolutely contrary to every rule of civilised
+warfare. In a district of about the extent of from London to Oxford
+the inhabitants have lost the entire produce of the harvest, all the
+villages and towns on either side of the river have been burned, so
+that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page086" name="page086"></a>(p. 086)</span> on the march up our path at night was literally
+torch-lit with burning villages.</p>
+
+<p>As was natural to expect, and as we have subsequently learned, many of
+the inhabitants have been forced by the absolute necessities of
+subsistence to band themselves together in companies of brigands,
+whose depredations afford a fresh excuse to the Germans for continuing
+hostile operations. The losses inflicted on the country in this way
+are entirely outside the irreparable losses which were inflicted by
+the destruction and despoiling of temples and innumerable works of art
+which it will be impossible to replace. As regards these last
+outrages, there was no officer in command of any section of the Allies
+who personally exerted himself to a greater degree for the
+preservation, or at least to prevent the destruction, of the art
+heirlooms of the country than did General Sir Alfred Gaselee.</p>
+
+<p>Some curious things happened in his efforts in this direction. On the
+Paoting-fu expedition, for instance, when the troops were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page087" name="page087"></a>(p. 087)</span> to
+pass in the neighbourhood of the Imperial Tombs, a few British
+soldiers were sent on in advance, and quietly informed the custodians
+that the Germans were coming. Readily acting on the information, they
+removed all the jewels and easily portable valuables from the tombs,
+and they were kept concealed in a village on the other side of the
+hill under the guard of a few Bengal Lancers until the Germans had
+passed. In recognition of this friendly message the Chinese wanted to
+make a present of some magnificent strings of pearls to Captain
+Maxwell, a nephew of Lord Roberts.</p>
+
+<p>In civilised warfare there is generally some little respect shown for
+the priests and places of worship of the conquered people, but here
+there was none whatever. Horses were stabled in the temples, and the
+art heirlooms of thousands of years of the nation's life to be found
+therein were frequently mutilated and destroyed when they were not
+stolen. In the street where I lived in Pekin for a whole week were to
+be seen, day by day, carts <span class="pagenum"><a id="page088" name="page088"></a>(p. 088)</span> passing backwards and forwards
+laden with books which were being brought to be consumed in a huge
+fire kept burning in a yard outside the palace wall. Thousands of
+books were thus treated, so that the whole street was littered with
+their fluttering leaves to such an extent that I could not get my
+little Chinese pony to pass there without getting off and leading him,
+for he shied continually at the fluttering papers. Day after day this
+literary holocaust continued. When the wind was in the direction of my
+house a fine black snow kept perpetually falling, and covered the
+roofs and courtyards with these ashes of dead thoughts. Hundreds of
+the books were written in the quaint characters which showed that they
+belonged to, and were written by, Lama priests; many of them had
+probably found their way there from the bleak steppes of far Tibet.</p>
+
+<p>They were printed with those wooden blocks by which these barbarians
+practised the art of printing for centuries before the time <span class="pagenum"><a id="page089" name="page089"></a>(p. 089)</span>
+of Caxton. Many of them also were in manuscript, which must have meant
+years of labour, and hand-painted pictures illustrating some were
+occasionally to be found. They were all alike consigned to the same
+funeral pyre, and thousands of volumes of unascertained, but perhaps
+considerable, value were thus lost to the world for ever. As the
+bleak, cold winds from the plains swept down the deserted street at
+night, and moaned dolorously through the ruined houses, rattling
+doors, and flapping paper windows, it lifted these torn book-leaves,
+and swirled them round in a fantastic dance of death, until one could
+almost imagine one heard the lamentation of the ghosts of their
+long-dead authors&mdash;priests, hermits, and scholars&mdash;mourning over the
+ashes of their life-work.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of this campaign is the reverse of flattering to our Western
+civilisation. Many of the details of the conduct of the Russian,
+French, and German soldiers do not bear publication. But what it
+broadly amounts <span class="pagenum"><a id="page090" name="page090"></a>(p. 090)</span> to is the treatment of a venerable
+civilisation absolutely foreign to our own as if its members belonged
+to a low class of pestiferous beasts whose most desirable fate would
+be extermination.</p>
+
+<h3>VIII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page091" name="page091"></a>(p. 091)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>CERTAIN COMPARISONS</h5>
+
+<p>After spending five months with the British forces in the early part
+of the war in the Transvaal, and then having an opportunity of
+campaigning with the allied forces in China, it was extremely
+interesting to make comparisons between them. The greater number of
+the troops we employed in China were drawn from the Army of India. As
+regards the French forces, they, at all events during the original
+march to the relief of the Legations, were drawn from the troops which
+were stationed at Tonkin. But the French troops that subsequently
+arrived direct from France, as well as the German contingent, may
+naturally be taken as average samples of their respective armies. It
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page092" name="page092"></a>(p. 092)</span> is true that outside the siege of Tientsin there was very
+little serious fighting. The engagements on the march up were not
+severe ones, except that outside the eastern gate of Pekin itself. The
+action here, however, was entirely confined to the Japanese. If this
+campaign did not afford opportunities of observing the various troops
+under severe strain of battle, it made up for it in a way by testing
+their qualities, resources, and equipment for campaigning under
+exceptionally trying circumstances. The weather during August, when
+the march for the relief took place, was exceptionally hot, far
+surpassing anything that I experienced in South Africa. The roads,
+where there were any that might be dignified by that name, were
+extremely bad, the dust was intense, the supply of water of the most
+inferior quality, and the expedition, not being under the command of
+one general, added irksome difficulties by the uncertainty of the
+movements of its constituent parts from day to day.</p>
+
+<p>Fighting <span class="pagenum"><a id="page093" name="page093"></a>(p. 093)</span> is not the sole duty of soldiers in the field, and
+in almost all their other duties apart from that we had ample and
+varied opportunities of contrasting their merits. The Japanese
+infantry were a surprise and a revelation to most of the Allies.
+Notwithstanding the enormous trouble they have taken with their
+cavalry, it is immensely inferior to every other arm of their service.
+This is not to be wondered at when we reflect how little the Japanese
+are accustomed to horse-riding at home, and what small opportunities
+they have of acquiring that knowledge of the management of horses
+which comes instinctively to the English groom, to the Irish farmer's
+son, or to the field labourer. The defect of a want of efficient
+cavalry is with the Japanese largely compensated for by the extreme
+mobility of their infantry. They appear to do everything at the
+double. All their soldiers seem to be perpetually kept in the best of
+hard training. If they have not horses at home, they have plenty of
+rickshaw men, who consider <span class="pagenum"><a id="page094" name="page094"></a>(p. 094)</span> thirty to thirty-five miles of
+running not an excessive day's work.</p>
+
+<p>Often watching the Japanese man&oelig;uvring in the field, it occurred to
+me that if the men of her entire army had not served an apprenticeship
+between the shafts of the rickshaw, they must at least have passed
+through some training equally severe. On the expedition to Pekin they
+carried with them a number of light calibre guns, which they pulled
+into action, without horses, right into the firing line. In every
+detail of their camp equipment, food-supply, and field hospital corps,
+there was a neatness of packing and arrangement which apparently
+resulted in their carrying all their requirements in about a third
+less space than any of the others. The simple fare of the Japanese
+soldiers was ideal for campaigning. Broadly speaking, it consists of
+rice, with what might be called a flavouring of strong-tasting dried
+fish and mysterious brown condiments suggestive of curry. As they have
+modelled their fleet on our own, so they <span class="pagenum"><a id="page095" name="page095"></a>(p. 095)</span> have drawn from the
+French and German armies a selection of their uniform and equipment.
+The colour of their uniform at home is dark blue. But during the
+expedition to Pekin their uniform was white, which would have been
+murderously conspicuous in operations against any force that was
+composed of less bad marksmen than the Chinese. This is now to be
+abandoned, and is to be replaced by something in the nature of khaki,
+as will be the heavy round German caps by something in the nature of
+straw hats or helmets, which will give more protection against the
+sun, although not looking so smart.</p>
+
+<p>Although the officers of all the Allies were immensely struck by the
+discipline and equipment of the Japanese, close observers were still
+more attracted by the underlying soldier spirit which animates them.
+An inherent spirit of soldiering seems to possess every little Jap as
+a natural heritage. They seem to love fighting for fighting's sake.
+They appear to enjoy the whole thing like schoolboys <span class="pagenum"><a id="page096" name="page096"></a>(p. 096)</span> do
+their games. They take their killing much more kindly than the others,
+and appear to be much more familiarised with the idea that it is part
+of the game. Indeed, there is a zest and a verve and go about them
+when in action that I have never seen in any other troops. There were
+numerous instances in the siege of Tientsin of disregard of death. And
+outside the gates of Pekin ten men who were killed in their attempts
+to blow it up might apparently have been indefinitely multiplied at
+the command of their officers without any danger of faltering. When at
+ten o'clock at night they advanced to take the gate by assault which
+they had failed to force in the morning, it was immensely attractive
+to observe the gaiety, almost amounting to hilarity, with which they
+advanced to the attack. All movements such as this they accompany with
+singing. And after forcing the gate, when they met with opposition
+going along the wall and had to lie down before a hot fire from the
+Chinese, who made <span class="pagenum"><a id="page097" name="page097"></a>(p. 097)</span> a final stand about half a mile from the
+gate, the Japanese buglers stood up and played some of their quaint
+war-songs.</p>
+
+<a id="img007" name="img007"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img007.jpg" width="500" height="262" alt="Boer Shell Bursting Among The Lancers At Rietfontein." title="Boer Shell Bursting Among The Lancers At Rietfontein.">
+<p>Boer Shell Bursting Among The Lancers At Rietfontein.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>At night, in the camps on the way up, what I had mistaken for some
+Buddhist evening prayer, when the soldiers tramped round like a human
+prayer-wheel, was, I subsequently discovered, the chanting of a
+war-song which had been composed by General Fukushima himself.</p>
+
+<p>The interesting thing to observe will be to see how the Japanese
+behave when they are getting the worst of it, how they will conduct
+themselves when they are outnumbered, or when under the strain of a
+losing fight. From a sporting standpoint, I'll be inclined to lay six
+to four on a Japanese against a Russian regiment. I met some people on
+the way to Pekin who regarded the Russians as the best war soldiers of
+the lot. The Russians were intensely like the preconceived idea one is
+inclined to form of Russians. Solid, deep-chested, heavy and hardy,
+they gave one the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page098" name="page098"></a>(p. 098)</span> idea of big, heavy farm labourers with a
+rifle instead of a spade upon their shoulders. They never moved with
+anything like the quickness which characterised the Japanese, yet they
+plodded on with a dour stubbornness which gave the impression that if
+their movements were not quick, they represented a weighty momentum
+difficult to arrest. Although uncouth, and frequently savage in their
+behaviour, they yielded a child-like, or almost slavish, obedience to
+their officers, and on these officers should lie the blame of the
+innumerable outrages committed by them, from which they might have
+been restrained if kept properly under control.</p>
+
+<p>Of the many tips which one force got from another, the Russians had an
+admirable system of carrying with them on the march a sort of
+locomotive kitchen, which consisted of a huge cauldron underneath
+which was a coal fire. The contents of the cauldron, which appeared to
+be the Russian equivalent for Irish stew, were hot and ready for the
+men at any halt in the march. How delightful such <span class="pagenum"><a id="page099" name="page099"></a>(p. 099)</span> an
+institution would have been to Tommy in the miserably cold hours
+between two and four o'clock on the veldt of a South African morning!</p>
+
+<p>As regards the French force on the expedition to Pekin, in discipline
+and in equipment and the conduct of the men composing it, it was
+absolutely beneath contempt. Unless the art of foraging and looting
+can be considered soldier-like qualities, they appeared to me to lack
+every one.</p>
+
+<p>I looked forward to seeing great things from the Germans. But I must
+say that I was immensely disappointed. As far as parade-ground drill
+was concerned they were admirable; as the mechanical and automatic
+resultants of the efforts of the drill-sergeant they were possibly
+unequalled. But they appeared to be heavy and slow in their movements.
+On one little expedition outside Pekin for the purpose of surrounding
+a body of Boxers, which was undertaken by a combined force of British,
+Americans, Japanese, and Germans, the encircling movement proved a
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>(p. 100)</span> failure owing to the Germans arriving an hour late at their
+appointed position. Discussing the Germans one day with a Japanese
+officer, his criticism on them was, "Very good soldiers, but I tink
+too much drill drill."</p>
+
+<p>If the Germans suffer from too much mechanical "drill drill," the
+Americans certainly suffer from the opposite. Self-reliance,
+independence, and individuality of action are all very desirable
+qualities, but the Americans suffer immensely from the want of
+discipline and drill. Perhaps the democratic feeling of the States
+does not lend itself so easily to discipline. Each one of Napoleon's
+soldiers was supposed to carry a marshal's bâton in his knapsack. The
+American soldier has taken it therefrom, and is rather inclined to be
+a marshal unto himself, thinks himself quite as good as his superior
+officer, if not better, and, more than any other soldier, is given to
+grumbling, and spends a lot of his attention, which should be
+concentrated on merely obeying, to expressing his individual opinion.
+The United States soldiers are far and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>(p. 101)</span> away the best fed in
+the world. Their standard of comfort, not to say luxury, is immensely
+higher, and would be absolutely ruinous in an army the size of any of
+those of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Comparing the various forces&mdash;as I had an opportunity of observing
+them in China&mdash;with those of our own in South Africa, I am filled with
+a much higher idea of the latter than before I had such a standard of
+comparison. Our army, composed as it is in part of Colonial regiments,
+is now a combination of various admirable qualifications. The
+resourcefulness and individuality of action, which is the most
+admirable thing to be found in the American army, was quite equalled
+by men who composed such regiments as the Imperial Light Horse, the
+South African Horse, Brabant's Horse, the New Zealanders, and the
+Canadians.</p>
+
+<p>The inspiring, ingrained fighting spirit of the Japs is to be found in
+the Irish regiments, who are probably the best fighting men in the
+world; the chivalrous gallantry of artillery in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>(p. 102)</span> action,
+which Zola wrote of in <i>La Débâcle</i>, I saw in quivering vitality at
+Elandslaagte and Rietfontein, and not by the hastening of a step was
+the old tradition of our artillery (to go into action at a gallop and
+come out at a walk) forgotten in actions outside Ladysmith.
+Superior-speaking, long-range critics talk disparagingly of our
+soldiers in the Transvaal. Germans talk of how things should have been
+done, forgetting that the little expedition they sent out to China was
+kept waiting for a month at Tientsin before the men could start for
+Paoting-fu, owing to the non-arrival of some essentials of their
+equipment.</p>
+
+<p>Far be it from me to think of posing as a military expert or a sort of
+composite military <i>attaché</i> to the allied forces. I speak merely as
+an observant outsider. In riding to hounds one soon learns the men one
+would select to ride against the pick of another pack. One feels in
+his "innards" the man he would like to go tiger-shooting with,
+although it would be another matter to put <span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>(p. 103)</span> down his reasons
+in writing, and much more so with soldiers in the field.</p>
+
+<p>From what I have seen in South Africa and China, I feel and know
+it&mdash;luminously know it in the marrow of my intelligence&mdash;that for that
+South African job, if it were to be done over again, I would select
+the British; that they have done, not alone as well, but better than
+any other nation would have done. Many things might have been done
+better. But apart from the question of transport, when I saw the
+others there were everywhere signs of their probable failures being
+infinitely more numerous.</p>
+
+<p>There are only two armies that, granted the possibility of their being
+landed in South Africa, could have conceivably tackled the job. These
+are the Japanese and the Germans. The Japs would probably have failed
+from their want of efficient mounted infantry or cavalry; the
+beer-blown Germans would have been worn down by men of better physical
+training. The war-knowledgeable brain, looking out through spectacled
+eyes, would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>(p. 104)</span> droop tired in its physical limber until it was
+brought on a level with the less scientific but more practical weapon
+of the polo-playing, cricketing, footballing British officer.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese had reached that ideal which we, at the end of the past
+century, were making an initial attempt to attain to in the calling
+together of the Hague Conference. For they had reached the stage of
+advanced development where the pen is really mightier than the
+sword&mdash;where the highest class in the community is that of the
+scholar, the next that of the man who tills the soil, and the last
+that of the man whose occupation it is to kill his fellow-man. Thus
+the Orientals were naturally at the mercy of the Western countries,
+the largest expenditure of whose revenue is absorbed by the cost of
+killing-machines and men to work them.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese have a saying that, as the best iron is not made into
+nails, so the best men are not made into soldiers. With our Western
+civilisation, the best men and steel and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>(p. 105)</span> soldiers found them
+an easy victim. There are no people in the world who have a higher
+regard for abstract justice and right than the Chinese. It is admitted
+by every man who has had large commercial dealings with them that
+there are no people who have a greater regard for straightforward,
+honest dealing. In our dealings with them, as regards this campaign,
+right and justice in every case have given place to might.</p>
+
+<p>When the German officer I have referred to above pointed towards the
+fields of millet which he wished to have burned, I was strikingly
+reminded of a certain mysterious picture which some years ago had been
+inspired or drawn by his Emperor and Kaiser. It had been called by
+some "The Yellow Peril," and depicts the figure of Germania,
+surrounded by the nations of Europe, standing on a pinnacle, and
+pointing to a broad plain below traversed by a river, and from the
+plain volumes of smoke rose skywards. No one seemed to know quite
+definitely what the actual meaning of the picture <span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>(p. 106)</span> was. But
+since this latest crusade towards Pekin, the real meaning of it is
+suggested. In this campaign of revenge, with the Germans as the
+leading performers in it, animated and inspired by the speeches of
+their Emperor, the picture, now illustrative of recent history, might
+bear a more actual meaning.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "And Cæsar's spirit raging for revenge,<br>
+  With Até by his side, come hot from hell,<br>
+  Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,<br>
+  Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war,<br>
+  That this foul deed shall smell above the earth<br>
+  With carrion men, groaning for burial."</p>
+
+
+<h3>IX <span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>(p. 107)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA</h5>
+
+<p>It was the garden of the Mission of Peitang. Not a blade of grass was
+showing above the ground. The roots of the grass itself had been torn
+up, eaten by the last few starving animals within the besieged
+compound before they had been killed, and the trees were absolutely
+stripped of their bark as high as the beasts could reach. At one side
+of the garden a great open crater, fringed with the ruins of
+buildings, showed where a mine had exploded. The cross on the
+Cathedral hard by was broken, and its Gothic architecture additionally
+fretted by the scoring marks of shot and shell. But I think nothing
+told more forcibly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>(p. 108)</span> the tale of the ordeal through which the
+garrison had passed than did these gnawed, naked tree-trunks.</p>
+
+<p>I was shown round the day after its relief by one of the Sisters,
+which, by the way, was effected by the Japanese, but not until the
+third day after the Legations had been relieved, although it was only
+twenty minutes' ride distant from them. The Mother Superior,
+seventy-four years of age, who had spent thirty-eight years of her
+life in Chinese mission work, lay dying&mdash;a daughter of Count Barais,
+of Château Barais, near Bordeaux. She had belonged to the Order of
+Sisters of Charity since her eighteenth year. Three mines had exploded
+within the Mission enclosure, and walls and roofs were riddled and lay
+tossed about in grotesque confusion. I went into the Cathedral church,
+which they were using as a hospital.</p>
+
+<p>Coming from the glare of white light outside, it was some moments
+before I could distinguish anything in the gloom within. By <span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>(p. 109)</span>
+degrees one made out rows of rounded forms of little children lying on
+the floor. Above, the stained-glass windows were broken in many
+places, and the roof perforated where shells had entered, letting in
+shafts of light that fell aslant the gloom. High up on the wall one
+lit up a figure of Christ that with bowed head and extended,
+nail-pierced hands seemed to point in eloquent silence to the little
+suffering children below. The entire floor of the church, even up to
+the extinguished lamp of the sanctuary, was occupied with them. In one
+explosion alone eighty children were killed, and a still greater
+number injured. Many more were ailing for want of sufficient food,
+because when the actual relief came they had been reduced to only two
+ounces of rice per day, and had but two days' rations left. Other
+children, who were helping the nuns, moved noiselessly about among the
+prostrate forms. The hushed silence of sanctuary was broken only by
+low moaning, or the querulous sobbing of little <span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>(p. 110)</span> children
+weary with pain. The Sister brought me to see one little mite, whom
+she called the "first fruit" of their recommenced labour.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange story, that of this little child. The French soldiers
+who occupied that quarter of the city had come across a house where,
+stretched on the kang side by side, were the bodies of all its
+occupants. They had committed suicide on the advent of the Allies. As
+the soldiers had not time to bury them immediately, intent as they
+were on pillaging and looting the neighbourhood, they threw lime on
+the bodies. After two days, when they came to throw their remains into
+a pit which had been dug for their burial, they found that the
+youngest victim was yet alive, and carried her, with her hair still
+caked with lime, to the nuns.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of these ruins these good women, mostly of gentle birth,
+were striving to recommence their labours, and nurse, and feed, and
+teach the children that remained. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>(p. 111)</span> But, conversing with them,
+one perceived, underlying their heroic resignation, a strain of very
+human despondency and disappointment. Their talk here was not of
+compensation. It was merely of how they could get their ruined
+mission-house fit for work again&mdash;the work for which they had left
+father and mother and friends, and their homes in far-off France.</p>
+
+<p>It was not quite the same elsewhere, however. There were some
+missionaries who appeared to take a different view of the situation.
+Already they were lodging claims with their respective Consuls, and in
+order to guard themselves against the dilatoriness or uncertainty of
+action of their various Governments they were taking measures to
+secure immediate compensation.</p>
+
+<p>One reverend gentleman, for instance, was to be seen day after day
+holding a sale of loot in a house that he had taken possession of.
+Another, an American, was carrying on a similar sale in a palatial
+mansion which he had commandeered. The latter was to be seen <span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>(p. 112)</span>
+surrounded by jade and porcelain vases, costly embroideries from the
+spoiled temples, sable cloaks and various other furs, and rows of
+Buddhas arranged like wild-fowl in a poulterer's shop. As his stock
+became depleted he was in a position to ask any unsatisfied customer
+to call in again, as his converts were bringing in fresh supplies of
+loot almost every day!</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, not satisfied with the proceeds of his loot sale, this worthy
+man was enterprising enough to levy compensation on the Chinese, and,
+in addition to recovering the full value of the damage sustained by
+his converts, inflicted fines that exceeded that amount&mdash;according to
+his own admission&mdash;by one-third.</p>
+
+<a id="img008" name="img008"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img008.jpg" width="500" height="335" alt="General French And Staff On Black Monday." title="General French And Staff On Black Monday.">
+<p>General French And Staff On Black Monday.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are others who took possession of Chinese houses wholesale, and
+found a source of income in letting or leasing them. The fact of their
+having a number of converts to support was given by them as a
+justification of their actions. Unquestionably they had a large number
+more or less dependent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>(p. 113)</span> upon them, but some other means
+might surely have been found. They were very busy in those days. And
+perhaps that accounts for their taking no notice of the actions of
+various portions of the Allied soldiery. Wholesale robbery, cruelty,
+and the raping of women were going on all round; a regular orgy of
+rapine surged through the captured city. Yet not one solitary voice of
+protest was heard.</p>
+
+<p>It would be gratifying to think that, amidst all these exponents of
+the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount, there was one who called for
+mercy on the conquered, or asked that even common humanity should be
+shown them, or even reminded the generals of their own rules of war
+and fair fighting, or who raised his voice for justice, even if he did
+not in compassion. What an opportunity lost, which would not have been
+thrown away on the Chinese, of showing in practice what they had been
+preaching&mdash;"Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
+pray for them that despitefully <span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>(p. 114)</span> use you." If, instead of
+selling images of Buddha, they had used their influence to preserve
+his temples from desecration and defilement, or offered sanctuary to
+his priests, it is certain that they would have more materially
+furthered the cause they have in hand.</p>
+
+<p>It would be wrong to say that not one solitary voice was raised. 'Tis
+true it was not raised by any missionary. But there is a rough-looking
+soldier with a strong face that looks as if it had been hewn out of a
+block of red sandstone with a blunt hatchet&mdash;General Chaffee, of the
+United States Army. He would be called in England a "ranker." He, not
+content, as Sir Alfred Gaselee was, with keeping his own men from
+disgracing their country's flag, wrote a letter of remonstrance to
+Count Waldersee, and received a snub in return for an action which,
+nevertheless, redounds immensely to his credit.</p>
+
+<p>Christianity in China has received a staggering blow, from which it
+will not recover <span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>(p. 115)</span> during the lives of the present generation.
+Its progress, so far as any one can see, in the immediate future is at
+an end. It is even questionable whether it will not be wiped out
+altogether in Northern China. The terrible assaults by Boxers will
+largely decrease the number of converts. The temporal advantages that
+formerly ensued from its profession are now more than counterbalanced
+by the hatred and persecution that Christianity entails. The worst
+blow it has received has been through the conduct of the Allied
+soldiery during the late invasion. These men have crucified it in
+China as truly as the soldiers of Pilate did its Founder. And even the
+Christian missionaries raised no protest against the crucifixion.</p>
+
+<p>Let us hear what a Chinaman says in a book just published, the author
+writing under the name of "Wen Ching." I heard the identical opinions
+expressed by many intellectual Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>"For their gifts," he says, "to the West in <span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>(p. 116)</span> the shape of
+silk, tea, and the magnetic compass, the Chinese have so far in return
+received opium, missionaries, and bombardment." "The <i>literati</i>, the
+backbone of China ... are not kindly spoken of by missionaries, nor
+are they liked by foreigners."</p>
+
+<p>It is only "the lower orders that have always been very susceptible to
+the teaching of foreigners. Their ignorance and their poverty furnish
+ample reasons for their willingness to join the churches of the
+Europeans."</p>
+
+<p>Also "the claims of missionaries to a right of travel and residence in
+the interior ... are founded on no higher authority than an
+interpolation by a missionary translator into the Chinese text of the
+treaty between France and China." That "the disturbance of a local
+<i>fengshui</i> by a church spire is considered as much of a grievance as
+the erection of a hideous tannery beside Westminster Abbey would be."</p>
+
+<p>He says that "the Christian religion spread <span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>(p. 117)</span> chiefly, if not
+entirely, among the poorer people, until it was discovered that
+political advantages accrued to the convert." For "in many places the
+missionary intrudes himself into the Chinese court, and sits beside
+the magistrate to hear a case between his convert and a non-Christian
+native. The influence of the missionary is very great, and the
+official is often pestered and worried by the messengers of the
+Gospel." Therefore the Christian converts are voted a "source of
+trouble and a nuisance."</p>
+
+<p>Still, in this writer's opinion, "nothing has done so much harm to the
+cause of the missionary as this forcing the opium trade on the
+people." "If there are honest missionaries," he remarks, "there are
+also sincere believers in the ancient faiths of Cathay to resent the
+insidious encroachments of blatant foreign priests, who preach to the
+heathen the doctrines of self-imposed poverty and mendicancy, and yet
+themselves live sumptuously enough in comfortable houses, surrounded
+by a wife and a numerous progeny, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>(p. 118)</span> in the midst of heathen
+squalor and misery."</p>
+
+<p>These are just a few extracts from the views of an intelligent
+Chinaman as regards the question of missionaries in his country. But
+in conversation with others I heard similar opinions more forcibly
+put. They point out that the various exponents of Christianity insist
+that each alone expounds the right version, which is puzzling to the
+Chinese, and that the missionaries actually have not agreed as to the
+name of their God, as they use five different characters.</p>
+
+<p>Within the radius of an eighteen-penny cab fare from where I write, I
+think there is plenty of spiritually productive work for all the
+missionaries in China; work for all the sincere, self-sacrificing
+missionaries&mdash;and there are still many of them in China&mdash;men animated
+by the spirit of the Twelve Fishermen, who have not adopted their
+profession as a means of livelihood, in addition to a secure income
+getting an extra £30 for every baby born in their families. And
+within <span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>(p. 119)</span> the radius I speak of, they would not first have the
+task of weaning the people away from the doctrines of Confucius or
+Buddha&mdash;"Him all wisest, best, most pitiful, whose lips comfort the
+world," which doctrines are the very breathing&mdash;the life&mdash;of their
+social as well as spiritual being. When the Chinese see the German
+Emperor using missionaries as live-bait to catch a province, and the
+French insisting upon being given another as the price of a few
+members of one of those religious orders they have expelled from
+France, it is no wonder that from that stricken, bullied, cheated
+people the cry goes up to the empty heavens&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem20">
+<span class="add6em">"To my own Gods I go.</span><br>
+  It may be they shall give me greater ease<br>
+  Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities."</p>
+
+
+<h3>X <span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>(p. 120)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>EX ORIENTE LUX</h5>
+
+<p>What is a barbarian? In many of the Chinese edicts we see the term
+perpetually applied to those people outside the Celestial Kingdom, and
+to all those who are not Chinese. The Japanese are far too polite to
+use such a word. Yet I have spoken to Japanese artists who, in
+referring to European taste in Art, used a word equivalent to
+barbarous. The average free-born Briton travelling round the world
+carries with him, or is supposed to carry with him, his Bible, and a
+taste for Bass's beer and beefsteak. According as a country does or
+does not possess these essentials, and according as its own attributes
+of civilisation are removed from his own standards of perfection,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>(p. 121)</span> so does he regard its inhabitants as more or less barbarians.
+(I was rather amused watching a play in Tokio once, where the villain
+of the piece was a red-whiskered Englishman, in a loud crossbar suit
+and a fore-and-aft cap, who was always shown on the stage with half a
+dozen bottles of Bass on a table beside him.) When we bear in mind how
+much Britishers despise their next-door neighbours across the Channel
+for their defective beefsteakiali-ties, it is not surprising that such
+a feeling should be greatly intensified when they come in contact with
+a civilisation so much more alien and remote from their own as that of
+China and Japan. It needs only a quiet observation and the smallest
+degree of intellectual elasticity to be forced to the conclusion that
+the advantages are not altogether on our side, and that there is great
+scope for the East to send social missionaries to the West. Socially,
+I think we have far more to learn from them than they have to learn
+from us. And, curiously enough, if such a mission were started,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>(p. 122)</span> it would not be entirely to teach us new things, but in many
+ways it would be recalling us to points which we have hurried away
+from in the rapid progress of our material civilisation for the last
+couple of hundred years.</p>
+
+<p>The central idea, the social pivot, the focus of the life, of the
+civilisation of the East is to be found in their idea of the home. The
+home is the centre of gravity of their existence, round which
+everything else revolves. In China it is the all-pervading,
+all-vivifying idea of social life, of religion, and of government. The
+life of the family is not only of to-day, but extends back into a
+venerable past, and is the hope and care of the future.</p>
+
+<p>For us, the dead past buries its dead, and the flowers that we lay on
+the newly-made grave quickly wither on the freshly-turned clay on
+which we have left them&mdash;except where the place of natural ones is
+taken by those deliciously ironical representations in the shape of
+tin&mdash;waterproof imitations which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>(p. 123)</span> save the mourner the
+trouble of renewal.</p>
+
+<p>As to the love of the Chinese and Japanese for their children, it has
+to be seen to be appreciated. Those wise-eyed little mites, who before
+they can walk sit perpetually enthroned upon their mothers' backs
+throughout the livelong day, are a source of so much joy and adoration
+to their parents that one feels no surprise at not hearing them cry as
+other children do. I only recollect hearing a child cry once during a
+two months' stay in Japan, and then there was an excuse for its
+dolorous plaint, because its mother was shaving its little head with a
+blunt razor and no soap. It must be obvious to the student of our
+Western civilisation that the cult of family life is on the decline.
+The ties and obligations which hold children and parents together are
+visibly slackening, and this is the more obvious amongst those nations
+which have been taking the lead in the material progress of our time.</p>
+
+<p>Take the United States, for instance. There, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>(p. 124)</span> up to a certain
+point, the father is regarded as the dollar-grinding machine. The
+tendency is for both sons and daughters to cast themselves loose from
+parental ties, and strike out afresh for themselves. And their parents
+are as little responsible for them as they are for the maintenance or
+happiness of their parents.</p>
+
+<p>Any one who is familiar with life in the East End of London will
+appreciate how little these worn-out toilers, when old age
+incapacitates them from work, can rely on being kept out of the Union
+by their children. With the experience of nearly two thousand years of
+the progress of Christendom, it is not surprising that a short time
+ago we should hear the present occupant of the Papal Throne raising
+his aged voice to recall the attention of the West to how rapidly the
+idea of the family was being lost, as Leo XIII. did in the Encyclical
+Address to the Catholic Church on the subject of the Holy Family.</p>
+
+<p>From the more important teaching as regards <span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>(p. 125)</span> family life,
+these Oriental missionaries might then endeavour to tell us something
+of the Fine Arts in the East, and yet more of the spirit which
+animates their artists. They would be able to show us that "art for
+art's sake" with them is no empty phrase. It would doubtless surprise
+many Westerners to know that a Chinese painter would not think of
+selling his pictures for money, but paints them for his own pleasure,
+and gives his work as presents to his friends, and would no more dream
+of selling a picture than an English girl would of selling a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese would have a lot to tell us about bringing art, and that
+their highest and best art, into the utensils of everyday life, and
+that there is nothing demeaning in expending the best work on things
+one handles and uses every day. What a lot they would have to tell us
+of the cultivation and their love of flowers&mdash;a love which seems
+instinct in the poorest peasant, and which in the more cultivated
+classes is carried to an exquisite <span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>(p. 126)</span> degree of refined
+development! And again, a Japanese incense party, where different
+qualities of delicately aromatic incense are passed round&mdash;and the
+pastime consists in placing the different qualities in the order of
+the beauty of their perfume&mdash;would almost suggest that the West had
+neglected the cultivation of one of the five senses.</p>
+
+<p>At a dinner-party at a well-known restaurant, the other night, it was
+forcibly brought to my mind what a lot they would have to teach us
+regarding the enjoyment of such social functions. A perfect din and
+rattle of plates and knives filled the air, a mob of undisciplined
+servants charged about tumultuously, garish lights lit up vulgar
+ornamentation, and one almost had to shout to be heard across the
+table, while a band of music outside ineffectually endeavoured to
+drown the din within. There were flowers, it is true, but their
+profusion was no compensation for an utter lack of artistic
+arrangement. But there was a complete absence <span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>(p. 127)</span> of that
+repose, that restfulness, that calm, which is considered, and justly
+considered, amongst Easterns as the essential atmosphere for the
+enjoyment of a social repast. The Japanese have raised entertainment
+to the level of a fine art. Their tea ceremonies, as we have badly
+translated the "Cha'-no-yu," but which might be preferably rendered as
+"The Fine Art of Welcome and Hospitality," have been a strong
+influence in preventing them from drifting into the meretricious
+gaudiness so blatantly <i>en évidence</i> in restaurants like the Carlton,
+and minister to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so
+characteristic of Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best
+number for a dinner-party, as with a larger number separate
+conversational groups are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has
+rooms specially built for these parties, and rooms only just large
+enough to hold his guests comfortably. One scroll is hung in the
+kakemono, and in front of it one ornament, and afterwards a solitary
+flower. It would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>(p. 128)</span> be considered by them extremely bad taste
+to confuse or dissipate the attention by a variety of ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>A Japanese lady once showed me a photo of the drawing-room at
+Sandringham, which greatly amused her, and which she kept as a
+curiosity. (She was too polite to say as a curiosity of barbarism.)
+But she said, laughing, "Is it not just like a curio-dealer's shop?"</p>
+
+<p>The dinner, which actually precedes the tea-drinking, is served by the
+host in person, thus doing away with the intrusion of even their deft
+and quiet-moving servants. Every cup, every plate, is an individual
+art treasure, from the Godown in which the host's artistic treasures
+are kept in a seclusion that his most intimate friends have never
+penetrated. They have probably never seen the same picture or the same
+ornament twice in the kakemono. From the soft mellow music of the old
+gong which summons them to the repast, on through its various stages,
+until the rare and beautiful bowl out of which they have had tea is
+passed round for appreciative inspection, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>(p. 129)</span> an air of
+refined repose has characterised the whole proceedings.</p>
+
+<a id="img009" name="img009"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img009.jpg" width="500" height="270" alt="General White And Staff On Black Monday." title="General White And Staff On Black Monday.">
+<p>General White And Staff On Black Monday.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These social missionaries might progress from giving us some insight
+into these things to the introduction of another institution which
+would be an unquestionable advantage to our civilisation&mdash;I refer to
+the Geisha. Supposing that they were successful in grafting this
+Japanese idea, the Western edition would work out somewhat thuswise.
+Take, for instance, a bachelor coming up from Oxford or Cambridge, or,
+say, a merchant up from Liverpool or Manchester, instead of having a
+solitary dinner at his club, if he wished for the relaxation of
+vivacious female companionship, he would go to the telephone, and ring
+up "Geishas, Limited," and send word that he wanted one, or more, for
+dinner that evening. There would in due course, at the restaurant
+appointed, appear a girl with the dress, appearance, and manners of a
+lady. Whatever her looks might be, whatever her attractions, she would
+unfailingly be bright, intelligent, well-mannered, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>(p. 130)</span> and,
+above all, entertaining, for her being entertaining would be her
+<i>métier</i>, her occupation, her <i>raison d'être</i>. And, contrary to what
+is frequently supposed from a mistaken acquaintance with this Japanese
+institution, she would not be in the least facile or accessible. Our
+ideas of feminine Japan are too much based on the circumscribed
+experiences of holiday travellers, or books of the bad taste of Pierre
+Loti's "Madame Chrysanthème." We do not judge the women of England by
+Leicester Square, nor of Paris by those of the Moulin Rouge. Amongst
+the accomplishments of these Geisha girls music and singing would be
+most important. There seems much more refinement and comfort in
+bringing the music and singing to you than in going to the singing and
+music. A party of men dining together would not be driven to adjourn
+to a music-hall after dinner. They could order it as part of the menu.</p>
+
+<p>But these Oriental missionaries, in addition to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>(p. 131)</span> introducing
+such an institution, would have a field for their labours in raising
+their clients and customers to the standard of Japanese civilisation
+in the enjoyment of it. I present the idea gratis to any enterprising
+people who are troubled with the question. What to do with our girls!</p>
+
+<p>But Orientals would have little to teach us in what the Chinese call
+"make face," which enters into many of the actions of our daily life
+quite as much as it does into theirs. How thankful we should be that
+it does not also enter into our religious life! How thoroughly the
+Chinese must be impressed with this by their recent experiences of our
+Latest Crusaders! I was listening the other day to a gentleman
+descanting "on the darkness that enveloped those Pagan barbarians,"
+and I was thinking of another darkness or blindness which prevented
+the speaker, and many like him, from seeing the least gleam of light
+in the East. Yet it does not require much hand-shading of our
+intellectual eyes to see <span class="smcap">ex Oriente Lux</span>.</p>
+
+<h3>XI <span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>(p. 132)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>NIGHT IN THE CITY OF UNREST</h5>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "How beautiful is night!<br>
+  A dewy freshness fills the silent air;<br>
+  No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain<br>
+  Breaks the serene of heaven:<br>
+  In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine<br>
+  Rolls through the dark-blue depths.<br>
+<span class="add1em">Beneath her steady ray</span><br>
+<span class="add1em">The desert-circle spreads</span><br>
+  Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.<br>
+<span class="add1em">How beautiful is night!"</span></p>
+
+<p class="p2">Night really unrobes her beauty only in silence, the silence of the
+desert. Never can I forget nights spent in Western Australia, far
+beyond Kalgoorlie, away back in the Never-Never Land, where no rain
+falls. That is the land of great thirst, where for hundreds of miles
+one sees no living thing, where no birds sing, not even the mournful
+call of the jackal echoes across the waste, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>(p. 133)</span> not even the
+chirping ticking of an insect is to be heard to break the utter
+stillness. Gum trees, whose roots strike down a hundred feet for
+water, lift up their sparsely-covered branches into the motionless air
+above, their tongue-like leaves silently saying "I thirst." In that
+stagnant air they remind one of the giant seaweeds that grow in the
+depths of the great oceans where the water never moves; and the
+silence there is the silence of ocean depths, and so has been from the
+beginning. To-day my horse's tracks made five years ago are probably
+as fresh as were those which I followed that had been made two years
+before that time. It must be experienced to be realised, that dead
+silence; when lying on the ground at night the sound of one's
+heart-beats or the breathing of one's horse, tethered yards away,
+alone tells one that the sense of hearing is not lost. It must be
+experienced to be loved, that wonder of a silent world, where the
+Spirit of Solitude in his own domain for ever almost palpably seems to
+brood <span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>(p. 134)</span> with finger on pressed lips. It is the contrast with
+the scene that lies below me that forcibly recalls these nights in the
+desert. Now, as I write, I am at the Antipodes, and focus points of
+contrast in every sense to these scenes; the same moon that shines on
+that far-off desert is the only thing in common.</p>
+
+<p>The city of New York is in the form of a wedge, the point of the wedge
+being the down-town end, a great black mass that now looks driven into
+the moonlit water. Down here, as if with sheer weight of pressure of
+crowding humanity, the houses seem driven upward. There being not
+enough room on the end of the wedge for the people, they are forced
+upwards for room, as one would squeeze paint from an artist's tube.
+They rise up in tall, irregular-shaped shafts of various heights, as a
+child might stand its long toy bricks on end anyhow. As I write I am
+looking down from the thirtieth story of one of the highest, feeling
+as if I had been "set on the pinnacle of the Temple" (of Mammon?).
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>(p. 135)</span> The great city lies below me, but though it is night it does
+not appear to lie in repose. If it sleeps, it is a restless, troubled
+sleep. The air is vocal with many noises that come up from below as an
+exhalation; white flames of steam wave from the tops of buildings
+below me. Up here on this giddy height a hot wind of the upper air is
+blowing, and a vibrating, murmurous throbbing pulsates through the
+building itself. This latter is caused by the elevators, those veins
+and arteries of the structure, and their motion must never cease or
+else a clot of humanity would be left marooned in the upper storeys.
+Across the river on the west side a row of lights are moving in one
+direction, and alongside them a row moving in the opposite, like ants
+at work. These are the trolly-cars crossing Brooklyn Bridge. North and
+south, to the sound of a jangling rattle, the trams on the Elevated
+are moving, and along the streets the trolly-cars, with their booming
+note, which crescendoes up the scale with increasing speed and
+diminuendoes with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>(p. 136)</span> the slackening of it. Out on the water the
+red and green lights of the steamers move about in irregular tracks.
+The booming, mournful call of these steamers, like the lowing of a cow
+for her lost calf, goes on for ever. There are times in the desert
+when the coyote and the jackal are silent; on forlorn coasts in the
+hours before the first of dawn the seagulls cease their screaming; but
+these voices are never silent, calling, circling, and cawing, calling
+around the City of Unrest. Different notes they sound&mdash;the angry
+scream of the steam siren, the deep boom of the incoming ocean liner,
+and the note one hears oftenest&mdash;a mournful, lost wail, as of a damned
+soul calling out, "Custos, quid de nocte?" "Custos, quid de nocte?"
+The feverish hours pass troublously, but there is no response in the
+night of the City of Unrest.</p>
+
+<p>Now a great change has come over the scene; the moon has been
+curtained off by a heavy mass of clouds, and its light is shut off
+from the water. The lights of the city shine <span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>(p. 137)</span> out with
+increased distinctness; the moonlight that whitened the sides of the
+buildings now has left them black masses of vague shadow, and all at
+once one gets the impression of looking down into an inverted
+firmament studded with countless stars of as various magnitudes as in
+the heavens, from the bright electric arc-lights to tiny gaslights;
+and from this height of over 400 feet one gets the impression,
+familiar to those who have looked at the world from a balloon, that
+the rim of the horizon rises all round. "Around the circle of the
+desert spreads," but the desert now is of the cloud-covered sky, and
+far as the eye can reach are the stars of this great city, and now
+through that firmament of stars there is a dark path in an
+unilluminated Milky Way which marks the course of the river.</p>
+
+<p>As one looks down from here and listens to the combination of
+throbbing sounds that come up from below, there is a certain
+impressiveness in the thought of being in the centre of such focused
+activity. One seems to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>(p. 138)</span> be pressing the ear close to the
+heart of a great country. I wonder what that other city looked like
+from the pinnacle of whose temple He looked down on the other great
+cities that had their day? What Carthage looked like? The present
+edition of Rome and Paris and London, and Pekin from the Imperial
+pagodas on the top of Coal Hill, I have looked down on at night, but
+none of them is like this. From the Capitol Rome lies quietly wrapped
+in the memories of past greatness; from the hill of Montmartre the
+electric lights here and there give suggestive glimpses of the City of
+Pleasure. In Pekin, looking across the lotus-pond and the marble
+bridges, all that is squalid in the city is shrouded in a veil of
+foliage, and above the tops of the trees only what is beautiful
+emerges, and the city sleeps in the enjoyment of thoroughly Oriental
+repose; and, like a solidly-built, healthy man, London sleeps soundly;
+but the strenuous, restless activity of this city can hardly be said
+to sleep. I watched it make an attempt at a pause <span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>(p. 139)</span> for five
+minutes on the day of the President's funeral. At an appointed time
+all the street traffic was supposed to stand still. My! what an effort
+it was! It was not a real pause; it seemed more like the gasping
+holding of the city's breath, holding for these five minutes as if
+something were going to burst; and then at the second when the clock
+marked the end of the five minutes on went everything spinning with a
+feeling of absolute relief. As one looks down from here one cannot
+help speculating as to what is to be the future of what lies below. Is
+it going to be the greatest city that the world has ever seen&mdash;in real
+greatness, or only in acute development of material civilisation; and
+are the multitudes that populate it going to get more happiness from
+the arcs of their little lives than those of Carthage and Rome, or
+Pekin, or Babylon, or London? Or are they going at the pace that
+kills? Or at least the pace that tires into premature exhaustion?</p>
+
+<p>But leaving these speculations, as it is now one <span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>(p. 140)</span> o'clock, I
+get into the cage of the elevator and drop down whirring as the floors
+toss upwards beyond me&mdash;"Down twenty-eight," and we pull up with a
+jerk, and a pale-faced man gets in. "Down twelve," and two
+tired-looking women and a small boy get on board; and then the floor
+on which is a newspaper office, and a crowd is waiting to descend. The
+paper is just going to press, and their work is done. And then right
+down below the level of the street I go to see the paper actually
+printed. Immense rolls of paper are being lowered from the street
+level and handled as easily as if they were of no more weight than a
+lead pencil, put before machines which devour them to a deafening
+noise of machinery. The room reminds one of the lower deck of an
+ironclad in action, and the workers there seem fighting for their
+lives&mdash;fighting against time, fighting against the machine, fighting
+against the paper, which would fill up the room if it were left at the
+discharging end of the machines without being sent rapidly aloft; and
+there on <span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>(p. 141)</span> the floor above the men are fighting hand to hand
+with great bundles of papers that must be sent out in time for the
+morning trains. Outside in the square stand horses sufficient for the
+artillery of an army corps awaiting their burdens, and as I go up town
+by the surface car, although there is not yet any sign of light, I
+pass hundreds of men on their way down town to make an early start in
+the battle struggle of a new day in the City of Unrest.</p>
+
+<h3>XII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>(p. 142)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>A STREET IN THE CITY OF UNREST</h5>
+
+<p>It was a very wonderful sight last night, looking down from that
+height at the black pool of New York specked with star-like lights&mdash;a
+pool of darkness, where three million people slept, or tried to sleep;
+but it was like looking into a cup of ink to read destinies. Now,
+twelve hours afterwards, let us step down below into the centre of the
+city, when the limelight of a glaring, cloudless sun is turned full on
+it&mdash;when the living microcosm of its active life is thrown on the
+magic-lantern screen of our retina. Now we are at the base of these
+high buildings, and no city in Europe can show anything like them. It
+is difficult to know what <span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>(p. 143)</span> to compare them to. We cannot
+compare Broadway to an avenue of poplars in stone, for the poplars are
+out of proportion to the avenue&mdash;far too high and far too irregular.
+There is no regular design, no continuous outline; immense, costly,
+new, they sprout upwards&mdash;sprout as if under the drawing-up power of a
+tropical sun, sprout as if fed with the superabundant fecundity of
+virgin soil. Unless they were as high, there would not be room for the
+people down at this crowded end of the wedge-shaped town. The want of
+finality about them is no less apparent in their irregularity of size
+than in their sides, generally blank of windows, in expectancy of
+buildings going up beside them probably higher still. Some of them are
+to be seen with white marble façades crowned with Corinthian
+pilasters, and the sides are of red or yellow brick, on which is
+probably some huge, ugly advertisement announcing that some fine
+five-cent cigar is "generously good," or holding out hope of relief in
+the shape of a pill to liver-troubled humanity. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>(p. 144)</span>
+Parenthetically, I may remark that this city is, if anything, rather
+worse than London in the way of placards that scar the face of it. The
+goblin-like advertisements that spit soap and other things at
+unoffending eyes at night in Trafalgar Square are bad enough, but the
+advertisements in New York are worse still. There is a fine square
+here called Madison, in the centre of which trees rise from
+fountain-watered grass, and statued figures of people who were men in
+their day and did things, palatial buildings, dignifying commerce,
+form the square. Yet while I have been here I have watched, right over
+a house on one side of it, a huge white hoarding being erected, and
+have watched a great vulgar advertisement of cigarettes being daubed
+upon it. A beastly, ugly smear on one of the beauty-spots of the city.</p>
+
+<a id="img010" name="img010"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img010.jpg" width="500" height="303" alt="Artillery Crossing A Drift Near Ladysmith." title="Artillery Crossing A Drift Near Ladysmith.">
+<p>Artillery Crossing A Drift Near Ladysmith.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Bang-bang; bang-bang; bang&mdash;loud, insistent; ping-ping&mdash;sharp,
+piercing; the first from the trolly-car, the second from a
+steam-trailing automobile; a booming roar <span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>(p. 145)</span> from the ground
+accompanying the first, a buzzing rattle the second. Just a block away
+a far louder rattle still comes from the elevated railway. Here, down
+town, the streets are paved with cobble stones, and the severity of
+the climate in the winter is given as the excuse for the irregularity
+of the surface. Heavy lorries and wheels of horsed vehicles jangle
+over them, but the general uproar is so great that the bells on the
+horses' collars are inaudible, and sight is the only sense that makes
+their approach perceptible. The stream of trolly-cars passes and
+re-passes, perpetually making short pauses for the passengers to nip
+in quickly or&mdash;get left. Across from where I write is a restaurant
+with a legend above it, "Quick Lunch." This, I think, is rather
+peculiar to New York; in other cities it would be either "Good Lunch,"
+or "Cheap Lunch;" here the attraction is that it is "quick." It is
+only necessary to watch the way that the customers hurry in and hurry
+out to see the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>(p. 146)</span> significance of it. The day is not half long
+enough for the workers down here, and the work is at such high
+pressure that time for feeding can hardly be spared; it is not feeding
+or taking a meal, it is just stoking the human engine, and quick
+stoking at that.</p>
+
+<p>The streets of London, even in the City, are calm and peaceful in
+comparison with those here in New York. The very ground throbs with
+vibration, the air throbs with the medley of noises, the buildings
+throb with both. It is not quite obvious why the streets should be so
+noisy. All the bells and gongs and danger-signals, one would think,
+would be equally effectual if they were not so loud, but now the
+competition of sounds is so great that any warning must almost be
+explosive in its violence to be audible at all. It is no wonder that
+we find in this city so many people suffering from nerves; it is quite
+surprising the number of men I have met who dare not drink coffee, men
+who have had to give up smoking, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>(p. 147)</span> men and women who were too
+nervous to travel in a hansom, and who at frequent intervals have to
+retire to the country owing to various kinds of nervous trouble. There
+seems to be no question but that this suffering from nervous disorders
+is on the increase; it would be surprising if it were otherwise,
+considering the pace at which these people live; and when one sees
+thin, pallid, spectacle-wearing little children, one sees specimens of
+the rising generation who are destined to be still greater sufferers.
+As against this, and off-setting it, the taste for outdoor games seems
+to be on the increase, and for young business men who have little time
+for taking exercise nothing can be more admirable than clubs such as
+the athletic and the racquet clubs here, which give opportunities of
+taking indoor exercise on a scale unapproached by any similar
+institution in London.</p>
+
+<p>When I left London in August and came here, it would be difficult to
+determine in which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>(p. 148)</span> city the streets were more torn up. The
+construction of the underground railway here is in evidence all over
+the city; explosions from blasting are to be heard at intervals
+throughout the day, and in various directions huge caverns yawn, at
+the bottom of which hundreds of men and steel drills are hard at work.
+I have noticed within the last few years how the power of the street
+policeman has increased for regulating traffic. In return for the
+potatoes which Ireland originally received from America, she has ever
+since been supplying this country with policemen and politicians, and
+these former great burly, beltless Milesians now despotically rule the
+traffic as effectually as the London bobbies. It is characteristic
+that the youngsters about the streets should be keener, sharper, more
+active even than the youngsters of London. The lithe, thin,
+cigarette-smoking <i>gamins</i> that sell newspapers down town are a study
+in themselves as they dart and double through the traffic and the
+crowded sidewalks, selling innumerable editions <span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>(p. 149)</span> of
+voluminous papers throughout the day.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning going down town, during the luncheon hour, or
+going up town in the evening, one is struck by the enormous number of
+women workers who now find employment in this great city&mdash;in some
+offices hundreds of women, forming almost the entire staff, are
+employed. Their competition must make it harder still for the male
+clerks. Independent, self-reliant, business-like, a curious type is
+being developed of these bread-earners&mdash;a type that suggests the
+evolution of a neutral sex. Perhaps it is not altogether to be
+wondered at, and is only a manifestation of the idea of equality, that
+in the down-town cars the man no longer gives up his seat to the woman
+who stands holding on to the leather strap over her head in the
+crowded car, and does not remove his hat in the elevator when a woman
+enters.</p>
+
+<p>Now a black-plumed vehicle comes spinning round the street corner,
+followed by three <span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>(p. 150)</span> or four carriages with the crape-wearing
+drivers: apparently it is only the denseness of the traffic that
+prevents the hearse galloping and compels the driver to be content
+with a quick trot. Quick lunch, rapid life, fast funeral, devouring
+cremation, or else the weary toiler is laid down to have a first try
+at a real long sleep in the quivering bosom of the City of Unrest.</p>
+
+<h3>XIII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>(p. 151)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>A GLIMPSE OF A SOUTHERN CITY</h5>
+
+<p>Every variety of climate, pace, and people is to be found in this
+great tract of country which has for its flag the Stars and Stripes,
+and any variety of taste ought to be capable of being gratified within
+its confines. If I were to come to live on this side of the Atlantic I
+think I should elect to settle in a Southern city. New York has many
+attractions; it has drawn to it, vortex-like, much of the best that is
+bright, able, active, powerful, but, vortex-like, the life swirls,
+spinning ceaselessly at a terrific rate, in that noisy city of unrest.
+Chicago accentuates the worst features of life in New York while
+having few of its compensations, and the large cities in the East and
+centre are blends of the life of both diluted with dulness. San
+Francisco <span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>(p. 152)</span> is a thing apart&mdash;the air of the Pacific seems to
+blow different impulses on the people, and great and glorious air and
+climate and scenery are there, bracing with the breeziness of the
+West. Florida and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico are too near the
+tropics for my taste, tending towards hammock-basking too much.</p>
+
+<p>Give me a Southern city, say in Georgia; and I have one in my mind's
+eye. There the people do not live so fast as to have no time to enjoy
+their life, while they have all that makes life enjoyable. Successful
+effort is my nearest approach to a definition of what constitutes
+happiness. There, there is every scope for various effort. The city
+and country around are still in process of active growth. "Fecundity"
+is writ large across the surface of the State, on fields, in mills, in
+mines. All the men are busy the livelong day. Here it is different
+from in England; you do not find a large section of men who spend the
+day either at various kinds of sport, at cricket, or loitering
+listlessly about the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>(p. 153)</span> clubs. An idle man would be a solitary
+of his own sex. But it is not the material conditions that constitute
+the chief attraction of life in a Southern city, excellent as they
+are; the principal charm of the South is the character of the people
+themselves. There is an undefined flavour of old-world politeness and
+courtesy perfuming their environment The bow of a Southern gentleman
+does not appear to be the jerk of a string-pull; it suggests having
+been learned remotely from the bow that brought the sword projecting
+through the long coat-tails as the hat was removed from the powdered
+wig.</p>
+
+<p>There is an indefinite something that tells one that all these people
+have had grandfathers and grandmothers, instead of as in New York,
+where the suggestion is that they are the offspring of stock-market
+tickers or have been shot into the world through a pneumatic tube.</p>
+
+<p>That almost universal formula in America on a man being introduced
+bears here a real significance, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Blank."
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>(p. 154)</span> The English equivalent is "How-d-do?" and, although
+inarticulate, there is frequently a silent suggestion of the phrase,
+"Bored to meet you," "Awfully bored to meet you." In the South they
+are glad to meet and welcome the stranger at their gates, and he must
+be hard to please if he does not have a good time within them.</p>
+
+<p>The general rule that the men are at work all day has its effect in
+various ways on the life of the community. The social life differs
+from that of England in many marked features, in none more than in the
+part played by the Southern girl. At the first reception given by the
+mother of the young <i>débutante</i>, the men of the set in which she is to
+move are presented to her, and tacitly it is a presentation to them,
+by the mother, of what she holds most tenderly precious; to them, in
+trust in their honour, in full confidence in their courtesy, and,
+although their hearts are covered with the immaculate shirt-front of
+latter-day conventionality, with as full reliance on knightly service
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>(p. 155)</span> as if that stiff shirt were the armour of the day of
+chivalry. This social feature or condition of things strikes me as
+especially admirable. It strikes me as so infinitely preferable to the
+constant espionage of chaperonage, so much more above board and
+honourable towards both the young men and girls alike. They can go
+driving, to a theatre&mdash;where boxes are much more open and less like
+bathing-machines than ours&mdash;to lunch in the big club-room&mdash;an annexe
+to the exclusively male portion to which ladies are admitted&mdash;and will
+be driven to and from a dance, and will receive afternoon calls
+without a chaperon. Results point overwhelmingly to its success from
+every point of view. A breach of that code of conduct which needs not
+to be written would mean eternal social damnation. It is being
+perpetually borne in on me what a much better time the American girl
+has than our English sisters, and in many ways she deserves to have it
+so. If the man keeps horses and carriages so that he may take her out
+for drives in the afternoon, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>(p. 156)</span> bring her to the theatre, take
+her to and from dances, if he keeps her supplied with flowers to an
+extent unknown Englandwards, if he is constantly giving dinner-parties
+and supper-parties for her, it is because she is worthy of it all and
+more.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, she is never <i>blasée</i>; and, thank goodness, it is not
+yet considered in America "good form" to appear <i>blasé</i>, even if one
+is not. Being full of interest and constantly <i>au courant</i> with
+events, she is always companionable, and is able to talk intelligently
+of many things. Being gifted with a heaven-sent sense of humour, she
+is never dull; and what closer bond of social sympathy is there than a
+sense of humour in common? In conversational fence the thrust and
+parry of her play is as quick and keen as her touch is true and light,
+and through it all ripples a sunny Southern gaiety that is as fond of
+giving pleasure or amusement as she is readily susceptive of either.
+But be not tempted in this summer region, O wanderer from the chilly
+North, to wear your heart <span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>(p. 157)</span> upon your sleeve for the sun to
+shine on, or else she will pluck it off, saying, with laughing eyes,
+that it is no place for it, and she will put it with a row of probably
+half a dozen already on hers, and from time to time she will pick
+morsels from it at her pleasure; and the reason that it does not hurt
+more is because of the prettiness of her lips.</p>
+
+<p>It is when one meets the mothers of these girls that one sees whence
+comes their charm; an old-world queenliness of motherhood, mingling
+with warm-hearted cordiality, renders them immediately as lovable as
+their daughters.</p>
+
+<p>The billion-dollar trust is very adollarable, and so is the Tobacco
+and Standard Oil and the rest; but in the assets of the nation, more
+valuable, to my mind, is the heirloom of the tradition of gentle
+manners and cordial kindliness held so well in trust by the people of
+that city of the South.</p>
+
+<h3>XIV <span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>(p. 158)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE PENALTY OF THEIR PACE IN THE CITY OF UNREST</h5>
+
+<p>A dinner-party at Sherry's&mdash;twenty people sat around a table beautiful
+with the choicest flowers&mdash;the room was full of diners; there was more
+noise and clatter than one would hear even in the Carlton or Prince's;
+and the Hungarian band was playing&mdash;seemed the suitable panting
+life-breath of the scene&mdash;sensuous a little&mdash;strenuous&mdash;feverishly
+restless. Bright, gay, quick, and keyed loudly in order to be audible,
+were the voices of the diners; exchange of repartee, quick as the fire
+of a pom-pom, was shot and returned. Well-aimed marksmanship it was,
+too&mdash;no cartridges wasted. Flash of costly jewels or still brighter
+eyes as the shots were <span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>(p. 159)</span> sped at marks worth firing at and
+well capable of replying. Men who had done things were there: the
+senator&mdash;a great lawyer&mdash;several of America's greatest business men,
+and the women who had helped or spurred or hindered them, but who were
+all worth working for or helpfully hinderous blast-furnaces to
+ambition. But one seat away was a man who was one of the greatest
+mine-owners in America, and controlled railways that were connected
+and dependent on these mines. Pale and sallow, with sparse hair over
+his big bulging forehead, power and decision and resolution were
+stamped on every line of his face; a small army of men worked for
+him&mdash;worked underground or on railroads, or looked to him as the donor
+of dividends, the regulator of their incomes, the arbiter of their
+financial destinies.</p>
+
+<p>He drank no wine at dinner, yet now and again a curious up-and-down
+lifting movement of the table could be traced to one of his knees,
+which he kept crossed over the other. He waved away the coffee with
+the remark <span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>(p. 160)</span> that it was years since he dared indulge in it;
+but when, after obviously impatient waiting, the time came when he
+might light a long cigar, he puffed out a stream of smoke with a sigh
+of relief, and the table was no longer shaken from that on. Presently
+some remark drew from him the reply, "No; the most desirable things in
+the world are health and sleep. I would give two million dollars to be
+able to sleep six hours each night. I would give twice that to be able
+to digest a good meal properly. I would give I don't know what to be
+able to rest, just rest quietly again."</p>
+
+<p>And the lady next him said: "How well I understand that feeling! I
+don't see why we should be compelled to go on, on, on at that pace.
+Sometimes now when I have to drive in a cab I can barely keep myself
+from shrieking out aloud from sheer nervousness. I have not dined at
+home in my own house for three months except once, and that was when,
+in reply to a remonstrance to my daughter for going out so much, she
+said she <span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>(p. 161)</span> would dine at home on Christmas Day. It is this
+perpetual rush, I expect, makes us so nervous; but it is so hard to
+stop, even when our nerves pay the price."</p>
+
+<a id="img011" name="img011"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="400" height="562" alt="Naval Brigade Passing Through Ladysmith." title="Naval Brigade Passing Through Ladysmith.">
+<p>Naval Brigade Passing Through Ladysmith.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="third">
+
+<p>Coming out of a newspaper office in New York I happened to meet an old
+friend of the Cuban war times. Paler, thinner, and more drawn his face
+looked in the V of his turned-up collar than when I had seen him last.
+After talking for a few minutes I asked him whither he was going, and
+found he was going to take a special kind of bath and rubbing, which
+was part of the treatment he was undergoing for the desperate nervous
+trouble he was suffering from.</p>
+
+<p>"It is pretty hard lines," said he. "As you know, I never drank, and
+took fairly good care of myself. I have not slept more than an hour or
+two for the past week."</p>
+
+<p>Then he told me how, going home to Brooklyn a few evenings before, the
+nervousness had come so badly on him that he had to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>(p. 162)</span> hire a
+boy to go with him. He could not go across the bridge alone.</p>
+
+<p>"At the present moment," said he, "there are nine men in our office
+suffering from the same complaint."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to think that the treatment was doing little good; that
+doctors could do next to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Rest, long rest, is what we want, I suppose; but how can a fellow get
+rest working in a big newspaper office in this city?"</p>
+
+<hr class="third">
+
+<p>The Remington machine had been rattling on like a Maxim gun in action,
+the operator taking down dictation on to the machine so quickly that
+it was almost as good as short-hand. It stopped suddenly, and the
+fragile anæmic woman who was working it laid down her hands in her
+lap, saying she was afraid she could not continue. In reply to the
+question if she was ill she said no&mdash;that it was simply she was
+nervous. She said she had only just returned from the country, where
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>(p. 163)</span> she had been resting for a week&mdash;a rest that she could ill
+afford, but it evidently had not been long enough.</p>
+
+<p>"It is terrible, especially for those who have to keep working for a
+living, who have to work on to keep their heads above water."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it is the penalty we pay for all this," she said, looking
+out from the window at which she sat.</p>
+
+<p>Down far below was one of the busiest squares in New York; a double
+line of trolly-cars perpetually running through it that clanged their
+bells as they swung around the corner; automobiles that pinged their
+warning gongs and darted in and out amongst the stream of traffic
+fish-like; labouring horses struggling under heavy loads; the cars
+packed with people like cattle, standing up and hanging from the
+straps in the roof, toilers coming back from work; the sidewalks
+crowded with hurrying people. The seats in the centre of the square
+held slouching figures with bent heads, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>(p. 164)</span> figures of dog-tired
+men&mdash;dog-tired with work or the looking for it. A sharp insistent
+clanging arose above the other sounds like a wailing scream of pain as
+an automobile ambulance rushed hospital-wards, carrying off one of
+those wounded in the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>No one can quietly watch the seething life of the City of Unrest
+without being struck with the prevalence of nervous troubles amongst
+the people. Every day one meets instances. "I dare not drink coffee; I
+have not drunk it for years," one so often hears&mdash;then the piteous
+longing for sleep denied. "I am not going to any dances this winter;
+my doctor will not allow me, on account of my nerves," one of the most
+charming girls in New York said to me a few days ago. The doctors all
+declare that this nervousness is alarmingly on the increase, and
+throughout every class of the community&mdash;from those who work hardest,
+through the longest hours, to earn their bread, to those who work at
+the pursuit of pleasure&mdash;the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>(p. 165)</span> mad social rush of the Charge
+of the Four Hundred. It is obvious that this pace cannot
+slacken&mdash;every year adds fresh impetus. What will it be in fifty
+years&mdash;at the end of the century? What will the offspring of these
+quivering, twitching, highly strung men and women be like? <i>Quo vadis,
+Americane?</i></p>
+
+<p>Already there are antidotes or remedies for this growing
+evil&mdash;sanatoria where the worn-out over-worked are compelled to seek
+refuge, asylums of repose for those who have long lost the art of
+enjoying it. More useful, perhaps, are the facilities for getting
+healthy exercise which are offered by athletic clubs, gymnasia, and
+the squash courts and tennis courts now being laid out on the tops of
+so many of the best houses. But these are only trifling against the
+magnitude of the menacing evil. Thousands have not the time to enjoy
+them, and must pay the penalty of the pace of their progress in the
+City of Unrest.</p>
+
+<h3>XV <span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>(p. 166)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE MILLION-MASTER IN THE CITY OF UNREST</h5>
+
+<p>Seven-thirty o'clock: the coffee and toast had been placed by the
+valet on the table beside his bed; the warm water was already running
+into the bath in the adjoining room; three suits of clothes, carefully
+brushed and ironed, were laid on the sofa when he was called. He
+seemed to be awake all of a sudden&mdash;quite awake. As he was called, a
+young man came into the room with a bundle of newspapers. "Let me
+see," said Mr. X., "I think I can take half an hour extra this
+morning&mdash;read away;" and then the young man began reading rapidly from
+the papers. He had from long training learned to know what interested
+the boss, and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>(p. 167)</span> read selections from one paper after another
+which he had previously gone over&mdash;some closing prices of particular
+stocks first, then some foreign and general news summary, and then X.
+asked him to read particulars of what he wanted to learn more about.
+After about fifteen minutes he had had enough, and one of his
+secretaries, with a bundle of letters in one hand and a notebook in
+the other, came in. As he read the letters, X. dictated, or mostly
+just indicated, the replies; they were all business letters. Then his
+place was taken by another. His letters were mostly invitations,
+charitable appeals, letters from his steward and the head of his
+stables at Lakewood, from the skipper of his yacht, from dealers who
+had pictures that he ought to buy, from the caretaker of his house in
+Newport, and letters from house-agents in London about a house he
+wanted there for the Coronation. At eight he took his bath, and while
+drying and dressing the litany of letters and responses continued,
+punctuated at intervals by the bell of the telephone <span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>(p. 168)</span> on the
+table by his bedside, and so on through the breakfast, now laid in an
+adjoining study, until it was time to telephone to the stables for his
+automobile. Same telephone message occupied fifteen minutes. Just
+before leaving he sent to his wife's room to find out where he was
+dining. Madame was being massaged, but sent word that they were giving
+a dinner-party at Sherry's, having three boxes at the theatre
+afterwards, and that then she expected him to come to the Astorbilts'
+ball. Long cigar, fur coat, gloves, and into the automobile, his
+secretary sitting beside him, still going through the unfinished
+letters.</p>
+
+<p>Three inches of snow had fallen during the night&mdash;hard, dry snow, on
+which the horses slipped and struggled as it was being beaten flat,
+and on which his automobile would have skidded ungovernably if Fifth
+Avenue had not been already well sprayed by the sand-sprinklers.
+Progress in the upper part of the Avenue was rapid enough; but from
+Madison Square slow, halting, and intermittent, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>(p. 169)</span> horses were
+falling in all directions, stopping the surface-cars packed with a
+multitude of toilers, all going city-wards; the gong of the automobile
+clanged petulantly. Down town the upper altitudes of the sky-scrapers
+were lost in a vague mist of swirling snow that eddied through the
+chasm-like clefts between them&mdash;there were gaps where other gigantic
+iron frames were rising up to the rattling Maxim-gun-like sound of the
+steam riveters.</p>
+
+<p>At length they arrived at the high pilloried portico of the immense
+building in which his office was situated; passing through the
+revolving doors&mdash;mill-wheels perpetually kept turning by a stream of
+humanity&mdash;one of a number of elevators brought him to the floor
+entirely occupied by his offices. The walls and counters were of white
+grey-lined marble; polished mahogany desks and burnished brass
+railings glistened everywhere. Through waiting-rooms and offices he
+passed to his private office. It was a plain room, richly carpeted,
+soft leather chairs, a big table on which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>(p. 170)</span> were only a few
+papers; a telephone stood on the right-hand side of the blotter. There
+were some maps on the walls, nothing more. On a mahogany stand against
+the wall in the centre of the room, near his desk, stood the ticker,
+like a sacred image on a pedestal. Strange little god, mysterious
+little oracle&mdash;I don't think I would have felt surprised if on
+entering he had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead,
+he seated himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the
+telephone. There was a switch-board of his private exchange outside
+the private office which communicated to each of the heads of his
+departments. Without the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke
+to six or seven one after the other. Then his confidential clerk came
+in with a number of papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the
+oracle was speaking all the time, but he took no notice of its
+remarks&mdash;still it went on, as if knowing that sooner or later he would
+be drawn towards it; and so he was, and passed the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>(p. 171)</span> tape
+through his fingers, pausing here and there; and so throughout the day
+that little chattering fetish dominated him and every one that entered
+the room. Men came in, and while waiting, or in a pause in
+conversation, would be drawn to see what was on its tongue. There is
+nothing more striking about business in New York than the ease and
+rapidity with which business is carried out. There had been a bad
+break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to have some if it came to a
+certain figure. All the morning down, down, it toppled. Within a few
+seconds of the time a deal was made from the centre of the Stock
+Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office. It dropped to his
+price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy me 5000 sugar at
+92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message, and I am holding
+the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on his private wire to
+the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has already his number on
+the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately <span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>(p. 172)</span> available a
+two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the reply: "3000
+at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min. 35 sec.) To
+those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the telephone in
+London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and so much does
+it enter into the daily life of the community that it would now give
+something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all the
+telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators
+suddenly go on strike.</p>
+
+<p>A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the
+building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during
+it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much
+time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at
+during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a few moments' chat
+with some friends&mdash;change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's&mdash;inside
+the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people <span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>(p. 173)</span>
+he knows. "Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with
+you." "Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to
+see how many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a
+Worth gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives&mdash;it is the first
+time he has seen her during the day.</p>
+
+<p>"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a
+slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he
+sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest
+him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes&mdash;plots that, instead of
+play, can be made into reality&mdash;real live characters that he could
+make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in
+one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects,
+painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury
+such as Rome never equalled.</p>
+
+<p>Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who,
+though born to millions, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>(p. 174)</span> kept fresh that perfume of
+womanliness which we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he.
+"No wonder; out every night now for four months; lunches, bridge,
+calls, dinners, theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never
+stops. I sometimes wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had
+to cook his dinner for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off
+pork and beans." "You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I
+am," said he, "but I am not master of millions, it is the millions who
+are my master&mdash;slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly
+toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and
+fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on
+my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was
+beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of
+blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not
+one kiss from the lips of love."</p>
+
+<h3>XVI <span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>(p. 175)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE WOMAN WHO WORKS IN THE CITY OF UNREST</h5>
+
+<p>At a quarter to seven the alarm-clock went off next her bed&mdash;how she
+would have liked to sleep for another hour, or lie warm and cosy under
+the clothes! The training in the habit of doing what she did not like
+helped her into a little tin bath, and to dress close to the radiator,
+as it was a bitterly cold morning. At 7.30 she stepped out into a
+snow-covered street and then hurried across Washington-square.
+Bitterly cold wind shivered through the white coral-like branches of
+the trees. The snow brought out the carving on the Washington Arch;
+the snow seemed to suit the whole square, and make it seem still less
+a part of the City&mdash;the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>(p. 176)</span> Sleepy Hollow in the City of Unrest,
+with the solid big houses around it where ladies and gentlemen lived
+who had refused to be hustled into joining in the general dollar
+scramble.</p>
+
+<p>In the street on the other side of the square she entered a
+restaurant, already full of breakfasters. She sat down at one of the
+marble tables with a couple of men she knew, ordered an orange,
+coffee, porridge, roll, two eggs&mdash;total, thirty cents. Her friends
+were in offices down town, one of them not earning as much as she was.
+They were comrades, chums, so much that he often borrowed a dollar
+from her during those critical days at the month's end.</p>
+
+<a id="img012" name="img012"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img012.jpg" width="500" height="344" alt="General Yule's Column On The Way To Ladysmith." title="General Yule's Column On The Way To Ladysmith.">
+<p>General Yule's Column On The Way To Ladysmith.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Breakfast finished, and a glance at the paper&mdash;at least, enough to
+read the headings&mdash;and then out on Broadway to take the down-town car.
+Two passed as she stood at the corner, so packed that there was not
+standing-room even on the platform for another; then one stopped from
+which a few passengers struggled out, and she got in. All <span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>(p. 177)</span>
+along the centre of the car men and women were standing, holding on to
+the straps, swaying backwards and forwards as the car swooped forward,
+and jerking forward every time it stopped. No idea in such a car of
+the men sitting down, against whose knees hers rubbed, to get up and
+relinquish their seats&mdash;why should they? She did not expect it. Was
+she not by her very going down town taking the place of a possible man
+there? was she not showing that she could do a man's work?
+Equality&mdash;he might think himself called on to give up his seat to one
+of the weaker sex. But there is no sex in the City. Swaying,
+squeezing, jostling, twenty minutes of uncomfortable cattle-truck-like
+journey brought her to the big office where she worked.</p>
+
+<p>Men do not doff their hats in the down-town elevators which brought her
+up to the big office where she was employed, a great room near the top
+of one of the high down-town buildings; the windows looked out on the
+river, now a white mass of down-flowing ice, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>(p. 178)</span> through which
+the calling steamers worked their way laboriously towards the harbour,
+to the Statue of Liberty standing beside what now looked a white
+gravel path of entry to the city.</p>
+
+<p>There were about fifty people at work in the room, three-fourths
+women, seated at desks and tables, and some occupied the dignified
+position of little glass-partitioned rooms. She had one of these to
+herself, in which there was also a table for a stenographer. It was a
+publishing-house; books, illustrations, manuscripts, were in evidence
+everywhere. Near the door was a sort of railed-in pen where men with
+bundles of manuscript under their arms were usually to be seen seated,
+waiting. Some of these were even shown into her office, and left minus
+their bundles, or more often with them. There was a hum of chattering
+typewriting machines constantly in the air, like the chirruping of
+insects heard from tropical trees. Constantly her telephone rang and
+she had to make excursions to the manager's office, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>(p. 179)</span> and head
+printers and printers'-ink-marked men came to her with proof-sheets,
+and so on, till 12.30, when she went out to lunch at the women's cafe
+and had lunch not unlike her breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>The room was full of girls similarly employed, ten to thirty cents
+being the average of their expenditure; all real workers, none of them
+the fancy stenographers that their employers frequently take out to
+little lunches at the smarter restaurants at safe distance from their
+wives up town. They were not a very attractive crowd&mdash;thin,
+flat-chested, and often anæmic, occasionally with pretty faces, hair,
+or eyes; but work, daily work, had left its impress on them all. Some
+(their luncheon bills did not exceed ten cents) looked, with their
+thin fingers and arms, like human attachments to typewriting machines.
+There was a something not in the least mannish, but still not
+appealingly womanly, in these self-reliant, quiet business beings. Was
+it a sort of neuter gender, a sexless being that was there in course
+of development? <span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>(p. 180)</span> Somehow, they did not strike one as beings
+who would bear and suckle and nurse children. Was this severe struggle
+and necessity of existence to eliminate the supreme joy of motherhood
+from their lives?</p>
+
+<p>Back to the office, where they joined their fellow men-workers; they
+were just fellow-workers, no quarter given or looked for in the
+failure to do their work. Some of them earned fine salaries, yet there
+seemed a limit-point&mdash;thus far and no farther&mdash;men were always in the
+highest positions. Put it down to tenacity of possession, jealousy,
+prejudice&mdash;anything but want of perseverance, circumspection,
+industry: the obviousness of the fact remains.</p>
+
+<p>Until half-past five her work goes on just the same as before lunch,
+and then up town on the elevator. Dry snow is spotting the swirling
+wind that eddies round the corners; the sidewalks are thick with
+hurrying people; the elevator is packed to the platforms with men and
+women tightly crushed together, worse even than coming down. She
+dines <span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>(p. 181)</span> at a little Italian restaurant, where the proprietor,
+his wife, and children personally attend on their customers; it is
+known only to a few who mostly know each other&mdash;constant
+<i>habitués</i>&mdash;magazine writers and magazine artists, and miscellaneous,
+but interesting, nondescripts; and her dinner, with Italian wine
+included, costs forty cents. It is the pleasantest part of the day for
+her&mdash;men and women of that little writing, artistic, thoughtful, and,
+in a way, thoughtless set she had known for years; men who could never
+boom themselves or others, or keep up a bluff even enough to advertise
+themselves; the slow steps of actual merit made their progress seem
+like marking time. Ruggles, commonly known to his friends as
+Rembrandt, saw her home&mdash;old Ruggles, who painted better pictures than
+half the foreigners who came to New York, but who would never be a
+prophet in his own country. Nice old boy, Ruggles; but the fire was
+burning low in him, its only fuel being the ashes of disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>(p. 182)</span> sky had cleared, and the moon shone out on the glorious
+old square, and red lights suggestive of old port and big wood fires
+streaked the silent snow from the windows. "Bully, isn't it?" And the
+silent pressure of her arm was affirmative of complete understanding.
+Her tiny sitting-room was warm; the cheap eastern rugs and dark green
+background of the walls and some clever original sketches, all were in
+the harmony of taste that loved restfulness. She lit the gas-stove of
+imitation logs; Ruggles wheeled a chair in front of it and filled his
+pipe; from his match she glowed a cigarette, and with a great sigh of
+relief and tiredness lay back on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Then they chatted chum-like of many things. She was doing well&mdash;doing
+a man's work and getting a man's pay, supporting her mother and the
+two younger girls in the country. It was a strain; but is not
+successful effort Brian L'Estrange's definition of happiness? So they
+chatted on until it was time for Ruggles to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank <span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>(p. 183)</span> you so much for coming, dear old Ruggles; it is so
+lonely when I come back here by myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you get married?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I don't know. Perhaps I'm getting old working, and the men I
+would like to marry don't care for me, and those that would I don't
+like. I don't think I want really to marry any one, either."</p>
+
+<p>As he shook hands at the door he said, "You ought to get married,
+girlie. What a good, and true, and beautiful mother you would make for
+a boy-child!"</p>
+
+<p>The shooting of the door-hasp seemed to let go the flood-gates of her
+heart. There was the great longing of her heart&mdash;to bear a boy-child.
+"For joy that a man is born into the world" seemed vaguely ringing in
+her ears. Like a deep-down spring surface-seeking, that old desire
+welled up, the perfect reward and crown of valiant womanhood&mdash;and she
+felt how good and tender and true a mother she could be; and as the
+desolation of denial flooded her soul she threw herself on <span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>(p. 184)</span>
+that sofa made of empty cases, held the cushions to her, and
+cried&mdash;cried as if her heart would break.</p>
+
+<p>Being independent and alone in her own room, she could cry out her
+lone cry without any one interfering with unwelcome comforting. Then,
+pale-faced and red-eyed, she got up, the sobs still coming in little
+gasps. She looked in the glass as she pushed the black hair back from
+her blue-veined forehead. With one of those strange revelations of
+reality that come to people in life when in solitude they look at
+their own reflection in a mirror&mdash;she thought&mdash;spoke. "It is too
+late&mdash;too late&mdash;for me to be the mother of a boy-child."</p>
+
+<p>Then she went and set her alarm-clock to a quarter to seven in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<h3>XVII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>(p. 185)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE HOU-MEN OF THE DINGY CITY</h5>
+
+<p>How they call with different voices, these cities of men&mdash;from the
+Maxim-gun-like rattle of New York, with its chorus of strenuous
+steamers calling from the water, on over the gamut of different
+capitals to Tokio, where the city voice is the tinkling of stilted
+wooden shoes; not "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," but "Tinkle,
+tinkle, little feet," go the small wooden shoes on the wide firmament
+of pavement.</p>
+
+<p>Most strident are the American cities; the most sweet-sounding are
+those of Japan, except in those few streets raided by tram-cars.</p>
+
+<p>What is the voice of London? Is it not the plod, plod, dumping plod of
+the horses' hoofs <span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>(p. 186)</span> and the jangling rattle of harness and
+bells, which last we hardly hear, so close is the sound to our ears,
+like things we cannot see because they are so close to our eyes? As it
+is a murmurous and noisy city in comparison with those of Japan, so it
+is peaceful and quiet in comparison with Chicago or New York. A friend
+of mine from that City of Unrest says that the sound of the London
+streets has a soothing, lulling effect on him, and makes him sleepy,
+like the sound of falling water.</p>
+
+<p>As I went up to Euston to-day to meet an Oriental visitor, I fell to
+speculating how the city might look to him. A very cultured,
+intellectual fellow he is, who looks into the backs of the eyes of
+things. A Chinaman born, he had been through college in America, and
+knew American cities; he had also been studying in Paris, but this was
+his first visit to London. A wet, drizzling day was not the most
+propitious for his first impressions. Slopping along in a cab through
+the muddy streets, as I went under the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>(p. 187)</span> portico of Euston
+Station I was forcefully reminded of one of the big gates of Pekin.
+There is a suggestion of the same massiveness; but the massiveness is
+only make-face, like the painted cannon on a Chinese city gate. It was
+an imposing portico to a shamble of sheds.</p>
+
+<p>The railway terminus is the real gate of the modern city.</p>
+
+<p>Yet what absurdly incongruous things these London city gates are&mdash;a
+salad jumble of architecture and machinery with a mayonnaise of
+train-oil and soot!</p>
+
+<p>As I waited for my friend long trains came rumbling in under a canopy
+of smoke that hung about the grim iron rafters of this labyrinth.
+Fifteen minutes ago these trains had been spinning along through the
+green fields and across the shady lanes of what looked like "Merrie
+England," although now shaved down and trimmed to intense
+respectability of cultivation. The heavens darkened and the air
+thickened as they came close to their journey's end, until they slow
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>(p. 188)</span> down as if gropingly finding their way into the cavernous
+gateway of the great dingy city.</p>
+
+<p>What a strange conglomeration of people was waiting on each platform!
+There was a train leaving to catch the steamer for New York, there was
+a line of people waiting to take tickets for a close-by station, there
+was a line of soldiers waiting to be entrained; an American girl was
+standing on an automatic machine, and getting the railway porter to
+translate from stones into pounds how much she weighed after her visit
+to Europe. A couple of Oriental servants seemed to have lost
+themselves in the labyrinthine station, and were wandering round with
+Oriental indifference. Porters, with hands and faces and uniforms
+toned down to the universal greyness of things, trundled their
+hand-lorries to the monotonous calling of "B' your leave, b' your
+leave"; and variegated specimens of humanity were looking around after
+their luggage as one might imagine disembodied souls looking for
+their <span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>(p. 189)</span> bodies in the Valley of Jehoshaphat on the Last Day.
+There were not a few touches of cosmopolitanism suggestive of that
+gathering.</p>
+
+<p>My Oriental alighted from the train. As his Japanese servant was quite
+capable of looking after his luggage and bringing it to his hotel, his
+master was left free to come right on with me and exercise his
+industrious curiosity&mdash;a curiosity that seemed never to be surprised
+at anything he saw, but took everything as a matter of course. He was
+a man of the world in his own estimation. Nevertheless, what an
+important part of it he had not yet seen! Was it not a great epoch in
+his life, this arrival of his in London?</p>
+
+<p>"This is our North Gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, Hou-Men," he said. "A very dark day, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>We drove away in a cab under that sepulchral prison-like portico; we
+had the glass down, it was raining so hard, and even he, whose
+Westernisation was principally confined <span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>(p. 190)</span> to New York, noticed
+the absurdly asphyxiating arrangement of the London cab, which
+hermetically seals its frame-bound occupants. The New Yorkers got
+their idea of the cab from us, but they have improved upon the window
+by having it slanting outwards, so that, while protecting people from
+the rain, it admits air. For Londoners there is no alternative between
+spatteration and suffocation. In the New York cabs they can have
+shelter and fresh air.</p>
+
+<p>It was not an inspiriting entrance through these first streets outside
+Euston into London. The pavement of Melton Street was little better
+than that of Pekin, and from each side those dreary-looking small
+hotels blinked out of their closed windows on the muddy street as if
+wondering when a God-forsaken guest would come and occupy them. And
+then on through grimy Gower Street, looking like the empty bottom of a
+drained canal.</p>
+
+<p>It's not very inspiriting, this entrance into London from this North
+Gate of ours.</p>
+
+<p>The people we passed there were not an interesting <span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>(p. 191)</span> lot; they
+seemed all to belong to the two-storeyed houses. They were
+two-storeyed people, apparently keeping themselves moderately busy
+making a moderate amount of money, but hampered in the money-making by
+the mud and rain. We passed a little square carpeted with fresh grass,
+but the trees on the other side were vague in mist, and the square and
+its vegetation gave the suggestion of a tank with seaweeds in it. It
+was a day for studying men and women by their umbrellas and boots.
+Boots tell confessions for the most Low Church Protestants, and the
+umbrellas above them generally corroborate the sins of the boots.</p>
+
+<p>My Oriental friend was gazing out gravely.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a warm evening in a tea-garden that he had talked about his
+coming visit to London. I recollect his enthusing over the phrase</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "Beneath the rule of men supremely great<br>
+  The pen is mightier than the sword."</p>
+
+<p>A great motto for a great country, he then said <span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>(p. 192)</span> it was. He
+professed an anxiety to see or meet some of the great English writers,
+our <i>literati</i>, as he called them. He liked the honesty of Englishmen
+in business, and wanted to see them at work. He had helped to show me
+something of the life of the East&mdash;that part of the life most
+difficult to see, the life of the home&mdash;and in return I promised to
+show him something of the life of the West, how and where people work
+and play, and pray&mdash;when they do so.</p>
+
+<p>"Show me the house of one of your <i>literati</i> if we pass one," he said.
+"Is that one, there?" pointing to a gorgeous public-house, as we
+passed a street corner.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the probable toppling of an ideal. We passed a couple of
+quick-driving vans with a green placard of an evening paper, and I
+explained to him what a reading public we were, and how many editions
+of the papers were quickly distributed during the afternoon, how the
+appetite for them had grown, like the craving for cheap cigarettes, as
+a relief from being obliged to inhale pure literary <span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>(p. 193)</span> air.
+The newspaper habit and the cigarette habit are about on a par after
+all.</p>
+
+<a id="img013" name="img013"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img013.jpg" width="500" height="347" alt="Hospital Train Leaving Ladysmith For Pietermaritzburg." title="Hospital Train Leaving Ladysmith For Pietermaritzburg.">
+<p>Hospital Train Leaving Ladysmith For Pietermaritzburg.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We passed a church with closed doors, and he seemed surprised. I
+explained to him that the churches were open on Sunday, on which day
+the more numerous temples of Bacchus were closed for a while.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the Strand, where he was greatly interested in a line of
+'buses. "Have you no street cars like in New York?" I submitted that
+these were kept on chiefly in order to have a supply of artillery
+horses in times of war.</p>
+
+<p>"And have you no high buildings either?"</p>
+
+<p>The explanation of ancient lights and the overhead space wasted in
+London was too much to go into. His attention was diverted by a
+newspaper placard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said he, "another earthquake, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Collapse of Australia" stared from that vermilion placard. It began
+to dawn on me that I had undertaken rather a large order in showing
+this Oriental London life.</p>
+
+<p>"And <span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>(p. 194)</span> you have not shown me any of your <i>literati</i> yet, or any
+of their houses."</p>
+
+<p>We were stopped in a block of omnibuses and cabs. A line of
+sandwich-men were straggling along between vehicles and the curb. One
+of them stopped just by our cab; the rain was trickling down his nose;
+he looked as dismal as the weather. I could not resist the temptation
+of explaining that these were some of our <i>literati</i> undergoing
+punishment for some of the books or plays they had written. In China
+the crime is set forth on a board hung on the neck of the criminal,
+called the <i>cangue</i>. It was only a very mild surprise he showed when I
+gave him the names of the line of sandwich-men. "How like the head of
+your Shakespeare!" he said of one.</p>
+
+<p>We were received at the hotel door by a brass-bound German in the
+undress uniform of a British admiral, who pays the hotel £500 for
+receiving tips. The rooms and corridors of the big building did not
+look hospitably cheering. There were no fires in the grates, because,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>(p. 195)</span> being June, the weather ought to have been warm; and the
+electric lights were not turned on, because, being daytime, there
+ought to have been light. He liked the smoking-room. "It is more like
+one of our big tea-houses," he said. "Men do business here," pointing
+to a man with a sheaf of papers talking earnestly to another beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is a company promoter."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a company promoter?"</p>
+
+<p>The nearest definition that occurred was, "A man who sells something
+he hasn't got to another who does not want to buy it."</p>
+
+<p>"I think London is a very interesting city," he said.</p>
+
+<h3>XVIII <span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>(p. 196)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>TIRED</h5>
+
+<p>It was the fag end of the week in the Dingy City. A heavy weight of
+dusty grey cloud lay oppressively inert, vaguely resting on the house
+and tree tops, and underneath the cloud the air seemed stagnantly
+confined; in its lowest strata people had been breathing it all
+day&mdash;all the week, in fact&mdash;in and out of their lungs, so that it was
+no wonder it felt tired and second-hand and used up.</p>
+
+<p>The air-thirst of their lungs had impelled those who were energetic to
+go away to where fresh air was to be breathed; but the very tired, and
+those who lacked the energy for initial impetus, remained. The shops
+had been closed, and the sunlight beat upon the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>(p. 197)</span> shuttered
+eyelids of their windows on the Phryne side of Piccadilly. By that
+hour on Saturday afternoon Regent Street and Piccadilly were wearing
+almost a Sunday appearance; Ranelagh and Hurlingham and the new club
+at Roehampton were crowded with smart people, and for hours past
+trains from Paddington and Waterloo had been carrying thousands of
+Panama-hatted, white-trousered men and summer-clad women riverwards.
+Though the shops were closed, some belated workers, in ones or twos or
+threes, continued to dribble out from their doors.</p>
+
+<p>Going westward, along Piccadilly, a slight, dark-haired young girl
+stepped out from one. She was dressed in a thin white blouse that
+showed the outline of her arms and shoulders; she did not join the
+crowd of others who were scaling the 'buses on the opposite side of
+the street, but turned to walk along the pavement parkwards. One fell
+to speculating as to why she walked. There was no spring or elasticity
+in her step as if she were doing so for the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>(p. 198)</span> enjoyment of the
+exercise. Her feet, in boots with heels slightly rounded on the
+outside, seemed to drag on that hot pavement. Possibly the 'bus fare
+was an item of consideration, even though she looked as if she had
+spent all the morning on her feet in the shop. With thick, dark hair
+and good eyes, it would have taken very little aid in the way of dress
+to make her appear quite good-looking. As it was, men turned to look
+at her as she passed, and one even came across the street, followed,
+and leered at her as he came abreast; she held on the even tenor of
+her way, taking no notice of them. On, past the clubs, through the
+street vocal with the clanking stamp of the horses' hoofs&mdash;horses with
+shining flanks, who cocked their ears, and tossed their foam-dripping
+mouths as they passed the water-trough.</p>
+
+<p>Wooden stands here and there still disfigured some of the house
+fronts, and here and there a red pole, looking like a sugar-stick that
+a child had been sucking, stood as <span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>(p. 199)</span> a memento of one of the
+most hideous schemes of tawdry decoration that a civilised city has
+ever shown.</p>
+
+<p>At Hyde Park corner she turned in towards the trees, following the
+stream-crowd direction of other pedestrians. She stopped near the
+railings, watching the procession of carriages going by. A girl, so
+like herself that they might almost have been sisters, passed in a
+high C-springed carriage. Looking from one to the other, the great
+difference made by little things was apparent. An application of
+powder-puff to the moist face of the girl at the railings would have
+worked improvement; her cotton gloves hung down flaccidly from the
+bare hand which held up her skirt; perhaps some such thought as that
+of the unfair distribution of C-spring carriages in this world crossed
+her mind, as she turned away and languidly continued her journey
+westward under the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The seats were full of a heterogeneous collection of people, all more
+or less under the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>(p. 200)</span> drowsy influence of that stagnant air.
+Here and there men were to be seen asleep in the chairs. Heads in tall
+hats nodded, debarred the luxury enjoyed by those tramps who lay at
+full length under the trees on the grass behind. Between those
+luxuriating on the grass, men lying in their shirt-sleeves, with heads
+a-resting in the laps of tired-faced women, whose children played or
+cried noisily around, and those who passed in the procession of
+carriages, was the intervening line of people from which all sorts of
+specimens could be taken of the great mediocracy of England&mdash;those who
+could no more afford a carriage than they could afford to lie on the
+grass. The men's heads were branded with tall hats, remnants and
+summer sales were suggested in the costumes of many of the women; an
+occasional glimpse of shoes or hosiery explained why the graceful
+holding up of the skirts should be unstudied or unknown on this side
+of the Channel. And their gloves were of the same character as the
+hose.</p>
+
+<p>Curious <span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>(p. 201)</span> specimens were to be found amongst that crowd. A man
+passed whom I recollect seeing there as long as I can recollect going
+to the park. Go round the world and back, and here one was certain to
+find him. I know his income&mdash;it is just three hundred a year; except
+that his whiskers had got a little whiter, he looked just the same as
+usual. The frock-coat he wore I have a sort of suspicion was the same
+as I saw on him two years ago. I could swear to the umbrella&mdash;at least
+the handle, because possibly it had been recovered. The frock-coat
+would obviously not see another season&mdash;not that it was showing any
+tinge of green about the shoulders, far from it. But perhaps it was a
+feeling of doubtfulness about the coat, which prompted a startling
+departure in his costume. He had gone in for a pair of those yellow,
+chamois-coloured gloves which have made their appearance this season.
+He sauntered along leisurely, watching the people and the carriages
+with apparently the same <span class="pagenum"><a id="page202" name="page202"></a>(p. 202)</span> degree of interest as he had done
+for the past ten years. I have heard that long ago he had a good tenor
+voice, and he used to speak authoritatively of great singers, when
+they really were great singers, not such as now.... I've never seen
+him talking to anybody in the park, and I've never seen him smoke; yet
+his lips are seldom at rest. They have now got a motion something
+between that of a nervous American with a cigar and a cow chewing the
+cud. This is the result of the movableness of his artificial teeth.
+Perhaps an extra visit to his dentist was an item of expenditure not
+to be lightly incurred.</p>
+
+<p>What appeared to be corresponding feminine types were to be seen in
+profusion. Women with incomes of one hundred, two hundred, three
+hundred a year, women who had passed the age either of matrimony or
+naughtiness. What thousands of friendless and lonely people there must
+be in this great Dingy City! The class that lies on the grass is more
+sociable; they are free from <span class="pagenum"><a id="page203" name="page203"></a>(p. 203)</span> a thousand tyrannies that
+oppress the mediocracy.</p>
+
+<p>The face of a woman dressed in black, seated between two children,
+seemed familiar; not until she bowed did I recognise her as the wife
+of an old friend who had been killed in Ladysmith. She used to be the
+prettiest officer's wife of his smart regiment; and from her account
+it would have been better if she had not been so pretty, or the
+regiment so smart. She was now left with barely his pension for
+herself and the two children to live on.... Yet very bravely,
+apparently, she had faced the change!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have tried various things for the last couple of years," she
+said, "but I am afraid there is nothing I can do. I even tried the
+stage for a time." She used to have a good voice. "But the managers
+were horrid, and the pay was very small. Then I tried to give music
+lessons; but what I got was hardly worth the distances I had to go; so
+now I have to settle down to working <span class="pagenum"><a id="page204" name="page204"></a>(p. 204)</span> out daily problems in
+domestic economy."</p>
+
+<p>"And all your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they all were very nice and kind; but one cannot go about without
+being properly dressed, and when one keeps refusing invitations, one
+gradually becomes forgotten in time. I felt rather lonely just now
+when I saw the people driving down to Hurlingham. Come along, chicks,
+we must be going now. You see," she said, "it is a long 'bus ride to
+our little flat."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the long free seat, beyond where they had been sitting,
+was a strange, haggard-looking woman; a pair of cheap cotton gloves
+showed her thin white wrists, and her black dress looked dusty and
+draggled. She had a strange haunted look on her face, as if she had
+left some tragedy behind her at home. Every time a carriage with
+scarlet-liveried coachmen passed, she got up and stood on the seat.
+Perhaps she had journeyed there to see the Queen. She looked cross and
+disappointed each time she stepped <span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>(p. 205)</span> down again. On the other
+side a couple of girls were discussing those that passed in the
+carriages, and speculating as to who they might be. It was interesting
+to follow their surmises.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that's Lady X.," one of them said, as a lady, driving a pair
+of high-steppers, passed.</p>
+
+<p>But it wasn't. The little fellow sitting beside her glowed with the
+importance of proprietorship; but, smart little chap that he was in
+Throgmorton Street, he had no idea how many understudies there were to
+his part, and did not realise that there are syndicates outside those
+of the City.</p>
+
+<p>"What an awfully common-looking woman!" the other said, as an old lady
+passed in her carriage behind a sleepy pair of horses, sleepily
+driven, the fat pug dog at her feet suffering eclipse by the
+jelly-shaking arc of her redundant figure. She happened not to be
+common by any means, but one of the brightest and most good-natured
+members of one of the oldest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>(p. 206)</span> and most distinguished families
+in England.</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness, isn't that Lord Roberts?" said the other, as a pair of
+chestnuts passed, with a rigid and angular lady in the carriage
+sitting beside a red-faced, white-moustached little man with his nose
+in the air.</p>
+
+<p>It was not Lord Roberts. He really looked much too important for
+"Bobs," although he was a military man in a sense, being colonel of a
+Volunteer regiment.</p>
+
+<p>And how nasally obviously numerous in the procession was the
+proportion of Jews, and the Jewesses whose plumpness seemed the
+retribution inflicted by prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>As the smart carriages passed and the high-stepping horses, which were
+indeed the exception, for the majority ambled along half somnolent
+from careless coachmanship, one sought in vain for some idea of what
+they were doing it all for. They did not seem to enjoy it. If they did
+not enjoy it, why did they do it? The expression that was common and
+universal to almost all was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>(p. 207)</span> their seriousness. The Volunteer
+colonel took himself seriously, as did the fair frailty behind the
+high-steppers, no less than the best ladies of the land who seemed to
+be doing it as a traditional duty; but each and every one looked so
+serious.</p>
+
+<p>How was it that no one seemed to be laughing and enjoying himself out
+of all the crowd? The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to belong to
+another planet. The listless languor of these girls did not at least
+obviously claim Transatlantic cousinship; the gaiety of a Japanese
+street seemed so remote as to belong to a planet of another system;
+and the seriousness seemed reflected in the faces of the great
+mediocracy sauntering along inside the railings or solemnly seated in
+the chairs with their faces turned carriagewards.</p>
+
+<p>Here it did not seem the Dingy City; there was colour enough&mdash;bright
+splashes of colour, both colour in movement and colour from the
+rhododendron bushes, backgrounded with the fresh grass, that an artist
+was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>(p. 208)</span> making a picture of over the way; it was not the Dingy
+City here. At least this was an oasis in it. But here, in this oasis,
+playground or pleasure-ground, the People of the Serious City was what
+was writ on their faces.</p>
+
+<p>Five hours later the park was almost deserted, and the gleam of white
+shirt-front or tulle-foam was caught as a closed carriage passed.</p>
+
+<p>The old bachelor was asleep in his chair at an open window looking
+across the narrow street at the familiar sooty face of the house
+opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Tom; I do hope it will be fine for to-morrow," the
+black-haired girl was saying at her door, holding in her hand the new
+hat she had been trimming.</p>
+
+<p>The Volunteer colonel was discussing Buller and port across the
+glittering dinner-field.</p>
+
+<p>The little fair-haired boy had climbed softly out of his cot, and,
+going over to his mother's bed, whispered coaxingly, "Will 'oo
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>(p. 209)</span> let me sleep with 'oo, mummy?" and when he had nestled his
+head on her arm, "Now tell me the story how daddy died," and was
+asleep before the familiar story was finished.</p>
+
+<a id="img014" name="img014"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img014.jpg" width="500" height="328" alt="Boer Prisoners." title="Boer Prisoners.">
+<p>Boer Prisoners.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3>XIX <span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>(p. 210)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE CITY OF DUMB DISTANCES</h5>
+
+<p>I am sure there must be many to whom the idea occurs at such times of
+the year as this, at the end of the season, when people are scattering
+out of London, that friends are leaving whom we would like to have had
+the time to have seen before they went. How often, looking over the
+pages of one's address book, one says, "I wonder how it is I have not
+seen So-and-so for an age," and one feels that people we used to enjoy
+meeting, if they do not happen to move in the same orbit of
+metropolitan existence, are vanishing from our ken. They are being
+lost in the Limbo of long distances. An hour of Underground in very
+hot weather may give the remoteness of Styx-ferryage.</p>
+
+<p>It <span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>(p. 211)</span> would be nice even to be able to speak to one's friends
+who are not conveniently visitable. In other cities this is possible,
+but not here. The telephone service of an American town or a Norwegian
+village is a thing of which London has never got even sufficient
+sample-taste to realise what she is deprived of, or what she ought
+very reasonably to demand. There is no reason why London should remain
+telephonically deaf and dumb. There is nothing which strikes the
+visitor more forcibly, however, than the long-suffering patience of
+the Londoner. The exasperatingly slow, inefficient apology for a
+telephone service that would not be tolerated anywhere else is good
+enough for London. It is no excuse to plead in apology the great size
+of the City, when there is the example of New York before one, where
+there are more telephones, where they are cheaper, and where the
+average time to get into communication with another subscriber appears
+to be a third or a fourth of the time taken in London. It is only when
+one has had actual experience <span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>(p. 212)</span> of a thoroughly telephoned
+town that one appreciates the convenience of it. Look what it means
+for saving time in shopping, doing business, making appointments, and
+speaking to one's friends. "I got a telephone put right into my room
+the day I arrived," said an American friend, "but the people I want to
+speak to most often don't seem to use them, and it is so darned slow
+getting on to those that do that now I am keeping a cab by the day; it
+is quicker in the end, and makes me swear less."</p>
+
+<p>It will only be a matter of time, and that not so very far off, when
+wireless telegraphy will replace the telephone. The principle of
+sending messages in a multiplicity of keys, so that a message sent
+will only be received on the instrument keyed for it, has been
+established, and only requires practical working out. Until that time
+London will probably have to remain as deaf and dumb as it is.</p>
+
+<p>As regards getting from one part to another, it is not a cheerful
+thing to contemplate <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>(p. 213)</span> that what should be the most agreeable
+way of traversing London&mdash;I mean the pathway of the river&mdash;should just
+now be closed, and while Mr. Yerkes looks out on it from his offices
+in the Hotel Cecil, Londoners have to look to him to see if he or
+Pierpont Morgan will not open it to them again. What a pleasant
+alternative from the asphyxiating Underground or the tortoise-moving
+omnibus would not a fast, comfortably fitted line of river steamers
+be! It seems inconceivable that, with such a waterway and such
+primitive and inadequate alternative means of travel, the people
+should stand its being closed. What a great, stimulating, suggestive
+pathway it is through the Dingy City! Coming from a dance early the
+other morning I walked along the Embankment, to see a carpet of blue
+and silver being laid along the river as if by the angels of the dawn;
+and at evening in ever-varying schemes of sometimes gorgeous colour a
+richer carpet is laid sunsetwards, while the smoke and dust exhalation
+of the City is glorified <span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>(p. 214)</span> to an incense offering by the
+stained rose window to the west. At such times the Dingy City looks
+great, robed in vague organ-tones of colour. But you must no longer
+walk on that carpet, even though the angels have laid it for you; you
+must no longer see your city from that pathway; you must burrow
+homewards from your work in a sewer-pipe of stink, and deeper
+rabbit-warrens of burrowing are being prepared for you, and you have
+no Declaration of Independence that secures to you the undeniable
+right to breathe fresh air. Long-suffering, patient Londoner! To whom
+does the City belong, and the river? If you reward with honours the
+men who make beer or whisky for you, or supply you with cheap tea, or
+signalise themselves by successfully struggling against disease, there
+ought to be the inducement of honours and reward waiting for the man
+or men that would help the millions in their daily struggle with this
+plague of long distances. Is there no knight to champion the cause of
+the toilers of London and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>(p. 215)</span> in earnest tackle this dragon
+problem of distances? That is left to enterprising Americans who come
+over from pure philanthropy (?) to help you. Three years of his life
+are spent by the average-lived Londoner in the Underground, who has to
+take a daily half-hour's journey in it to get to his business. A man
+with an office in the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange and a
+dwelling-house in South Kensington will spend about four or five years
+of his life going to and fro. To an extent it is a necessary evil. We
+cannot transport ourselves by telegraph, but there are things that the
+people of the largest city in the world might reasonably expect. They
+might expect to have as good facilities for getting about as the
+people of the most progressive cities in the world; they might expect
+to have the power to speak when they will with the same quickness,
+cheapness, and facility as people of other cities. But there is a dull
+feeling of resigned apathy about them. They will not insist on making
+any one "get a move on" them to get these things <span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>(p. 216)</span> done; will
+no more think of hustling themselves than a cab-horse in a growler
+hired by the hour.</p>
+
+<p>If London may be considered the head&mdash;the brain of the Empire&mdash;the
+blood-circulation of that brain is surely of vital importance. When
+keen competitors seize every time-saving, labour-saving weapon as it
+is offered to help them in the conquest of trade, can we afford to do
+without them? The business methods of twenty years ago will not do for
+to-day, still less will they do for twenty years to come. The methods
+which our competitors are practising are what will tell, and they
+cannot be imitated and acquired in a hurry when their importance will
+become suddenly alarmingly apparent. I think the position is far more
+serious than the stay-at-home Englishman realises. Perhaps from these
+passing years the future historian will get material for the opening
+chapters of his work on "British Trade: its Decline and Fall."</p>
+
+<h3>XX <span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>(p. 217)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>THE LAND OF THE EVENING CALM</h5>
+
+<p>It is difficult to think this morning that it was only last evening I
+left London. Lying on one's back on a soft carpet of pine spirules on
+the slope of the hill, the deep green of the water in the harbour
+shows through the pine branches. There is a plumage of bracken around
+wonderful green feathers, that are rising on their slender stems from
+the thick brown carpet of nature's plush, which hushes one's footsteps
+through the wood and makes them noiseless, except when one treads on a
+crisp tory top. There is a delightful hush under this cool roof
+pillared by the brown tree-trunks, but it is not silence. There is a
+soft hum that comes ceaselessly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>(p. 218)</span> to one's ear, sometimes
+anear, sometimes afar, from one knows not where, from bees, perhaps,
+busy amongst the hurts or honeysuckle just below. Up above a
+wood-pigeon keeps cooing that ceaseless question, or is it a question,
+or the plaint call of his pigeon heart for love? or has he lost his
+love, and croons a mourning for her? Distinct from and louder than the
+murmur of the bees is a rustling of the water from below where the
+outgoing tide from the river meets the water of the harbour; and
+mingled with that, one can just faintly catch the hushed sound of an
+occasional wave on the rocks. It is a holiday with the breakers, and
+the sea moves its fringe as gently as if fanning itself to sleep. The
+river winds around below, and down to its edge the hills are
+tree-covered&mdash;not there altogether with pines, but with rounded
+luxurious clumps of dark trees, recalling Doré's idea of a
+forest&mdash;they are exactly Doré's trees. It does not look from here as
+if the river went up farther, but around that bend is the deep green
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>(p. 219)</span> water called Drake's Pool. It was there that Admiral Drake,
+outnumbered and chased along the Irish coast by the Spanish fleet, hid
+from them. The Spaniards came into the harbour and searched around,
+but never thought there was an opening through the trees. And there
+Drake waited with his high-pooped ships until they went away. Close to
+the trees that grow around the steep margin of the pool and always
+darken the green water, even in daytime, fishermen who go there at
+night to fish for conger tell that when the moon has been clouded at
+midnight they have seen the shapes of queer-looking ships, and on
+their high sterns the forms of men in outlandish costumes, sitting
+around drinking.</p>
+
+<p>Right on the summit of this hill which commands the harbour is the
+Giant's Grave; and <i>à propos</i> of commanding the harbour, Napoleon I.
+knew of it, and had a plan for the invasion of Ireland, in which was
+included the idea of occupying this hill, from which he could command
+from the rear the forts <span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>(p. 220)</span> at the harbour's mouth. He would
+have planted his guns on the Giant's Grave. We know little of the
+history of that giant, except that he carried off the wife of another
+giant who lived on the Great Island opposite, and held her here in his
+fastness amid the pine trees against all efforts to wrest her from
+him. A huge rock that he hurled back in one of these fights is still
+to be seen on the shore of Spike Island.</p>
+
+<p>A twittering flutter of white and grey below me a few yards away. It
+is a rabbit&mdash;and now another. Their ears are cocked, but they do not
+appear to notice me in the least. They hop about quite noiselessly on
+the brown carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost
+musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to
+be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder
+what these rabbits are saying to each other. They seem very alert and
+interested. Now a third appears on the scene. Two of them are
+beginning to play, at least I thought so at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>(p. 221)</span> first&mdash;and I
+feel in this peaceful wood I should have left it at that, but having
+to recollect the heading of these chapters I have to record the fact
+that they are fighting. I never saw rabbits fight before, but they are
+fighting like mad. I now see, in fact, the origin of the expression
+making "the fur fly." The third is just skipping around watching
+intently with big round eyes and its ears erect&mdash;perhaps the third is
+timekeeper, or perhaps it is the story of the giants over again. The
+new-comer was getting the best of it. I am sorry now that I could not
+resist the temptation of taking a shot at them with my fountain pen.
+They fled instantly. Perhaps the little rabbit lady is glad&mdash;she may
+be licking the wounds of her Lancelot in their burrow a few yards away
+while he is telling her that he would have beaten the other fellow all
+right in the end if that darned fool hadn't thrown his fountain pen,
+while she agrees, as she works her little rabbit tongue soothingly,
+although privately she has her "doots."</p>
+
+<p>How <span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>(p. 222)</span> interesting it would be to be able to study the lives of
+all these little people in this wood! There are terrible weasels here
+who wage a sanguinary warfare against the rabbits&mdash;a guerilla war that
+no war correspondent I know of has yet got his pass for. The seagulls
+are beginning to talk now in a New York pitch of voice, and one can
+get an occasional gleam of their wings through the blue-green pine
+branches. I think it is their dinner-time when the tide goes out and
+spreads a table-strip of slob for them on the shore.</p>
+
+<p>How thankful we ought to be to have such dear stupid neighbours as the
+English, who don't come in hordes of tourists to desecrate this
+delightful land! Those who love it with intimacy of knowledge&mdash;this
+wild coast with its rock fingers stretching into the Atlantic and
+harbours around which the trees nestle for shelter from the winter
+storms&mdash;the ruined castles with empty "magic casements, opening on the
+foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn"&mdash;own it <span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>(p. 223)</span> still
+for their pleasure, moss-grown with history as vivid as the lichens on
+its rocks or ruins.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps from a sense of justice, our neighbours think the invasion of
+Cromwell's army was enough, and that we ought to be spared from
+something worse, so that the hordes rush off perspiring over the
+Continent and elsewhere, and just a few nice people come and come
+again to the South of Ireland, and say they like that cordial greeting
+that always is waiting for the Englishman personally, who only in the
+abstract is disliked. Then the Irish railways and hotel-keepers act in
+a very nice and gentlemanly fashion; the former do not force on the
+notice of the tourist hordes that a train leaves Euston or Paddington
+every evening which would land them here at 10.30 in the morning for a
+few shillings. The latter are quite content with the knowledge they
+have themselves that they possess now as comfortable and
+well-fitted-up hotels as any in the world.</p>
+
+<p>A <span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>(p. 224)</span> little old Irish lady was reduced to selling apples in the
+street. "Fresh apples, fresh apples!" she would call out; then, to
+herself, "I hope no one will hear me."</p>
+
+<p>I do not know, indeed, whether we have to thank most our kind
+neighbours or the railway and hotel people for the blessing we enjoy
+in this Land of the Evening Calm that still keeps</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+  "A bower quiet for us, and a sleep<br>
+  Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."</p>
+
+<p>One fills one's lungs with the delicious air, aromatic with pine
+perfume, to send it out in a sigh of infinite content.</p>
+
+<p>From across the water comes a sound of music; it is some one playing a
+cornet. The air the unseen musician is playing sounds familiar. He is
+only practising&mdash;learning&mdash;&mdash; Ye gods! Is there no place where one can
+get away from that air? But yet, does not it speak volumes for the
+remoteness of this harbourage of repose to realise that the unseen
+musician is only now <i>learning</i> "The Honeysuckle and the Bee"?</p>
+
+<a id="img015" name="img015"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img015.jpg" width="400" height="579" alt="Japs Entering Pekin." title="Japs Entering Pekin.">
+<p>Japs Entering Pekin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<h3>XXI <span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>(p. 225)</span></h3>
+
+<h5>WITH SOME TOILERS OF THE SEA</h5>
+
+<p>"Stop makin' a noise wid your face, man, and cook the spuds; 'tis time
+for dinner." Thus Tim to Mike, who had been expounding a theory of his
+on the wayward habits of mackerel. Tim occasionally comes out with
+quaint phrases worthy a wider audience. "Mr. Speaker, the right hon.
+member who has just been making a noise with his face on this
+amendment"&mdash;how would that sound?</p>
+
+<p>There are three men in the boat, not including the writer&mdash;Tim, Mike,
+and Dennis&mdash;engaged in lobster-fishing. They have lived in her now six
+weeks from the time they left Baltimore; "doin' purty well, thank
+God," they admit. The fishing and the weather and the price all "purty
+fair." They <span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>(p. 226)</span> get ten shillings a dozen for the lobsters,
+small or large, from the cutters that sail along the coast to collect
+them and take them to England, and they consider a couple of dozen
+lobsters a very good day's fishing. They don't get as good a price in
+the middle of the summer, however. They are going to stop the
+lobstering just now for the autumn mackerel-fishing, which they hope
+will be as good as the mackerel-fishing of last spring, which was the
+best for the past four years. The open boat, which they own in
+partnership, is a strongly built one about twenty-two feet long, with
+a lug and foresail of brown canvas and great flat stones for ballast.
+The whole outfit, including the lobster-pots, cost them twenty-five
+pounds. The pots have been set and baited with gurnet; during the two
+hours' interval we are anchored. A curious thing about the craft is
+the galley. On a spar which stretches from the bow to about four feet
+up the mast is stretched a piece of brown canvas just forward of the
+mast, on a flat stone some lumps of turf are <span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>(p. 227)</span> burning, and
+under this canvas is spread the straw on which my friends sleep. Mike
+is now washing a prodigious quantity of potatoes in a large iron pot,
+"a grate crop of praties this year, but the salt water plays the divil
+with the keeping av them, like that," and he holds up one with a red
+mark on it in his gigantic paw. I kept wondering if they were really
+going to eat all these potatoes at one meal. They did, however, washed
+down with milk from a big tin jug which they passed around. They make
+their own bread or griddle-cake, but that was to be taken with their
+tea for breakfast or supper. Tim is a teetotaler, and his two partners
+have a limit of three pints (of porter) when they are ashore. They
+always go ashore on Sundays, when two of them go to Mass, while the
+other minds the boat and the lobsters. Three great, simple, almost
+child-like giants they are, yet not without a certain natural
+courtesy&mdash;a core of genuine politeness within a rough rind.</p>
+
+<p>It was great to see how they made that heavy <span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>(p. 228)</span> boat move with
+their long oars, coming out of the harbour this morning; and yet they
+hardly ever eat any meat. Potatoes and milk are their chief diet; fish
+sometimes&mdash;"an' thin we has to sample the lobsters sometimes; it
+wouldn't do not to sample what we are daling in." They cooked one in
+honour of their visitor, who never tasted a better. Then they lit the
+pipe, which they smoked in turn, and soon it was time to pick up the
+pots. Three lobsters and a crawfish were the haul. What magnificent
+colour in the strong yet delicate armour of their shells! Deep blue
+shaded into brown, mottled in yellow spots, with deep red at the
+joints. They were put into the big basket, which already contained
+over three dozen. What a terrible time the poor brutes must have
+there! Two or three weeks in this boat, probably the same time in the
+tank of the cutter, and a week or two more in another ashore before
+they are eaten. I asked if they ever gave them any food, but found
+they never did. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>(p. 229)</span> "One av them dies off an' on, and thin the
+others ate him, an' they are always atin' the small claws off each
+other." Talk of the lobster blushing because it saw the salad
+dressing; but ought it not to make a member of the S.P.C.A. blush to
+eat lobster mayonnaise? We set the brown sails to lay the pots again
+further along the coast. It is a glorious day, the wavelets dancing on
+the surface of the long Atlantic swell that heaves ponderously; for,
+as Tim remarked, "the adjacent parish wesht is Ameriky." A glorious
+translucent green under the shadow of the leaning sails, and beyond,
+under our lee, the line of breakers on the rocks, tapestried in the
+rich brown of autumnal seaweed, and above them, in more broken
+billows, fields that make the island called "Emerald."</p>
+
+<p>While waiting after laying the pots again, the wind kept freshening,
+and heavier clouds in big battalions kept hurrying up from windward.
+The trio seem unanimous that we are in for a bit of a blow. Tim says
+'tis going to be <span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>(p. 230)</span> a nasty night, and we must go in somewhere,
+although night is the best time for their fishing. Only one
+jack-lobster out of all the pots this time. It was now blowing hard
+and beginning to rain, so, with one reef in, we started again. It was
+a ripping breeze; I knew of old how quickly the wind can rise along
+that coast. The last time I was in Baltimore&mdash;picturesque old place,
+with its ruined abbey and the memory of the sacking of it by Moorish
+pirates, and the carrying-off of the women from only the eighteenth
+century back&mdash;was when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer,
+designed by Watson. She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on
+her keel. As I was nearing the harbour just such a breeze sprang up,
+and, being single-handed, I could not take in a reef, so had to carry
+on; right outside the harbour my foresail carried away, but I got in
+all right under the mainsail, and anchored alongside the Baroness
+Burdett-Coutts's yacht that was there at the time. I asked Tim about
+the money she had lent to the men <span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>(p. 231)</span> there for buying
+fishing-boats. "Ah, thin, she's a good woman, God bless her; there's
+many rich or well-to-do men in Baltimore to-day through the means of
+her, an' ivery penny paid back&mdash;divil a penny av a bad debt."</p>
+
+<a id="img016" name="img016"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img016.jpg" width="500" height="284" alt="Relief Of Pekin." title="Relief Of Pekin.">
+<p>Relief Of Pekin.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The smaller the boat the greater the delight of sailing; you get
+closer to things than in big boats. It is part of yourself, half in
+the sea and half in the air, and with the sea and breezes you play or
+fight. White sails standing patiently upright, waiting, and adown from
+over the hills comes along the breath of the wind, breathing across
+the mirror; gently, ripplingly, comes the wind to play, and would try
+to pass, but you catch it in your white wings&mdash;catch it and hold it,
+leaning over to its fleeing passage, and press the trembling
+tiller-pulse, now throbbing with life, and luff as the boat darts
+forward in joy of possession of the wind, but she passes, gently,
+gently up again with the tiller till she leaves the sails with the
+lingerage of a caress.</p>
+
+<p>But <span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>(p. 232)</span> more fun is the fight and tussle in that wonderful
+surface fighting-line between sea and wind, which laugh as they fight,
+blowing and buffeting, with you between and the little boat-part of
+you, now intensely alive and glad like you to be alive, to sing back
+to the wind any old song as she passes her fingers through your hair.</p>
+
+<p>One unique sensation of the almost uncanny mingling of the two
+elements I can never forget, when once, at daybreak, I went down into
+the Cave of the Winds under Niagara Falls; on along the slippery path,
+the spray streaming down the oilskins; within a few feet that
+shimmering, glistening wall of falling water, the sense of hearing
+gone in intoxication, of most musically thunderous noise. One seemed
+breathing water, so finely spray-saturated was the air. One seemed to
+have passed the portals into a strange, eerie, watery world.</p>
+
+<p>Every moment the wind came up, piping louder and louder, scudding
+across the now darkening water. The entrance to Oyster Haven <span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>(p. 233)</span>
+was only half a mile on. It was too far to go to Kinsale. The Old Head
+was invisible in blue-grey mist.</p>
+
+<p>How things find voice in music! I recollect in the climax of the fight
+at Elandslaagte, when the uproar of various sounds was simply
+terrific, from the shrill treble of the whimpering bullets to the
+trumpet-like whoop of the shells as they arched overhead, to alight
+with a drum-boom and burst with a cymbal crash; the whole orchestra of
+battle was playing&mdash;it seemed that everyone must recognise the
+air&mdash;"The Ride of the Valkyrie;" and now the driving rain and the salt
+spindrift, the flapping of the leech of our brown sail, every note of
+accompaniment is being given to that great air that runs through
+Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, which the wind is singing louder and
+louder. Tim sits up well to windward, the tiller quivering in his
+hand, the rain beating on one side of his face, his beard blowing out
+from the other. Tim doesn't think what a good model for a Viking he
+makes just now. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>(p. 234)</span> The real actual Viking must have been very
+little different in appearance from Tim.</p>
+
+<p>We were not long in making that last half-mile, and dropped anchor
+close inshore. At once on doing so the many advantages of the canvas
+cabin were apparent. The boat, riding head to wind, made the bow under
+the canvas quite snug. Mike blew the bellows on the smouldering sods
+of turf which had never quite gone out; it is true the eddying smoke
+resulting therefrom was smarting to the eyes, but the resulting hot
+tea was compensation. It was useless for me to try to explain that it
+would be a real pleasure for me to sleep outside in my
+waterproof&mdash;that it would make me dream of being outside Santiago in
+the trenches, or on the veldt. It was only a matter of which of the
+three&mdash;who all wanted to&mdash;should give up his berth on the straw.
+Dennis succeeded eventually. It was a bad night. It was snug and
+"comfy" inside on the straw as the boat cradled on the broken
+aftermath <span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>(p. 235)</span> of swell. The rain played in sheets of notes on
+the flapping canvas, and from its edge wraiths of smoke shuddered off
+into the darkness; and, dropping off to sleep, I listened to the Storm
+moaning the air of the Waldstein to the ear of Beethoven.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+<h4>PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.</h4>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Impressions of a War Correspondent, by George
+Lynch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Impressions of a War Correspondent
+
+
+Author: George Lynch
+
+
+
+Release Date: June 1, 2007  [eBook #21661]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR
+CORRESPONDENT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Christine P. Travers, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
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+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/6/6/21661/21661-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other
+      inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has
+      been maintained.
+
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT
+
+by
+
+GEORGE LYNCH
+
+Author of "The War of the Civilizations"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _Photo Bassano_. _Frontispiece._ GEORGE LYNCH.]
+
+
+[Illustration: Arms]
+
+
+
+London: George Newnes, Limited
+Southampton Street, Strand, W.C.
+MCMIII
+
+
+
+
+"TO CARMELA"
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+                                                        Page
+
+    I. The Dance of Death................................. 1
+   II. The Aftermath of War.............................. 15
+  III. Elandslaagte...................................... 31
+   IV. A Glimpse of our Gunners.......................... 49
+    V. In the Tents of the Boers......................... 58
+   VI. The Fellow that felt Afraid....................... 68
+  VII. The Dance of Death in China....................... 79
+ VIII. Certain Comparisons............................... 91
+   IX. The Crucifixion of Christianity in China......... 107
+    X. Ex Oriente Lux................................... 120
+   XI. Night in the City of Unrest...................... 132
+  XII. A Street in the City of Unrest................... 142
+ XIII. A Glimpse of a Southern City..................... 151
+  XIV. The Penalty of their Pace in the City of Unrest.. 158
+   XV. The Million-Master in the City of Unrest......... 166
+  XVI. The Woman who works in the City of Unrest........ 175
+ XVII. The Hou-men of the Dingy City.................... 185
+XVIII. Tired............................................ 196
+  XIX. The City of Dumb Distances....................... 210
+   XX. The Land of the Evening Calm..................... 217
+  XXI. With Some Toilers of the Sea..................... 225
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  George Lynch.
+  Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.
+  Advance of the Gordons at Elandslaagte.
+  Advance of the Devons before the Attack at Elandslaagte.
+  George Lynch Captured by the Boers.
+  Boer Shell bursting among the Lancers at Rietfontein.
+  General French and Staff on Black Monday.
+  General White and Staff on Black Monday.
+  Artillery crossing a Drift near Ladysmith.
+  Naval Brigade passing through Ladysmith.
+  General Yule's Column on the Way to Ladysmith.
+  Hospital Train leaving Ladysmith for Pietermaritzburg.
+  Boer Prisoners.
+  Japs entering Pekin.
+  Relief of Pekin.
+
+We are indebted to the courtesy of the Proprietor of _The Illustrated
+London News_ for permission to reproduce the illustrations facing
+pages 33, 48, 65, 80, 97, 144, 161, 176, and 193, and to the
+Proprietor of _The Sphere_ for a similar permission with regard to the
+illustrations facing pages 224 and 231.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for
+getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the
+special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the
+wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first
+hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first
+night of a play. There are no preconceived opinions for him to go by;
+he ought not to, at least, be influenced by any prejudices; and the
+account of the performance is to some extent like that of the dramatic
+critic, inasmuch as that the verdict of the public or of history has
+either to confirm or reverse his own judgment. There is a peculiar
+and unique fascination about this reading of contemporary history, as
+it grows and develops while one peers with straining eyes through
+one's glasses. There is something like a first night, too, about the
+way the critics view things. Sometimes great difference of opinion. I
+recollect the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek--Black Monday, as it was
+afterwards called--when we returned into Ladysmith half the
+correspondents seemed to be under the impression that the day had been
+quite a successful one; while, on the other hand, one had headed his
+despatch with the words, "Dies Irae, dies illa!" To get to the heart of
+things; to see the upspringing of the streams of active and strenuous
+life; to watch the great struggles of the world, not always the
+greatest in war, but the often more mighty, if quiet and dead silent,
+whose sweeping powerfulness is hidden under a smooth calmness of
+surface--to watch all this is to intimately taste a great delicious
+joy of life. The researches of the historian of bygone times are
+fascinating--absorbingly fascinating, although he is always
+handicapped by remoteness; but the historian of to-day--of his
+day--this day--whose day-page of history is read by hundreds of
+readers, the day after has set to him a task that calls for all, and
+more than all, that he can give--stimulates while it appalls, and
+would be killingly wearying if it were not so fascinatingly
+attractive. That close contact with the men of this struggling world,
+and the men who _do_ things, and shove these life-wheels round, warms
+up in one a great love for one's kind--a comrade feeling, like that
+which comes from being tent-mates in a long campaign. Two o'clock in
+the morning wake to the tramp, tramp of men marching in the
+dark--marching out to fight--and the unknown Tommy you march beside
+and talk to in low voice, as men talk at that hour, is your comrade
+unto the day's end of fighting; when returning, to the sentries'
+challenge you answer "A friend," and, dog-tired, you re-enter the
+lines, welcomed by his sesame call, "Pass, friend; all is well."
+
+
+
+
+IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE DANCE OF DEATH
+
+
+Death from a Mauser bullet is less painful than the drawing of a
+tooth. Such, at least, appears to be the case, speaking generally from
+apparent evidence, without having the opportunity of collecting the
+opinions of those who have actually died. In books we have read of
+shrieks of expiring agony; but ask those who have been on many
+battlefields, and they will not tell you they have heard them. As a
+rule a sudden exclamation, "I'm hit!" "My God!" "Damn it!" They look
+as if staggering from the blow of a fist rather than that from a tiny
+pencil of lead--then a sudden paleness, perhaps a grasping of the
+hands occasionally as if to hold on to something, when the bottom
+seems to be falling out of all things stable, but generally no sign of
+aught else than the dulling of death--dulling to sleep--a drunken
+sleep--drunken death it often seems--very commonplace as a rule. A
+smile as often as, or oftener than, any sign of pain, but generally no
+sign of either. Think of this, mourning mothers of England. Don't
+picture your sons as drowning out of the world racked with the red
+torture from the bullet's track, but just as dropping off dully to
+sleep, most probably with no thought of you or home, without anxiety
+or regret. Merciful Mauser! He suffered much more pain when you
+brought him long ago to the dentist, and his agony in that horrible
+chair was infinitely greater than on his bed on the veldt. Merciful
+Mauser be thanked!
+
+The first man I saw badly hit during the war was a Devon at
+Elandslaagte, just after they had advanced within rifle-range. He was
+shot through the head, and it seemed quite useless for the bearers to
+take the trouble of carrying him off the field; yet they went back
+looking in vain for a field ambulance. They carried him instead to the
+cart belonging to a well-known war correspondent. The owner had given
+the driver strict orders to remain where he was until his return, but
+the shells were falling around the cart, which, in fact, seemed to be
+made a mark of by the Boer gunners--perhaps they thought it belonged
+to one of our generals, whom they may have imagined had taken to
+driving, like Joubert and some others of theirs. The arrival of the
+wounded man was a great godsend to the driver, who immediately, with
+the most humane insistence, offered to drive him to the nearest field
+hospital. Neither cart nor driver was again seen until long after the
+battle was over, about nine o'clock in the evening. Strange to say,
+the man recovered from his wound.
+
+In our first engagements there was rather too much anxiety on the part
+of a wounded man's comrades to carry him to the rear; but it did not
+continue for long. The actuating motive is not always kindness and
+humanity, but a desire to get out of danger. It was soon evident that
+it was only going from the frying-pan into the fire, as the danger of
+walking back carrying a wounded man was immensely greater than
+remaining or advancing more or less on one's stomach. Sometimes it was
+the unfortunate wounded man who was hit again. Men carrying off a
+wounded comrade of course render themselves strictly liable to be
+regarded as combatants.
+
+A still more absurd practice was that of sometimes attempting to carry
+off the dead during an engagement. An instance of this was seen at
+Rietfontein. A couple of men of a Volunteer regiment were coming
+across the open ground below the hill under a pretty brisk fire, when
+Dr. H----, himself one of the most fearless of men, called out to
+them, "S---- has been killed down there; better bring him in." They
+turned back immediately, and one of them, J. Gillespie, got off his
+horse and lifted the corpse on to the saddle, they holding it in
+position by hanging on to a leg on either side, and walked back, while
+the bullets were whistling around them, and knocking up little spurts
+of dirt on the ground in front of them. It was a most ghastly sight;
+the head of the corpse bobbed about with the motion of the horse, and
+the lips of the corpse were drawn back in a horrible grin, as if he
+were laughing idiotically at them for trying to qualify for a Victoria
+Cross with a corpse. I really think they deserved it just as much as
+if he had been alive.
+
+A curious thing happened to a horse of one of the men who were
+performing this feat. The owner found when he had returned to
+Ladysmith that his water-bottle, which was attached to his saddle, had
+been perforated by a bullet. Showing it to another in the evening,
+they came to the conclusion, from the position of the holes, that it
+would be impossible for the holes to be made in the position they
+were without wounding the horse. The next day, on examining the horse,
+he found a bullet had actually passed through and through him, and yet
+apparently he seemed none the worse.
+
+There was another but different instance of a horse carrying a corpse
+at the battle of Lombard's Kop. There was no leering and hideous
+grinning at us, however, as the rider's head had been blown clean away
+by a Boer shell. The 5th Lancers were riding out on our right, when a
+single horse came galloping past them, clattering furiously over the
+stony veldt. No wonder the men stared; it was a sight to be
+remembered. The rider was firmly fixed in the deep cavalry saddle; the
+reins tossed loose with the horse's mane, and both hands were clenched
+against either side of his breast; and the head was cut off clean at
+the shoulders. Perhaps in the spasm of that death-tear the rider had
+gripped his horse's sides with his long-spurred heels; perhaps the
+horse also was wounded; anyhow, with head down, and wild and terrified
+eyes, his shoulders foam-bespewed, he tore past as if in horror of
+the ghastly burden he carried.
+
+How wonderfully expressive are the eyes of these cavalry horses at
+times! There it seemed sheer horror; but often when wounded they look
+towards one with a world of pitiful appeal for relief; in their
+dumbness loud-voicedly reproachful against the horrors of war.
+
+Two men being killed on one horse seems rather a tall order, yet it is
+perfectly true. It happened at the cavalry charge after Elandslaagte.
+Some of the Boers stood their ground with great stubbornness till our
+cavalry were only a few yards away. One middle-aged, bearded fellow
+stayed just a little too long, and had not time to get to his horse,
+which was a few yards away. He scrambled up behind a brother Boer who
+was just mounting, but almost immediately the 5th Lancers were upon
+them. There was a farrier-corporal, an immensely big, powerful fellow,
+who singled them out. They were galloping down a slight incline as
+hard as they could get their horse to travel, but their pursuer was
+gaining on them at every stride. When he came within striking distance
+he jammed his spurs into his big horse, who sprang forward like a
+tiger. Weight of man and horse, impetus of gallop and hill, focused in
+that bright lance-point held as in a vice. It pierced the left side of
+the back of the man behind, and the point came out through the right
+side of the man in front, who, with a convulsive movement, threw up
+his hands, flinging his rifle in the air. The Lancer could not
+withdraw his lance as the men swayed and dropped from their horse, but
+galloped on into the gathering darkness punctured with rifle flashes
+here and there and flitting forms that might be friend or foe. This
+poor fellow was killed a few days after at the battle of Rietfontein.
+How heartily the Boers hated these Lancers! They would have liked so
+much to have had lances barred as against the rules of war; and it
+would certainly have made an immense difference if our side had
+succeeded in getting a few more chances, especially at the
+commencement of the war, of using the lance.
+
+The natives, numbers of whom were looking on at this battle, were
+greatly delighted with the cavalry charge. It seemed to take their
+fancy even more than did the artillery. "Great fight, baas--plenty
+much blood, plenty much blood," one of them described it. He said he
+was crouching down behind a sheltering rock while the Boers were
+running away past him, and then "the men with the assegais" came
+galloping after them. A Boer without his horse came running along,
+and, pulling him out, took his place behind the stone. A soldier
+galloped along and called out, "Hallo, Johnny, what are you doing
+here? You'll get hurt." Then, catching sight of the Boer, he stuck him
+down through the back as he passed. "Ah, baas, great fight--plenty
+much blood."
+
+Wounds or death by Mauser bullets, or even by the thrust of a lance,
+are not to be compared, from the point of view of their
+pain-inflicting possibilities, with what may be done in that way by
+the fragment of a shell. That's the thing that hurts. Shell fire,
+speaking generally, is the "Bogy of Battle" to those not accustomed to
+it. The main purpose it accomplishes is to "establish a funk." When
+the actual damage done by shell fire after a battle is counted up and
+the number of shells fired, the results are most surprising. A poet in
+the _Ladysmith Lyre_ wrote--
+
+  "One thing is certain in this town of lies:
+  If Long Tom hits you on the head you dies."
+
+You do--unquestionably; but perhaps it is worse still to get a piece
+of a shell somewhere else. What frightful wounds they make sometimes!
+what mangled butchery in their track! See some poor fellow stretched
+on the operating-table, stripped for the patching or trimming which
+half-helpless surgery can supply. Apart from head and hands, which are
+sure to be khaki-colour with dirt caked in with sweat, the average
+Tommy usually presents a fine specimen of the human form divine--what
+is there finer in the world than the body of a well-shaped, muscular
+man? I always prefer the figure of the fighting gladiator to that of
+the Apollo Belvedere--and then, when shell fragments tear this body,
+it looks like some unspeakably unhallowed sacrilege. The horribly
+unlucky way these fragments seem to go in--an uncouth and butchering
+way instead of the gentlemanly puncture of the Mauser. One afternoon a
+young fellow galloped past me in the main street of Ladysmith. He had
+just got opposite the Town Hall hospital, when a shell from Bulwana
+burst right under his horse. When the cloud of dust and smoke cleared
+away, we found the horse lying on the road completely disembowelled,
+and the poor fellow flung on to the footpath, with a long piece of
+shell sticking in his side. As he was taken into the hospital he said,
+"This means two more Dutchmen killed." But the wound was obviously
+fatal; there was no use even in removing the piece of shell. The
+clergyman came to him and spoke to him for some time, and told him
+that there was no hope of recovery for him. He seemed to get tired of
+his ministrations, and asked them to "send down for my chum." When
+this chum arrived he was unable to speak, but just pressed his hand
+and smiled, and went off into his death-sleep.
+
+A boy, who could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen, was
+lying on the side of the hill with his head on a flat stone. He had
+been hit by a piece of shell, and both his legs were broken and
+mangled above the knee. He was done for, and his life was only a
+matter of lasting some minutes. Another man, wounded somewhere
+internally, was lying beside him. There was no sign of pain on the
+boy's face; his eyes were closed. He just seemed very tired. Opening
+his eyes, he looked downwards intently at his legs, which were lying
+at an oblique angle with his body, from where they had been hit. It
+looked as if his trousers were the only attachment. As he gazed
+intently, a troubled look came over his face, and his wounded comrade
+beside him was watching him and saw it. The tired eyes closed again
+wearily, and then the wounded man alongside him, cursing with
+variegated and rich vocabulary, bent, or half rolled over, and caught
+first one boot and then the other, and lifted each leg straight down,
+swearing under his breath the while. Then he lay back, swearing at the
+blankety blank young blanker, and still watching him. Soon the tired
+eyes opened again, and instinctively looked down at his legs. They
+seemed to open wider as he looked; then he smiled faintly, thinking he
+had been mistaken about them before, and lay back, and the eyes did
+not open any more. The fellow beside him chuckled and said to himself,
+"Well, I'm damned!" but possibly the Recording Angel has put down a
+mark that may help to prevent it.
+
+Times are changed from ages past; there is no longer the mighty "shock
+of arms," the pomp and panoply of glorious war. Men fall to the shrill
+whisper of a bullet, the sound of which has not time to reach their
+ears, fired by an invisible foe. Their death is merely the _quod erat
+demonstrandum_ of a mathematical and mechanical proposition. But with
+bow and arrow, spear or battle-axe, Mauser or Lee-Metford, the heart
+behind the weapon is just the same now as then. Probably faint hearts
+fail now as then, just as much--shrink to a panic that falls on them
+suddenly as cold mist on mountain-top; and the stout hearts wait and
+endure, and perhaps do more of the waiting, and have to sweat and
+swear and endure this waiting longer now than then before the
+intoxicating delight of active battle finds vent for their hearts'
+desire, when, under names like "duty," a monarch's voice in their
+souls cries "Havoc," and lets slip the old dogs of savagery lying low
+in every man's nature, until the veldt of this new land is manured,
+like the juicy battlefields of old, "with carrion men groaning for
+burial."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE AFTERMATH OF WAR
+
+
+Hot, sweating, dusty, and tired, with no inclination whatever to move
+out of camp, everybody would find all the indications of approaching
+disease every day if he were only to think of such a thing. The
+reading of a liver advertisement in one of the home papers would show
+all your symptoms, only they all would be "more so." But every one
+knew it was only the climate, the hard work, and sometimes the
+indifferent food, and so went on; but a day comes when the food
+becomes absolutely distasteful, when the appetite begins to go. A long
+day's riding on the veldt should leave one with a voracious appetite
+for dinner, but when one comes in and can taste nothing, and only
+just lies down dog-tired day after day, then he begins to think there
+is something wrong. The idea of going to the doctor is very
+distasteful, so he struggles on, hoping to work it off, until one day
+he comes very near a collapse, with head swimming and knees groggy,
+and then some comrade makes the doctor have a look at him, and his
+temperature is perhaps 102 to 104. In Ladysmith it was then a question
+of being sent out to Intombi Camp. To most men this seemed like being
+exiled to Siberia; but there was no help for it. Comrades said
+good-bye when it would have been more cheering to have said _au
+revoir_. The train left for Intombi Hospital Camp at six in the
+morning, carrying its load of those who had been wounded in the
+previous twenty-four hours, as well as the sick. It was a sad journey
+out; men could not help cursing their bad luck and wondering what
+would be before them as a result of the journey, wondering if they
+should ever rejoin their regiments or if their next journey would not
+be back to the cemetery they were now passing on their right, growing
+every day more ominously populous. The hospital camp at Intombi was a
+collection of tents and large marquees, civilian doctors attending the
+Volunteers and Army doctors the Regulars. There was also a
+considerable number of the inhabitants of Ladysmith, not alone women
+and children, but men. Hence the reason that it got christened Camp
+Funk by the inhabitants that remained in the town. Situated on the
+flat of the plain, on a level with the river banks, it was by no means
+an ideal situation for a fever hospital, but still it was a great
+thing to be out of the way of these irregularly dropping shells and to
+_know_ one was away from them. "Long Tom," on Bulwana, shook the very
+ground when he fired, and, with the other guns there, often got on the
+nerves of many of the patients to a trying extent, and the Boers, as a
+rule, started firing at sunrise, just about the time when the poor
+devil who has tossed and turned through the long hours of the hot
+night in fevered restlessness now from sheer exhaustion is just
+sinking into sleep, to be startled by the terrific bang above his head
+and the rush of the shell, like the tearing of a yacht's mainsail, as
+it speeds on its arched course towards the devoted town.
+
+A curious passive fight the patient settles down to, with a fatal
+little thermometer keeping score and marking the game--a sort of
+tug-of-war between doctors and Disease. The ground is marked in
+degrees from 98.4 to 106, the former being normal temperature, the
+later the point at which, as a rule, disease wins the game.
+
+Take the case of a fellow the author knows intimately. He had held out
+too long without going to hospital, putting down his weakness,
+lassitude, and general feeling of extreme cheapness to the climate
+instead of the real cause, with the result that he started on the real
+struggle with a temperature of 104.8. At the very start Disease had
+pulled him over nastily close to his line, and was still pulling him
+over, as his temperature was rising point by point. There are various
+methods of treatment--with him they fought it with a drug called
+phenacetin, and to the lay mind a wonderful drug it appears. It is not
+effective with every one. A man in the next bed to him might have been
+taking breadcrumbs for all effect it produced. With him, however, it
+worked like clockwork. No sooner was a five-grain dose swallowed than
+the temperature stopped in its upward course. Then, gradually, like in
+a good Turkish bath, the pores of his skin opened, and a most complete
+and profuse perspiration ensued, which was allowed to go on for a
+couple of hours. Then, with bed and bedclothes drenched, he lay weak,
+limp, and feeling like a squeezed sponge, but with a temperature that
+shows three degrees marked down towards his own line. Should there be
+a nurse available the patient is washed down and put into fresh
+clothes and pyjamas; if not, as was most usually the case, he lies in
+his sweat, his skin chilling in patches for a while, and feeling
+sticky and uncomfortable all over, but too limp to move. The drug has
+a strange and wonderfully clearing effect on the brain. He feels as if
+all his previous life had been passed in some land of twilight. Now he
+lives in a land of glorious light--light that pervades everything. His
+eyelids are closed to shut in the glorious light. He seems to have
+been sitting in some dark theatre when the lights have been turned on
+on a glorious transformation scene. He has circled the world and seen
+its loveliest places, but only now sees how beautiful they were. In
+Samoa, and the Pali at Honolulu, he sees the individual leaves
+shimmering in the clear air, and then on his quickened consciousness
+falls a great sense of the beauty of the world. Separate from the
+beauty of the world seems the life on it, and now for the first time
+his lips are pressed to her bluest veins. "I want to take your
+temperature, please," as he feels the little glass tube at the dry
+skin of his lips. "105.2," he hears whispered when it is withdrawn.
+They think he cannot hear as he lies motionless with eyes closed. All
+the three degrees have been lost, and more--it is a score for Disease.
+Another dose of phenacetin--surely all that glorious, untravelled,
+half-tasted world is too beautiful and rich with promise to leave, too
+full of music he has not heard, too full of pictures he has not seen,
+too full of unplucked laurels, of lips unkissed, of sunsets which have
+not yet painted the clouds in their setting--above all, along the
+passed path of his life are neglected flowers of love lying which he
+has walked on with scarce a smile of thanks for the throwers, whose
+hands, perchance now withering, he longs to kiss.
+
+Temporarily the thermometer score is favourable to him again, but all
+he can do is to lie very still, knowing that every feather-pressure of
+strength will be wanted. Lying sideways, as he has been shifted round
+by his nurse on the pillow, he hears the pump, pump of his heart. He
+never noted that pumping before as he does now--quick and strenuous
+it is, but still strong, without the spur of stimulants. Pump on, old
+heart, he thought-speaks, and on it pumps through the long hours of
+watching and waiting; and he watches as a captain might watch the
+pumping of his water-logged ship. He is lucky to have a heart that
+works like that. The man beside him was being given brandy every three
+hours to help the action of his heart. Another thing he was lucky in
+was in being free from headache. A sufferer farther down from time to
+time called aloud in agony from the terrible splitting pains in his
+head, while his was clear to a supersensitive degree--too clear and
+active to allow of sleep--and soon came the time when he longed with a
+great yearning for the sleep that would not come. It seemed cruel and
+unfair that any beggar, any coolie in the fields, any convict could
+have this sleep that was denied him. How he tried to fix his mind on
+quiet scenes with the sound of falling water, or the sound of falling
+breakers fringing the rocks of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn!
+But sleep would not come; the panorama of the world spun from scene to
+scene all the faster as he tossed limply and wearily. _Custos, quid de
+nocte?_ How slowly passes the night, and night sleepless merges into
+sleepless day, and for a week the struggle hangs on the winning line
+of Disease. Each time the thermometer is drawn from his mouth an ever
+new-born hope which has risen dies with the whispered score, but still
+the heart pumps strenuously, telling of life and hope the while. On
+the morning of the sixth day the score is down a degree. Too good to
+believe in until confirmed by the midday record, and then very, very
+slowly, by fractions of degrees, it shows less than the record of the
+previous days. In the cool quietude of some Continental sculpture
+gallery--he cannot tell where--he has seen a statue of Icarus--Icarus
+just feeling the earth-spurning power of his new-given wings; Icarus
+on tip-toe, with head up and godly-moulded chest and dilated nostrils,
+drinking in the clear air, and extended arms towards his new
+possession of the clouds. The glorious embodiment of god-like life,
+earth-spurning, heavens-enjoying--and as such he feels--he forgets
+that his frame is a skin-covered skeleton, that his legs would not
+bear him upright. He knows only that the spirit of life has been
+breathed into him again, and that it is very good to be alive. The
+feeling of being "half in love with easeful death" has passed. The
+orchestra of life will play for him again. How irksomely slow the days
+pass until the score reaches his winning-line of normal! and in time
+he sees how easily it might have been otherwise. His room-mate on his
+right got delirious, and refused all nourishment. He struggled
+violently even against the stimulants prescribed for him. His nurse
+would spend half an hour trying to get a little down. Then he had seen
+an extreme attempt made to feed him one night. He was held while a
+tube was passed through the back of his nose and so down his throat,
+but no sooner was it down than the strength of fever, like that of a
+maniac, proved too strong for his nurses; they could no longer hold
+him. There was a horrible struggle, with choking coughs and dark blood
+flowing from his nostrils, and the brandy was spilt on his face and
+smarting in his eyes. He spent days dying, and more rapid and more
+feeble grew his pulse, and many times the nurse said there was none
+perceptible, and then the life would flicker up again. One morning
+early a bugle sounded outside. He said, "I am on outpost duty to-day;
+I must get up at once." He half lifted himself in the bed, repeating,
+"I tell you I am on outpost duty." The nurse pressed him back gently,
+and he died. He seemed to have no friends or relatives, no one who
+knew anything about him. There was a letter found in his pocket
+showing that he had a mother in a village in Ireland, and that he was
+her only son.
+
+On the other side of our friend was a poor fellow unceasingly racked
+with pain either in head or abdomen. His temperature was not
+extremely high, but he seemed to be falling away from the pain of the
+poisonous disease. His pulse was weak, and had to be kept going with
+constant stimulants. When in the ordinary course of things the disease
+should have passed he got a series of rigors and shivering fits about
+every third day, with a cold sweat. While the shivering was on him his
+temperature would drop to normal or lower, and then bound up to 103 or
+104. He had a terrible dread of these fits, and it was pitiful to see
+him watching their oncoming. Each one that came left him weaker as it
+passed off.
+
+We are coming back to England in a ship laden with the human wreckage
+of war--the wounded, the maimed, the sick, who to their graves will
+carry the maiming of their sickness. There are, amongst these men,
+those who will crawl about the world lop-sided, incomplete cripples,
+or those who will be perpetually victims to intermittent or chronic
+disease; but there is a worse than any of these disasters to the
+victim. The man without a leg can get along with a crutch. We know one
+who lost both legs in Egypt who goes about on a little four-wheeled
+wooden cart, propelling himself with his hands, and haunts the
+precincts of a certain club, where the members, seeing the badge which
+he still wears in his cap, often give him enough to get drunk on. The
+man who loses his sight from the earth-scattering shell can at worst
+carry a label to tell that he was blinded in the war, and his
+charitable fellow-countrymen will give him enough to keep him enjoying
+life through the channels of the four other senses, and he will still
+admit that it is good to be alive. Blindness is bad, but war deals
+worse blows than in the eyes. It deals blows under which the reason
+itself staggers and is maimed. The lunatic asylum is worse than the
+hospital. We are carrying back nine men who have lost their reason at
+Magersfontein and other battles; two have been mercifully treated and
+have lost it completely--the padded cell must mean a certain
+unconsciousness; but the greatest, deepest pity of which the human
+heart is capable is called forth by those who are maimed in mind. Long
+lucid intervals of perfect sanity give them time to learn the meaning
+of the locks and bars. "Yes, I know; I went off my head after
+Magersfontein," one poor fellow tells you; another repeatedly asks,
+"Will they put me into an asylum when I go home?" What a home-coming!
+Sure enough it is to the asylum they are going. They will be lost to
+what friends or relatives they have in that oblivion of a living
+grave. When their comrades return, not the faintest echo of the
+cheering will reach their cells. Men do not like to talk of madness;
+they will point with pride and pity to chums and comrades bearing
+honourable wounds, but these poor wretches will just disappear, lost
+in the great aftermath of war. We still have the expressions
+"frightened out of his senses" or "frightened out of his wits," and
+here are instances of its actually occurring, the strain on nerves
+being more than the brains of these men could stand. Is it that their
+nervous organisation has become more highly strung and bears the
+strain less sturdily than in times past, or that there is for some
+minds a hidden terror in the sightless, invisible death that whistles
+over them as they lie belly-pressing the earth in the face of an
+unseeable foe? It is not inconceivable that this may have an effect
+like some horrible nightmare amid all the glare of daylight on some
+minds. The man is held there in terror by the worse terror of running
+away; a comrade on his right grows callous by waiting, and to relieve
+the wants of nature raises himself up and gets hit; the thirst of
+another overcomes him, and he runs to fill his water-bottle and falls;
+and all day long, through heat and hunger and thirst, he is held there
+in a vice of increasing terror, like a child left in the dark denied
+the language of a cry. It takes strong nerves to stand that strain, we
+all must admit who have any personal knowledge of what it means; and
+what a gathering up of the reins of self-control we often experience!
+What wonder, then, that weak nerves cannot stand it, but sometimes
+break down under the strain? Such a collapse has a way of being
+regarded as the uttermost sign of abject cowardice, which by no means
+follows--nervous men are frequently the bravest of the brave. The
+refinement of modern shooting-irons seems to call for a certain
+corresponding refinement of courage--the cold, steel-like courage that
+can stand and wait, and win by the waiting of their stand.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+ELANDSLAAGTE
+
+
+Up before daybreak, but still not early enough, as the Imperial Light
+Horse and a battery of Natal Artillery had already gone towards
+Elandslaagte, about sixteen miles from here, at three o'clock.
+
+It was bitterly cold when we started, and for a couple of hours of our
+journey. About half a mile beyond Modder's Spruit Station we met a man
+walking along the road in his socks, carrying a pair of heavy boots.
+He told us he had just escaped from the Boers, after having been, with
+thirty other miners, their prisoner since Thursday last. His feet were
+sore from running in the big boots, and he was nearly exhausted.
+
+The Boers had looted the stores, station, and mining office at
+Elandslaagte, and in addition had looted a lot of luggage taken in
+the captured train. The evening before he had seen a drunken Boer
+strutting about dressed in a suit of evening clothes belonging to an
+English officer. There were a lot of low-class Boers amongst the eight
+hundred there who spent riotous evenings, getting drunk on the liquor
+found in the stores; but others of them seemed decent sort of farmers,
+and all the prisoners were very well treated by General Koch, and were
+allowed to go about on parole, being merely required to report
+themselves once a day.
+
+[Illustration: Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.]
+
+We pushed on, and in the distance could hear the report of cannon. We
+soon discovered a little artillery duel in progress between the Natal
+battery and the Boer guns. The Natals were barking away pluckily, but
+quite ineffectually against their very superior opponents, who were
+making really excellent practice, and they struck an artillery waggon,
+blowing it to pieces, and missed the artillery train by barely twenty
+yards, a shell falling on either side of it. It was clear we could
+remain here no longer, so the order was given to retire. The guns
+limbered up, leaving the shattered wreck of the waggon behind, and the
+trains commenced to move back slowly, keeping pace with the cavalry
+and artillery. The Boer guns kept firing until out of range, and then
+there was a desultory pitter-patter of rifle fire at a sufficient
+distance to be completely ineffectual.
+
+We retired back just behind Modder's Spruit Station and rested there.
+The sun had now broken through the clouds and poured down hot on the
+yellow veldt, where we were. A beautiful scene stretched away before
+us. The veldt was not all yellow, but in low-lying places, after the
+recent rain, was beginning to be streaked with vivid green. Opposite
+us, across the flat or gently undulating veldt in the middle distance,
+were hills and kopjes, while beyond, purple under clouds or light blue
+in sunshine, rose to the far horizon mountains, pointed, or of that
+quite flat-topped shape so characteristic of this country.
+
+No one who has been through this day can ever forget the beautiful
+series of military tableaux, the gorgeous colouring, the constantly
+varying effects of light and shade, under clear, blue sky, or when
+piles of great white cumuli were passing, until, darkening with the
+progress of the fight, an unnatural gloom blackened the heavens, and
+from the inky clouds torrents of rain poured upon the combatants. The
+variety of colour, light, and shade was only equalled by the variety of
+the military movements during the day. A complete series of sketches or
+photographs would serve for illustrations for a handbook of modern
+tactics--the reconnaissance in force in the morning--engagement--orderly
+retreat carried out exactly according to book--march out of main body;
+advance of main body, cavalry on each flank, skirmishing outflanking
+movement on the right, etc., etc., on to the cavalry charging through
+and through retreating and beaten enemy.
+
+At 11.20 two squadrons of cavalry and a battery of artillery arrive,
+and shortly after another train full of troops is seen approaching in
+the distance.
+
+Chatting with Colonel Chisholme, of the Imperial Light Horse, I was
+chaffing him about calling them "light," pointing out a group of
+giants standing near him; but he agreed that their hearts were light,
+anyhow, whatever their weight might be. He had commenced his military
+career when eighteen in the 9th Lancers, and his Imperial Light Horse
+was embodied on the 9, 9, 99. He was telling how all the important
+dates of his life had a 9 in them, as Major Douglas Haig galloped up
+and told him we were going to start. I said, "All these nines clearly
+point to your living to ninety-nine." "Oh no," he laughed back,
+cheerily, "I don't wish to live to be as old as that." His wish was
+gratified.
+
+"Saddle," "Prepare to mount," "Mount." We were going forward again.
+
+At 1.30 we started, after just two hours' rest, in which the main body
+had come up, so that our entire force now consisted of the 5th
+Lancers, Imperial Light Horse, two field batteries of Royal
+Artillery, the Devonshire Regiment, half a battalion of the
+Manchester, and half a battalion of the Gordon Highlanders. At 1.55
+fire opened from the tops of the line of ridges running parallel to
+the railway line, which were all lined with men. Some of the 5th
+Lancers have already gone off to the extreme right. At the foot of the
+first hill, from which firing proceeds, a squadron of the Border
+Mounted Rifles are dismounting, and now two lines of khaki figures are
+climbing steadily up the hill. Long before they reach the top the
+Boers are seen retiring. They have no idea of making a stand yet, and
+as the khaki figures reach the summit the Lancers, sweeping round from
+the extreme right flank, join them. During this time the Devons and
+Manchesters have been pouring out of the train, and are now crossing
+the veldt in dotted lines towards the ridge of hills.
+
+2.15.--Another train now appears, bringing further reinforcements.
+
+2.30.--Quite a hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few
+minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at
+a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers,
+who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump
+the railway line--a pretty stiff little obstacle--the narrow gauge
+metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field
+of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression, which is
+just behind a shouldering billow of veldt. It is hard work for the
+artillery horses over this ground, but it is fine the way they tug and
+strain at their work. The officers urge the men to hurry forward.
+Already a gun is heard from the Boers. They have opened fire. Two
+wheelers of an artillery waggon drop down, apparently dead, from
+exhaustion.
+
+I had just been watching their heavy sweating sides and foam-streaming
+mouths before they collapsed. Already two spare horses are being
+brought round to replace them as we hurry forward.
+
+Now, all of a sudden, things become lively, and do not slacken again
+until the finish. No sooner have the first of the cavalry appeared
+than the Dutch guns open fire. R-r-r-r rip--a shell drops amongst the
+artillery and cavalry just ahead of us. The cavalry wheel and spread
+themselves into more open order none too soon, as now the shells come
+fast. The Boers have got the range exactly. Bang bursts a shell
+amongst the Imperial Light Horse near me. A shell bursts quite close,
+and a piece drops between Bennett Burleigh and me. The life, vigour,
+and swing of movement of these few minutes when we first came under
+fire was magnificent, the cavalry wheeling and circling, infantry
+deploying, the rattle of the artillery waggons, the cracking of the
+drivers' whips on the backs of the straining, struggling horses, the
+rending sound of the shells in the air like the tearing of a great
+canvas mainsail; the loud report when a shell exploded, or the dull
+thud when they simply buried themselves in the veldt.
+
+How lucky for us so few of them exploded! There would have been
+terrible damage done, especially by the first few shots, when the
+cavalry and artillery were massed together. It was now for a while an
+artillery duel, but the Devons were quietly getting forward for the
+front attack. The cavalry had swung out on the extreme right flank,
+and the Manchesters and Gordons were going on to the ridge to take
+them on their right flank there, while the Devons went up the face.
+
+The Boers changed their artillery fire from time to time; first it was
+at our artillery and cavalry, then into the Devons as they advanced or
+as they lay down in the last field of veldt, waiting for the final
+charge; and then they sent a few shells into a body of cavalry that
+was on our extreme left. The very last shot they fired was a good one,
+just when the fight was over, right into our guns.
+
+I saw a little rocky point ahead of me, as if made on purpose for a
+war correspondent. By running across some open ground I was on to it.
+There was good if not ample cover on the top. It was in the middle of
+the angle made by the line of advance of the men along the ridge and
+the line of the Devons' main advance, and quite close to the hill.
+Stretching away on our left over a level khaki-coloured sloping field
+(if I may so call it) of veldt, were the Devons lying behind
+ant-hills, placed as if on purpose to give scant but welcome shelter
+to troops advancing under fire. The colour-scheme of the whole stretch
+was perfect for concealment, and there was Tommy learning more of how
+to take advantage of scant cover in this half-hour, under the bitter
+pitter-patter of Mauser bullets, than he would learn at home in years
+of manoeuvres.
+
+That was a trying wait for Mr. Atkins; yet how steadily he stood
+it--or not exactly stood it, but crouched it, lay it, or
+mother-earth-hugged it! On our right was the level sky-lined hill,
+ending in a rounded, precipitous point, on which the Boer guns were
+stationed. Under that heavy-hanging bank of clouds, yet just behind
+it, a clear steel-like light was showing. Against this, upon the top
+of the hill, silhouetted with most delicately accurate sharpness, were
+the figures of the Manchesters. The Gordons were in the same line over
+the rounded top of the hill. They advanced at a run, crouched, then
+swarmed forward again, and again lay low. Then the little runs became
+shorter, the rests longer, and the fire hotter and more continuous.
+Were they going to take that hill before complete nightfall, or was it
+going to be a two-day job, notwithstanding the five hours' hard
+fighting we had had already? A man near me said to me, "Do you hear
+the steam escaping? I expect it is the Boers letting it off from the
+colliery which they took on Thursday." It was the sound of steam, of
+escaping steam, right enough, but that sound was made by bullets. It
+went on continuously from the time the final infantry advance took
+place, and rose in a crescendo of hissing vehemence as we neared the
+supreme climax of the struggle. How eagerly we watched these creeping
+figures going forward! Would they succeed? Would they ever reach the
+point of the hill? How slow it seemed, but steadily, steadily on along
+the ridge they went.
+
+Now all the great orchestra of battle was playing--from behind us on
+the right our artillery were firing at the hill in advance of the
+Manchesters and Gordons--in one minute that I timed with my watch I
+counted sixteen discharges. How the shells shrieked and whirled over
+us! I found myself somehow humming the "Ride of the Valkyrie," which
+these shells had suggested; then the Maxims would play a few bars, or
+a sharp volley ring from the left. The rocky kopje was vocal with
+rattling echoes, while with piccolo distinctness the air above and
+about us sang with the sharp Mauser notes.
+
+It was now a quarter to six. Rapid movements could be seen amongst the
+Boers on top of the hill; some were beginning to gallop off, over the
+sky line, but others galloped in the opposite direction. Our
+artillery fire had now reached a nicety of deadly accuracy. They were
+firing impact shells. I had my glasses on one horseman who appeared to
+me to be firing from his saddle, and fighting stubbornly. There was no
+sign of running away about him. As I looked the figure became a little
+cloud of smoke--the smoke cleared--horse nor rider was any longer
+there. Chancing to look at another, who was darting about irregularly,
+as if confused and not knowing which way to fly, a fountain of smoke
+flew up in front of his horse as a shell burst. When the smoke cleared
+he and the horse were lying on the ground, and immediately after to a
+third exactly the same thing happened.
+
+The crescendo of battle had now reached a climax in a perfect roar of
+sound. The bugles sounded the charge. God bless the man that wrote
+these heart-cheering notes. Forward--rattling, stumbling, falling over
+the rocks, cheering, swearing, forward anyhow--formation be hanged!
+
+How the Devons climbed these rocks! Following in the right of the
+Devons' wake, passing their wounded across that slopy field of veldt,
+and the flat to the base of the hill, it was a sweating, breathless
+climb up; the men were already cheering on the top above my head. The
+first sign of mortality on the Boer side I encountered was a hairy
+little black pig lying on his side bleeding proverbially--then a tall
+Boer lying headlong down the rocks. On the top--what confusion! Tommy,
+drunk with delight of battle. Prisoners, wounded, Gordons,
+Manchesters, Devons--all mixed inexplicably. A Boer gun still in
+position was a centre for gathering. In another place the ground was
+strewn with rugs, broken provisions, empty and half-empty bottles,
+saddles galore.
+
+"'Av a 'oss, guv'nor, 'av a 'oss?" said a dirty-faced, sweaty, but
+generous Tommy to me, as he led a black Boer steed by the bridle. Not
+liking to take his capture from him, I went off to where he told me
+several were standing, and picked out a likely-looking grey. Darkness
+was now rapidly falling. A Tommy came up and led off another horse.
+
+"I'm taking this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on
+well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but
+I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He
+went off in the darkness, towing the present by the bridle.
+
+At this moment very few officers were at this point of the hill; the
+Gordons, for instance, had lost thirteen. I came then upon General
+French, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line with the
+Manchesters and Gordons, and was glad to have so early a chance of
+offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I
+had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he
+appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of
+war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the
+light when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer shells
+bursting amongst the Imperial Light Horse near us.
+
+General French is deservedly very popular with officers, men,
+correspondents, and all who meet him, and we were all glad at the
+brilliant ending of this hard-fought day.
+
+The 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards were now pursuing the
+retreating Boers. The Dragoons carried lances, which may account for
+the credit which was equally due to them with the Lancers being unduly
+given to the latter. Another hour or half-hour of light and they would
+have played the very mischief with the retreating Boers. The Dragoons
+chased them past a Red Cross tent, where a man was waving a Red Cross
+flag. They respected those gathered about the tent; but one ruffian,
+waiting until they came abreast, shot point-blank at a private. As he
+fell dead from the saddle Captain Derbyshire rode at his slayer and
+shot him dead with his revolver. A big Dragoon would put his foot to
+the back of a Boer and tug to get his lance out. Some of the Boers
+stood firing till the cavalry came within twenty yards. The ground was
+broken veldt with patches of outcropping stones, which, added to the
+fading light, made it terrible ground for charging over. Already Tommy
+on top of the hill and down its sides was groping for the wounded.
+Tommy had behaved magnificently throughout the long fight, and now
+Tommy was finishing the day by behaving well to the Boer wounded. A
+rug here and a drink there, and later on the best place near the camp
+fire. In the previous five hours, Tommy's respect for the enemy had
+risen enormously; now he was treating his wounded with a rough but
+genuine kindness positively chivalrous. One might write for days upon
+the incidents of this glorious day, into which the events of a
+stirring lifetime seem crowded. Our artillery got a good chance, and
+showed up magnificently. The dauntless bravery of English officers we
+seem to take for granted as a national heritage; but in something
+stronger than admiration--in positive love--my heart goes out to Tommy
+Atkins--sweating, swearing, grimy, dirty, fearless, and
+generous--Tommy is a bit of "all right."
+
+[Illustration: Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A GLIMPSE OF OUR GUNNERS
+
+
+Go with the gunners if you want stirring scenes of modern war. You
+will not, as so often happens when one goes with an infantry regiment,
+spend a day lying on your belly in the scorching sun, while the air is
+vocal above you with the singing of bullets from an invisible foe,
+whose position is vaguely located on some quiet and deserted-looking
+kopje in front. Go with the gunners, and every time you go you will
+come back with an increased admiration for them. It is impossible to
+tell the result of rifle or even Maxim fire unless, as at Omdurman,
+the enemy stand up to be massacred; but with the guns you can at least
+see where the shells fall or the shrapnel burst. For this reason the
+Vickers-Maxim automatic--or pom-pom, as it was christened at
+Ladysmith--must be a most delightfully interesting weapon to the
+gunner who operates it. Each little shell on impact throws up a small
+fountain of smoke as it explodes, so that he sees at once if his fire
+is short or too high, and gets his range immediately; then he can
+follow cavalry about and tickle them up, or play around a patch of
+veldt where he knows the enemy are lying, just as a gardener would
+sprinkle with a watering-pot. It is a most demoralising weapon, but
+the explosion is so small that it does much less harm than would be
+expected.
+
+Let us take a typical day with the gunners. Photographs or
+cinematographs are entirely unsatisfactory in giving any idea of the
+"movement" of a battery going into action. There is the rattle of the
+gun-carriages, like a running accompaniment of rifle fire; the jingle
+of the harness; the splendid, strenuous, willing pull of the horses
+straining against their collars. They know all about it, these
+bright-eyed beasts quivering with life and work, and want no whip or
+spur until the work of tugging over the broken ground under a
+sweltering sun staggers them under the strain.
+
+There could not have been a more beautiful day than that of
+Elandslaagte for watching the gunners in action. Before the main part
+of the action was entered on, two batteries were ordered to reply to
+some fire coming from the left of our line of advance. They went
+forward at the gallop, bounding, jolting, and swaying over the uneven
+veldt, and, on a slight rise of ground showing out against the deep
+blue background of some hills, unlimbered and opened fire. A few
+horsemen were seen galloping over the ridge of a hill in front, and
+that was all. Then they limbered up and were ordered across to our
+right; a low but steep little embankment of the narrow-gauge railway
+was in front of them. It was a pretty sight to see them negotiating
+this obstacle--the jolting of the springless wheels up and down the
+stony sides and across the rails on top ought to have been enough to
+shake the teeth out of the men sitting on the limbers, and gripping
+hard to keep their seats. By the way, how loudly the nether part of a
+gunner's anatomy must sometimes cry out for a cushion!
+
+No sooner had they got clear of this jump than the Boer guns opened
+and began to make excellent practice. How every gunner felt longing to
+reply and silence them! Bang, burst, or spinning with whizzing hops,
+the shells came dropping in rapid succession. The Boers had been
+careful to get the exact range the previous day, and were not now
+wasting time or ammunition. Our guns had to go up a sloping depression
+at right angles to the Boer fire before getting into a position for
+opening. Every instant was of value, as the Boer shells were now
+dropping amongst the Imperial Light Horse and the infantry, who were
+just beginning to deploy. Under whip and spur they galloped up the
+slope--Gad! it was a sight to see how these artillery horses pulled;
+there was no taxpayers' money wasted there. One drops down, and the
+sharpness with which he is replaced by one of the spare horses would
+have drawn ringing rounds of applause at an Islington tournament. They
+take up a position at the top of the rising ground, monopolising the
+attention of the Boer gunners as they unlimber.
+
+The gunners jump from their seats sharp as sailors, unhook the
+limbers, leaving the guns pointed towards the enemy. Then the drivers
+trot off about fifteen yards, wheel round, and sit motionless on their
+horses, facing the fire. One cannot but admire the courage required to
+sit coolly like that with nothing to do but watch the enemy firing
+deliberately at them--see the discharge, and then await the arrival of
+the shell as it comes whirring and hurtling through the air. With what
+critical interest they must watch improvement in the enemy's
+shell-bowling! One was forcibly reminded of cricket bowling at
+Elandslaagte. Many of the shells did not burst, and those that were
+not full-pitched came in the manner of swift bowling along the
+rounded, almost flat-topped surface of the rising ground; and these
+gunners sat as steady as if they were the wickets just stuck in the
+ground, with never a duck of the head or a blink of the eye. The men
+working the guns are kept busy all the time, and have no time to think
+of or watch the enemy's shells; but the drivers have nothing to do but
+wait and watch. The horses, with still heaving foam-streaked sides,
+stand panting and tossing their heads. The Boers have got the position
+of our batteries accurately, as it must have been previously obvious
+that it was the one we would have taken up. Three of the gunners have
+already been badly hit; immediately after, with a terrific crash, a
+shell hits an ammunition-waggon fair. Those around hold their breath
+for a still greater explosion, but, wonderful to say, the ammunition
+does not explode. When the dust has cleared, however, the wheel of the
+waggon is found smashed to matchwood, and the vehicle lies helpless
+and useless on its side. But still steady as rocks sit the drivers
+facing the music. This is courage--the real article--and the market
+price of this kind of British pluck is one and twopence a day!
+
+Three days later I was photographing these boys behind their guns on
+the hill at Rietfontein, standing just as quietly under a hot rifle
+fire at 1200 yards' range, which the enemy kept up persistently,
+although we had silenced their guns and actually set fire to a long
+line of grass on the hill from which they were firing. An innocent,
+harmless-looking hill it seemed, with not a Boer visible on it, yet
+the bright summer air simply sang with the notes of Mauser
+bullets--clear and musical notes when they pass high overhead, but
+with a sharp and bitter ping when they pass close.
+
+But the best sight of all is to see our gunners going out of action.
+They go in at a gallop, and retire at a walk. There is something so
+delightfully contemptuous of the enemy's marksmanship in this. One day
+outside Ladysmith was typical. A couple of batteries went out with
+some cavalry for a small reconnaissance in force, located the Boer
+gun, and quickly drove the gunners to cover. The vultures had gathered
+as usual at the sound of their dinner-gong, but there was no fight,
+and soon the guns limbered up, and turned back across the plain.
+Immediately the Boer gunners were back at their gun, and, serving it
+with wonderful rapidity, sent shell after shell at our retiring
+batteries. The first was just short, then the two next went over; but
+on they went quietly, never breaking out of the walk. Then a shell
+fell between a gun and a limber, and did not burst. The great vultures
+wheeled and circled lower, waving their shadows below them on the
+parched plain; but there was no dinner for them that day--not even a
+horse was hit. And so always, when these field guns stop barking and
+limber up, it reminds one of pulling a dog out of a fight by the tail
+as they are dragged slowly, as if reluctantly, away; while the drivers
+don't bother to look round, and don't look a bit like heroes full of
+courage at the magnificent price of one and twopence a day.
+
+Rattle of iron on stones--clear, sharp words of command--clink of
+breech action--coldness of iron will warming the steel throat that
+voices its thoughts--hard, scientific, inhumanly mechanical; yet there
+is a subtle, attractive feeling that draws together the living
+elements that serve the gun. I barely escaped being knocked down one
+day by an artillery horse galloping furiously over the veldt. He had
+got badly torn by a shell; wild with the pain, he raced around until
+exhausted, and then, managing to stagger up to a gun, fell dead, with
+his head against the trail.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+IN THE TENTS OF THE BOERS
+
+
+Late in the afternoon of a day in the early part of last December I
+had ridden out from our lines in Ladysmith towards a certain position
+usually occupied by a Boer outpost, trusting by my going out
+deliberately and unarmed to get one of the men there to have a talk,
+just as one of the Lancers had a few days previously. For some time we
+had been on short rations of "copy" as well as food. I rode along the
+edge of an empty spruit, into the bed of which my spurs would have
+propelled my horse in the unlikely event of a shot being my first
+greeting. The spot where I expected to see the outpost was where the
+veldt, from being bare, commenced to be thickly covered with mimosa
+trees; but there was no one there--no living thing, except a little
+springbuck that started up as I arrived, bounding away over the long
+tufted grass, its little white rump showing like the flutter of a
+girl's petticoat. It stopped and, turning its pretty head, regarded me
+with great brown frightened eyes, as if I were the first human
+apparition to invade its sylvan solitude. It was clear there were no
+Boers immediately about; equally clear that this was a great chance
+unexpectedly offered of having a try to get south to Clery's or
+Buller's force, and be the first white man to bring the news from
+Ladysmith out of the beleaguered town. I was already started on the
+shortest route to the Tugela. I went on, and for about a mile no sign
+whatever of the enemy, and I thought of the theory more than once put
+forward that we were all the time being besieged by a ridiculously
+small but extremely mobile force. It was not until I was well in
+between Bulwana and Lombard's Kop that I caught sight between the
+trees of a laager of miscellaneous tents on the lower slope of the
+latter. Dismounting and going cautiously, I passed it and passed a man
+cutting wood, who was fortunately too industriously intent on his work
+to notice me. Bearing to the right, I was soon south of Bulwana and
+past the Boer lines. The rest would be comparatively easy, as an open
+stretch of country lay before me, where darkness would soon give me
+cover now that I had reached the edge of the trees. While waiting, I
+heard a voice behind me shout something in Dutch. Looking round, I
+found a Boer covering me with his rifle at ten yards, and the dream of
+a journalistic "beat," as they call it in America, vanished as he
+escorted me to his field cornet's camp. After some questioning by the
+field cornet, they gave me supper of meat, bread, and coffee--the
+bread arrived down every morning by train from Dundee, where it was
+baked by a Frenchman at what a short time ago had been our bakery.
+Then, as we sat round the big tent smoking, I gradually learned from
+them the first news of the outer world and the war, after being five
+weeks cut off in Ladysmith. As a running commentary on the news, we
+drifted into a series of discussions on the conduct of the war, and
+the observance of the usages of war by both armies. _Audi alteram
+partem_, and here I was hearing it with a vengeance. Two-thirds of
+them spoke English, as nearly all in this laager were from Heidelberg.
+They had about five charges against us of unfair fighting, and there
+was not the slightest doubt of their complete conviction that each of
+these charges was well founded and true. The worst of it was that in
+every instance they had some circumstance, the result of mistake,
+misconception, or individual wrongdoing, on which to raise a
+formidable superstructure of generalised accusation. "We fired on the
+Red Cross"--they instanced Elandslaagte and the battle of Nicholson's
+Nek; in both instances their waggons were behind kopjes that our
+gunners could not possibly see through. I threw them back their
+similar offences--the afternoon of Nicholson's Nek and their firing
+on the Town Hall hospital at Ladysmith. In the first instance, they
+said our waggons were too far off to be distinguished, which I knew
+was the case; and as regards the second, they argued that we had no
+right to continue to fly the Red Cross over the Town Hall when they
+had given us a neutral hospital camp outside at Intombi. Then had we
+not a right to fly a Red Cross over our sick and wounded while they
+had to wait for the next morning's train to bring them out to
+hospital? I urged. "No; put them in your holes underground," was the
+reply. We drifted into a discussion about dum-dum bullets, which they
+claimed to have found in our abandoned camp at Dundee, and, from
+seeing our doolies bearers, had fully made up their minds that we were
+using Indian troops against them. I then let them have it straight
+about their misuse of the white flag, which they denied.
+
+[Illustration: Advance Of The Devons Before The Attack At
+Elandslaagte.]
+
+Every pause in our talk was filled by the sound of deep, loud chanting
+coming from a tent hard by. Presently I went out to see them at their
+evening service. A big tent was full of men squatting around, the
+short twilight was fast darkening into night outside, and the interior
+of the tent was lit by two candles stuck in the necks of bottles.
+Except a couple of old men, they were all in the prime of life, and a
+splendidly strong-looking set of fellows they were. They sang, without
+any drawl or nasal intonation, straight out from their deep chests.
+The chant rose and fell with a swinging solemnity. There was little of
+pleading or supplication in its tones; they were calling on the God of
+Battles; the God of the Old Testament rather than the Preacher of the
+Sermon on the Mount was He to whom they sang; and sometimes there was
+a strain of almost stern demand about it that gave it more the ring of
+a war-song than a prayer. Entering the door of that tent seemed like
+going into another century. It could not be but luminously evident to
+the onlooker that these men were calling on an unseen Power whose
+actual existence was as real to their minds as that of their Mauser
+rifles stacked around the tent-pole. One could not help contrasting
+this obvious sincerity with the perfunctory church parade on our side,
+and this religion with that of two-thirds or three-fourths of our army
+of careless agnostics. Barring a very small minority, principally
+Irishmen, there is no place for religion in Tommy's intellectual kit.
+It has just degenerated into being an old magazine from which he draws
+his swear-words--a sort of bandolier of blasphemy. It was hot in that
+tent, and the sweat made the foreheads of these deep-voiced choristers
+shine against the dark shadows cast behind them on the canvas. It was
+curious to notice how the knees and elbows of their clothes showed
+signs of wear from their favourite shooting attitude, and there were
+many with buttons missing from their waistcoats that had been scraped
+off by the stones on the kopjes, or with buttons of different patterns
+that had evidently been sewn on by the wearers in place of those worn
+off. All the Boers appear to give up shaving when on the warpath,
+which adds to the wild picturesqueness of their appearance. I found
+the hymns they were singing were old Dutch ones. "We keep this up
+every night in camp," one of them said to me, "just the same as at
+home." When they had finished, they all lit their pipes, and then I
+was put through a catechism, which was the same at every camp or with
+every group of Boers I met for the next week. "What did I think of the
+Boers?" "Did I not expect to meet a lot of savages?" "Was I not
+surprised to hear them speaking English?" And then they were
+everywhere keen to learn if we appreciated the way our prisoners were
+being treated in Pretoria, and equally curious to know our opinion of
+how they were fighting. As I thought the siege of Ladysmith, since
+they would not assault, had become dolorously monotonous, I suggested,
+so that things might be enlivened a bit, that a race meeting or a
+football match might be got up between teams from each army on the
+neutral ground at Intombi. The younger men received the idea of a
+football match with acclamation. "Ya, goot," said a young giant beside
+me, rubbing his big hands enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest
+football match that ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his
+left hand in a sling, bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed:
+"No; the only game we like to play now is the one with cannon-balls."
+No; these dour, stolid men take their fighting sadly and sternly;
+there is none of the "frolic welcome" with which our Irish Tommies,
+for instance, enjoy their fighting or endure the waiting for it. When
+I was a prisoner in Pretoria they used to keep us awake at night with
+fireworks after news such as that of Colenso and Magersfontein, but,
+except amongst the young boys, they were not given to exultation over
+what they had done or to any boasting. Then they talked about lyddite,
+and it was quite clear that it had been a terrible bogy in their
+minds, and that they had imagined it was to have an effect like
+throwing earthquakes at them, and it was equally evident that the
+result of actual experience had fallen short of their apprehensions.
+
+We went out from the stuffy hot tent into the clear sharp air of a
+starlight night on the hills, and from a lighted tent, high above us
+on the slope of Lombard's Kop, came the chant of a psalm taken up by
+many voices outside. "Let God arise, and let His enemies be
+scattered," they sang, like Cromwell's soldiers at Dunbar. As I laid
+down in the field cornet's tent, with his son, a boy of fifteen, at
+one side of me, and a man over sixty on the other, I could not help
+thinking of the great tragedy of all that was yet before these people
+when they would begin to realise that they called in vain on their
+God, that they had no monopoly of the Almighty, that the God of their
+fathers fights no longer on the side of the Boers, but on that of the
+big battalions. This will be the desolation of downfall.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE FELLOW THAT FELT AFRAID
+
+
+He was just a common or garden ordinary sort of chap. He was lying on
+hot, pointed, uncomfortable stones through which long tufts of coarse
+grass protruded. Drops of sweat were trickling down his face, and his
+hands left wet marks where they came into contact with the stock or
+barrel of his rifle. With elbows, with chest, with stomach, with legs,
+he was trying to press hard against the ground. It is a curious
+feeling, that lying down and trying to press against the ground. He
+wished to reduce himself to the substance of a postage-stamp. This was
+the day of his first fight, but since he had got up everything was
+unaccountably unlike his expectation. The reveille had sounded in the
+dark at three o'clock in the morning. It was bitterly cold outside the
+tents, and his hands trembled as he fumbled with his putties. He had
+had a hard struggle to turn out from under that warm rug where he had
+been dreaming the real soldier's dream. Detaille's picture is all
+rot--the soldier's dream is not the picture of victorious battalions
+with banners flying, marching through the clouds. He had been dreaming
+of tripe and onions. Visions of past good meals in comfortable
+quarters washed down with deep cooling draughts of bitter floated in
+procession through sizzling clouds of vapour smelling of invisible
+kitchens. As he fumbled with his putties the rumble of waggons came
+out of darkness from a road hard by, mingled with the sharper rattle
+that tells of the gunners already on the move. The vague rumours of
+last night, he felt, were going to shape into the actuality of fight;
+but what an hour to go out fighting! Why should they be hauled out to
+fight in the dark? Why could not men wait for light? Wait until the
+world was aired? He was thirsty and uncomfortable, with the taste of
+stale tobacco in his mouth, and joined in the variegated imprecations
+muttered by the men when he found there would be only a few minutes to
+get anything to eat and no time for hot coffee. Presently he is a unit
+in a long snake-like column of men that winds along the road through
+the dark into the unknown. As he plods on he speculates how the fight
+will start. Perhaps the kopjes on either side of the road may be
+already full of Boers. Perhaps the beginning of the fight will be to
+find that they have marched into another ambush. It was a nasty
+uncomfortable feeling, that tramping through the darkness into the
+unknown. He felt better as the light spread from the eastern hills,
+and felt companionship and security in being part and parcel of that
+great mass of men that extended before and behind him on the road as
+far as he could see. Suddenly there is the boom of a gun, and he comes
+into collision with the man in front of him, who has stopped dead at
+the sound. A strange tingling feeling goes up his spine. There is a
+hush! No one speaks. The whole essence of vitality strains to listen.
+A faint whir crescendoes rapidly into the shrill whoop of a
+steam-siren, and a great balloon-shaped cloud of smoke and dust has
+already arisen from amidst the marching mass of men ahead. There is no
+sign whence came the shot. Nothing can be more peaceful-looking than
+the shoulders of these hills lying bathed in the quiet morning light.
+There is no sign of an enemy. Sharp words of command ring out while
+the cloud of smoke and dust is still hanging in the air, and in a
+dazed and mechanical way he finds himself deploying over the ground,
+which shakes with the gallop of cavalry as they spread out fan-like on
+either side of the road. The artillery rattle and jolt over the
+stones, and the limbers toss like little punts towed through a choppy
+sea. His company advances in extended order across the stony ground
+tufted with grass, and are ordered to lie down. The captain says,
+"Any men who have got anything to eat, let them eat it now." He has a
+piece of bread in his haversack, but feels no inclination to eat that
+dry and crumby stuff; but he is thirsty, and takes a long and deep
+pull at his water-bottle. The sun has already become very hot. The
+artillery has already got into action on the left, and is engaged in a
+duel with the Boer gunners. The minutes of waiting seem hours to him.
+Then all the men watch with keen interest an officer with a red-banded
+German cap galloping towards them. The result of his arrival is an
+order for them to advance up the gradual slope of this rounded hill.
+Just as he starts there is a light keen whistle in the air overhead
+like the call of a bird, then another and another. Instinctively he
+feels that these are made by bullets flying overhead. As he goes on an
+occasional one rings with a sharp bitterness in its tone, and he ducks
+his head as one might duck to the swish of a riding-whip near the
+face. They go with knees and backs bent, and he longs for the order
+to halt and lie down again. A fellow drops out alongside of him, but
+he does not look to see what has happened--he is afraid to look. Just
+when they have reached the crest of the hill, and when the whistling
+sounds have become more plentiful than ever, they are ordered to lie
+down again. Looking through the streaky stems of grass immediately in
+front of him, he can see a similarly shaped hill about 1200 yards
+away. It looks absolutely deserted. Nothing moves upon the skyline.
+Little puffs of smoke momentarily appear above it, which he knows are
+caused by the bursting of our shrapnel. He begins to feel he is really
+in the fight, but it is just altogether opposite to what he expects.
+It is commonplace and disappointing to a degree. He sees the gunners
+busy on the left, the horses standing behind them as if all the
+whistling sounds are only a rain-shower. There is a small stone in
+front of him, just half the size of his helmet. He knows it is not
+half big enough to cover him. All his preconceived ideas of a fight
+are crumbling away. Here they are being led out to lie on the grass to
+be potted at, and not allowed to reply. But then, as he looks at the
+opposite hill, he sees nothing to fire at. A group of red-capped
+officers walk their horses along the line left behind them. He
+recognises the General in command. They stop, and one of the General's
+aides-de-camp dismounts and opens a paper parcel, from which the
+General takes a sandwich and bites a big semicircular piece out of it.
+He finds it hard to realise that this is a battle and that this is the
+General commanding. In all pictures of battles that he has seen from
+his youth upwards the General is seated on a horse poised on two legs,
+and waving a sword or pointing with a marshal's baton. And here is a
+General with a sandwich with a big bite out of it, who points with the
+sandwich-hand instead. And then he begins to wonder, with all this
+multitudinous whistling, that nobody seems to be hit. Then the order
+is given to advance again. He feels a tremendous disinclination to
+leave the stone, and waits to see the other men around him get up.
+They all get up except the fellow on his right. Reaching over with his
+rifle, he pokes him in the ribs. He then hits him on the shoulder with
+it. Thinking he is asleep, he tips off his helmet from behind. His
+eyes are quite open; and then, like a douche of cold water, comes the
+consciousness that this man is dead. A feeling to get away from that
+corpse more than any other brings him amongst his comrades a few yards
+in advance, who are already firing and lying flat. He keeps blazing
+away mechanically at the innocent-looking hill opposite. His rifle is
+hot in his moist hands. An order to "cease fire" is given, and then
+there is another long interval of waiting. The whole business seems
+waiting. It isn't a bit like a proper sort of fight. There is nobody
+to fight; but still the bird-like notes are in the air above, and
+bitter little sounds against stones, and tiny little fountains of
+dust spurt from the ground around. And then a great feeling comes to
+him that he would like to be out of it all. There is no glory in it.
+The sun is hotter than he ever felt it before. His water-bottle is
+finished, and his mouth is clammy. A young subaltern with an
+eye-glass, no end of a toff, walks along the front of the line, and he
+watches with interested delight microscopic ducklets of his head,
+synchronising with whistles. Just as the toff is opposite him, he
+spins round suddenly, exclaiming, "By Jove!" and falls down like a
+sack of potatoes all of a heap. He begins to feel a strange sickness
+in the stomach, just the same as coming out on the transport. He feels
+it coming on. He knows he is going to be sick, and as he is going to
+be sick he wants to go away. There is no use in a sick man remaining
+in the fighting line. But then he feels as if he were held down there
+by the weight of the whirring air. There is no room in it for him to
+get up safely. There is no room to go away. Momentarily the noises
+increase. Men are firing about him, and he strains his eyes on the
+opposite hill to see something to shoot at, and empties his magazine
+at what looks like a man but may be a tree-trunk, and then stops again
+and gets sick. Another long period of waiting follows. All the water
+is gone from his water-bottle; an intolerable thirst is scorching his
+throat. He does not reload his magazine, and makes up his mind to say
+that his rifle is jammed, so that he need not go further with any
+fresh stupid advance that may be ordered. This is no time to care
+about what any one may think of him, it is just too awful for
+anything.
+
+The ground has ceased trembling with the cavalry, who have dashed to
+the front. There is no longer any whizzing in the air. The "cease
+fire" is already sounding right along the line. The man who was afraid
+stands up with his comrades, who are already on their legs. The old
+Colonel trots along the line, mopping his red face with his
+handkerchief. "That was a hot business," he says to his Captain, and
+calls cheerily to us, "Well done, C Company! You are damned steady
+boys under as hot fire as I have ever seen." The man who was afraid
+opens his shoulders and pulls out the collar of his tunic and stoops
+down to wipe off the cakes of dirty earth that are sticking to his
+knees.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE DANCE OF DEATH IN CHINA
+
+            "A wind of blight
+  From the mysterious far North-west we came,
+  Our greatness now their veriest babes have learned."
+
+
+[Illustration: George Lynch Captured By The Boers.]
+
+It was the day after Tung-Chow had been occupied by the Allies. I was
+riding along a sunken road between the city wall and some high ground
+on which houses were built. There was a sheer drop of considerable
+height between the walls of the houses and the stony road below. The
+shouts of Russians mingling with screams could be heard proceeding
+from the houses. At the base of the cliff two Chinese girls were
+lying. Their legs were bundled under them in a way that showed they
+had jumped from the height above. From their richly embroidered
+silken tunics and trousers, their elaborate coiffure, and their
+compressed feet, they were evidently ladies. They were moaning
+piteously, and one of them appeared to be on the point of death. Their
+legs or hips had apparently been broken, or dislocated, by their jump.
+As I went towards them, the one who appeared least injured shrank from
+me with an expression of loathing and horror until I offered her a
+drink out of my water-bottle. Her delicate, childish little hand
+trembled violently on mine as she drank eagerly from it. The other was
+almost too far gone to swallow. The hoarse cries of the soldiers,
+mingled occasionally with a sobbing scream, came from the houses
+above, telling what they had tried so desperately to escape from. They
+lay there helpless, evidently in excruciating pain, under a brazen sun
+that beat down on the deserted dusty road. There was no one within
+reach to come to their assistance. And there was nothing for it but to
+leave them there, as many under similar circumstances had had to be
+left during our previous march of several days. This scene was typical
+rather than singular. In a large number of Chinese houses in the
+villages we passed through on our way up, at Tung-Chow, and in Pekin
+itself, it was no unusual sight to see an entire family lying dead
+side by side on the Kang, where they had suffocated themselves, or to
+see them suspended from the rafters of their houses, where they had
+committed suicide by hanging.
+
+In the burden of corpses which the river Pei-ho carried downwards from
+Pekin towards the sea were to be seen the bodies of many Chinese girls
+and women. One day I myself counted five. There is no question
+whatever that they had committed suicide. And close to Tung-Chow girls
+were actually seen walking into the shallow water and deliberately
+holding their heads under the surface till they were drowned. Such a
+tale seems very terrible. But to any one who had the opportunity of
+judging of the conduct of portions of the Allied troops it was not in
+the least surprising. Under similar circumstances our sisters and
+wives would have done likewise.
+
+The Russians and French carried off the palm for outrages on women
+during the original march, and subsequently the Germans similarly
+distinguished themselves. This was more particularly the case with
+small bodies of men who were detached from the main force. In a
+village on the way to Paoting-fu, for instance, through which a body
+of Germans had just passed, three girls were taken by our troops out
+of a well, into which they had been thrown before the Germans left.
+They were still alive. This method of disposing of their victims was
+frequently adopted by the soldiers as the safest way of hiding their
+misdeeds and escaping the consequences.
+
+News travels fast in China, and in advance of our march the people
+seemed to be thoroughly aware of the fate that probably awaited them.
+Although nearly the whole population cleared off before our advance,
+there were many, especially women, who could not get away, and who
+were unable to travel with their tiny compressed feet except in carts
+or on the backs of their servants. And it was principally these who
+finally, in the last extremity, committed suicide.
+
+As the Chinese have agreed to erect a monument to Baron von Ketteler
+in Pekin in commemorative apology for his murder, it appears to me
+that there is an opportunity for the Allies to erect one also. It
+might be of pure white jade, which the Chinese women love, which in
+its translucent depths seems to hold the bright Eastern sunlight with
+the detaining lingerage of a caress, and might bear an inscription
+saying that it was erected in honour of the memory of the women and
+girls of the province of Pechili who had sacrificed their lives to
+save their honour.
+
+All the way from the sea to Pekin, and for miles around Pekin itself,
+the whole country was deserted by the inhabitants. A wave of fear and
+horror preceded the advent of the Allies to such an extent that
+hundreds of miles of what was the most thickly populated part of China
+was absolutely deserted. After the relief of the Legations, the people
+who ventured timorously to return were inspired with fresh fear owing
+to the conduct of the Germans, who made up for being late for the
+original expedition by availing themselves of every possible
+opportunity of starting punitive expeditions on any possible pretence.
+Coming at the time of the autumn harvest, the actual loss of money to
+the inhabitants has been enormous.
+
+From August to November a great tract of country was left deserted by
+the inhabitants, who should have been employed in gathering in the
+harvest. When I came down from Pekin in November there was no sign
+whatever of life across the plains on either side as far as the eye
+could reach. Thousands of acres of millet lay prone on the ground, and
+their carefully-tended vegetable gardens were scored with black lines,
+showing where the produce had rotted. When the Germans arrived in
+September I heard one of their officers saying to Major Scott, who was
+in charge of the river station at Tung-Chow, pointing to the fields of
+millet which surrounded the camp, "Why don't you burn down all these
+crops?" Major Scott replied that, besides not wanting to make life
+harder for these unfortunate farmers, they wanted the fodder for their
+own cattle. But, as a matter of fact, the destruction effected by the
+absence of the people was just as great as if the wish of that German
+had been carried out.
+
+In all the discussions of the question of the amount of indemnity we
+never hear anything of the amount of counterclaim which the Chinese
+might rightfully make against us. The greater part of all this
+destruction was absolutely contrary to every rule of civilised
+warfare. In a district of about the extent of from London to Oxford
+the inhabitants have lost the entire produce of the harvest, all the
+villages and towns on either side of the river have been burned, so
+that on the march up our path at night was literally torch-lit with
+burning villages.
+
+As was natural to expect, and as we have subsequently learned, many of
+the inhabitants have been forced by the absolute necessities of
+subsistence to band themselves together in companies of brigands,
+whose depredations afford a fresh excuse to the Germans for continuing
+hostile operations. The losses inflicted on the country in this way
+are entirely outside the irreparable losses which were inflicted by
+the destruction and despoiling of temples and innumerable works of art
+which it will be impossible to replace. As regards these last
+outrages, there was no officer in command of any section of the Allies
+who personally exerted himself to a greater degree for the
+preservation, or at least to prevent the destruction, of the art
+heirlooms of the country than did General Sir Alfred Gaselee.
+
+Some curious things happened in his efforts in this direction. On the
+Paoting-fu expedition, for instance, when the troops were to pass in
+the neighbourhood of the Imperial Tombs, a few British soldiers were
+sent on in advance, and quietly informed the custodians that the
+Germans were coming. Readily acting on the information, they removed
+all the jewels and easily portable valuables from the tombs, and they
+were kept concealed in a village on the other side of the hill under
+the guard of a few Bengal Lancers until the Germans had passed. In
+recognition of this friendly message the Chinese wanted to make a
+present of some magnificent strings of pearls to Captain Maxwell, a
+nephew of Lord Roberts.
+
+In civilised warfare there is generally some little respect shown for
+the priests and places of worship of the conquered people, but here
+there was none whatever. Horses were stabled in the temples, and the
+art heirlooms of thousands of years of the nation's life to be found
+therein were frequently mutilated and destroyed when they were not
+stolen. In the street where I lived in Pekin for a whole week were to
+be seen, day by day, carts passing backwards and forwards laden with
+books which were being brought to be consumed in a huge fire kept
+burning in a yard outside the palace wall. Thousands of books were
+thus treated, so that the whole street was littered with their
+fluttering leaves to such an extent that I could not get my little
+Chinese pony to pass there without getting off and leading him, for he
+shied continually at the fluttering papers. Day after day this
+literary holocaust continued. When the wind was in the direction of my
+house a fine black snow kept perpetually falling, and covered the
+roofs and courtyards with these ashes of dead thoughts. Hundreds of
+the books were written in the quaint characters which showed that they
+belonged to, and were written by, Lama priests; many of them had
+probably found their way there from the bleak steppes of far Tibet.
+
+They were printed with those wooden blocks by which these barbarians
+practised the art of printing for centuries before the time of
+Caxton. Many of them also were in manuscript, which must have meant
+years of labour, and hand-painted pictures illustrating some were
+occasionally to be found. They were all alike consigned to the same
+funeral pyre, and thousands of volumes of unascertained, but perhaps
+considerable, value were thus lost to the world for ever. As the
+bleak, cold winds from the plains swept down the deserted street at
+night, and moaned dolorously through the ruined houses, rattling
+doors, and flapping paper windows, it lifted these torn book-leaves,
+and swirled them round in a fantastic dance of death, until one could
+almost imagine one heard the lamentation of the ghosts of their
+long-dead authors--priests, hermits, and scholars--mourning over the
+ashes of their life-work.
+
+The whole of this campaign is the reverse of flattering to our Western
+civilisation. Many of the details of the conduct of the Russian,
+French, and German soldiers do not bear publication. But what it
+broadly amounts to is the treatment of a venerable civilisation
+absolutely foreign to our own as if its members belonged to a low
+class of pestiferous beasts whose most desirable fate would be
+extermination.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+CERTAIN COMPARISONS
+
+
+After spending five months with the British forces in the early part
+of the war in the Transvaal, and then having an opportunity of
+campaigning with the allied forces in China, it was extremely
+interesting to make comparisons between them. The greater number of
+the troops we employed in China were drawn from the Army of India. As
+regards the French forces, they, at all events during the original
+march to the relief of the Legations, were drawn from the troops which
+were stationed at Tonkin. But the French troops that subsequently
+arrived direct from France, as well as the German contingent, may
+naturally be taken as average samples of their respective armies. It
+is true that outside the siege of Tientsin there was very little
+serious fighting. The engagements on the march up were not severe
+ones, except that outside the eastern gate of Pekin itself. The action
+here, however, was entirely confined to the Japanese. If this campaign
+did not afford opportunities of observing the various troops under
+severe strain of battle, it made up for it in a way by testing their
+qualities, resources, and equipment for campaigning under
+exceptionally trying circumstances. The weather during August, when
+the march for the relief took place, was exceptionally hot, far
+surpassing anything that I experienced in South Africa. The roads,
+where there were any that might be dignified by that name, were
+extremely bad, the dust was intense, the supply of water of the most
+inferior quality, and the expedition, not being under the command of
+one general, added irksome difficulties by the uncertainty of the
+movements of its constituent parts from day to day.
+
+Fighting is not the sole duty of soldiers in the field, and in almost
+all their other duties apart from that we had ample and varied
+opportunities of contrasting their merits. The Japanese infantry were
+a surprise and a revelation to most of the Allies. Notwithstanding the
+enormous trouble they have taken with their cavalry, it is immensely
+inferior to every other arm of their service. This is not to be
+wondered at when we reflect how little the Japanese are accustomed to
+horse-riding at home, and what small opportunities they have of
+acquiring that knowledge of the management of horses which comes
+instinctively to the English groom, to the Irish farmer's son, or to
+the field labourer. The defect of a want of efficient cavalry is with
+the Japanese largely compensated for by the extreme mobility of their
+infantry. They appear to do everything at the double. All their
+soldiers seem to be perpetually kept in the best of hard training. If
+they have not horses at home, they have plenty of rickshaw men, who
+consider thirty to thirty-five miles of running not an excessive
+day's work.
+
+Often watching the Japanese manoeuvring in the field, it occurred to
+me that if the men of her entire army had not served an apprenticeship
+between the shafts of the rickshaw, they must at least have passed
+through some training equally severe. On the expedition to Pekin they
+carried with them a number of light calibre guns, which they pulled
+into action, without horses, right into the firing line. In every
+detail of their camp equipment, food-supply, and field hospital corps,
+there was a neatness of packing and arrangement which apparently
+resulted in their carrying all their requirements in about a third
+less space than any of the others. The simple fare of the Japanese
+soldiers was ideal for campaigning. Broadly speaking, it consists of
+rice, with what might be called a flavouring of strong-tasting dried
+fish and mysterious brown condiments suggestive of curry. As they have
+modelled their fleet on our own, so they have drawn from the French
+and German armies a selection of their uniform and equipment. The
+colour of their uniform at home is dark blue. But during the
+expedition to Pekin their uniform was white, which would have been
+murderously conspicuous in operations against any force that was
+composed of less bad marksmen than the Chinese. This is now to be
+abandoned, and is to be replaced by something in the nature of khaki,
+as will be the heavy round German caps by something in the nature of
+straw hats or helmets, which will give more protection against the
+sun, although not looking so smart.
+
+Although the officers of all the Allies were immensely struck by the
+discipline and equipment of the Japanese, close observers were still
+more attracted by the underlying soldier spirit which animates them.
+An inherent spirit of soldiering seems to possess every little Jap as
+a natural heritage. They seem to love fighting for fighting's sake.
+They appear to enjoy the whole thing like schoolboys do their games.
+They take their killing much more kindly than the others, and appear
+to be much more familiarised with the idea that it is part of the
+game. Indeed, there is a zest and a verve and go about them when in
+action that I have never seen in any other troops. There were numerous
+instances in the siege of Tientsin of disregard of death. And outside
+the gates of Pekin ten men who were killed in their attempts to blow
+it up might apparently have been indefinitely multiplied at the
+command of their officers without any danger of faltering. When at ten
+o'clock at night they advanced to take the gate by assault which they
+had failed to force in the morning, it was immensely attractive to
+observe the gaiety, almost amounting to hilarity, with which they
+advanced to the attack. All movements such as this they accompany with
+singing. And after forcing the gate, when they met with opposition
+going along the wall and had to lie down before a hot fire from the
+Chinese, who made a final stand about half a mile from the gate,
+the Japanese buglers stood up and played some of their quaint
+war-songs.
+
+[Illustration: Boer Shell Bursting Among The Lancers At Rietfontein.]
+
+At night, in the camps on the way up, what I had mistaken for some
+Buddhist evening prayer, when the soldiers tramped round like a human
+prayer-wheel, was, I subsequently discovered, the chanting of a
+war-song which had been composed by General Fukushima himself.
+
+The interesting thing to observe will be to see how the Japanese
+behave when they are getting the worst of it, how they will conduct
+themselves when they are outnumbered, or when under the strain of a
+losing fight. From a sporting standpoint, I'll be inclined to lay six
+to four on a Japanese against a Russian regiment. I met some people on
+the way to Pekin who regarded the Russians as the best war soldiers of
+the lot. The Russians were intensely like the preconceived idea one is
+inclined to form of Russians. Solid, deep-chested, heavy and hardy,
+they gave one the idea of big, heavy farm labourers with a rifle
+instead of a spade upon their shoulders. They never moved with
+anything like the quickness which characterised the Japanese, yet they
+plodded on with a dour stubbornness which gave the impression that if
+their movements were not quick, they represented a weighty momentum
+difficult to arrest. Although uncouth, and frequently savage in their
+behaviour, they yielded a child-like, or almost slavish, obedience to
+their officers, and on these officers should lie the blame of the
+innumerable outrages committed by them, from which they might have
+been restrained if kept properly under control.
+
+Of the many tips which one force got from another, the Russians had an
+admirable system of carrying with them on the march a sort of
+locomotive kitchen, which consisted of a huge cauldron underneath
+which was a coal fire. The contents of the cauldron, which appeared to
+be the Russian equivalent for Irish stew, were hot and ready for the
+men at any halt in the march. How delightful such an institution
+would have been to Tommy in the miserably cold hours between two and
+four o'clock on the veldt of a South African morning!
+
+As regards the French force on the expedition to Pekin, in discipline
+and in equipment and the conduct of the men composing it, it was
+absolutely beneath contempt. Unless the art of foraging and looting
+can be considered soldier-like qualities, they appeared to me to lack
+every one.
+
+I looked forward to seeing great things from the Germans. But I must
+say that I was immensely disappointed. As far as parade-ground drill
+was concerned they were admirable; as the mechanical and automatic
+resultants of the efforts of the drill-sergeant they were possibly
+unequalled. But they appeared to be heavy and slow in their movements.
+On one little expedition outside Pekin for the purpose of surrounding
+a body of Boxers, which was undertaken by a combined force of British,
+Americans, Japanese, and Germans, the encircling movement proved a
+failure owing to the Germans arriving an hour late at their appointed
+position. Discussing the Germans one day with a Japanese officer, his
+criticism on them was, "Very good soldiers, but I tink too much drill
+drill."
+
+If the Germans suffer from too much mechanical "drill drill," the
+Americans certainly suffer from the opposite. Self-reliance,
+independence, and individuality of action are all very desirable
+qualities, but the Americans suffer immensely from the want of
+discipline and drill. Perhaps the democratic feeling of the States
+does not lend itself so easily to discipline. Each one of Napoleon's
+soldiers was supposed to carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack. The
+American soldier has taken it therefrom, and is rather inclined to be
+a marshal unto himself, thinks himself quite as good as his superior
+officer, if not better, and, more than any other soldier, is given to
+grumbling, and spends a lot of his attention, which should be
+concentrated on merely obeying, to expressing his individual opinion.
+The United States soldiers are far and away the best fed in the
+world. Their standard of comfort, not to say luxury, is immensely
+higher, and would be absolutely ruinous in an army the size of any of
+those of Europe.
+
+Comparing the various forces--as I had an opportunity of observing
+them in China--with those of our own in South Africa, I am filled with
+a much higher idea of the latter than before I had such a standard of
+comparison. Our army, composed as it is in part of Colonial regiments,
+is now a combination of various admirable qualifications. The
+resourcefulness and individuality of action, which is the most
+admirable thing to be found in the American army, was quite equalled
+by men who composed such regiments as the Imperial Light Horse, the
+South African Horse, Brabant's Horse, the New Zealanders, and the
+Canadians.
+
+The inspiring, ingrained fighting spirit of the Japs is to be found in
+the Irish regiments, who are probably the best fighting men in the
+world; the chivalrous gallantry of artillery in action, which Zola
+wrote of in _La Debacle_, I saw in quivering vitality at Elandslaagte
+and Rietfontein, and not by the hastening of a step was the old
+tradition of our artillery (to go into action at a gallop and come out
+at a walk) forgotten in actions outside Ladysmith. Superior-speaking,
+long-range critics talk disparagingly of our soldiers in the
+Transvaal. Germans talk of how things should have been done,
+forgetting that the little expedition they sent out to China was kept
+waiting for a month at Tientsin before the men could start for
+Paoting-fu, owing to the non-arrival of some essentials of their
+equipment.
+
+Far be it from me to think of posing as a military expert or a sort of
+composite military _attache_ to the allied forces. I speak merely as
+an observant outsider. In riding to hounds one soon learns the men one
+would select to ride against the pick of another pack. One feels in
+his "innards" the man he would like to go tiger-shooting with,
+although it would be another matter to put down his reasons in
+writing, and much more so with soldiers in the field.
+
+From what I have seen in South Africa and China, I feel and know
+it--luminously know it in the marrow of my intelligence--that for that
+South African job, if it were to be done over again, I would select
+the British; that they have done, not alone as well, but better than
+any other nation would have done. Many things might have been done
+better. But apart from the question of transport, when I saw the
+others there were everywhere signs of their probable failures being
+infinitely more numerous.
+
+There are only two armies that, granted the possibility of their being
+landed in South Africa, could have conceivably tackled the job. These
+are the Japanese and the Germans. The Japs would probably have failed
+from their want of efficient mounted infantry or cavalry; the
+beer-blown Germans would have been worn down by men of better physical
+training. The war-knowledgeable brain, looking out through spectacled
+eyes, would droop tired in its physical limber until it was brought
+on a level with the less scientific but more practical weapon of the
+polo-playing, cricketing, footballing British officer.
+
+The Chinese had reached that ideal which we, at the end of the past
+century, were making an initial attempt to attain to in the calling
+together of the Hague Conference. For they had reached the stage of
+advanced development where the pen is really mightier than the
+sword--where the highest class in the community is that of the
+scholar, the next that of the man who tills the soil, and the last
+that of the man whose occupation it is to kill his fellow-man. Thus
+the Orientals were naturally at the mercy of the Western countries,
+the largest expenditure of whose revenue is absorbed by the cost of
+killing-machines and men to work them.
+
+The Chinese have a saying that, as the best iron is not made into
+nails, so the best men are not made into soldiers. With our Western
+civilisation, the best men and steel and soldiers found them an easy
+victim. There are no people in the world who have a higher regard for
+abstract justice and right than the Chinese. It is admitted by every
+man who has had large commercial dealings with them that there are no
+people who have a greater regard for straightforward, honest dealing.
+In our dealings with them, as regards this campaign, right and justice
+in every case have given place to might.
+
+When the German officer I have referred to above pointed towards the
+fields of millet which he wished to have burned, I was strikingly
+reminded of a certain mysterious picture which some years ago had been
+inspired or drawn by his Emperor and Kaiser. It had been called by
+some "The Yellow Peril," and depicts the figure of Germania,
+surrounded by the nations of Europe, standing on a pinnacle, and
+pointing to a broad plain below traversed by a river, and from the
+plain volumes of smoke rose skywards. No one seemed to know quite
+definitely what the actual meaning of the picture was. But since this
+latest crusade towards Pekin, the real meaning of it is suggested. In
+this campaign of revenge, with the Germans as the leading performers
+in it, animated and inspired by the speeches of their Emperor, the
+picture, now illustrative of recent history, might bear a more actual
+meaning.
+
+  "And Caesar's spirit raging for revenge,
+  With Ate by his side, come hot from hell,
+  Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
+  Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war,
+  That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
+  With carrion men, groaning for burial."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA
+
+
+It was the garden of the Mission of Peitang. Not a blade of grass was
+showing above the ground. The roots of the grass itself had been torn
+up, eaten by the last few starving animals within the besieged
+compound before they had been killed, and the trees were absolutely
+stripped of their bark as high as the beasts could reach. At one side
+of the garden a great open crater, fringed with the ruins of
+buildings, showed where a mine had exploded. The cross on the
+Cathedral hard by was broken, and its Gothic architecture additionally
+fretted by the scoring marks of shot and shell. But I think nothing
+told more forcibly the tale of the ordeal through which the garrison
+had passed than did these gnawed, naked tree-trunks.
+
+I was shown round the day after its relief by one of the Sisters,
+which, by the way, was effected by the Japanese, but not until the
+third day after the Legations had been relieved, although it was only
+twenty minutes' ride distant from them. The Mother Superior,
+seventy-four years of age, who had spent thirty-eight years of her
+life in Chinese mission work, lay dying--a daughter of Count Barais,
+of Chateau Barais, near Bordeaux. She had belonged to the Order of
+Sisters of Charity since her eighteenth year. Three mines had exploded
+within the Mission enclosure, and walls and roofs were riddled and lay
+tossed about in grotesque confusion. I went into the Cathedral church,
+which they were using as a hospital.
+
+Coming from the glare of white light outside, it was some moments
+before I could distinguish anything in the gloom within. By degrees
+one made out rows of rounded forms of little children lying on the
+floor. Above, the stained-glass windows were broken in many places,
+and the roof perforated where shells had entered, letting in shafts of
+light that fell aslant the gloom. High up on the wall one lit up a
+figure of Christ that with bowed head and extended, nail-pierced hands
+seemed to point in eloquent silence to the little suffering children
+below. The entire floor of the church, even up to the extinguished
+lamp of the sanctuary, was occupied with them. In one explosion alone
+eighty children were killed, and a still greater number injured. Many
+more were ailing for want of sufficient food, because when the actual
+relief came they had been reduced to only two ounces of rice per day,
+and had but two days' rations left. Other children, who were helping
+the nuns, moved noiselessly about among the prostrate forms. The
+hushed silence of sanctuary was broken only by low moaning, or the
+querulous sobbing of little children weary with pain. The Sister
+brought me to see one little mite, whom she called the "first fruit"
+of their recommenced labour.
+
+It was a strange story, that of this little child. The French soldiers
+who occupied that quarter of the city had come across a house where,
+stretched on the kang side by side, were the bodies of all its
+occupants. They had committed suicide on the advent of the Allies. As
+the soldiers had not time to bury them immediately, intent as they
+were on pillaging and looting the neighbourhood, they threw lime on
+the bodies. After two days, when they came to throw their remains into
+a pit which had been dug for their burial, they found that the
+youngest victim was yet alive, and carried her, with her hair still
+caked with lime, to the nuns.
+
+In the midst of these ruins these good women, mostly of gentle birth,
+were striving to recommence their labours, and nurse, and feed, and
+teach the children that remained. But, conversing with them, one
+perceived, underlying their heroic resignation, a strain of very human
+despondency and disappointment. Their talk here was not of
+compensation. It was merely of how they could get their ruined
+mission-house fit for work again--the work for which they had left
+father and mother and friends, and their homes in far-off France.
+
+It was not quite the same elsewhere, however. There were some
+missionaries who appeared to take a different view of the situation.
+Already they were lodging claims with their respective Consuls, and in
+order to guard themselves against the dilatoriness or uncertainty of
+action of their various Governments they were taking measures to
+secure immediate compensation.
+
+One reverend gentleman, for instance, was to be seen day after day
+holding a sale of loot in a house that he had taken possession of.
+Another, an American, was carrying on a similar sale in a palatial
+mansion which he had commandeered. The latter was to be seen
+surrounded by jade and porcelain vases, costly embroideries from the
+spoiled temples, sable cloaks and various other furs, and rows of
+Buddhas arranged like wild-fowl in a poulterer's shop. As his stock
+became depleted he was in a position to ask any unsatisfied customer
+to call in again, as his converts were bringing in fresh supplies of
+loot almost every day!
+
+Indeed, not satisfied with the proceeds of his loot sale, this worthy
+man was enterprising enough to levy compensation on the Chinese, and,
+in addition to recovering the full value of the damage sustained by
+his converts, inflicted fines that exceeded that amount--according to
+his own admission--by one-third.
+
+[Illustration: General French And Staff On Black Monday.]
+
+There are others who took possession of Chinese houses wholesale, and
+found a source of income in letting or leasing them. The fact of their
+having a number of converts to support was given by them as a
+justification of their actions. Unquestionably they had a large number
+more or less dependent upon them, but some other means might surely
+have been found. They were very busy in those days. And perhaps that
+accounts for their taking no notice of the actions of various portions
+of the Allied soldiery. Wholesale robbery, cruelty, and the raping of
+women were going on all round; a regular orgy of rapine surged through
+the captured city. Yet not one solitary voice of protest was heard.
+
+It would be gratifying to think that, amidst all these exponents of
+the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount, there was one who called for
+mercy on the conquered, or asked that even common humanity should be
+shown them, or even reminded the generals of their own rules of war
+and fair fighting, or who raised his voice for justice, even if he did
+not in compassion. What an opportunity lost, which would not have been
+thrown away on the Chinese, of showing in practice what they had been
+preaching--"Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
+pray for them that despitefully use you." If, instead of selling
+images of Buddha, they had used their influence to preserve his
+temples from desecration and defilement, or offered sanctuary to his
+priests, it is certain that they would have more materially furthered
+the cause they have in hand.
+
+It would be wrong to say that not one solitary voice was raised. 'Tis
+true it was not raised by any missionary. But there is a rough-looking
+soldier with a strong face that looks as if it had been hewn out of a
+block of red sandstone with a blunt hatchet--General Chaffee, of the
+United States Army. He would be called in England a "ranker." He, not
+content, as Sir Alfred Gaselee was, with keeping his own men from
+disgracing their country's flag, wrote a letter of remonstrance to
+Count Waldersee, and received a snub in return for an action which,
+nevertheless, redounds immensely to his credit.
+
+Christianity in China has received a staggering blow, from which it
+will not recover during the lives of the present generation. Its
+progress, so far as any one can see, in the immediate future is at an
+end. It is even questionable whether it will not be wiped out
+altogether in Northern China. The terrible assaults by Boxers will
+largely decrease the number of converts. The temporal advantages that
+formerly ensued from its profession are now more than counterbalanced
+by the hatred and persecution that Christianity entails. The worst
+blow it has received has been through the conduct of the Allied
+soldiery during the late invasion. These men have crucified it in
+China as truly as the soldiers of Pilate did its Founder. And even the
+Christian missionaries raised no protest against the crucifixion.
+
+Let us hear what a Chinaman says in a book just published, the author
+writing under the name of "Wen Ching." I heard the identical opinions
+expressed by many intellectual Chinese.
+
+"For their gifts," he says, "to the West in the shape of silk, tea,
+and the magnetic compass, the Chinese have so far in return received
+opium, missionaries, and bombardment." "The _literati_, the backbone
+of China ... are not kindly spoken of by missionaries, nor are they
+liked by foreigners."
+
+It is only "the lower orders that have always been very susceptible to
+the teaching of foreigners. Their ignorance and their poverty furnish
+ample reasons for their willingness to join the churches of the
+Europeans."
+
+Also "the claims of missionaries to a right of travel and residence in
+the interior ... are founded on no higher authority than an
+interpolation by a missionary translator into the Chinese text of the
+treaty between France and China." That "the disturbance of a local
+_fengshui_ by a church spire is considered as much of a grievance as
+the erection of a hideous tannery beside Westminster Abbey would be."
+
+He says that "the Christian religion spread chiefly, if not entirely,
+among the poorer people, until it was discovered that political
+advantages accrued to the convert." For "in many places the missionary
+intrudes himself into the Chinese court, and sits beside the
+magistrate to hear a case between his convert and a non-Christian
+native. The influence of the missionary is very great, and the
+official is often pestered and worried by the messengers of the
+Gospel." Therefore the Christian converts are voted a "source of
+trouble and a nuisance."
+
+Still, in this writer's opinion, "nothing has done so much harm to the
+cause of the missionary as this forcing the opium trade on the
+people." "If there are honest missionaries," he remarks, "there are
+also sincere believers in the ancient faiths of Cathay to resent the
+insidious encroachments of blatant foreign priests, who preach to the
+heathen the doctrines of self-imposed poverty and mendicancy, and yet
+themselves live sumptuously enough in comfortable houses, surrounded
+by a wife and a numerous progeny, in the midst of heathen squalor and
+misery."
+
+These are just a few extracts from the views of an intelligent
+Chinaman as regards the question of missionaries in his country. But
+in conversation with others I heard similar opinions more forcibly
+put. They point out that the various exponents of Christianity insist
+that each alone expounds the right version, which is puzzling to the
+Chinese, and that the missionaries actually have not agreed as to the
+name of their God, as they use five different characters.
+
+Within the radius of an eighteen-penny cab fare from where I write, I
+think there is plenty of spiritually productive work for all the
+missionaries in China; work for all the sincere, self-sacrificing
+missionaries--and there are still many of them in China--men animated
+by the spirit of the Twelve Fishermen, who have not adopted their
+profession as a means of livelihood, in addition to a secure income
+getting an extra L30 for every baby born in their families. And
+within the radius I speak of, they would not first have the task of
+weaning the people away from the doctrines of Confucius or
+Buddha--"Him all wisest, best, most pitiful, whose lips comfort the
+world," which doctrines are the very breathing--the life--of their
+social as well as spiritual being. When the Chinese see the German
+Emperor using missionaries as live-bait to catch a province, and the
+French insisting upon being given another as the price of a few
+members of one of those religious orders they have expelled from
+France, it is no wonder that from that stricken, bullied, cheated
+people the cry goes up to the empty heavens--
+
+      "To my own Gods I go.
+  It may be they shall give me greater ease
+  Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+EX ORIENTE LUX
+
+
+What is a barbarian? In many of the Chinese edicts we see the term
+perpetually applied to those people outside the Celestial Kingdom, and
+to all those who are not Chinese. The Japanese are far too polite to
+use such a word. Yet I have spoken to Japanese artists who, in
+referring to European taste in Art, used a word equivalent to
+barbarous. The average free-born Briton travelling round the world
+carries with him, or is supposed to carry with him, his Bible, and a
+taste for Bass's beer and beefsteak. According as a country does or
+does not possess these essentials, and according as its own attributes
+of civilisation are removed from his own standards of perfection, so
+does he regard its inhabitants as more or less barbarians. (I was
+rather amused watching a play in Tokio once, where the villain of the
+piece was a red-whiskered Englishman, in a loud crossbar suit and a
+fore-and-aft cap, who was always shown on the stage with half a dozen
+bottles of Bass on a table beside him.) When we bear in mind how much
+Britishers despise their next-door neighbours across the Channel for
+their defective beefsteakiali-ties, it is not surprising that such a
+feeling should be greatly intensified when they come in contact with a
+civilisation so much more alien and remote from their own as that of
+China and Japan. It needs only a quiet observation and the smallest
+degree of intellectual elasticity to be forced to the conclusion that
+the advantages are not altogether on our side, and that there is great
+scope for the East to send social missionaries to the West. Socially,
+I think we have far more to learn from them than they have to learn
+from us. And, curiously enough, if such a mission were started, it
+would not be entirely to teach us new things, but in many ways it
+would be recalling us to points which we have hurried away from in the
+rapid progress of our material civilisation for the last couple of
+hundred years.
+
+The central idea, the social pivot, the focus of the life, of the
+civilisation of the East is to be found in their idea of the home. The
+home is the centre of gravity of their existence, round which
+everything else revolves. In China it is the all-pervading,
+all-vivifying idea of social life, of religion, and of government. The
+life of the family is not only of to-day, but extends back into a
+venerable past, and is the hope and care of the future.
+
+For us, the dead past buries its dead, and the flowers that we lay on
+the newly-made grave quickly wither on the freshly-turned clay on
+which we have left them--except where the place of natural ones is
+taken by those deliciously ironical representations in the shape of
+tin--waterproof imitations which save the mourner the trouble of
+renewal.
+
+As to the love of the Chinese and Japanese for their children, it has
+to be seen to be appreciated. Those wise-eyed little mites, who before
+they can walk sit perpetually enthroned upon their mothers' backs
+throughout the livelong day, are a source of so much joy and adoration
+to their parents that one feels no surprise at not hearing them cry as
+other children do. I only recollect hearing a child cry once during a
+two months' stay in Japan, and then there was an excuse for its
+dolorous plaint, because its mother was shaving its little head with a
+blunt razor and no soap. It must be obvious to the student of our
+Western civilisation that the cult of family life is on the decline.
+The ties and obligations which hold children and parents together are
+visibly slackening, and this is the more obvious amongst those nations
+which have been taking the lead in the material progress of our time.
+
+Take the United States, for instance. There, up to a certain point,
+the father is regarded as the dollar-grinding machine. The tendency is
+for both sons and daughters to cast themselves loose from parental
+ties, and strike out afresh for themselves. And their parents are as
+little responsible for them as they are for the maintenance or
+happiness of their parents.
+
+Any one who is familiar with life in the East End of London will
+appreciate how little these worn-out toilers, when old age
+incapacitates them from work, can rely on being kept out of the Union
+by their children. With the experience of nearly two thousand years of
+the progress of Christendom, it is not surprising that a short time
+ago we should hear the present occupant of the Papal Throne raising
+his aged voice to recall the attention of the West to how rapidly the
+idea of the family was being lost, as Leo XIII. did in the Encyclical
+Address to the Catholic Church on the subject of the Holy Family.
+
+From the more important teaching as regards family life, these
+Oriental missionaries might then endeavour to tell us something of the
+Fine Arts in the East, and yet more of the spirit which animates their
+artists. They would be able to show us that "art for art's sake" with
+them is no empty phrase. It would doubtless surprise many Westerners
+to know that a Chinese painter would not think of selling his pictures
+for money, but paints them for his own pleasure, and gives his work as
+presents to his friends, and would no more dream of selling a picture
+than an English girl would of selling a kiss.
+
+The Japanese would have a lot to tell us about bringing art, and that
+their highest and best art, into the utensils of everyday life, and
+that there is nothing demeaning in expending the best work on things
+one handles and uses every day. What a lot they would have to tell us
+of the cultivation and their love of flowers--a love which seems
+instinct in the poorest peasant, and which in the more cultivated
+classes is carried to an exquisite degree of refined development! And
+again, a Japanese incense party, where different qualities of
+delicately aromatic incense are passed round--and the pastime consists
+in placing the different qualities in the order of the beauty of their
+perfume--would almost suggest that the West had neglected the
+cultivation of one of the five senses.
+
+At a dinner-party at a well-known restaurant, the other night, it was
+forcibly brought to my mind what a lot they would have to teach us
+regarding the enjoyment of such social functions. A perfect din and
+rattle of plates and knives filled the air, a mob of undisciplined
+servants charged about tumultuously, garish lights lit up vulgar
+ornamentation, and one almost had to shout to be heard across the
+table, while a band of music outside ineffectually endeavoured to
+drown the din within. There were flowers, it is true, but their
+profusion was no compensation for an utter lack of artistic
+arrangement. But there was a complete absence of that repose, that
+restfulness, that calm, which is considered, and justly considered,
+amongst Easterns as the essential atmosphere for the enjoyment of a
+social repast. The Japanese have raised entertainment to the level of
+a fine art. Their tea ceremonies, as we have badly translated the
+"Cha'-no-yu," but which might be preferably rendered as "The Fine Art
+of Welcome and Hospitality," have been a strong influence in
+preventing them from drifting into the meretricious gaudiness so
+blatantly _en evidence_ in restaurants like the Carlton, and minister
+to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so characteristic of
+Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best number for a
+dinner-party, as with a larger number separate conversational groups
+are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has rooms specially built
+for these parties, and rooms only just large enough to hold his guests
+comfortably. One scroll is hung in the kakemono, and in front of it
+one ornament, and afterwards a solitary flower. It would be
+considered by them extremely bad taste to confuse or dissipate the
+attention by a variety of ornaments.
+
+A Japanese lady once showed me a photo of the drawing-room at
+Sandringham, which greatly amused her, and which she kept as a
+curiosity. (She was too polite to say as a curiosity of barbarism.)
+But she said, laughing, "Is it not just like a curio-dealer's shop?"
+
+The dinner, which actually precedes the tea-drinking, is served by the
+host in person, thus doing away with the intrusion of even their deft
+and quiet-moving servants. Every cup, every plate, is an individual
+art treasure, from the Godown in which the host's artistic treasures
+are kept in a seclusion that his most intimate friends have never
+penetrated. They have probably never seen the same picture or the same
+ornament twice in the kakemono. From the soft mellow music of the old
+gong which summons them to the repast, on through its various stages,
+until the rare and beautiful bowl out of which they have had tea is
+passed round for appreciative inspection, an air of refined repose
+has characterised the whole proceedings.
+
+[Illustration: General White And Staff On Black Monday.]
+
+These social missionaries might progress from giving us some insight
+into these things to the introduction of another institution which
+would be an unquestionable advantage to our civilisation--I refer to
+the Geisha. Supposing that they were successful in grafting this
+Japanese idea, the Western edition would work out somewhat thuswise.
+Take, for instance, a bachelor coming up from Oxford or Cambridge, or,
+say, a merchant up from Liverpool or Manchester, instead of having a
+solitary dinner at his club, if he wished for the relaxation of
+vivacious female companionship, he would go to the telephone, and ring
+up "Geishas, Limited," and send word that he wanted one, or more, for
+dinner that evening. There would in due course, at the restaurant
+appointed, appear a girl with the dress, appearance, and manners of a
+lady. Whatever her looks might be, whatever her attractions, she would
+unfailingly be bright, intelligent, well-mannered, and, above all,
+entertaining, for her being entertaining would be her _metier_, her
+occupation, her _raison d'etre_. And, contrary to what is frequently
+supposed from a mistaken acquaintance with this Japanese institution,
+she would not be in the least facile or accessible. Our ideas of
+feminine Japan are too much based on the circumscribed experiences of
+holiday travellers, or books of the bad taste of Pierre Loti's "Madame
+Chrysantheme." We do not judge the women of England by Leicester
+Square, nor of Paris by those of the Moulin Rouge. Amongst the
+accomplishments of these Geisha girls music and singing would be most
+important. There seems much more refinement and comfort in bringing
+the music and singing to you than in going to the singing and music. A
+party of men dining together would not be driven to adjourn to a
+music-hall after dinner. They could order it as part of the menu.
+
+But these Oriental missionaries, in addition to introducing such an
+institution, would have a field for their labours in raising their
+clients and customers to the standard of Japanese civilisation in the
+enjoyment of it. I present the idea gratis to any enterprising people
+who are troubled with the question. What to do with our girls!
+
+But Orientals would have little to teach us in what the Chinese call
+"make face," which enters into many of the actions of our daily life
+quite as much as it does into theirs. How thankful we should be that
+it does not also enter into our religious life! How thoroughly the
+Chinese must be impressed with this by their recent experiences of our
+Latest Crusaders! I was listening the other day to a gentleman
+descanting "on the darkness that enveloped those Pagan barbarians,"
+and I was thinking of another darkness or blindness which prevented
+the speaker, and many like him, from seeing the least gleam of light
+in the East. Yet it does not require much hand-shading of our
+intellectual eyes to see EX ORIENTE LUX.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+NIGHT IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+  "How beautiful is night!
+  A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
+  No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain
+  Breaks the serene of heaven:
+  In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
+  Rolls through the dark-blue depths.
+    Beneath her steady ray
+    The desert-circle spreads
+  Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
+    How beautiful is night!"
+
+
+Night really unrobes her beauty only in silence, the silence of the
+desert. Never can I forget nights spent in Western Australia, far
+beyond Kalgoorlie, away back in the Never-Never Land, where no rain
+falls. That is the land of great thirst, where for hundreds of miles
+one sees no living thing, where no birds sing, not even the mournful
+call of the jackal echoes across the waste, and not even the chirping
+ticking of an insect is to be heard to break the utter stillness. Gum
+trees, whose roots strike down a hundred feet for water, lift up their
+sparsely-covered branches into the motionless air above, their
+tongue-like leaves silently saying "I thirst." In that stagnant air
+they remind one of the giant seaweeds that grow in the depths of the
+great oceans where the water never moves; and the silence there is the
+silence of ocean depths, and so has been from the beginning. To-day my
+horse's tracks made five years ago are probably as fresh as were those
+which I followed that had been made two years before that time. It
+must be experienced to be realised, that dead silence; when lying on
+the ground at night the sound of one's heart-beats or the breathing of
+one's horse, tethered yards away, alone tells one that the sense of
+hearing is not lost. It must be experienced to be loved, that wonder
+of a silent world, where the Spirit of Solitude in his own domain for
+ever almost palpably seems to brood with finger on pressed lips. It
+is the contrast with the scene that lies below me that forcibly
+recalls these nights in the desert. Now, as I write, I am at the
+Antipodes, and focus points of contrast in every sense to these
+scenes; the same moon that shines on that far-off desert is the only
+thing in common.
+
+The city of New York is in the form of a wedge, the point of the wedge
+being the down-town end, a great black mass that now looks driven into
+the moonlit water. Down here, as if with sheer weight of pressure of
+crowding humanity, the houses seem driven upward. There being not
+enough room on the end of the wedge for the people, they are forced
+upwards for room, as one would squeeze paint from an artist's tube.
+They rise up in tall, irregular-shaped shafts of various heights, as a
+child might stand its long toy bricks on end anyhow. As I write I am
+looking down from the thirtieth story of one of the highest, feeling
+as if I had been "set on the pinnacle of the Temple" (of Mammon?).
+The great city lies below me, but though it is night it does not
+appear to lie in repose. If it sleeps, it is a restless, troubled
+sleep. The air is vocal with many noises that come up from below as an
+exhalation; white flames of steam wave from the tops of buildings
+below me. Up here on this giddy height a hot wind of the upper air is
+blowing, and a vibrating, murmurous throbbing pulsates through the
+building itself. This latter is caused by the elevators, those veins
+and arteries of the structure, and their motion must never cease or
+else a clot of humanity would be left marooned in the upper storeys.
+Across the river on the west side a row of lights are moving in one
+direction, and alongside them a row moving in the opposite, like ants
+at work. These are the trolly-cars crossing Brooklyn Bridge. North and
+south, to the sound of a jangling rattle, the trams on the Elevated
+are moving, and along the streets the trolly-cars, with their booming
+note, which crescendoes up the scale with increasing speed and
+diminuendoes with the slackening of it. Out on the water the red and
+green lights of the steamers move about in irregular tracks. The
+booming, mournful call of these steamers, like the lowing of a cow for
+her lost calf, goes on for ever. There are times in the desert when
+the coyote and the jackal are silent; on forlorn coasts in the hours
+before the first of dawn the seagulls cease their screaming; but these
+voices are never silent, calling, circling, and cawing, calling around
+the City of Unrest. Different notes they sound--the angry scream of
+the steam siren, the deep boom of the incoming ocean liner, and the
+note one hears oftenest--a mournful, lost wail, as of a damned soul
+calling out, "Custos, quid de nocte?" "Custos, quid de nocte?" The
+feverish hours pass troublously, but there is no response in the night
+of the City of Unrest.
+
+Now a great change has come over the scene; the moon has been
+curtained off by a heavy mass of clouds, and its light is shut off
+from the water. The lights of the city shine out with increased
+distinctness; the moonlight that whitened the sides of the buildings
+now has left them black masses of vague shadow, and all at once one
+gets the impression of looking down into an inverted firmament studded
+with countless stars of as various magnitudes as in the heavens, from
+the bright electric arc-lights to tiny gaslights; and from this height
+of over 400 feet one gets the impression, familiar to those who have
+looked at the world from a balloon, that the rim of the horizon rises
+all round. "Around the circle of the desert spreads," but the desert
+now is of the cloud-covered sky, and far as the eye can reach are the
+stars of this great city, and now through that firmament of stars
+there is a dark path in an unilluminated Milky Way which marks the
+course of the river.
+
+As one looks down from here and listens to the combination of
+throbbing sounds that come up from below, there is a certain
+impressiveness in the thought of being in the centre of such focused
+activity. One seems to be pressing the ear close to the heart of a
+great country. I wonder what that other city looked like from the
+pinnacle of whose temple He looked down on the other great cities that
+had their day? What Carthage looked like? The present edition of Rome
+and Paris and London, and Pekin from the Imperial pagodas on the top
+of Coal Hill, I have looked down on at night, but none of them is like
+this. From the Capitol Rome lies quietly wrapped in the memories of
+past greatness; from the hill of Montmartre the electric lights here
+and there give suggestive glimpses of the City of Pleasure. In Pekin,
+looking across the lotus-pond and the marble bridges, all that is
+squalid in the city is shrouded in a veil of foliage, and above the
+tops of the trees only what is beautiful emerges, and the city sleeps
+in the enjoyment of thoroughly Oriental repose; and, like a
+solidly-built, healthy man, London sleeps soundly; but the strenuous,
+restless activity of this city can hardly be said to sleep. I watched
+it make an attempt at a pause for five minutes on the day of the
+President's funeral. At an appointed time all the street traffic was
+supposed to stand still. My! what an effort it was! It was not a real
+pause; it seemed more like the gasping holding of the city's breath,
+holding for these five minutes as if something were going to burst;
+and then at the second when the clock marked the end of the five
+minutes on went everything spinning with a feeling of absolute relief.
+As one looks down from here one cannot help speculating as to what is
+to be the future of what lies below. Is it going to be the greatest
+city that the world has ever seen--in real greatness, or only in acute
+development of material civilisation; and are the multitudes that
+populate it going to get more happiness from the arcs of their little
+lives than those of Carthage and Rome, or Pekin, or Babylon, or
+London? Or are they going at the pace that kills? Or at least the pace
+that tires into premature exhaustion?
+
+But leaving these speculations, as it is now one o'clock, I get into
+the cage of the elevator and drop down whirring as the floors toss
+upwards beyond me--"Down twenty-eight," and we pull up with a jerk,
+and a pale-faced man gets in. "Down twelve," and two tired-looking
+women and a small boy get on board; and then the floor on which is a
+newspaper office, and a crowd is waiting to descend. The paper is just
+going to press, and their work is done. And then right down below the
+level of the street I go to see the paper actually printed. Immense
+rolls of paper are being lowered from the street level and handled as
+easily as if they were of no more weight than a lead pencil, put
+before machines which devour them to a deafening noise of machinery.
+The room reminds one of the lower deck of an ironclad in action, and
+the workers there seem fighting for their lives--fighting against
+time, fighting against the machine, fighting against the paper, which
+would fill up the room if it were left at the discharging end of the
+machines without being sent rapidly aloft; and there on the floor
+above the men are fighting hand to hand with great bundles of papers
+that must be sent out in time for the morning trains. Outside in the
+square stand horses sufficient for the artillery of an army corps
+awaiting their burdens, and as I go up town by the surface car,
+although there is not yet any sign of light, I pass hundreds of men on
+their way down town to make an early start in the battle struggle of a
+new day in the City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+A STREET IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+It was a very wonderful sight last night, looking down from that
+height at the black pool of New York specked with star-like lights--a
+pool of darkness, where three million people slept, or tried to sleep;
+but it was like looking into a cup of ink to read destinies. Now,
+twelve hours afterwards, let us step down below into the centre of the
+city, when the limelight of a glaring, cloudless sun is turned full on
+it--when the living microcosm of its active life is thrown on the
+magic-lantern screen of our retina. Now we are at the base of these
+high buildings, and no city in Europe can show anything like them. It
+is difficult to know what to compare them to. We cannot compare
+Broadway to an avenue of poplars in stone, for the poplars are out of
+proportion to the avenue--far too high and far too irregular. There is
+no regular design, no continuous outline; immense, costly, new, they
+sprout upwards--sprout as if under the drawing-up power of a tropical
+sun, sprout as if fed with the superabundant fecundity of virgin soil.
+Unless they were as high, there would not be room for the people down
+at this crowded end of the wedge-shaped town. The want of finality
+about them is no less apparent in their irregularity of size than in
+their sides, generally blank of windows, in expectancy of buildings
+going up beside them probably higher still. Some of them are to be
+seen with white marble facades crowned with Corinthian pilasters, and
+the sides are of red or yellow brick, on which is probably some huge,
+ugly advertisement announcing that some fine five-cent cigar is
+"generously good," or holding out hope of relief in the shape of a
+pill to liver-troubled humanity. Parenthetically, I may remark that
+this city is, if anything, rather worse than London in the way of
+placards that scar the face of it. The goblin-like advertisements that
+spit soap and other things at unoffending eyes at night in Trafalgar
+Square are bad enough, but the advertisements in New York are worse
+still. There is a fine square here called Madison, in the centre of
+which trees rise from fountain-watered grass, and statued figures of
+people who were men in their day and did things, palatial buildings,
+dignifying commerce, form the square. Yet while I have been here I
+have watched, right over a house on one side of it, a huge white
+hoarding being erected, and have watched a great vulgar advertisement
+of cigarettes being daubed upon it. A beastly, ugly smear on one of
+the beauty-spots of the city.
+
+[Illustration: Artillery Crossing A Drift Near Ladysmith.]
+
+Bang-bang; bang-bang; bang--loud, insistent; ping-ping--sharp,
+piercing; the first from the trolly-car, the second from a
+steam-trailing automobile; a booming roar from the ground
+accompanying the first, a buzzing rattle the second. Just a block away
+a far louder rattle still comes from the elevated railway. Here, down
+town, the streets are paved with cobble stones, and the severity of
+the climate in the winter is given as the excuse for the irregularity
+of the surface. Heavy lorries and wheels of horsed vehicles jangle
+over them, but the general uproar is so great that the bells on the
+horses' collars are inaudible, and sight is the only sense that makes
+their approach perceptible. The stream of trolly-cars passes and
+re-passes, perpetually making short pauses for the passengers to nip
+in quickly or--get left. Across from where I write is a restaurant
+with a legend above it, "Quick Lunch." This, I think, is rather
+peculiar to New York; in other cities it would be either "Good Lunch,"
+or "Cheap Lunch;" here the attraction is that it is "quick." It is
+only necessary to watch the way that the customers hurry in and hurry
+out to see the significance of it. The day is not half long enough
+for the workers down here, and the work is at such high pressure that
+time for feeding can hardly be spared; it is not feeding or taking a
+meal, it is just stoking the human engine, and quick stoking at that.
+
+The streets of London, even in the City, are calm and peaceful in
+comparison with those here in New York. The very ground throbs with
+vibration, the air throbs with the medley of noises, the buildings
+throb with both. It is not quite obvious why the streets should be so
+noisy. All the bells and gongs and danger-signals, one would think,
+would be equally effectual if they were not so loud, but now the
+competition of sounds is so great that any warning must almost be
+explosive in its violence to be audible at all. It is no wonder that
+we find in this city so many people suffering from nerves; it is quite
+surprising the number of men I have met who dare not drink coffee, men
+who have had to give up smoking, men and women who were too nervous
+to travel in a hansom, and who at frequent intervals have to retire to
+the country owing to various kinds of nervous trouble. There seems to
+be no question but that this suffering from nervous disorders is on
+the increase; it would be surprising if it were otherwise, considering
+the pace at which these people live; and when one sees thin, pallid,
+spectacle-wearing little children, one sees specimens of the rising
+generation who are destined to be still greater sufferers. As against
+this, and off-setting it, the taste for outdoor games seems to be on
+the increase, and for young business men who have little time for
+taking exercise nothing can be more admirable than clubs such as the
+athletic and the racquet clubs here, which give opportunities of
+taking indoor exercise on a scale unapproached by any similar
+institution in London.
+
+When I left London in August and came here, it would be difficult to
+determine in which city the streets were more torn up. The
+construction of the underground railway here is in evidence all over
+the city; explosions from blasting are to be heard at intervals
+throughout the day, and in various directions huge caverns yawn, at
+the bottom of which hundreds of men and steel drills are hard at work.
+I have noticed within the last few years how the power of the street
+policeman has increased for regulating traffic. In return for the
+potatoes which Ireland originally received from America, she has ever
+since been supplying this country with policemen and politicians, and
+these former great burly, beltless Milesians now despotically rule the
+traffic as effectually as the London bobbies. It is characteristic
+that the youngsters about the streets should be keener, sharper, more
+active even than the youngsters of London. The lithe, thin,
+cigarette-smoking _gamins_ that sell newspapers down town are a study
+in themselves as they dart and double through the traffic and the
+crowded sidewalks, selling innumerable editions of voluminous papers
+throughout the day.
+
+Early in the morning going down town, during the luncheon hour, or
+going up town in the evening, one is struck by the enormous number of
+women workers who now find employment in this great city--in some
+offices hundreds of women, forming almost the entire staff, are
+employed. Their competition must make it harder still for the male
+clerks. Independent, self-reliant, business-like, a curious type is
+being developed of these bread-earners--a type that suggests the
+evolution of a neutral sex. Perhaps it is not altogether to be
+wondered at, and is only a manifestation of the idea of equality, that
+in the down-town cars the man no longer gives up his seat to the woman
+who stands holding on to the leather strap over her head in the
+crowded car, and does not remove his hat in the elevator when a woman
+enters.
+
+Now a black-plumed vehicle comes spinning round the street corner,
+followed by three or four carriages with the crape-wearing drivers:
+apparently it is only the denseness of the traffic that prevents the
+hearse galloping and compels the driver to be content with a quick
+trot. Quick lunch, rapid life, fast funeral, devouring cremation, or
+else the weary toiler is laid down to have a first try at a real long
+sleep in the quivering bosom of the City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+A GLIMPSE OF A SOUTHERN CITY
+
+
+Every variety of climate, pace, and people is to be found in this
+great tract of country which has for its flag the Stars and Stripes,
+and any variety of taste ought to be capable of being gratified within
+its confines. If I were to come to live on this side of the Atlantic I
+think I should elect to settle in a Southern city. New York has many
+attractions; it has drawn to it, vortex-like, much of the best that is
+bright, able, active, powerful, but, vortex-like, the life swirls,
+spinning ceaselessly at a terrific rate, in that noisy city of unrest.
+Chicago accentuates the worst features of life in New York while
+having few of its compensations, and the large cities in the East and
+centre are blends of the life of both diluted with dulness. San
+Francisco is a thing apart--the air of the Pacific seems to blow
+different impulses on the people, and great and glorious air and
+climate and scenery are there, bracing with the breeziness of the
+West. Florida and the shores of the Gulf of Mexico are too near the
+tropics for my taste, tending towards hammock-basking too much.
+
+Give me a Southern city, say in Georgia; and I have one in my mind's
+eye. There the people do not live so fast as to have no time to enjoy
+their life, while they have all that makes life enjoyable. Successful
+effort is my nearest approach to a definition of what constitutes
+happiness. There, there is every scope for various effort. The city
+and country around are still in process of active growth. "Fecundity"
+is writ large across the surface of the State, on fields, in mills, in
+mines. All the men are busy the livelong day. Here it is different
+from in England; you do not find a large section of men who spend the
+day either at various kinds of sport, at cricket, or loitering
+listlessly about the clubs. An idle man would be a solitary of his
+own sex. But it is not the material conditions that constitute the
+chief attraction of life in a Southern city, excellent as they are;
+the principal charm of the South is the character of the people
+themselves. There is an undefined flavour of old-world politeness and
+courtesy perfuming their environment The bow of a Southern gentleman
+does not appear to be the jerk of a string-pull; it suggests having
+been learned remotely from the bow that brought the sword projecting
+through the long coat-tails as the hat was removed from the powdered
+wig.
+
+There is an indefinite something that tells one that all these people
+have had grandfathers and grandmothers, instead of as in New York,
+where the suggestion is that they are the offspring of stock-market
+tickers or have been shot into the world through a pneumatic tube.
+
+That almost universal formula in America on a man being introduced
+bears here a real significance, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Blank."
+The English equivalent is "How-d-do?" and, although inarticulate,
+there is frequently a silent suggestion of the phrase, "Bored to meet
+you," "Awfully bored to meet you." In the South they are glad to meet
+and welcome the stranger at their gates, and he must be hard to please
+if he does not have a good time within them.
+
+The general rule that the men are at work all day has its effect in
+various ways on the life of the community. The social life differs
+from that of England in many marked features, in none more than in the
+part played by the Southern girl. At the first reception given by the
+mother of the young _debutante_, the men of the set in which she is to
+move are presented to her, and tacitly it is a presentation to them,
+by the mother, of what she holds most tenderly precious; to them, in
+trust in their honour, in full confidence in their courtesy, and,
+although their hearts are covered with the immaculate shirt-front of
+latter-day conventionality, with as full reliance on knightly service
+as if that stiff shirt were the armour of the day of chivalry. This
+social feature or condition of things strikes me as especially
+admirable. It strikes me as so infinitely preferable to the constant
+espionage of chaperonage, so much more above board and honourable
+towards both the young men and girls alike. They can go driving, to a
+theatre--where boxes are much more open and less like bathing-machines
+than ours--to lunch in the big club-room--an annexe to the exclusively
+male portion to which ladies are admitted--and will be driven to and
+from a dance, and will receive afternoon calls without a chaperon.
+Results point overwhelmingly to its success from every point of view.
+A breach of that code of conduct which needs not to be written would
+mean eternal social damnation. It is being perpetually borne in on me
+what a much better time the American girl has than our English
+sisters, and in many ways she deserves to have it so. If the man keeps
+horses and carriages so that he may take her out for drives in the
+afternoon, bring her to the theatre, take her to and from dances, if
+he keeps her supplied with flowers to an extent unknown Englandwards,
+if he is constantly giving dinner-parties and supper-parties for her,
+it is because she is worthy of it all and more.
+
+To begin with, she is never _blasee_; and, thank goodness, it is not
+yet considered in America "good form" to appear _blase_, even if one
+is not. Being full of interest and constantly _au courant_ with
+events, she is always companionable, and is able to talk intelligently
+of many things. Being gifted with a heaven-sent sense of humour, she
+is never dull; and what closer bond of social sympathy is there than a
+sense of humour in common? In conversational fence the thrust and
+parry of her play is as quick and keen as her touch is true and light,
+and through it all ripples a sunny Southern gaiety that is as fond of
+giving pleasure or amusement as she is readily susceptive of either.
+But be not tempted in this summer region, O wanderer from the chilly
+North, to wear your heart upon your sleeve for the sun to shine on,
+or else she will pluck it off, saying, with laughing eyes, that it is
+no place for it, and she will put it with a row of probably half a
+dozen already on hers, and from time to time she will pick morsels
+from it at her pleasure; and the reason that it does not hurt more is
+because of the prettiness of her lips.
+
+It is when one meets the mothers of these girls that one sees whence
+comes their charm; an old-world queenliness of motherhood, mingling
+with warm-hearted cordiality, renders them immediately as lovable as
+their daughters.
+
+The billion-dollar trust is very adollarable, and so is the Tobacco
+and Standard Oil and the rest; but in the assets of the nation, more
+valuable, to my mind, is the heirloom of the tradition of gentle
+manners and cordial kindliness held so well in trust by the people of
+that city of the South.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE PENALTY OF THEIR PACE IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+A dinner-party at Sherry's--twenty people sat around a table beautiful
+with the choicest flowers--the room was full of diners; there was more
+noise and clatter than one would hear even in the Carlton or Prince's;
+and the Hungarian band was playing--seemed the suitable panting
+life-breath of the scene--sensuous a little--strenuous--feverishly
+restless. Bright, gay, quick, and keyed loudly in order to be audible,
+were the voices of the diners; exchange of repartee, quick as the fire
+of a pom-pom, was shot and returned. Well-aimed marksmanship it was,
+too--no cartridges wasted. Flash of costly jewels or still brighter
+eyes as the shots were sped at marks worth firing at and well capable
+of replying. Men who had done things were there: the senator--a great
+lawyer--several of America's greatest business men, and the women who
+had helped or spurred or hindered them, but who were all worth working
+for or helpfully hinderous blast-furnaces to ambition. But one seat
+away was a man who was one of the greatest mine-owners in America, and
+controlled railways that were connected and dependent on these mines.
+Pale and sallow, with sparse hair over his big bulging forehead, power
+and decision and resolution were stamped on every line of his face; a
+small army of men worked for him--worked underground or on railroads,
+or looked to him as the donor of dividends, the regulator of their
+incomes, the arbiter of their financial destinies.
+
+He drank no wine at dinner, yet now and again a curious up-and-down
+lifting movement of the table could be traced to one of his knees,
+which he kept crossed over the other. He waved away the coffee with
+the remark that it was years since he dared indulge in it; but when,
+after obviously impatient waiting, the time came when he might light a
+long cigar, he puffed out a stream of smoke with a sigh of relief, and
+the table was no longer shaken from that on. Presently some remark
+drew from him the reply, "No; the most desirable things in the world
+are health and sleep. I would give two million dollars to be able to
+sleep six hours each night. I would give twice that to be able to
+digest a good meal properly. I would give I don't know what to be able
+to rest, just rest quietly again."
+
+And the lady next him said: "How well I understand that feeling! I
+don't see why we should be compelled to go on, on, on at that pace.
+Sometimes now when I have to drive in a cab I can barely keep myself
+from shrieking out aloud from sheer nervousness. I have not dined at
+home in my own house for three months except once, and that was when,
+in reply to a remonstrance to my daughter for going out so much, she
+said she would dine at home on Christmas Day. It is this perpetual
+rush, I expect, makes us so nervous; but it is so hard to stop, even
+when our nerves pay the price."
+
+[Illustration: Naval Brigade Passing Through Ladysmith.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Coming out of a newspaper office in New York I happened to meet an old
+friend of the Cuban war times. Paler, thinner, and more drawn his face
+looked in the V of his turned-up collar than when I had seen him last.
+After talking for a few minutes I asked him whither he was going, and
+found he was going to take a special kind of bath and rubbing, which
+was part of the treatment he was undergoing for the desperate nervous
+trouble he was suffering from.
+
+"It is pretty hard lines," said he. "As you know, I never drank, and
+took fairly good care of myself. I have not slept more than an hour or
+two for the past week."
+
+Then he told me how, going home to Brooklyn a few evenings before, the
+nervousness had come so badly on him that he had to hire a
+boy to go with him. He could not go across the bridge alone.
+
+"At the present moment," said he, "there are nine men in our office
+suffering from the same complaint."
+
+He seemed to think that the treatment was doing little good; that
+doctors could do next to nothing.
+
+"Rest, long rest, is what we want, I suppose; but how can a fellow get
+rest working in a big newspaper office in this city?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Remington machine had been rattling on like a Maxim gun in action,
+the operator taking down dictation on to the machine so quickly that
+it was almost as good as short-hand. It stopped suddenly, and the
+fragile anaemic woman who was working it laid down her hands in her
+lap, saying she was afraid she could not continue. In reply to the
+question if she was ill she said no--that it was simply she was
+nervous. She said she had only just returned from the country, where
+she had been resting for a week--a rest that she could ill afford, but
+it evidently had not been long enough.
+
+"It is terrible, especially for those who have to keep working for a
+living, who have to work on to keep their heads above water."
+
+"I suppose it is the penalty we pay for all this," she said, looking
+out from the window at which she sat.
+
+Down far below was one of the busiest squares in New York; a double
+line of trolly-cars perpetually running through it that clanged their
+bells as they swung around the corner; automobiles that pinged their
+warning gongs and darted in and out amongst the stream of traffic
+fish-like; labouring horses struggling under heavy loads; the cars
+packed with people like cattle, standing up and hanging from the
+straps in the roof, toilers coming back from work; the sidewalks
+crowded with hurrying people. The seats in the centre of the square
+held slouching figures with bent heads, figures of dog-tired
+men--dog-tired with work or the looking for it. A sharp insistent
+clanging arose above the other sounds like a wailing scream of pain as
+an automobile ambulance rushed hospital-wards, carrying off one of
+those wounded in the struggle.
+
+No one can quietly watch the seething life of the City of Unrest
+without being struck with the prevalence of nervous troubles amongst
+the people. Every day one meets instances. "I dare not drink coffee; I
+have not drunk it for years," one so often hears--then the piteous
+longing for sleep denied. "I am not going to any dances this winter;
+my doctor will not allow me, on account of my nerves," one of the most
+charming girls in New York said to me a few days ago. The doctors all
+declare that this nervousness is alarmingly on the increase, and
+throughout every class of the community--from those who work hardest,
+through the longest hours, to earn their bread, to those who work at
+the pursuit of pleasure--the mad social rush of the Charge of the
+Four Hundred. It is obvious that this pace cannot slacken--every year
+adds fresh impetus. What will it be in fifty years--at the end of the
+century? What will the offspring of these quivering, twitching, highly
+strung men and women be like? _Quo vadis, Americane?_
+
+Already there are antidotes or remedies for this growing
+evil--sanatoria where the worn-out over-worked are compelled to seek
+refuge, asylums of repose for those who have long lost the art of
+enjoying it. More useful, perhaps, are the facilities for getting
+healthy exercise which are offered by athletic clubs, gymnasia, and
+the squash courts and tennis courts now being laid out on the tops of
+so many of the best houses. But these are only trifling against the
+magnitude of the menacing evil. Thousands have not the time to enjoy
+them, and must pay the penalty of the pace of their progress in the
+City of Unrest.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE MILLION-MASTER IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+Seven-thirty o'clock: the coffee and toast had been placed by the
+valet on the table beside his bed; the warm water was already running
+into the bath in the adjoining room; three suits of clothes, carefully
+brushed and ironed, were laid on the sofa when he was called. He
+seemed to be awake all of a sudden--quite awake. As he was called, a
+young man came into the room with a bundle of newspapers. "Let me
+see," said Mr. X., "I think I can take half an hour extra this
+morning--read away;" and then the young man began reading rapidly from
+the papers. He had from long training learned to know what interested
+the boss, and read selections from one paper after another which he
+had previously gone over--some closing prices of particular stocks
+first, then some foreign and general news summary, and then X. asked
+him to read particulars of what he wanted to learn more about. After
+about fifteen minutes he had had enough, and one of his secretaries,
+with a bundle of letters in one hand and a notebook in the other, came
+in. As he read the letters, X. dictated, or mostly just indicated, the
+replies; they were all business letters. Then his place was taken by
+another. His letters were mostly invitations, charitable appeals,
+letters from his steward and the head of his stables at Lakewood, from
+the skipper of his yacht, from dealers who had pictures that he ought
+to buy, from the caretaker of his house in Newport, and letters from
+house-agents in London about a house he wanted there for the
+Coronation. At eight he took his bath, and while drying and dressing
+the litany of letters and responses continued, punctuated at intervals
+by the bell of the telephone on the table by his bedside, and so on
+through the breakfast, now laid in an adjoining study, until it was
+time to telephone to the stables for his automobile. Same telephone
+message occupied fifteen minutes. Just before leaving he sent to his
+wife's room to find out where he was dining. Madame was being
+massaged, but sent word that they were giving a dinner-party at
+Sherry's, having three boxes at the theatre afterwards, and that then
+she expected him to come to the Astorbilts' ball. Long cigar, fur
+coat, gloves, and into the automobile, his secretary sitting beside
+him, still going through the unfinished letters.
+
+Three inches of snow had fallen during the night--hard, dry snow, on
+which the horses slipped and struggled as it was being beaten flat,
+and on which his automobile would have skidded ungovernably if Fifth
+Avenue had not been already well sprayed by the sand-sprinklers.
+Progress in the upper part of the Avenue was rapid enough; but from
+Madison Square slow, halting, and intermittent, horses were falling
+in all directions, stopping the surface-cars packed with a multitude
+of toilers, all going city-wards; the gong of the automobile clanged
+petulantly. Down town the upper altitudes of the sky-scrapers were
+lost in a vague mist of swirling snow that eddied through the
+chasm-like clefts between them--there were gaps where other gigantic
+iron frames were rising up to the rattling Maxim-gun-like sound of the
+steam riveters.
+
+At length they arrived at the high pilloried portico of the immense
+building in which his office was situated; passing through the
+revolving doors--mill-wheels perpetually kept turning by a stream of
+humanity--one of a number of elevators brought him to the floor
+entirely occupied by his offices. The walls and counters were of white
+grey-lined marble; polished mahogany desks and burnished brass
+railings glistened everywhere. Through waiting-rooms and offices he
+passed to his private office. It was a plain room, richly carpeted,
+soft leather chairs, a big table on which were only a few papers; a
+telephone stood on the right-hand side of the blotter. There were some
+maps on the walls, nothing more. On a mahogany stand against the wall
+in the centre of the room, near his desk, stood the ticker, like a
+sacred image on a pedestal. Strange little god, mysterious little
+oracle--I don't think I would have felt surprised if on entering he
+had knelt down before it and said a short prayer. Instead, he seated
+himself at his desk and commenced speaking into the telephone. There
+was a switch-board of his private exchange outside the private office
+which communicated to each of the heads of his departments. Without
+the delay of sending or going for them, he spoke to six or seven one
+after the other. Then his confidential clerk came in with a number of
+papers in his hands. Tickety, tickety, tick, the oracle was speaking
+all the time, but he took no notice of its remarks--still it went on,
+as if knowing that sooner or later he would be drawn towards it; and
+so he was, and passed the tape through his fingers, pausing here and
+there; and so throughout the day that little chattering fetish
+dominated him and every one that entered the room. Men came in, and
+while waiting, or in a pause in conversation, would be drawn to see
+what was on its tongue. There is nothing more striking about business
+in New York than the ease and rapidity with which business is carried
+out. There had been a bad break in sugar in the morning; X. meant to
+have some if it came to a certain figure. All the morning down, down,
+it toppled. Within a few seconds of the time a deal was made from the
+centre of the Stock Exchange it appeared on the tape in X.'s office.
+It dropped to his price. "Now, time this," said he; "1204 I want. Buy
+me 5000 sugar at 92" (twenty seconds gone). "He has got my message,
+and I am holding the wire till I get a reply. Now he has sent it on
+his private wire to the Stock Exchange; his own telephone-boy has
+already his number on the telegraph-board. If he is not immediately
+available a two-dollar broker will execute the order." Here comes the
+reply: "3000 at 92 was all he could get at the price." (Time, 1 min.
+35 sec.) To those who are used to the aggravating slowness of the
+telephone in London, that in New York is a revelation of rapidity, and
+so much does it enter into the daily life of the community that it
+would now give something like a stroke of paralysis to the City if all
+the telephone-wires should be suddenly swept down or the operators
+suddenly go on strike.
+
+A lunch at the luxuriously furnished Club situated at the top of the
+building, and not such a serious interruption to business, as during
+it three messengers come with notes from his office for him. Not much
+time to dawdle over lunch, as he had three meetings to preside at
+during the afternoon; then up to the Union Club, a few moments' chat
+with some friends--change into evening clothes, on to Sherry's--inside
+the door of the great restaurant he sees a number of people he knows.
+"Hallo, you, with whom are you dining to-night?" "Why, with you."
+"Glad of it." Then he sees Mr. Sherry, and finds his table to see how
+many he has dining with him. A little late, but radiant in a Worth
+gown and wearing black pearls, his wife arrives--it is the first time
+he has seen her during the day.
+
+"So sorry to be late, poppa, but that last rubber of bridge was such a
+slow one, and I won eight dollars." "Good for you." After dinner he
+sits in the back of the box; the play or the plot does not interest
+him; his mind is full of more dramatic scenes--plots that, instead of
+play, can be made into reality--real live characters that he could
+make dance to the music of his millions. Then on to that great ball in
+one of the palaces of Fifth Avenue, a palace to which architects,
+painters, sculptors, have combined to raise into a dream of luxury
+such as Rome never equalled.
+
+Strolling through the picture-gallery with an old friend, she who,
+though born to millions, kept fresh that perfume of womanliness which
+we call charm: "You look tired to-night," said he. "No wonder; out
+every night now for four months; lunches, bridge, calls, dinners,
+theatres, suppers, dances, and the treadmill never stops. I sometimes
+wish Tom only owned a tiny cottage, and that I had to cook his dinner
+for him." "And that you might ask me to dine off pork and beans."
+"You, too, look tired, my master of millions." "I am," said he, "but I
+am not master of millions, it is the millions who are my
+master--slave-masters with many-lashed whip that keep me hourly
+toiling in their service, that never let me rest, keep me working and
+fighting, and have robbed me of repose, keep a glare of limelight on
+my life, and after all can buy so little, not real success (I was
+beaten this week by K. in that Union-Pacific deal), not one drop of
+blue blood into my veins, not one night of sound delicious sleep, not
+one kiss from the lips of love."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE WOMAN WHO WORKS IN THE CITY OF UNREST
+
+
+At a quarter to seven the alarm-clock went off next her bed--how she
+would have liked to sleep for another hour, or lie warm and cosy under
+the clothes! The training in the habit of doing what she did not like
+helped her into a little tin bath, and to dress close to the radiator,
+as it was a bitterly cold morning. At 7.30 she stepped out into a
+snow-covered street and then hurried across Washington-square.
+Bitterly cold wind shivered through the white coral-like branches of
+the trees. The snow brought out the carving on the Washington Arch;
+the snow seemed to suit the whole square, and make it seem still less
+a part of the City--the Sleepy Hollow in the City of Unrest, with the
+solid big houses around it where ladies and gentlemen lived who had
+refused to be hustled into joining in the general dollar scramble.
+
+In the street on the other side of the square she entered a
+restaurant, already full of breakfasters. She sat down at one of the
+marble tables with a couple of men she knew, ordered an orange,
+coffee, porridge, roll, two eggs--total, thirty cents. Her friends
+were in offices down town, one of them not earning as much as she was.
+They were comrades, chums, so much that he often borrowed a dollar
+from her during those critical days at the month's end.
+
+[Illustration: General Yule's Column On The Way To Ladysmith.]
+
+Breakfast finished, and a glance at the paper--at least, enough to
+read the headings--and then out on Broadway to take the down-town car.
+Two passed as she stood at the corner, so packed that there was not
+standing-room even on the platform for another; then one stopped from
+which a few passengers struggled out, and she got in. All along the
+centre of the car men and women were standing, holding on to the
+straps, swaying backwards and forwards as the car swooped forward, and
+jerking forward every time it stopped. No idea in such a car of the
+men sitting down, against whose knees hers rubbed, to get up and
+relinquish their seats--why should they? She did not expect it. Was
+she not by her very going down town taking the place of a possible man
+there? was she not showing that she could do a man's work?
+Equality--he might think himself called on to give up his seat to one
+of the weaker sex. But there is no sex in the City. Swaying,
+squeezing, jostling, twenty minutes of uncomfortable cattle-truck-like
+journey brought her to the big office where she worked.
+
+Men do not doff their hats in the down-town elevators which brought
+her up to the big office where she was employed, a great room near the
+top of one of the high down-town buildings; the windows looked out on
+the river, now a white mass of down-flowing ice, through which the
+calling steamers worked their way laboriously towards the harbour, to
+the Statue of Liberty standing beside what now looked a white gravel
+path of entry to the city.
+
+There were about fifty people at work in the room, three-fourths
+women, seated at desks and tables, and some occupied the dignified
+position of little glass-partitioned rooms. She had one of these to
+herself, in which there was also a table for a stenographer. It was a
+publishing-house; books, illustrations, manuscripts, were in evidence
+everywhere. Near the door was a sort of railed-in pen where men with
+bundles of manuscript under their arms were usually to be seen seated,
+waiting. Some of these were even shown into her office, and left minus
+their bundles, or more often with them. There was a hum of chattering
+typewriting machines constantly in the air, like the chirruping of
+insects heard from tropical trees. Constantly her telephone rang and
+she had to make excursions to the manager's office, and head printers
+and printers'-ink-marked men came to her with proof-sheets, and so on,
+till 12.30, when she went out to lunch at the women's cafe and had
+lunch not unlike her breakfast.
+
+The room was full of girls similarly employed, ten to thirty cents
+being the average of their expenditure; all real workers, none of them
+the fancy stenographers that their employers frequently take out to
+little lunches at the smarter restaurants at safe distance from their
+wives up town. They were not a very attractive crowd--thin,
+flat-chested, and often anaemic, occasionally with pretty faces, hair,
+or eyes; but work, daily work, had left its impress on them all. Some
+(their luncheon bills did not exceed ten cents) looked, with their
+thin fingers and arms, like human attachments to typewriting machines.
+There was a something not in the least mannish, but still not
+appealingly womanly, in these self-reliant, quiet business beings. Was
+it a sort of neuter gender, a sexless being that was there in course
+of development? Somehow, they did not strike one as beings who would
+bear and suckle and nurse children. Was this severe struggle and
+necessity of existence to eliminate the supreme joy of motherhood from
+their lives?
+
+Back to the office, where they joined their fellow men-workers; they
+were just fellow-workers, no quarter given or looked for in the
+failure to do their work. Some of them earned fine salaries, yet there
+seemed a limit-point--thus far and no farther--men were always in the
+highest positions. Put it down to tenacity of possession, jealousy,
+prejudice--anything but want of perseverance, circumspection,
+industry: the obviousness of the fact remains.
+
+Until half-past five her work goes on just the same as before lunch,
+and then up town on the elevator. Dry snow is spotting the swirling
+wind that eddies round the corners; the sidewalks are thick with
+hurrying people; the elevator is packed to the platforms with men and
+women tightly crushed together, worse even than coming down. She
+dines at a little Italian restaurant, where the proprietor, his wife,
+and children personally attend on their customers; it is known only to
+a few who mostly know each other--constant _habitues_--magazine
+writers and magazine artists, and miscellaneous, but interesting,
+nondescripts; and her dinner, with Italian wine included, costs forty
+cents. It is the pleasantest part of the day for her--men and women of
+that little writing, artistic, thoughtful, and, in a way, thoughtless
+set she had known for years; men who could never boom themselves or
+others, or keep up a bluff even enough to advertise themselves; the
+slow steps of actual merit made their progress seem like marking time.
+Ruggles, commonly known to his friends as Rembrandt, saw her home--old
+Ruggles, who painted better pictures than half the foreigners who came
+to New York, but who would never be a prophet in his own country. Nice
+old boy, Ruggles; but the fire was burning low in him, its only fuel
+being the ashes of disappointment.
+
+The sky had cleared, and the moon shone out on the glorious old
+square, and red lights suggestive of old port and big wood fires
+streaked the silent snow from the windows. "Bully, isn't it?" And the
+silent pressure of her arm was affirmative of complete understanding.
+Her tiny sitting-room was warm; the cheap eastern rugs and dark green
+background of the walls and some clever original sketches, all were in
+the harmony of taste that loved restfulness. She lit the gas-stove of
+imitation logs; Ruggles wheeled a chair in front of it and filled his
+pipe; from his match she glowed a cigarette, and with a great sigh of
+relief and tiredness lay back on the sofa.
+
+Then they chatted chum-like of many things. She was doing well--doing
+a man's work and getting a man's pay, supporting her mother and the
+two younger girls in the country. It was a strain; but is not
+successful effort Brian L'Estrange's definition of happiness? So they
+chatted on until it was time for Ruggles to go.
+
+"Thank you so much for coming, dear old Ruggles; it is so lonely when
+I come back here by myself."
+
+"Why don't you get married?"
+
+"Ah! I don't know. Perhaps I'm getting old working, and the men I
+would like to marry don't care for me, and those that would I don't
+like. I don't think I want really to marry any one, either."
+
+As he shook hands at the door he said, "You ought to get married,
+girlie. What a good, and true, and beautiful mother you would make for
+a boy-child!"
+
+The shooting of the door-hasp seemed to let go the flood-gates of her
+heart. There was the great longing of her heart--to bear a boy-child.
+"For joy that a man is born into the world" seemed vaguely ringing in
+her ears. Like a deep-down spring surface-seeking, that old desire
+welled up, the perfect reward and crown of valiant womanhood--and she
+felt how good and tender and true a mother she could be; and as the
+desolation of denial flooded her soul she threw herself on that sofa
+made of empty cases, held the cushions to her, and cried--cried as if
+her heart would break.
+
+Being independent and alone in her own room, she could cry out her
+lone cry without any one interfering with unwelcome comforting. Then,
+pale-faced and red-eyed, she got up, the sobs still coming in little
+gasps. She looked in the glass as she pushed the black hair back from
+her blue-veined forehead. With one of those strange revelations of
+reality that come to people in life when in solitude they look at
+their own reflection in a mirror--she thought--spoke. "It is too
+late--too late--for me to be the mother of a boy-child."
+
+Then she went and set her alarm-clock to a quarter to seven in the
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE HOU-MEN OF THE DINGY CITY
+
+
+How they call with different voices, these cities of men--from the
+Maxim-gun-like rattle of New York, with its chorus of strenuous
+steamers calling from the water, on over the gamut of different
+capitals to Tokio, where the city voice is the tinkling of stilted
+wooden shoes; not "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," but "Tinkle,
+tinkle, little feet," go the small wooden shoes on the wide firmament
+of pavement.
+
+Most strident are the American cities; the most sweet-sounding are
+those of Japan, except in those few streets raided by tram-cars.
+
+What is the voice of London? Is it not the plod, plod, dumping plod of
+the horses' hoofs and the jangling rattle of harness and bells, which
+last we hardly hear, so close is the sound to our ears, like things we
+cannot see because they are so close to our eyes? As it is a murmurous
+and noisy city in comparison with those of Japan, so it is peaceful
+and quiet in comparison with Chicago or New York. A friend of mine
+from that City of Unrest says that the sound of the London streets has
+a soothing, lulling effect on him, and makes him sleepy, like the
+sound of falling water.
+
+As I went up to Euston to-day to meet an Oriental visitor, I fell to
+speculating how the city might look to him. A very cultured,
+intellectual fellow he is, who looks into the backs of the eyes of
+things. A Chinaman born, he had been through college in America, and
+knew American cities; he had also been studying in Paris, but this was
+his first visit to London. A wet, drizzling day was not the most
+propitious for his first impressions. Slopping along in a cab through
+the muddy streets, as I went under the portico of Euston Station I
+was forcefully reminded of one of the big gates of Pekin. There is a
+suggestion of the same massiveness; but the massiveness is only
+make-face, like the painted cannon on a Chinese city gate. It was an
+imposing portico to a shamble of sheds.
+
+The railway terminus is the real gate of the modern city.
+
+Yet what absurdly incongruous things these London city gates are--a
+salad jumble of architecture and machinery with a mayonnaise of
+train-oil and soot!
+
+As I waited for my friend long trains came rumbling in under a canopy
+of smoke that hung about the grim iron rafters of this labyrinth.
+Fifteen minutes ago these trains had been spinning along through the
+green fields and across the shady lanes of what looked like "Merrie
+England," although now shaved down and trimmed to intense
+respectability of cultivation. The heavens darkened and the air
+thickened as they came close to their journey's end, until they slow
+down as if gropingly finding their way into the cavernous gateway of
+the great dingy city.
+
+What a strange conglomeration of people was waiting on each platform!
+There was a train leaving to catch the steamer for New York, there was
+a line of people waiting to take tickets for a close-by station, there
+was a line of soldiers waiting to be entrained; an American girl was
+standing on an automatic machine, and getting the railway porter to
+translate from stones into pounds how much she weighed after her visit
+to Europe. A couple of Oriental servants seemed to have lost
+themselves in the labyrinthine station, and were wandering round with
+Oriental indifference. Porters, with hands and faces and uniforms
+toned down to the universal greyness of things, trundled their
+hand-lorries to the monotonous calling of "B' your leave, b' your
+leave"; and variegated specimens of humanity were looking around after
+their luggage as one might imagine disembodied souls looking for
+their bodies in the Valley of Jehoshaphat on the Last Day. There were
+not a few touches of cosmopolitanism suggestive of that gathering.
+
+My Oriental alighted from the train. As his Japanese servant was quite
+capable of looking after his luggage and bringing it to his hotel, his
+master was left free to come right on with me and exercise his
+industrious curiosity--a curiosity that seemed never to be surprised
+at anything he saw, but took everything as a matter of course. He was
+a man of the world in his own estimation. Nevertheless, what an
+important part of it he had not yet seen! Was it not a great epoch in
+his life, this arrival of his in London?
+
+"This is our North Gate."
+
+"Ah, yes, Hou-Men," he said. "A very dark day, is it not?"
+
+We drove away in a cab under that sepulchral prison-like portico; we
+had the glass down, it was raining so hard, and even he, whose
+Westernisation was principally confined to New York, noticed the
+absurdly asphyxiating arrangement of the London cab, which
+hermetically seals its frame-bound occupants. The New Yorkers got
+their idea of the cab from us, but they have improved upon the window
+by having it slanting outwards, so that, while protecting people from
+the rain, it admits air. For Londoners there is no alternative between
+spatteration and suffocation. In the New York cabs they can have
+shelter and fresh air.
+
+It was not an inspiriting entrance through these first streets outside
+Euston into London. The pavement of Melton Street was little better
+than that of Pekin, and from each side those dreary-looking small
+hotels blinked out of their closed windows on the muddy street as if
+wondering when a God-forsaken guest would come and occupy them. And
+then on through grimy Gower Street, looking like the empty bottom of a
+drained canal.
+
+It's not very inspiriting, this entrance into London from this North
+Gate of ours.
+
+The people we passed there were not an interesting lot; they seemed
+all to belong to the two-storeyed houses. They were two-storeyed
+people, apparently keeping themselves moderately busy making a
+moderate amount of money, but hampered in the money-making by the mud
+and rain. We passed a little square carpeted with fresh grass, but the
+trees on the other side were vague in mist, and the square and its
+vegetation gave the suggestion of a tank with seaweeds in it. It was a
+day for studying men and women by their umbrellas and boots. Boots
+tell confessions for the most Low Church Protestants, and the
+umbrellas above them generally corroborate the sins of the boots.
+
+My Oriental friend was gazing out gravely.
+
+It was on a warm evening in a tea-garden that he had talked about his
+coming visit to London. I recollect his enthusing over the phrase
+
+  "Beneath the rule of men supremely great
+  The pen is mightier than the sword."
+
+A great motto for a great country, he then said it was. He professed
+an anxiety to see or meet some of the great English writers, our
+_literati_, as he called them. He liked the honesty of Englishmen in
+business, and wanted to see them at work. He had helped to show me
+something of the life of the East--that part of the life most
+difficult to see, the life of the home--and in return I promised to
+show him something of the life of the West, how and where people work
+and play, and pray--when they do so.
+
+"Show me the house of one of your _literati_ if we pass one," he said.
+"Is that one, there?" pointing to a gorgeous public-house, as we
+passed a street corner.
+
+I saw the probable toppling of an ideal. We passed a couple of
+quick-driving vans with a green placard of an evening paper, and I
+explained to him what a reading public we were, and how many editions
+of the papers were quickly distributed during the afternoon, how the
+appetite for them had grown, like the craving for cheap cigarettes, as
+a relief from being obliged to inhale pure literary air. The
+newspaper habit and the cigarette habit are about on a par after all.
+
+[Illustration: Hospital Train Leaving Ladysmith For Pietermaritzburg.]
+
+We passed a church with closed doors, and he seemed surprised. I
+explained to him that the churches were open on Sunday, on which day
+the more numerous temples of Bacchus were closed for a while.
+
+We reached the Strand, where he was greatly interested in a line of
+'buses. "Have you no street cars like in New York?" I submitted that
+these were kept on chiefly in order to have a supply of artillery
+horses in times of war.
+
+"And have you no high buildings either?"
+
+The explanation of ancient lights and the overhead space wasted in
+London was too much to go into. His attention was diverted by a
+newspaper placard.
+
+"Ah," said he, "another earthquake, is it not?"
+
+"Collapse of Australia" stared from that vermilion placard. It began
+to dawn on me that I had undertaken rather a large order in showing
+this Oriental London life.
+
+"And you have not shown me any of your _literati_ yet, or any of their
+houses."
+
+We were stopped in a block of omnibuses and cabs. A line of
+sandwich-men were straggling along between vehicles and the curb. One
+of them stopped just by our cab; the rain was trickling down his nose;
+he looked as dismal as the weather. I could not resist the temptation
+of explaining that these were some of our _literati_ undergoing
+punishment for some of the books or plays they had written. In China
+the crime is set forth on a board hung on the neck of the criminal,
+called the _cangue_. It was only a very mild surprise he showed when I
+gave him the names of the line of sandwich-men. "How like the head of
+your Shakespeare!" he said of one.
+
+We were received at the hotel door by a brass-bound German in the
+undress uniform of a British admiral, who pays the hotel L500 for
+receiving tips. The rooms and corridors of the big building did not
+look hospitably cheering. There were no fires in the grates, because,
+being June, the weather ought to have been warm; and the electric
+lights were not turned on, because, being daytime, there ought to have
+been light. He liked the smoking-room. "It is more like one of our big
+tea-houses," he said. "Men do business here," pointing to a man with a
+sheaf of papers talking earnestly to another beside him.
+
+"Yes, that is a company promoter."
+
+"What is a company promoter?"
+
+The nearest definition that occurred was, "A man who sells something
+he hasn't got to another who does not want to buy it."
+
+"I think London is a very interesting city," he said.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+TIRED
+
+
+It was the fag end of the week in the Dingy City. A heavy weight of
+dusty grey cloud lay oppressively inert, vaguely resting on the house
+and tree tops, and underneath the cloud the air seemed stagnantly
+confined; in its lowest strata people had been breathing it all
+day--all the week, in fact--in and out of their lungs, so that it was
+no wonder it felt tired and second-hand and used up.
+
+The air-thirst of their lungs had impelled those who were energetic to
+go away to where fresh air was to be breathed; but the very tired, and
+those who lacked the energy for initial impetus, remained. The shops
+had been closed, and the sunlight beat upon the shuttered eyelids of
+their windows on the Phryne side of Piccadilly. By that hour on
+Saturday afternoon Regent Street and Piccadilly were wearing almost a
+Sunday appearance; Ranelagh and Hurlingham and the new club at
+Roehampton were crowded with smart people, and for hours past trains
+from Paddington and Waterloo had been carrying thousands of
+Panama-hatted, white-trousered men and summer-clad women riverwards.
+Though the shops were closed, some belated workers, in ones or twos or
+threes, continued to dribble out from their doors.
+
+Going westward, along Piccadilly, a slight, dark-haired young girl
+stepped out from one. She was dressed in a thin white blouse that
+showed the outline of her arms and shoulders; she did not join the
+crowd of others who were scaling the 'buses on the opposite side of
+the street, but turned to walk along the pavement parkwards. One fell
+to speculating as to why she walked. There was no spring or elasticity
+in her step as if she were doing so for the enjoyment of the
+exercise. Her feet, in boots with heels slightly rounded on the
+outside, seemed to drag on that hot pavement. Possibly the 'bus fare
+was an item of consideration, even though she looked as if she had
+spent all the morning on her feet in the shop. With thick, dark hair
+and good eyes, it would have taken very little aid in the way of dress
+to make her appear quite good-looking. As it was, men turned to look
+at her as she passed, and one even came across the street, followed,
+and leered at her as he came abreast; she held on the even tenor of
+her way, taking no notice of them. On, past the clubs, through the
+street vocal with the clanking stamp of the horses' hoofs--horses with
+shining flanks, who cocked their ears, and tossed their foam-dripping
+mouths as they passed the water-trough.
+
+Wooden stands here and there still disfigured some of the house
+fronts, and here and there a red pole, looking like a sugar-stick that
+a child had been sucking, stood as a memento of one of the most
+hideous schemes of tawdry decoration that a civilised city has ever
+shown.
+
+At Hyde Park corner she turned in towards the trees, following the
+stream-crowd direction of other pedestrians. She stopped near the
+railings, watching the procession of carriages going by. A girl, so
+like herself that they might almost have been sisters, passed in a
+high C-springed carriage. Looking from one to the other, the great
+difference made by little things was apparent. An application of
+powder-puff to the moist face of the girl at the railings would have
+worked improvement; her cotton gloves hung down flaccidly from the
+bare hand which held up her skirt; perhaps some such thought as that
+of the unfair distribution of C-spring carriages in this world crossed
+her mind, as she turned away and languidly continued her journey
+westward under the trees.
+
+The seats were full of a heterogeneous collection of people, all more
+or less under the drowsy influence of that stagnant air. Here and
+there men were to be seen asleep in the chairs. Heads in tall hats
+nodded, debarred the luxury enjoyed by those tramps who lay at full
+length under the trees on the grass behind. Between those luxuriating
+on the grass, men lying in their shirt-sleeves, with heads a-resting
+in the laps of tired-faced women, whose children played or cried
+noisily around, and those who passed in the procession of carriages,
+was the intervening line of people from which all sorts of specimens
+could be taken of the great mediocracy of England--those who could no
+more afford a carriage than they could afford to lie on the grass. The
+men's heads were branded with tall hats, remnants and summer sales
+were suggested in the costumes of many of the women; an occasional
+glimpse of shoes or hosiery explained why the graceful holding up of
+the skirts should be unstudied or unknown on this side of the Channel.
+And their gloves were of the same character as the hose.
+
+Curious specimens were to be found amongst that crowd. A man passed
+whom I recollect seeing there as long as I can recollect going to the
+park. Go round the world and back, and here one was certain to find
+him. I know his income--it is just three hundred a year; except that
+his whiskers had got a little whiter, he looked just the same as
+usual. The frock-coat he wore I have a sort of suspicion was the same
+as I saw on him two years ago. I could swear to the umbrella--at least
+the handle, because possibly it had been recovered. The frock-coat
+would obviously not see another season--not that it was showing any
+tinge of green about the shoulders, far from it. But perhaps it was a
+feeling of doubtfulness about the coat, which prompted a startling
+departure in his costume. He had gone in for a pair of those yellow,
+chamois-coloured gloves which have made their appearance this season.
+He sauntered along leisurely, watching the people and the carriages
+with apparently the same degree of interest as he had done for the
+past ten years. I have heard that long ago he had a good tenor voice,
+and he used to speak authoritatively of great singers, when they
+really were great singers, not such as now.... I've never seen him
+talking to anybody in the park, and I've never seen him smoke; yet his
+lips are seldom at rest. They have now got a motion something between
+that of a nervous American with a cigar and a cow chewing the cud.
+This is the result of the movableness of his artificial teeth. Perhaps
+an extra visit to his dentist was an item of expenditure not to be
+lightly incurred.
+
+What appeared to be corresponding feminine types were to be seen in
+profusion. Women with incomes of one hundred, two hundred, three
+hundred a year, women who had passed the age either of matrimony or
+naughtiness. What thousands of friendless and lonely people there must
+be in this great Dingy City! The class that lies on the grass is more
+sociable; they are free from a thousand tyrannies that oppress the
+mediocracy.
+
+The face of a woman dressed in black, seated between two children,
+seemed familiar; not until she bowed did I recognise her as the wife
+of an old friend who had been killed in Ladysmith. She used to be the
+prettiest officer's wife of his smart regiment; and from her account
+it would have been better if she had not been so pretty, or the
+regiment so smart. She was now left with barely his pension for
+herself and the two children to live on.... Yet very bravely,
+apparently, she had faced the change!
+
+"Oh, I have tried various things for the last couple of years," she
+said, "but I am afraid there is nothing I can do. I even tried the
+stage for a time." She used to have a good voice. "But the managers
+were horrid, and the pay was very small. Then I tried to give music
+lessons; but what I got was hardly worth the distances I had to go; so
+now I have to settle down to working out daily problems in domestic
+economy."
+
+"And all your friends?"
+
+"Oh, they all were very nice and kind; but one cannot go about without
+being properly dressed, and when one keeps refusing invitations, one
+gradually becomes forgotten in time. I felt rather lonely just now
+when I saw the people driving down to Hurlingham. Come along, chicks,
+we must be going now. You see," she said, "it is a long 'bus ride to
+our little flat."
+
+At the end of the long free seat, beyond where they had been sitting,
+was a strange, haggard-looking woman; a pair of cheap cotton gloves
+showed her thin white wrists, and her black dress looked dusty and
+draggled. She had a strange haunted look on her face, as if she had
+left some tragedy behind her at home. Every time a carriage with
+scarlet-liveried coachmen passed, she got up and stood on the seat.
+Perhaps she had journeyed there to see the Queen. She looked cross and
+disappointed each time she stepped down again. On the other side a
+couple of girls were discussing those that passed in the carriages,
+and speculating as to who they might be. It was interesting to follow
+their surmises.
+
+"I think that's Lady X.," one of them said, as a lady, driving a pair
+of high-steppers, passed.
+
+But it wasn't. The little fellow sitting beside her glowed with the
+importance of proprietorship; but, smart little chap that he was in
+Throgmorton Street, he had no idea how many understudies there were to
+his part, and did not realise that there are syndicates outside those
+of the City.
+
+"What an awfully common-looking woman!" the other said, as an old lady
+passed in her carriage behind a sleepy pair of horses, sleepily
+driven, the fat pug dog at her feet suffering eclipse by the
+jelly-shaking arc of her redundant figure. She happened not to be
+common by any means, but one of the brightest and most good-natured
+members of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in
+England.
+
+"My goodness, isn't that Lord Roberts?" said the other, as a pair of
+chestnuts passed, with a rigid and angular lady in the carriage
+sitting beside a red-faced, white-moustached little man with his nose
+in the air.
+
+It was not Lord Roberts. He really looked much too important for
+"Bobs," although he was a military man in a sense, being colonel of a
+Volunteer regiment.
+
+And how nasally obviously numerous in the procession was the
+proportion of Jews, and the Jewesses whose plumpness seemed the
+retribution inflicted by prosperity.
+
+As the smart carriages passed and the high-stepping horses, which were
+indeed the exception, for the majority ambled along half somnolent
+from careless coachmanship, one sought in vain for some idea of what
+they were doing it all for. They did not seem to enjoy it. If they did
+not enjoy it, why did they do it? The expression that was common and
+universal to almost all was their seriousness. The Volunteer colonel
+took himself seriously, as did the fair frailty behind the
+high-steppers, no less than the best ladies of the land who seemed to
+be doing it as a traditional duty; but each and every one looked so
+serious.
+
+How was it that no one seemed to be laughing and enjoying himself out
+of all the crowd? The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to belong to
+another planet. The listless languor of these girls did not at least
+obviously claim Transatlantic cousinship; the gaiety of a Japanese
+street seemed so remote as to belong to a planet of another system;
+and the seriousness seemed reflected in the faces of the great
+mediocracy sauntering along inside the railings or solemnly seated in
+the chairs with their faces turned carriagewards.
+
+Here it did not seem the Dingy City; there was colour enough--bright
+splashes of colour, both colour in movement and colour from the
+rhododendron bushes, backgrounded with the fresh grass, that an artist
+was making a picture of over the way; it was not the Dingy City here.
+At least this was an oasis in it. But here, in this oasis, playground
+or pleasure-ground, the People of the Serious City was what was writ
+on their faces.
+
+Five hours later the park was almost deserted, and the gleam of white
+shirt-front or tulle-foam was caught as a closed carriage passed.
+
+The old bachelor was asleep in his chair at an open window looking
+across the narrow street at the familiar sooty face of the house
+opposite.
+
+"Good-night, Tom; I do hope it will be fine for to-morrow," the
+black-haired girl was saying at her door, holding in her hand the new
+hat she had been trimming.
+
+The Volunteer colonel was discussing Buller and port across the
+glittering dinner-field.
+
+The little fair-haired boy had climbed softly out of his cot, and,
+going over to his mother's bed, whispered coaxingly, "Will 'oo let
+me sleep with 'oo, mummy?" and when he had nestled his head on her
+arm, "Now tell me the story how daddy died," and was asleep before the
+familiar story was finished.
+
+[Illustration: Boer Prisoners.]
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE CITY OF DUMB DISTANCES
+
+
+I am sure there must be many to whom the idea occurs at such times of
+the year as this, at the end of the season, when people are scattering
+out of London, that friends are leaving whom we would like to have had
+the time to have seen before they went. How often, looking over the
+pages of one's address book, one says, "I wonder how it is I have not
+seen So-and-so for an age," and one feels that people we used to enjoy
+meeting, if they do not happen to move in the same orbit of
+metropolitan existence, are vanishing from our ken. They are being
+lost in the Limbo of long distances. An hour of Underground in very
+hot weather may give the remoteness of Styx-ferryage.
+
+It would be nice even to be able to speak to one's friends who are not
+conveniently visitable. In other cities this is possible, but not
+here. The telephone service of an American town or a Norwegian village
+is a thing of which London has never got even sufficient sample-taste
+to realise what she is deprived of, or what she ought very reasonably
+to demand. There is no reason why London should remain telephonically
+deaf and dumb. There is nothing which strikes the visitor more
+forcibly, however, than the long-suffering patience of the Londoner.
+The exasperatingly slow, inefficient apology for a telephone service
+that would not be tolerated anywhere else is good enough for London.
+It is no excuse to plead in apology the great size of the City, when
+there is the example of New York before one, where there are more
+telephones, where they are cheaper, and where the average time to get
+into communication with another subscriber appears to be a third or a
+fourth of the time taken in London. It is only when one has had actual
+experience of a thoroughly telephoned town that one appreciates the
+convenience of it. Look what it means for saving time in shopping,
+doing business, making appointments, and speaking to one's friends. "I
+got a telephone put right into my room the day I arrived," said an
+American friend, "but the people I want to speak to most often don't
+seem to use them, and it is so darned slow getting on to those that do
+that now I am keeping a cab by the day; it is quicker in the end, and
+makes me swear less."
+
+It will only be a matter of time, and that not so very far off, when
+wireless telegraphy will replace the telephone. The principle of
+sending messages in a multiplicity of keys, so that a message sent
+will only be received on the instrument keyed for it, has been
+established, and only requires practical working out. Until that time
+London will probably have to remain as deaf and dumb as it is.
+
+As regards getting from one part to another, it is not a cheerful
+thing to contemplate that what should be the most agreeable way of
+traversing London--I mean the pathway of the river--should just now be
+closed, and while Mr. Yerkes looks out on it from his offices in the
+Hotel Cecil, Londoners have to look to him to see if he or Pierpont
+Morgan will not open it to them again. What a pleasant alternative
+from the asphyxiating Underground or the tortoise-moving omnibus would
+not a fast, comfortably fitted line of river steamers be! It seems
+inconceivable that, with such a waterway and such primitive and
+inadequate alternative means of travel, the people should stand its
+being closed. What a great, stimulating, suggestive pathway it is
+through the Dingy City! Coming from a dance early the other morning I
+walked along the Embankment, to see a carpet of blue and silver being
+laid along the river as if by the angels of the dawn; and at evening
+in ever-varying schemes of sometimes gorgeous colour a richer carpet
+is laid sunsetwards, while the smoke and dust exhalation of the City
+is glorified to an incense offering by the stained rose window to the
+west. At such times the Dingy City looks great, robed in vague
+organ-tones of colour. But you must no longer walk on that carpet,
+even though the angels have laid it for you; you must no longer see
+your city from that pathway; you must burrow homewards from your work
+in a sewer-pipe of stink, and deeper rabbit-warrens of burrowing are
+being prepared for you, and you have no Declaration of Independence
+that secures to you the undeniable right to breathe fresh air.
+Long-suffering, patient Londoner! To whom does the City belong, and
+the river? If you reward with honours the men who make beer or whisky
+for you, or supply you with cheap tea, or signalise themselves by
+successfully struggling against disease, there ought to be the
+inducement of honours and reward waiting for the man or men that would
+help the millions in their daily struggle with this plague of long
+distances. Is there no knight to champion the cause of the toilers of
+London and in earnest tackle this dragon problem of distances? That
+is left to enterprising Americans who come over from pure philanthropy
+(?) to help you. Three years of his life are spent by the
+average-lived Londoner in the Underground, who has to take a daily
+half-hour's journey in it to get to his business. A man with an office
+in the neighbourhood of the Stock Exchange and a dwelling-house in
+South Kensington will spend about four or five years of his life going
+to and fro. To an extent it is a necessary evil. We cannot transport
+ourselves by telegraph, but there are things that the people of the
+largest city in the world might reasonably expect. They might expect
+to have as good facilities for getting about as the people of the most
+progressive cities in the world; they might expect to have the power
+to speak when they will with the same quickness, cheapness, and
+facility as people of other cities. But there is a dull feeling of
+resigned apathy about them. They will not insist on making any one
+"get a move on" them to get these things done; will no more think of
+hustling themselves than a cab-horse in a growler hired by the hour.
+
+If London may be considered the head--the brain of the Empire--the
+blood-circulation of that brain is surely of vital importance. When
+keen competitors seize every time-saving, labour-saving weapon as it
+is offered to help them in the conquest of trade, can we afford to do
+without them? The business methods of twenty years ago will not do for
+to-day, still less will they do for twenty years to come. The methods
+which our competitors are practising are what will tell, and they
+cannot be imitated and acquired in a hurry when their importance will
+become suddenly alarmingly apparent. I think the position is far more
+serious than the stay-at-home Englishman realises. Perhaps from these
+passing years the future historian will get material for the opening
+chapters of his work on "British Trade: its Decline and Fall."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE LAND OF THE EVENING CALM
+
+
+It is difficult to think this morning that it was only last evening I
+left London. Lying on one's back on a soft carpet of pine spirules on
+the slope of the hill, the deep green of the water in the harbour
+shows through the pine branches. There is a plumage of bracken around
+wonderful green feathers, that are rising on their slender stems from
+the thick brown carpet of nature's plush, which hushes one's footsteps
+through the wood and makes them noiseless, except when one treads on a
+crisp tory top. There is a delightful hush under this cool roof
+pillared by the brown tree-trunks, but it is not silence. There is a
+soft hum that comes ceaselessly to one's ear, sometimes anear,
+sometimes afar, from one knows not where, from bees, perhaps, busy
+amongst the hurts or honeysuckle just below. Up above a wood-pigeon
+keeps cooing that ceaseless question, or is it a question, or the
+plaint call of his pigeon heart for love? or has he lost his love, and
+croons a mourning for her? Distinct from and louder than the murmur of
+the bees is a rustling of the water from below where the outgoing tide
+from the river meets the water of the harbour; and mingled with that,
+one can just faintly catch the hushed sound of an occasional wave on
+the rocks. It is a holiday with the breakers, and the sea moves its
+fringe as gently as if fanning itself to sleep. The river winds around
+below, and down to its edge the hills are tree-covered--not there
+altogether with pines, but with rounded luxurious clumps of dark
+trees, recalling Dore's idea of a forest--they are exactly Dore's
+trees. It does not look from here as if the river went up farther, but
+around that bend is the deep green water called Drake's Pool. It was
+there that Admiral Drake, outnumbered and chased along the Irish coast
+by the Spanish fleet, hid from them. The Spaniards came into the
+harbour and searched around, but never thought there was an opening
+through the trees. And there Drake waited with his high-pooped ships
+until they went away. Close to the trees that grow around the steep
+margin of the pool and always darken the green water, even in daytime,
+fishermen who go there at night to fish for conger tell that when the
+moon has been clouded at midnight they have seen the shapes of
+queer-looking ships, and on their high sterns the forms of men in
+outlandish costumes, sitting around drinking.
+
+Right on the summit of this hill which commands the harbour is the
+Giant's Grave; and _a propos_ of commanding the harbour, Napoleon I.
+knew of it, and had a plan for the invasion of Ireland, in which was
+included the idea of occupying this hill, from which he could command
+from the rear the forts at the harbour's mouth. He would have planted
+his guns on the Giant's Grave. We know little of the history of that
+giant, except that he carried off the wife of another giant who lived
+on the Great Island opposite, and held her here in his fastness amid
+the pine trees against all efforts to wrest her from him. A huge rock
+that he hurled back in one of these fights is still to be seen on the
+shore of Spike Island.
+
+A twittering flutter of white and grey below me a few yards away. It
+is a rabbit--and now another. Their ears are cocked, but they do not
+appear to notice me in the least. They hop about quite noiselessly on
+the brown carpet. The crowing of a cock in the distance seems almost
+musical, and there is some insect in the tree above me that appears to
+be trying to give an imitation of a telegraph instrument. I wonder
+what these rabbits are saying to each other. They seem very alert and
+interested. Now a third appears on the scene. Two of them are
+beginning to play, at least I thought so at first--and I feel in this
+peaceful wood I should have left it at that, but having to recollect
+the heading of these chapters I have to record the fact that they are
+fighting. I never saw rabbits fight before, but they are fighting like
+mad. I now see, in fact, the origin of the expression making "the fur
+fly." The third is just skipping around watching intently with big
+round eyes and its ears erect--perhaps the third is timekeeper, or
+perhaps it is the story of the giants over again. The new-comer was
+getting the best of it. I am sorry now that I could not resist the
+temptation of taking a shot at them with my fountain pen. They fled
+instantly. Perhaps the little rabbit lady is glad--she may be licking
+the wounds of her Lancelot in their burrow a few yards away while he
+is telling her that he would have beaten the other fellow all right in
+the end if that darned fool hadn't thrown his fountain pen, while she
+agrees, as she works her little rabbit tongue soothingly, although
+privately she has her "doots."
+
+How interesting it would be to be able to study the lives of all these
+little people in this wood! There are terrible weasels here who wage a
+sanguinary warfare against the rabbits--a guerilla war that no war
+correspondent I know of has yet got his pass for. The seagulls are
+beginning to talk now in a New York pitch of voice, and one can get an
+occasional gleam of their wings through the blue-green pine branches.
+I think it is their dinner-time when the tide goes out and spreads a
+table-strip of slob for them on the shore.
+
+How thankful we ought to be to have such dear stupid neighbours as the
+English, who don't come in hordes of tourists to desecrate this
+delightful land! Those who love it with intimacy of knowledge--this
+wild coast with its rock fingers stretching into the Atlantic and
+harbours around which the trees nestle for shelter from the winter
+storms--the ruined castles with empty "magic casements, opening on the
+foam of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn"--own it still for
+their pleasure, moss-grown with history as vivid as the lichens on its
+rocks or ruins.
+
+Perhaps from a sense of justice, our neighbours think the invasion of
+Cromwell's army was enough, and that we ought to be spared from
+something worse, so that the hordes rush off perspiring over the
+Continent and elsewhere, and just a few nice people come and come
+again to the South of Ireland, and say they like that cordial greeting
+that always is waiting for the Englishman personally, who only in the
+abstract is disliked. Then the Irish railways and hotel-keepers act in
+a very nice and gentlemanly fashion; the former do not force on the
+notice of the tourist hordes that a train leaves Euston or Paddington
+every evening which would land them here at 10.30 in the morning for a
+few shillings. The latter are quite content with the knowledge they
+have themselves that they possess now as comfortable and
+well-fitted-up hotels as any in the world.
+
+A little old Irish lady was reduced to selling apples in the street.
+"Fresh apples, fresh apples!" she would call out; then, to herself, "I
+hope no one will hear me."
+
+I do not know, indeed, whether we have to thank most our kind
+neighbours or the railway and hotel people for the blessing we enjoy
+in this Land of the Evening Calm that still keeps
+
+  "A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
+  Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
+
+One fills one's lungs with the delicious air, aromatic with pine
+perfume, to send it out in a sigh of infinite content.
+
+From across the water comes a sound of music; it is some one playing a
+cornet. The air the unseen musician is playing sounds familiar. He is
+only practising--learning---- Ye gods! Is there no place where one can
+get away from that air? But yet, does not it speak volumes for the
+remoteness of this harbourage of repose to realise that the unseen
+musician is only now _learning_ "The Honeysuckle and the Bee"?
+
+[Illustration: Japs Entering Pekin.]
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+WITH SOME TOILERS OF THE SEA
+
+
+"Stop makin' a noise wid your face, man, and cook the spuds; 'tis time
+for dinner." Thus Tim to Mike, who had been expounding a theory of his
+on the wayward habits of mackerel. Tim occasionally comes out with
+quaint phrases worthy a wider audience. "Mr. Speaker, the right hon.
+member who has just been making a noise with his face on this
+amendment"--how would that sound?
+
+There are three men in the boat, not including the writer--Tim, Mike,
+and Dennis--engaged in lobster-fishing. They have lived in her now six
+weeks from the time they left Baltimore; "doin' purty well, thank
+God," they admit. The fishing and the weather and the price all "purty
+fair." They get ten shillings a dozen for the lobsters, small or
+large, from the cutters that sail along the coast to collect them and
+take them to England, and they consider a couple of dozen lobsters a
+very good day's fishing. They don't get as good a price in the middle
+of the summer, however. They are going to stop the lobstering just now
+for the autumn mackerel-fishing, which they hope will be as good as
+the mackerel-fishing of last spring, which was the best for the past
+four years. The open boat, which they own in partnership, is a
+strongly built one about twenty-two feet long, with a lug and foresail
+of brown canvas and great flat stones for ballast. The whole outfit,
+including the lobster-pots, cost them twenty-five pounds. The pots
+have been set and baited with gurnet; during the two hours' interval
+we are anchored. A curious thing about the craft is the galley. On a
+spar which stretches from the bow to about four feet up the mast is
+stretched a piece of brown canvas just forward of the mast, on a flat
+stone some lumps of turf are burning, and under this canvas is spread
+the straw on which my friends sleep. Mike is now washing a prodigious
+quantity of potatoes in a large iron pot, "a grate crop of praties
+this year, but the salt water plays the divil with the keeping av
+them, like that," and he holds up one with a red mark on it in his
+gigantic paw. I kept wondering if they were really going to eat all
+these potatoes at one meal. They did, however, washed down with milk
+from a big tin jug which they passed around. They make their own bread
+or griddle-cake, but that was to be taken with their tea for breakfast
+or supper. Tim is a teetotaler, and his two partners have a limit of
+three pints (of porter) when they are ashore. They always go ashore on
+Sundays, when two of them go to Mass, while the other minds the boat
+and the lobsters. Three great, simple, almost child-like giants they
+are, yet not without a certain natural courtesy--a core of genuine
+politeness within a rough rind.
+
+It was great to see how they made that heavy boat move with their
+long oars, coming out of the harbour this morning; and yet they hardly
+ever eat any meat. Potatoes and milk are their chief diet; fish
+sometimes--"an' thin we has to sample the lobsters sometimes; it
+wouldn't do not to sample what we are daling in." They cooked one in
+honour of their visitor, who never tasted a better. Then they lit the
+pipe, which they smoked in turn, and soon it was time to pick up the
+pots. Three lobsters and a crawfish were the haul. What magnificent
+colour in the strong yet delicate armour of their shells! Deep blue
+shaded into brown, mottled in yellow spots, with deep red at the
+joints. They were put into the big basket, which already contained
+over three dozen. What a terrible time the poor brutes must have
+there! Two or three weeks in this boat, probably the same time in the
+tank of the cutter, and a week or two more in another ashore before
+they are eaten. I asked if they ever gave them any food, but found
+they never did. "One av them dies off an' on, and thin the others ate
+him, an' they are always atin' the small claws off each other." Talk
+of the lobster blushing because it saw the salad dressing; but ought
+it not to make a member of the S.P.C.A. blush to eat lobster
+mayonnaise? We set the brown sails to lay the pots again further along
+the coast. It is a glorious day, the wavelets dancing on the surface
+of the long Atlantic swell that heaves ponderously; for, as Tim
+remarked, "the adjacent parish wesht is Ameriky." A glorious
+translucent green under the shadow of the leaning sails, and beyond,
+under our lee, the line of breakers on the rocks, tapestried in the
+rich brown of autumnal seaweed, and above them, in more broken
+billows, fields that make the island called "Emerald."
+
+While waiting after laying the pots again, the wind kept freshening,
+and heavier clouds in big battalions kept hurrying up from windward.
+The trio seem unanimous that we are in for a bit of a blow. Tim says
+'tis going to be a nasty night, and we must go in somewhere, although
+night is the best time for their fishing. Only one jack-lobster out of
+all the pots this time. It was now blowing hard and beginning to rain,
+so, with one reef in, we started again. It was a ripping breeze; I
+knew of old how quickly the wind can rise along that coast. The last
+time I was in Baltimore--picturesque old place, with its ruined abbey
+and the memory of the sacking of it by Moorish pirates, and the
+carrying-off of the women from only the eighteenth century back--was
+when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer, designed by Watson.
+She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on her keel. As I was
+nearing the harbour just such a breeze sprang up, and, being
+single-handed, I could not take in a reef, so had to carry on; right
+outside the harbour my foresail carried away, but I got in all right
+under the mainsail, and anchored alongside the Baroness
+Burdett-Coutts's yacht that was there at the time. I asked Tim about
+the money she had lent to the men there for buying fishing-boats.
+"Ah, thin, she's a good woman, God bless her; there's many rich or
+well-to-do men in Baltimore to-day through the means of her, an' ivery
+penny paid back--divil a penny av a bad debt."
+
+[Illustration: Relief Of Pekin.]
+
+The smaller the boat the greater the delight of sailing; you get
+closer to things than in big boats. It is part of yourself, half in
+the sea and half in the air, and with the sea and breezes you play or
+fight. White sails standing patiently upright, waiting, and adown from
+over the hills comes along the breath of the wind, breathing across
+the mirror; gently, ripplingly, comes the wind to play, and would try
+to pass, but you catch it in your white wings--catch it and hold it,
+leaning over to its fleeing passage, and press the trembling
+tiller-pulse, now throbbing with life, and luff as the boat darts
+forward in joy of possession of the wind, but she passes, gently,
+gently up again with the tiller till she leaves the sails with the
+lingerage of a caress.
+
+But more fun is the fight and tussle in that wonderful surface
+fighting-line between sea and wind, which laugh as they fight, blowing
+and buffeting, with you between and the little boat-part of you, now
+intensely alive and glad like you to be alive, to sing back to the
+wind any old song as she passes her fingers through your hair.
+
+One unique sensation of the almost uncanny mingling of the two
+elements I can never forget, when once, at daybreak, I went down into
+the Cave of the Winds under Niagara Falls; on along the slippery path,
+the spray streaming down the oilskins; within a few feet that
+shimmering, glistening wall of falling water, the sense of hearing
+gone in intoxication, of most musically thunderous noise. One seemed
+breathing water, so finely spray-saturated was the air. One seemed to
+have passed the portals into a strange, eerie, watery world.
+
+Every moment the wind came up, piping louder and louder, scudding
+across the now darkening water. The entrance to Oyster Haven was only
+half a mile on. It was too far to go to Kinsale. The Old Head was
+invisible in blue-grey mist.
+
+How things find voice in music! I recollect in the climax of the fight
+at Elandslaagte, when the uproar of various sounds was simply
+terrific, from the shrill treble of the whimpering bullets to the
+trumpet-like whoop of the shells as they arched overhead, to alight
+with a drum-boom and burst with a cymbal crash; the whole orchestra of
+battle was playing--it seemed that everyone must recognise the
+air--"The Ride of the Valkyrie;" and now the driving rain and the salt
+spindrift, the flapping of the leech of our brown sail, every note of
+accompaniment is being given to that great air that runs through
+Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata, which the wind is singing louder and
+louder. Tim sits up well to windward, the tiller quivering in his
+hand, the rain beating on one side of his face, his beard blowing out
+from the other. Tim doesn't think what a good model for a Viking he
+makes just now. The real actual Viking must have been very little
+different in appearance from Tim.
+
+We were not long in making that last half-mile, and dropped anchor
+close inshore. At once on doing so the many advantages of the canvas
+cabin were apparent. The boat, riding head to wind, made the bow under
+the canvas quite snug. Mike blew the bellows on the smouldering sods
+of turf which had never quite gone out; it is true the eddying smoke
+resulting therefrom was smarting to the eyes, but the resulting hot
+tea was compensation. It was useless for me to try to explain that it
+would be a real pleasure for me to sleep outside in my waterproof--that
+it would make me dream of being outside Santiago in the trenches, or
+on the veldt. It was only a matter of which of the three--who all
+wanted to--should give up his berth on the straw. Dennis succeeded
+eventually. It was a bad night. It was snug and "comfy" inside on the
+straw as the boat cradled on the broken aftermath of swell. The rain
+played in sheets of notes on the flapping canvas, and from its edge
+wraiths of smoke shuddered off into the darkness; and, dropping off to
+sleep, I listened to the Storm moaning the air of the Waldstein to the
+ear of Beethoven.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
+
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