A. Hamilton

“ The roads and paths are covered with weeds, and everywhere the neglect of the seven months' siege is in evidence. It is a depressing spectacle, and it is well just now to close one's eyes to everything—to the famine which is stalking in our midst, to the fever which is raging round the outposts, to the ill-conditioned horses and cattle, to the weary, patient women, to the children who, unfortunately fortunate, have survived so much distress, and yet if one looks a little forward it is difficult to see that the remedy will be forthcoming. ”

“ The feeling of isolation, inseparable from travel in regions where the sense of freedom is shut out by a world of enclosing mountains, is at once lost in contact with the ocean and the ships that go down to it. Far out, in the great expanse of the peaceful sea, were fishing-boats, grey junks, hull down upon the horizon, their brown sails bellying spasmodically in the fitful gusts of the breeze. ”

“ There is relief, too, from the burning sunshine in the cool, lofty passages: shady, thronged and tortuous they extend in endless succession for mile after mile. The roof of the bazaar is a rude contrivance of undressed beams upon which there is a covering of beaten clay. Behind each stall is an alcove in the wall serving as home and office to the keen-visaged merchant who presides. In this little recess, piled upon innumerable shelves, rammed into little niches or strewn upon the floor, are the different articles which his trade requires. ”

“ We have had our days of activity, when the boom of artillery and the rattle of musketry have impressed into a few brief hours the full measure of martial excitement, we have endured our days of lonesome and tiring idleness when the hot winds of the Kalahari Desert have swept eddies of whirring, biting sand across the trenches, when the pitiless sun has spent its energies upon the heat-stricken garrison. ”

“ Until the moment of departure, the army lay around upon the road, sleeping in the dust, or squatted in the shade upon the steps of buildings, partaking of breakfast—a decomposed mass of sun-dried, raw fish and rice which stunk horribly, but which they devoured greedily, tearing it into shreds with their fingers. Occasionally a loyal citizen brought them water or passed round a pipe, taking the opportunity to run his finger along the edge of a bayonet, or over the surface of a coat. ”

“ There are many gardens of a sort in Kabul; and each is thronged by people, who sit about the pathways bartering for bunches of fruit and trays of sweetmeats, or loll with rapt attention around the perch of some singing-bird. Every man of consequence is attended by slaves bearing his pipe, the cage of his pet songster, sweetmeats and fruit, the party coming to a halt in some secluded spot where, lying at ease, receiving and returning the salutations of his friends, he listens to the notes of his favourite bird. ”

“ They lie about under tarpaulins, behind zinc palings, wooden boxes, and flimsy sheds of that description, and perhaps for days their shelter may escape the line of fire; but there comes a moment made hideous by the scream of shell as it bursts in some little gathering of dozing, half listless natives. At such a moment their bravery is extraordinary—is indeed the most fearful thing in the world. The native with his arm blown off, with his thigh shot away, or with his body disembowelled, is endowed with extreme fortitude and most stoical resolution. ”

“ It was pleasant to hear the ponies eating; to watch the stars come out, the moon rise; to listen to the bull-frog in the water weeds and the echoes of the song of a peasant, rising and falling among the peaks of the high mountains, until, at length, all sounds had passed away and the great world around us, above us, and below, lay at peace. ”

“ Kandahar, the scene of one brilliant episode when the victorious Roberts relieved an ominous situation, has been the centre of many ill-fated risings and mis-shapen schemes, yet of all none more so than that injudicious and most pretentious plan of uniting Quetta with Kushkinski Post by a trans-Afghan railway viâ Kandahar and Herat. No practical end can be served by such a line and, indeed upon the broadest grounds, there is absolutely nothing which can justify its construction. The policy of this country should be mistrustful of Russia always and our attitude should be actively suspicious. ”

“ As Major Panzera had opened the fight so they threw their first shells upon his emplacement, and a well-directed flight of one-pound steel-topped base fuse Maxim broke in a cloud of dust about us, flinging their sharp-edged fragments in all directions. Then we fired again, raking the parapet of the Boers' trench, and wondering whether the big gun would reply to us, or whether those who had speculated upon its removal would win. The music of the fight grew louder and louder, the quick-firing guns of the enemy paying their tribute. ”

“ Villages provide rice, vegetables and eggs, the hillside springs give water, the rivers permit bathing. The air is pure, and the whole aspect of life is beautiful and joyous.
At the end of a trying day, one, perhaps, marred by an accident to an animal, trouble with the native servants, rain, fog, or the difficulties of the track, there is the evening camp. Those hours of rest and idleness, when the horses are fed and groomed, the packs unswung, the camp-beds slung beneath the mosquito curtains, and the evening meal prepared, are full of a supreme sensation of contentment. ”

“ Nevertheless, if Mafeking be not relieved before the Christmas season, the hour of our existence will be an hour of travail, impressed with the echoes of much suffering and saddened by the memories of many who will be dead. But for the time we will ignore the gravity in our situation, mock at our splendid isolation, our scanty resources, since to dwell too long upon the guilty splendour of the naked truth is to beget an earnestness which will depress our spirits, allowing us to read out the future of the siege in words of deadly omen. ”

“ There is, indeed, a very special type found in the bazaars of Bokhara and Samarkand. Dressed in the choicest of silks, so soft that it suggests the rustle of the wind through the peach-trees and dyed in tones of yellow, green and brown, in shades of magenta and purple, in a note of blue reflecting the sky or touched with the blush of a red rose, are men of fine stature. ”

“ The Monastery of Yu-chom is all peace and quietude. It lies, shut off from all contact with the outer world, within a deep, tree-clad valley of the eastern ranges. It is self-contained, and its whole existence is wrapped up in the mysteries of that faith to whose services it is dedicated. There is no booming torrent, such as that which vibrates and thunders through the Chang-an-sa gorge ”

“ We have had the wager of life against life, the angry, turbulent crash of fierce-blooded men, fighting under the shadow of death, with their emotions strained as they struggled in the very atmosphere of passion. And it has done us good to see how reliable the force has been about which so much doubt existed. Unlike the Imperial service, these irregular corps act as much for the unit as they do for the mass, as animated by terror or by valour, by a fatal despair, or by a blooded triumph, (p. 96) they fight for an individual supremacy. ”