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Title: The Modern Traveller

Author: Hilaire Belloc

Illustrator: Basil Temple Blackwood

Release Date: February 27, 2020 [EBook #61521]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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[Pg 5]

Forgive the litter in the room.

THE MODERN TRAVELLER.

I.

The Daily Menace, I presume?

Forgive the litter in the room.

I can’t explain to you

How out of place a man like me

Would be without the things you see,—

The Shields and Assegais and odds

And ends of little savage gods.

Be seated; take a pew.

(Excuse the phrase. I’m rather rough,

And—pardon me!—but have you got

A pencil? I’ve another here:

The one that you have brought, I fear,

Will not be long enough.)

[Pg 6]

And so the Public want to hear

About the expedition

From which I recently returned:

Of how the Fetish Tree was burned;

Of how we struggled to the coast,

And lost our ammunition;

How we retreated, side by side;

And how, like Englishmen, we died.

Well, as you know, I hate to boast,

And, what is more, I can’t abide

A popular position.

[Pg 7]

I told the Duke the other day

The way I felt about it.

He answered courteously—“Oh!”

An Editor (who had an air

Of what the Dutch call savoir faire)

Said, “Mr. Rooter, you are right,

And nobody can doubt it.”

The Duchess murmured, “Very true.”

Her comments may be brief and few,

But very seldom trite.

Still, representing as you do

A public and a point of view,

I’ll give you leave to jot

A few remarks,—a very few,—

But understand that this is not

A formal interview.

And, first of all, I will begin

By talking of Commander Sin.

---

II.

Poor Henry Sin from quite a child,

I fear, was always rather wild;

But all his faults were due

To something free and unrestrained,

That partly pleased and partly pained

The people whom he knew.

Untaught (for what our times require),

Lazy, and something of a liar,

He had a foolish way

[Pg 8]

Of always swearing (more or less);

And, lastly, let us say

A little slovenly in dress,

A trifle prone to drunkenness;

A gambler also to excess,

And never known to pay.

As for his clubs in London, he

Was pilled at ten, expelled from three.

A man Bohemian as could be—

But really vicious? Oh, no!

When these are mentioned, all is said.

And then—Commander Sin is dead:

De Mortuis cui bono?

Of course, the Public know I mean

To publish in the winter.

I mention the intention in

[Pg 9]

Connection with Commander Sin;

The book is with the Printer.

And here, among the proofs, I find

The very thing I had in mind—

The portrait upon page thirteen.

[Pg 10]

Pray pause awhile, and mark

The wiry limbs, the vigorous mien,

The tangled hair and dark;

The glance imperative and hot,

That takes a world by storm:

All these are in the plate, but what

You chiefly should observe is

The—Did you say his uniform

Betrayed a foreign service?

Of course, it does! He was not born

In little England! No!

Beyond the Cape, beyond the Horn,

Beyond Fernando Po,

In some far Isle he saw the light

That burns the torrid zone,

But where it lay was never quite

Indubitably known.

Himself inclined to Martinique,

His friends to Farralone.

But why of this discussion speak?

The Globe was all his own!

Oh! surely upon such a birth

No petty flag unfurled!

He was a citizen of earth,

A subject of the world!

As for the uniform he bore,

He won it in the recent war

Between Peru and Ecuador,

And thoroughly he earned it.

[Pg 11]

Alone of all who at the time

Were serving sentences for crime,

Sin, during his incarceration

Had studied works on navigation;

And when the people learned it,

They promptly let him out of jail,

But on condition he should sail.

It marked an epoch, and you may

Recall the action in

A place called Quaxipotle bay?

Yes, both the navies ran away;

And yet, if Ecuador can say

That on the whole she won the day,

The fact is due to Sin.

[Pg 12]

The Fleet was hardly ten weeks out,

When somebody descried

The enemy. Sin gave a shout,

The Helmsmen put the ship about;

For, upon either side,

Tactics demanded a retreat.

Due west retired the foreign fleet,

But Sin he steered due east;

He muttered, “They shall never meet.”

And when, towards the close of day,

The foemen were at least

Fifteen or twenty miles away,

He called his cabin-steward aft,

The boldest of his men;

He grasped them by the hand; he laughed

A fearless laugh, and then,

[Pg 13]

“Heaven help the right! Full steam a-head,

Fighting for fighting’s sake,” he said.

Due west the foe—due east he steered.

Ah, me! the very stokers cheered,

And faces black with coal

And fuzzy with a five days’ beard

Popped up, and yelled, and disappeared

Each in its little hole.

Long after they were out of sight,

Long after dark, throughout the night,

Throughout the following day,

He went on fighting all the time!

Not war, perhaps, but how sublime!

[Pg 14]

Just as he would have stepped ashore,

The President of Ecuador

Came on his quarter deck;

Embraced him twenty times or more,

And gave him stripes and things galore,

[Pg 15]

Crosses and medals by the score,

And handed him a cheque,—

And then a little speech he read.

“Of twenty years, your sentence said,

“That you should serve—another week

“(Alas! it shames me as I speak)

“Was owing when you quitted.

“In recognition of your nerve,

“It gives me pleasure to observe

“The time you still had got to serve

“Is totally remitted.

“Instead of which these friends of mine”—

(And here he pointed to a line

Of Colonels on the Quay)—

[Pg 16]

“Have changed your sentence to a fine

“Made payable to me.

“No—do not thank me—not a word!

“I am very glad to say

“This little cheque is quite a third

“Of what you have to pay.”

The crew they cheered and cheered again,

The simple-loyal-hearted men!

Such deeds could never fail to be

Renowned throughout the west.

It was our cousins over sea

That loved the Sailor best,—

Our Anglo-Saxon kith and kin,

They doted on Commander Sin,

And gave him a tremendous feast

The week before we started.

O’Hooligan, and Vonderbeast,

And Nicolazzi, and the rest,

Were simply broken-hearted.

They came and ate and cried, “God speed!”

The Bill was very large indeed,

And paid for by an Anglo-Saxon

Who bore the sterling name of Jackson.

[Pg 17]

On this occasion Sin was seen

Toasting McKinley and the Queen.

The speech was dull, but not an eye,

Not even the champagne was dry.

[1]

[1]

Observe the face of William Jackson,

How typical an Anglo-Saxon!

---

[Pg 18]

III.

Now William Blood, or, as I still

Affectionately call him, Bill,

Was of a different stamp;

One who, in other ages born

Had turned to strengthen and adorn

The Senate or the Camp.

But Fortune, jealous and austere,

Had marked him for a great career

Of more congenial kind—

A sort of modern Buccaneer,

[Pg 19]

Commercial and refined.

Like all great men, his chief affairs

Were buying stocks and selling shares.

He occupied his mind

In buying them by day from men

Who needed ready cash, and then

At evening selling them again

To those with whom he dined.

But such a task could never fill

His masterful ambition

That rapid glance, that iron will,

Disdained (and rightfully) to make

A profit here and there, or take

His two per cent. commission.

His soul with nobler stuff was fraught;

The love of country, as it ought,

Haunted his every act and thought.

To that he lent his mighty powers,

To that he gave his waking hours,

Of that he dreamed in troubled sleep,

Till, after many years, the deep

Imperial emotion,

That moves us like a martial strain,

Turned his Napoleonic brain

To company promotion.

He failed, and it was better so:

It made our expedition.

One day (it was a year ago)

He came on foot across the town,

[Pg 20]

And said his luck was rather down,

And would I lend him half-a-crown?

I did, but on condition

(Drawn up in proper legal shape,

Witnessed and sealed, and tied with tape,

And costing two pound two),

That, “If within the current year

He made a hundred thousand clear,”

He should accompany me in

A Project I had formed with Sin

To go to Timbuctoo.

Later, we had a tiff because

[Pg 21]

I introduced another clause,

Of which the general sense is,

That Blood, in the unlikely case

Of this adventure taking place,

Should pay the whole expenses.

Blood swore that he had never read

Or seen the clause. But Blood is dead.

Well, through a curious stroke of luck,

That very afternoon he struck

A new concern, in which,

By industry and honest ways,

He grew (to his eternal praise!)

In something less than sixty days

Inordinately rich.

Let me describe what he became

The day that he succeeded,—

Though, in the searching light that Fame

Has cast on that immortal name,

The task is hardly needed.

The world has very rarely seen

A deeper gulf than stood between

The men who were my friends.

And, speaking frankly, I confess

They never cared to meet, unless

It served their private ends.

[Pg 22]

Sin loved the bottle, William gold;

’Twas Blood that bought and Sin that sold,

In all their mutual dealings.

Blood never broke the penal laws;

Sin did it all the while, because

He had the finer feelings.

Blood had his dreams, but Sin was mad:

While Sin was foolish, Blood was bad,

Sin, though I say it, was a cad.

(And if the word arouses

Some criticism, pray reflect

How twisted was his intellect,

And what a past he had!)

But Blood was exquisitely bred,

And always in the swim,

And people were extremely glad

To ask him to their houses.

Be not too eager to condemn:

It was not he that hunted them,

But they that hunted him.

In this fair world of culture made

For men of his peculiar trade,

Of all the many parts he played,

The part he grew to like the best

Was called “the self-respecting guest.”

And for that very reason

He found himself in great request

At parties in the season,

[Pg 23]

Wherever gentlemen invest,

From Chelsea to Mayfair.

From Lath and Stucco Gate, S.W.,

To 90, Berkeley Square.

The little statesmen in the bud,

The big provincial mayor,

The man that owns a magazine,

The authoress who might have been;

They always sent a card to Blood,

And Blood was always there.

At every dinner, crush or rout,

A little whirlpool turned about

The form immoveable and stout,

That marked the Millionaire.

[Pg 24]

Sin (you remember) could not stay

In any club for half a day,

When once his name was listed;

But Blood belonged to ninety-four,

And would have joined as many more

Had any more existed.

Sin at a single game would lose

A little host of I.O.U.’s,

And often took the oath absurd

To break the punters or his word

Before it was completed.

Blood was another pair of shoes:

A man of iron, cold and hard,

He very rarely touched a card,

But when he did he cheated.[2]

[2]

These gentlemen are bulls and bears,

Their club has very curious chairs.

[Pg 25]

Again the origin of Sin,

Was doubtful and obscure;

Whereas, the Captain’s origin

Was absolutely sure.

A document affirms that he

Was born in 1853

Upon a German ship at sea,

Just off the Grand Canary.

And though the log is rather free

And written too compactly,

We know the weather to a T,

The longitude to a degree,

The latitude exactly,

And every detail is the same;

We even know his Mother’s name.

As to his father’s occupation,

Creed, colour, character or nation,

(On which the rumours vary);

He said himself concerning it,

With admirably caustic wit,

“I think the Public would much rather

Be sure of me than of my father.”

The contrast curiously keen

Their characters could yield

Was most conspicuously seen

Upon the Tented Field.

Was there by chance a native tribe

To cheat, cajole, corrupt, or bribe?—

[Pg 26]

In such conditions Sin would burn

To plunge into the fray,

While Blood would run the whole concern

From fifty miles away.

He had, wherever honours vain

Were weighed against material gain

A judgment, practical and sane,

Peculiarly his own.

In this connection let me quote

An interesting anecdote

Not generally known.

Before he sailed he might have been

(If he had thought it paid him)

A military man of note.

Her gracious Majesty the Queen

Would certainly have made him,

In spite of his advancing years,

A Captain of the Volunteers.

A certain Person of the Sort

That has great influence at Court,

Assured him it was so;

And said, “It simply lies with you

To get this little matter through.

You pay a set of trifling fees

To me—at any time you please——”

Blood stopped him with a “No!”

“This signal favour of the Queen’s

Is very burdensome. It means

[Pg 27]

A smart Review (for all I know),

In which I am supposed to show

Strategical ability:

And after that tremendous fights

And sleeping out on rainy nights,

And much responsibility.

Thank you: I have my own position,

I need no parchment or commission,

And everyone who knows my name

Will call me ‘Captain’ just the same.”

There was our leader in a phrase:

A man of strong decisive ways,

But reticent[3] and grim.

Though not an Englishman, I own,

Perhaps it never will be known

What England lost in him!

[3]

This reticence, which some have called hypocrisy

Was but the sign of nature’s aristocracy.

---

[Pg 28]

IV.

The ship was dropping down the stream,

The Isle of Dogs was just abeam,

And Sin and Blood and I

Saw Greenwich Hospital go past,

And gave a look—(for them the last)—

Towards the London sky!

Ah! nowhere have I ever seen

A sky so pure and so serene!

Did we at length, perhaps, regret

Our strange adventurous lot?

And were our eyes a trifle wet

With tears that we repressed, and yet

Which started blinding hot?

Perhaps—and yet, I do not know,

For when we came to go below,

We cheerfully admitted

That though there was a smell of paint

(And though a very just complaint

Had to be lodged against the food),

The cabin furniture was good

And comfortably fitted.

And even out beyond the Nore

We did not ask to go ashore.

To turn to more congenial topics,

I said a little while ago

The food was very much below

[Pg 29]

The standard needed to prepare

Explorers for the special fare

Which all authorities declare

Is needful in the tropics.

A Frenchman sitting next to us

Rejected the asparagus;

The turtle soup was often cold,

The ices hot, the omelettes old,

The coffee worse than I can tell;

And Sin (who had a happy knack

Of rhyming rapidly and well

Like Cyrano de Bergerac)

Said “Quant à moi, je n’aime pas

Du tout ce pâté de foie gras!”

But this fastidious taste

Succeeded in a startling way;

At Dinner on the following day

They gave us Bloater Paste.

Well—hearty Pioneers and rough

Should not be over nice;

[Pg 30]

I think these lines are quite enough,

And hope they will suffice

To make the Caterers observe

The kind of Person whom they serve.——

---

And yet I really must complain

About the Company’s Champagne!

This most expensive kind of wine

In England is a matter

Of pride or habit when we dine

(Presumably the latter).

Beneath an equatorial sky

You must consume it or you die;

[Pg 31]

And stern indomitable men

Have told me, time and time again,

“The nuisance of the tropics is

The sheer necessity of fizz.”

Consider then the carelessness—

The lack of polish and address,

The villainy in short,

Of serving what explorers think

To be a necessary drink

In bottles holding something less

Than one Imperial quart,

And costing quite a shilling more

Than many grocers charge ashore.

---

At sea the days go slipping past,

Monotonous from first to last—

A trip like any other one

In vessels going south. The sun

Grew higher and more fiery.

We lay and drank, and swore, and played

At Trick-my-neighbour in the shade;

And you may guess how every sight,

However trivial or slight,

Was noted in my diary.

I have it here—the usual things—

A serpent (not the sort with wings)

Came rising from the sea:

[Pg 32]

In length (as far as we could guess)

A quarter of a mile or less.

The weather was extremely clear

The creature dangerously near

And plain as it would be.

It had a bifurcated tail,

And in its mouth it held a whale.

[Pg 33]

Just north, I find, of Cape de Verd

We caught a very curious bird

With horns upon its head;

And—not, as one might well suppose,

Web-footed or with jointed toes—

But having hoofs instead.

As no one present seemed to know

Its use or name, I let it go.

On June the 7th after dark

A young and very hungry shark

Came climbing up the side.

[Pg 34]

It ate the Chaplain and the Mate—

But why these incidents relate?

The public must decide,

That nothing in the voyage out

Was worth their bothering about,

Until we saw the coast, which looks

Exactly as it does in books.

---

[Pg 35]

V.

Oh! Africa, mysterious Land!

Surrounded by a lot of sand

And full of grass and trees,

And elephants and Afrikanders,

And politics and Salamanders,

And Germans seeking to annoy,

And horrible rhinoceroi,

And native rum in little kegs,

And savages called Touaregs

(A kind of Soudanese).

And tons of diamonds, and lots

Of nasty, dirty Hottentots,

[Pg 36]

And coolies coming from the East;

And serpents, seven yards long at least

And lions, that retain

Their vigour, appetites and rage

Intact to an extreme old age,

And never lose their mane.

Far Land of Ophir! Mined for gold

By lordly Solomon of old,

Who sailing northward to Perim

Took all the gold away with him,

And left a lot of holes;

Vacuities that bring despair

To those confiding souls

Who find that they have bought a share

In marvellous horizons, where

The Desert terrible and bare

Interminably rolls.

Great Island! Made to be the bane

Of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain.

Peninsula! Whose smouldering fights

Keep Salisbury awake at nights;

And furnished for a year or so

Such sport to M. Hanotaux.

Vast Continent! Whose cumbrous shape

Runs from Bizerta to the Cape

(Bizerta on the northern shore,

Concerning which, the French, they swore

[Pg 37]

It never should be fortified,

Wherein that cheerful people lied).

Thou nest of Sultans full of guile,

Embracing Zanzibar the vile

And Egypt, watered by the Nile

(Egypt, which is, as I believe,

The property of the Khedive):—

Containing in thy many states

Two independent potentates,

And one I may not name.

(Look carefully at number three,

Not independent quite, but he

Is more than what he used to be.)

[Pg 38]

To thee, dear goal, so long deferred

Like old Æneas—in a word

To Africa we came.

We beached upon a rising tide

At Sasstown on the western side;

And as we touched the strand

I thought—(I may have been mistook)—

I thought the earth in terror shook

To feel its Conquerors land.

---

[Pg 39]

VI.

In getting up our Caravan

We met a most obliging man,

The Lord Chief Justice of Liberia,

And Minister of the Interior;

Cain Abolition Beecher Boz,

Worked like a Nigger—which he was—

And in a single day

Procured us Porters, Guides, and kit,

And would not take a sou for it

Until we went away.[4]

[4]

But when we went away, we found

A deficit of several pound.

We wondered how this fellow made

Himself so readily obeyed,

[Pg 40]

And why the natives were so meek;

Until by chance we heard him speak,

And then we clearly understood

How great a Power for Social Good

The African can be.

He said with a determined air:

“You are not what your fathers were;

Liberians, you are Free!

Of course, if you refuse to go—”

And here he made a gesture

so.

He also gave us good advice

Concerning Labour and its Price.

“In dealing wid de Native Scum,

Yo’ cannot pick an’ choose;

Yo’ hab to promise um a sum

Ob wages, paid in Cloth and Rum.

[Pg 41]

But, Lordy! that’s a ruse!

Yo’ get yo’ well on de Adventure,

And change de wages to Indenture.”

We did the thing that he projected,

The Caravan grew disaffected,

And Sin and I consulted;

Blood understood the Native mind.

He said: “We must be firm but kind.”

A Mutiny resulted.

I never shall forget the way

That Blood upon this awful day

Preserved us all from death.

He stood upon a little mound,

Cast his lethargic eyes around,

And said beneath his breath:

“Whatever happens we have got

The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”

[Pg 42]

He marked them in their rude advance,

He hushed their rebel cheers;

With one extremely vulgar glance

He broke the Mutineers.

(I have a picture in my book

Of how he quelled them with a look.)

We shot and hanged a few, and then

The rest became devoted men.

And here I wish to say a word

Upon the way my heart was stirred

By those pathetic faces.

Surely our simple duty here

Is both imperative and clear;

While they support us, we should lend

Our every effort to defend,

And from a higher point of view

To give the full direction due

To all the native races.

And I, throughout the expedition,

[Pg 43]

Insisted upon

this position.

---

[Pg 44]

VII.

Well, after that we toiled away

At drawing maps, and day by day

Blood made an accurate survey

Of all that seemed to lend

A chance, no matter how remote,

Of letting our financier float

That triumph of Imagination,

“The Libyan Association.”

In this the “Negroes’ friend”

Was much concerned to show the way

Of making Missionaries pay.

At night our leader and our friend

Would deal in long discourses

Upon this meritorious end,

And how he would arrange it.

“The present way is an abuse

Of Economic Forces;

They Preach, but they do not Produce.

Observe how I would change it.

I’d have the Missionary lent,

Upon a plot of land,

A sum at twenty-five per cent.;

And (if I understand

The kind of people I should get)

An ever-present fear of debt

Would make them work like horses,

[Pg 45]

And form the spur, or motive spring,

In what I call ‘developing

The Natural resources’;

While people who subscribe will find

Profit and Piety combined.”

Imagine how the Mighty Scheme,

The Goal, the Vision, and the Dream

Developed in his hands!

With such a purpose, such a mind

Could easily become inclined

To use the worst of lands!

[Pg 46]

Thus once we found him standing still,

Enraptured, on a rocky hill;

Beneath his feet there stank

A swamp immeasurably wide,

Wherein a kind of fœtid tide

Rose rhythmical and sank,

Brackish and pestilent with weeds

And absolutely useless reeds,

It lay; but nothing daunted

At seeing how it heaved and steamed

He stood triumphant, and he seemed

Like one possessed or haunted.

With arms that welcome and rejoice,

[Pg 47]

We heard him gasping, in a voice

By strong emotion rendered harsh:

“That Marsh—that Admirable Marsh!”

The Tears of Avarice that rise

In purely visionary eyes,

Were rolling down his nose.

He was no longer Blood the Bold,

The Terror of his foes;

But Blood inflamed with greed of gold.

He saw us, and at once became

The Blood we knew, the very same

Whom we had loved so long.

He looked affectionately sly,

And said, “perhaps you wonder why

My feelings are so strong?

You only see a swamp, but I——

My friends, I will explain it.

I know some gentlemen in town

Will give me fifty thousand down,

Merely for leave to drain it.”

A little later on we found

A piece of gently rolling ground

That showed above the flat.

Such a protuberance or rise

As wearies European eyes.

To common men, like Sin and me

The Eminence appeared to be

As purposeless as that.

[Pg 48]

Blood saw another meaning there,

He turned with a portentous glare,

And shouted for the Native Name.

The Black interpreter in shame

Replied: “The native name I fear

Is something signifying Mud.”

Then, with the gay bravado

That suits your jolly Pioneer,

In his prospectus Captain Blood

Baptized it “Eldorado.”

He also said the Summit rose

Majestic with Eternal Snows.

---

[Pg 49]

VIII.

Now it behoves me (or behooves)

To give a retrospect that proves

What foresight can achieve,

The kind of thing that (by the way)

Men in our cold agnostic day

Must come from Africa to say,

From England to believe.

Blood had, while yet we were in town,

Said with his intellectual frown:

“Suppose a Rhino knocks you down

And walks upon you like a mat,

Think of the public irritation,

If with an incident like that,

We cannot give an illustration.”

Seeing we should be at a loss

To reproduce the scene,

We bought a stuffed rhinocerous,

A Kodak, and a screen.

We fixed a picture. William pressed

A button, and I did the rest.

To those Carnivora that make

An ordinary Person quake

We did not give a care.

[Pg 50]

The Lion never will attack

A White, if he can get a Black.

And there were such a lot of these

We could afford with perfect ease

To spare one here and there.

It made us more compact—and then—

It’s right to spare one’s fellow men.

Of far more consequence to us,

And much more worthy to detain us,

The very creature that we feared

[Pg 51]

(I mean the white Rhinoceros,

“Siste Viator Africanus”)

In all its majesty appeared.

This large, but peevish pachyderm

(To use a scientific term),

Though commonly herbivorous,

Is eminently dangerous.

It may be just the creature’s play;

But people who have felt it say

That when he prods you with his horn

You wish you never had been born.

As I was dozing in the sun,

Without a cartridge to my gun,

Upon a sultry day,

Absorbed in somnolescent bliss,

Just such an animal as this

Came charging where I lay.

My only refuge was to fly,

But flight is not for me![5]

Blood happened to be standing by,

He darted up a tree

And shouted, “Do your best to try

And fix him with the Human Eye.”

[5]

Besides, I found my foot was caught

In twisted roots that held it taut.

Between a person and a beast

(But for the Human Eye at least)

The issue must be clear.

[Pg 52]

The tension on my nerves increased,

And yet I felt no fear.

Nay, do not praise me—not at all—

Courage is merely physical,

And several people I could name

Would probably have done the same.

I kept my glance extremely firm,

I saw the wretched creature squirm;

A look of terror over-spread

Its features, and it dropped down dead.

At least, I thought it did,

And foolishly withdrew my gaze,

When (finding it was rid

Of those mysterious piercing rays)

It came to life again.

It jumped into the air, and came

With all its might upon my frame.

(Observe the posture of the hoof.

The wire and black support that look

So artificial in the proof

Will be deleted in the book.)

It did it thirty separate times;

When, luckily for all these rhymes,

Blood shot the brute—that is to say,

Blood shot, and then it ran away.

[Pg 53]

---

[Pg 54]

IX.

We journeyed on in single file;

The march proceeded mile on mile

Monotonous and lonely,

We saw (if I remember right)

The friendly features of a white

On two occasions only.

The first was when our expedition

Came suddenly on a commission,

Appointed to determine

Whether the thirteenth parallel

Ran right across a certain well,

Or touched a closely neighbouring tree;

And whether elephants should be

Exterminated all as “game,”

Or, what is not at all the same,

Destroyed as common vermin.

To this commission had been sent

Great bigwigs from the Continent,

And on the English side

Men of such ancient pedigree

As filled the soul of Blood with glee;

He started up and cried:—

“I’ll go to them at once, and make

These young adventurous spirits take

A proof of my desire

To use in this concern of ours

Their unsuspected business powers.

[Pg 55]

The bearers of historic names

Shall rise to something higher

Than haggling over frontier claims,

And they shall find their last estate

Enshrined in my directorate.”

In twenty minutes he returned,

His face with righteous anger burned,

And when we asked him what he’d done,

He answered, “They reject us,

I couldn’t get a single one,

To come on the prospectus.

Their leader (though he was a Lord)

Stoutly refused to join the board,

[Pg 56]

And made a silly foreign speech

Which sounded like No Bless Ableech.

I’m used to many kinds of men,

And bore it very well; but, when

It came to being twitted

On my historic Sporting Shirt,

I own I felt a trifle hurt;

I took my leave and quitted.”

There is another side to this;

With no desire to prejudice

The version of our leader,

I think I ought to drop a hint

Of what I shall be bound to print,

In justice to the reader.

I followed, keeping out of sight;

And took in this ingenious way

A sketch that throws a certain light

On why the master went away.

No doubt he felt a trifle hurt,

It even may be true to say

They twitted him upon his shirt.

But isn’t it a trifle thick

To talk of twitting with a stick?

[Pg 57]

Well, let it pass. He acted well.

This species of official swell,

Especially the peer,

Who stoops to a delimitation

With any European nation

Is doomed to disappear.

[Pg 58]

Blood said, “They pass into the night.”

And men like Blood are always right.

The Second shows the full effect

Of ministerial neglect;

Sin, walking out alone in quest

Of Boa-constrictors that infest

The Lagos Hinterland,

Got separated from the rest,

And ran against a band

Of native soldiers led by three—

A Frenchman, an official Prussian,

And what we took to be a Russian—

The very coalition

Who threaten England’s power at sea,

And, but for men like Blood and me,

Would drive her navies from the sea,

And hurl her to perdition.

[Pg 59]

But did my comrade think to flee?

To use his very words—Not he!

He turned with a contemptuous laugh.

Observe him in the photograph.

[Pg 60]

But still these bureaucrats pursued,

Until they reached the Captain’s tent.

They grew astonishingly rude;

The Russian simply insolent,

Announcing that he had been sent

Upon a holy mission,

To call for the disarmament

Of all our expedition.

He said “the miseries of war

Had touched his master to the core”;

It was extremely vexing

To hear him add, “he couldn’t stand

This passion for absorbing land;

He hoped we weren’t annexing.”

The German asked with some brutality

To have our names and nationality.

I had an inspiration,

In words methodical and slow

I gave him this decisive blow:

“I haven’t got a nation.”

Perhaps the dodge was rather low,

And yet I wasn’t wrong to

Escape the consequences so;

For, on my soul, I did not know

What nation to belong to.

The German gave a searching look,

And marked me in his little book:—

“The features are a trifle Dutch—

Perhaps he is a Fenian;

[Pg 61]

He may be a Maltese, but much

More probably Armenian.”

Blood gave us each a trifling sum

To say that he was deaf and dumb,

And backed the affirmation

By gestures so extremely rum,

They marked him on the writing pad:

“Not only deaf and dumb, but mad.”

It saved the situation.

“If such a man as that” (said they)

“Is Leader, they can go their way.”

---

[Pg 62]

X.

Thus, greatly to our ease of mind,

Our foreign foes we left behind;

But dangers even greater

Were menacing our path instead.

In every book I ever read

Of travels on the Equator,

A plague, mysterious and dread,

Imperils the narrator;

He always very nearly dies,

But doesn’t, which is calm and wise.

Said Sin, the indolent and vague,

“D’you think that we shall get the plague?”

It followed tragically soon;

In fording an immense lagoon,

We let our feet get damp.

Next morning I began to sneeze,

The awful enemy, Disease,

Had fallen on the camp!

With Blood the malady would take,

[Pg 63]

An allotropic form

Of intermittent stomach ache,

While Sin grew over warm;

Complained of weakness in the knees,

An inability to think,

A strong desire to dose and drink,

And lie upon his back.

For many a long delirious day,

Each in his individual way,

Succumbed to the attack.

---

[Pg 64]

XI.

Our litters lay upon the ground

With heavy curtains shaded round;

The Plague had passed away.

We could not hear a single sound,

And wondered as we lay—

“Perhaps the Forest Belt is passed,

And Timbuctoo is reached at last,

The while our faithful porters keep

So still to let their masters sleep.”

Poor Blood and I were far too weak

To raise ourselves, or even speak;

We lay, content to languish.

When Sin, to make the matter certain,

Put out his head beyond the curtain,

And cried in utter anguish:

“This is not Timbuctoo at all,

But just a native Kraal or Crawl;

And, what is more, our Caravan

Has all deserted to a man.”

---

At evening they returned to bring

Us prisoners to their savage king,

Who seemed upon the whole

A man urbane and well inclined;

He said, “You shall not be confined,

But left upon parole.”

[Pg 65]

Blood, when he found us both alone,

Lectured in a pedantic tone,

And yet with quaint perfection,

On “Prison Systems I have known.”

He said in this connection:—

“The primal process is to lug

A Johnny to the cells—or jug.

Dear Henry will not think me rude,

If—just in passing—I allude

To Quod or Penal Servitude.

Of every form, Parole I take

To be the easiest to break.”

On hearing this we ran

To get the guns, and then we laid

An admirable ambuscade,

In which to catch our man.

We hid behind a little knoll,

And waited for our prey

To take his usual morning stroll

Along the fatal way.

All unsuspecting and alone

He came into the danger zone,

The range of which we knew

To be one furlong and a third,

And then—an incident occurred

Which, I will pledge my sacred word,

Is absolutely true.

[Pg 66]

Blood took a very careful aim,

And Sin and I did just the same;

Yet by some strange and potent charm

The King received no kind of harm!

He wore, as it appears,

A little fetish on a thread,

[Pg 67]

A mumbo-jumbo, painted red,

Gross and repulsive in the head,

Especially the ears.

Last year I should have laughed at it,

But now with reverence I admit

That nothing in the world is commoner

Than Andrew Lang’s Occult Phenomena.

On getting back to England, I

Described the matter to the Psy-

Chological Committee.

[Pg 68]

Of course they thanked me very much;

But said, “We have a thousand such,

And it would be a pity

To break our standing resolution,

And pay for any contribution.”

---

XII.

The King was terribly put out;

To hear him call the guard and shout,

And stamp, and curse, and rave

Was (as the Missionaries say)

A lesson in the Godless way

The heathen will behave.

He sent us to a Prison, made

Of pointed stakes in palisade,

[Pg 69]

And there for several hours

Our Leader was a mark for bricks,

And eggs and cocoanuts and sticks,

And pussy-cats in showers.

Our former porters seemed to bear

A grudge against the millionaire.

And yet the thing I minded most

Was not the ceaseless teasing

(With which the Captain was engrossed),

Nor being fastened to a post

(Though that was far from pleasing);

But hearing them remark that they

“Looked forward to the following day.”

---

[Pg 70]

XIII.

At length, when we were left alone,

Sin twisted with a hollow groan,

And bade the Master save

His comrades by some bold device,

From the impending grave.

Said Blood: “I never take advice,

But every man has got his price;

We must maintain the open door,

Yes, even at the cost of war!”

He shifted his position,

And drafted in a little while

A note in diplomatic style

Containing a condition.

[Pg 71]

“If them that wishes to be told

As how there is a bag of gold,

And where a party hid it;

Mayhap as other parties knows

A thing or two, and there be those

As seen the man wot hid it.”

The Monarch read it through, and wrote

A little sentence most emphatical:

“I think the language of the note

Is strictly speaking not grammatical.”

On seeing our acute distress,

The King—I really must confess—

Behaved uncommon handsome;

He said he would release the three

If only Captain Blood and he

Could settle on a ransom.

And it would clear the situation

To hear his private valuation.

“My value,” William Blood began,

“Is ludicrously small.

I think I am the vilest man

That treads this earthly ball;

My head is weak, my heart is cold,

I’m ugly, vicious, vulgar, old,

Unhealthy, short and fat.

[Pg 72]

I cannot speak, I cannot work,

I have the temper of a Turk,

And cowardly at that.

Retaining, with your kind permission,

The usual five per cent. commission,

I think that I could do the job

For seventeen or sixteen bob.”

The King was irritated, frowned,

And cut him short with, “Goodness Gracious!

Your economics are fallacious!

I quite believe you are a wretch,

But things are worth what they will fetch.

I’ll put your price at something round,

Say, six-and-thirty thousand pound?”

But just as Blood began with zest,

To bargain, argue, and protest,

Commander Sin and I

Broke in: “Your Majesty was told

About a certain bag of gold;

If you will let us try,

We’ll find the treasure, for we know

The place to half a yard or so.”

Poor William! The suspense and pain

Had touched the fibre of his brain;

So far from showing gratitude,

He cried in his delirium: “Oh!

For Heaven’s sake don’t let them go.”

[Pg 73]

Only a lunatic would take

So singular an attitude,

When loyal comrades for his sake

Had put their very lives at stake.

---

The King was perfectly content

To let us find it;—and we went.

But as we left we heard him say,

“If there is half an hour’s delay

The Captain will have passed away.”

---

[Pg 74]

XIV.

Alas! within a single week

The Messengers despatched to seek

Our hiding-place had found us,

We made an excellent defence

(I use the word in legal sense),

But none the less they bound us.

(Not in the legal sense at all

But with a heavy chain and ball).

With barbarism past belief

They flaunted in our faces

The relics of our noble chief;

With insolent grimaces,

Raised the historic shirt before

Our eyes, and pointed on the floor

[Pg 75]

To dog-eared cards and loaded dice;

It seems they sold him by the slice.

Well, every man has got his price.

The horrors followed thick and fast,

I turned my head to give a last

Farewell to Sin; but, ah! too late,

I only saw his horrid fate—

Some savages around a pot

That seemed uncomfortably hot;

And in the centre of the group

My dear companion making soup.

[Pg 76]

Then I was pleased to recognize

Two thumbscrews suited to my size,

And I was very glad to see

That they were going to torture me.

I find the torture pays me best,

It simply teems with interest.

They hung me up above the floor

Head downwards by a rope;

They thrashed me half an hour or more,

They filled my mouth with soap;

They jobbed me with a pointed pole

[Pg 77]

To make me lose my self-control,

But they did not succeed.

Till (if it’s not too coarse to state)

There happened what I simply hate,

My nose began to bleed.

Then, I admit, I said a word

Which luckily they never heard;

But in a very little while

My calm and my contemptuous smile

Compelled them to proceed.

They filed my canine teeth to points

And made me bite my tongue.

They racked me till they burst my joints,

And after that they hung

A stone upon my neck that weighed

At least a hundred pounds, and made

Me run like mad for twenty miles,

And climb a lot of lofty stiles.

They tried a dodge that rarely fails,

The tub of Regulus with nails—

The cask is rather rude and flat,

But native casks are all like that—

The nails stuck in for quite an inch,

But did I flinch? I did not flinch.

[Pg 78]

In tones determined, loud, and strong

I sang a patriotic song,

[Pg 79]

Thank Heaven it did not last for long!

My misery was past;

My superhuman courage rose

Superior to my savage foes;

They worshipped me at last.

With many heartfelt compliments,

They sent me back at their expense,

And here I am returned to find

The pleasures I had left behind.

To go the London rounds!

To note the quite peculiar air

Of courtesy, and everywhere

The same unfailing public trust

In manuscript that fetches just

A thousand! not of thin Rupees,

Nor Reis (which are Portuguese),

Nor Rubles; but a thousand clear

Of heavy, round, impressive, dear,

Familiar English pounds!

Oh! England, who would leave thy shores—

Excuse me, but I see it bores

A busy journalist

To hear a rhapsody which he

Could write without detaining me,

So I will not insist.

Only permit me once again

To make it clearly understood

[Pg 80]

That both those honourable men,

Commander Sin and Captain Blood,

Would swear to all that I have said,

Were they alive;

but they are dead!

---

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