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VILLIERS

HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

VOL. II

HOW THE AUTHOR LOOKED JUST AFTER THE GREAT WAR

VILLIERS

His Five Decades
of Adventure

•By ^i'-i'i
FREDERIC VILLIERS

War Artist and Correspondent

VOLUME II

Hutchinson & Co.,

London

1921

VILLIERS: His FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE NEGUS NEGUSTI i

An uphill journey — Sir William Hewitt and Mason Bey —
The great Theodore — The Abyssinia plateau — Adowa — The
reception — Manners and customs of the people — A Worcester
sauce bottle for a bride — A reception at the Palace — Johannes
— Monkey land — A simian of quality.

II. CATASTROPHE 26

The return to the coast — The simian s attempt to desert —
The mummers — Lion — The palace — The catastrophe — A curi-
ous sunrise — Adventures of William Ridley — Down the Red
Sea — Alexandria — Paris — London — He meets his old enemy
— Arrested by police — His incarceration — His end.

III. ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL 45

Dongola and its Mudirie — Oriental splendor — A quaint fleet
— By Nile and desert — / interview the Mudir — / am disillu-
sioned— My first immersion in the historic river — Crocodiles
— / lose my kit, but save my life — Kitchener comes on the
scene.

IV. THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER 58

Sir Herbert Stewart — The Desert Column — The camel and
his ways^ — Abu Klea — Mayor French's squadron to the rescue
— By the skin of our teeth — The march to the Nile — The knoll
at Metamneh — Our general placed hors de combat — The for-
lorn hope — The bloody square — The Nile at last — A silent
reveille — Correspondents' casualties 50 per cent.

V. WRECKED A SECOND TIME 74

A "baggie" and his ways — Wolseleys anxiety — I return to
Cairo — Wrecked — I keep the gangway — A topsy-turvy life belt
— A gruesome find — Rescued by friendly enemies — The solar
topee — Brigand and cutthroats — A merry crew — The case of

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

a mummy — In the meshes of Shepheard's once more — The
terrible curse — Ingram 's fate — A sailor field marshal — The
lines of communication.

VI. A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY 94

A Serb-Bulgar quarrel — A novel way to gain the front — A
retreat — The Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta — My
harem — Safe in Belgrade — / beat the mail, am delivered before
the letters — On the road to Mandalay — Bells and -pagodas —
An amiable viceroy — An adventure on the Irrawaddy — The
reception at the palace of the bloodthirsty monarchs — I am
introduced to a great general — / tell my story to Sir Frederick
Roberts.

VII. ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND — 1898-1900 115

A governor-general of ancient lineage — "On, Stanley, on!"
— Canada from coast to coast — Some of her cities — Plains,
forests, and a few of her denizens.

VIII. TOPSY-TURVY 129

The Land of the Rising Sun — Where East is West — Ping
Yang — Umbrellas in action — Kinchow — A pawnbroker's shop
— Sacks of jewelry — The egg — The dragon-eyed general — Cap-
ture of "the Chair Hill" — "Hang out our banners" — Chinese
methods of attack — The streets of Port Arthur — A bloody
business.

IX. PATHS OF PEACE 139

The Antipodes — Australia and South Africa — Governors-
general — Tasmania — A popular Prime Minister — A Western
state governor — A simple knight — The late Lord Brassey —
"I'm not a Seidlitz powder" — An indiscreet nobleman —
Artistic coteries — The Sydney Supper Club — Verse between
two cigars — Phil May — South Africa — / dine with Cecil
Rhodes — Diamond hospitality — Jameson's Raid — Million-
aires in a night — How pebbles of the right sort are found — The
last of the Tsars — He crowns the Empress — Their bloody end.

X. AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE 159

/ land at Volo — The broken siesta — A turbulent night — /
keep gate at the British consulate — My cinema camera — How
I nursed it — A crude machine — 7 am hostage in the land of
the unspeakable Turk and find him a good fellow — An Eng-
lishman's word — The last fight at Domokos — The war of the
cinema — Barnum's axiom.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XL SHADOWS OF THE PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS or TO-DAY . .184

Archibald Forbes — Fred Burnaby — Pellegrini — Sir A.
Conan Doyle — Thomas Hardy — Henry Seton Merriman —
Scott of Chicago — Bruce Ingram of the "Illustrated London
News" — Sir Forbes Robertson — Barry Pain — W. W. Jacobs
— Richard Barry — Stanley Washburn.

XII. ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA 205

/ try my friends the Japs once more — Am not disappointed
— Curious behavior of my colleagues — " You told the truth ten
years ago; you will tell the truth now" — Well chosen — The
peculiar Chinese — A pet fowl — Scattered leaves from my diary.

XIII. A MIDNIGHT INFERNO 221

The beginning of night warfare — A Whistler rtudy — A noc-
turne in goldy silver, and blood — An attack under star bombs —
Searchlight and the crescent moon — Ban-u-san in the light of
day — Japanese heroes — Life on a mountain top — Dodging the
eyes of the enemy — The Shinto Shades.

XIV. GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA 238

More scattered leaves from my diary — Silver fish — A bad
cat — / change quarters — Cho-san takes a hard drink and be-
comes soft — My colleague's birthday — Land of the Morning
Calm — The Palace of Prosperity and Virtue — We interview
royalty — The chief eunuch — Morning C aimers and their ways
— Togo and his ships of war.

XV. KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN 259

Up the Nile — Across the desert — A movie camera and iron
horse cause jealousy — The advance on Omdurman — A scorpion
and its ways — A gunboat darkroom — A setback — The dervish
attack — Saving the Camel Corps — Winston Churchill — Lieu-
tenant Beatty — Their first rungs of the proverbial ladder — A
solemn ceremony — The men of the momentt MacDonaldy Hun-
ter, and "Back-acker" Gatacre.

XVI. CLAIRVOYANCE 273

/ am told my fortune — I sail for the Cape — Land at Port
Elizabeth — The trail of the prophecy — The Magersfontein af-
fair— The prophecy comes true — Sunny side — Lumbago saves
a brigade — Major Haigh — General French — Brabazon of the
Guards — 1 miss my silver disk — Cecil Rhodes besieged — / in-
terview the Empire-builder — He takes me round Kimberley

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

and shows me the sights — Methuen and his night attack — The
passing of an Empress — The mystery of the cannon.

XVII. RlFFIANS AND RUFFIANS 2Q2

I arrive in Melilla — The Berber ine Coast — Corsairs of old
— Pinto' s disaster — Mount Gurugoo — A polite General Staff
— A courteous officer — The best way to take Malaga — Riff
manners and customs — I meet El Garto — Spanish troops.

XVIII. A GHASTLY BUSINESS 300

Once under the Turkish yoke — The quick change to freedom
— Good soldiers — Mustapha Pasha — Snapshot and movies at
an execution — Gruesome scenes — / meet King Ferdinand —
He admires my leather coat — War and water colors — His
knowledge of my career — Belgrade — Looking for trouble — The
coming of the Great Storm — My incredulous agent.

XIX. 1914 306

Stranded war correspondents — Paris during mobilization —
The last of the Contemptible -s — After the Marne — Like rabbit-
shooting — The Prussian debacle — Tramping it — A shift in a
furniture van — The Crown Prince and champagne — The battle
of the Aisne — 7 am taken for a spy — A score for my paper —
Early- and latter-day trenches — The Red Tabbies — The Brit-
ish War Office and its way "peculiar" — 7 exhaust the Western
front of dramatic incidents — 7 seek fresh fields and pastures
new — 7 try East Africa-Mesopotamia without success and find
incident for my sketchbook on the northwest frontier of India —
The Mohmands at war — Armored cars, airplanes, and elec-
tricity surprise the hillmen.

XX. MY LAST CHAPTER 327

Four big sights in the four quarters of the globe — The Matop-
pos, South Africa— The Khyber—The Great Wall of China—
The movies, California — People by the way — The City of
White Light — Things to be considered by the man who wants
to be a war correspondent — Hors-de-combat — Prolonged visits
to certain Hotels Dieu — Canada and her Sisters of Mercy — A
famous surgeon and his patients — Good Samaritans everywhere
— Adieu.

ILLUSTRATIONS

How THE AUTHOR LOOKED JUST AFTER THE GREAT

WAR Frontispiece

SCENE IN THE LATE RUSSIAN- JAPANESE WAR . .Facing p. 254
VIEW OF TRENCHES ON WESTERN FRONT, 1914.

(PERISCOPE IN LOWER RIGHT-HAND CORNER) " 318
THE AUTHOR VISITS CHARLIE CHAPLIN IN CALI-
FORNIA " 332

VILLIERS

HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

VOL. II

VILLIERS

HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE
Chapter I

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

An uphill journey — Sir William Hewitt and Mason Bey — The great
Theodore — The Abyssinia plateau — Adowa — The reception — Manners
and customs of the people — A Worcester sauce bottle for a bride — A
reception at the Palace — Johannes — Monkey land — A simian of
quality.

'"THE other day I happened to pick up a book
* which described a journey by motor car to the
capital of King Menelik of Abyssinia^ On dipping
into its pages I discovered that the whole country
had been turned topsy-turvy by the advent of so-
called civilization and that the manners and customs
of its people were so completely changed from the
delightfully primitive state in whigh I found them
when I first visited the country that I thought it
would be interesting to the present generation to

: HIS FIVE DECADES OF

know something about this remarkable Christian
race, isolated on a mountain top 8,000 feet up from
the arid plains of Ailet on the Red Sea littoral, as
they were before the automobile churned up the
dust of their land and impregnated its pure atmos-
phere with the fumes of petrol.

After the fight at Tamai, in the eastern Sudan,
the war correspondents assembled at Suakim had
nothing to do. It was a relief to us all to hear of
the intended Anglo-Egyptian Mission to Abyssinia
to persuade the Negus Negusti to succor the
Egyptian garrisons on his frontier, which were
hemmed in by the fanatical followers of the Mahdi.

Admiral Sir William Hewitt, the British repre-
sentative, was besieged by correspondents clamor-
ing to go with the Mission, but he said that he
could take only one representative of the press, and
that would be his personal friend, Mr. Cameron.
Of course, the other correspondents were furious.
Some cabled to their editors, who made a row, and
the result was that Sir William would not take
anyone.

I had not applied to the admiral, so I had not
been personally refused. I therefore sailed to
Massowah, the port whence the Mission was to
start inland, and presented myself to Mason Bey,
an American in the Khedivial service, who was
the governor and one of the most respected and
trusted foreigners in the country. I told him that
I had not seen the admiral about the matter, but

THE NEGUS

that I wanted to go with the Khedivial represent-
atives and if he would consent to my accompanying
him it would help me out of a great difficulty. Also it
seemed a pity that the doings of the Mission in an
almost unknown country should not be chronicled
by pen and pencil. Nevertheless Mason would not
hear of taking a correspondent, as it would be
"going back on the admiral."

"By the bye," said he, just as I was going away,
"I rather want a smart, respectable young man for
my private secretary. If you care to apply for
that billet, think the matter over and I'll see you
to-morrow. In the meantime I shall be most happy
to offer you the hospitality of the crazy edifice
which they call my palace."

At nine the next morning I changed my pro-
fession, and became a private secretary at a nominal
salary with free rations and transport.

About ten o'clock the admiral arrived and Mason
Bey turned out the palace guard of Sudanese
soldiers. Their white uniforms and highly polished
Remingtons sparkled in the blazing sun, but a
more nondescript lot of scalawags I never set eyes
on. Nevertheless, the admiral took their salute
with his usual gravity, inspected the ranks and
seemed satisfied. All that day and the following we
were busy purchasing mules, looking at saddles,
girths, and bridles and overhauling tents and
baggage for the wonderful and adventurous journey
which lay before us.

VOL. II. — 2 1

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Abyssinia was still practically unknown to
Britishers in the year 1884. The previous monarch,
King Theodore, had originally been quite inde-
pendent of the rest of the world. From his realm
on the top of a mountain he looked haughtily down
upon the world at large. Both France and Italy
had flirted with him with an eye to future con-
cessions along the coast, and he had come to the
conclusion that he was a^very big bug indeed;
but he still had a wholesome respect for England
in 1862 when a new consul was sent out by the
British Foreign Office with some presents for him
from Queen Victoria.

King Theodore was very much impressed with
this courtesy and sent the consul back with a letter
of thanks. This epistle, unfortunately, was never
acknowledged: the consul, Captain Cameron, re-
turned to Abyssinia without any message. The
Ethiopian King took this attitude on the part of
the British Foreign Office as an affront. Some say
that his letter was an offer of marriage to Queen
Victoria for the purpose of linking together the two
great black and white Christian powers. Anyway,
the King was so peeved that he threw the consul
and other Englishmen into prison, and when another
Mission was sent out from England with the be-
lated letter its members were incarcerated with the
rest in the stronghold of Magdala, where for two
long years they languished in chains.

Great Britain then sent a military expedition to

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

demand their release. This consisted of 16,000
fighting men and 12,600 followers under the great
hero of the then recent relief of Lucknow, Sir Robert
Napier. After many weeks of hard marching
through almost impassable mountainous regions
extending inland over 400 miles from the coast of
the Red Sea, the expedition arrived on the plains of
Arogie a few miles from Magdala. Here a furious
attack was made on the British by 5,000 of the
King of Ethiopia's best troops, but though they
attacked again and again they failed to make any
impression and retired utterly defeated to their
fortress.

Theodore was utterly dumfounded, for he had
thought it certain that so large an expedition would
be decimated by the hardships of the march and
by disease and paucity of water. He therefore
experienced a sudden change of heart and returned
the prisoners to the English camp with presents of
1,000 cows and 500 sheep.

But by some circumstance these friendly over-
tures did not arrive in time. The British army had
already started on its final lap. When it arrived on
the plains in front of the Magdala rock, Theodore
sent out a parlementaire suggesting that champions
from either side should decide the issue and save
the armies further bloodshed. Napier, however,
would not agree to this picturesque method of
settling such a serious dispute, and ordered the
fortress to be stormed, whereupon Theodore lost

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

heart and committed suicide rather than be made
prisoner by the British.

After the capture of Magdala and the death of
King Theodore in 1868, Napier placed Prince Kassa
of Tigre on the throne as King Johannes. Very
little was done by Great Britain, however, to keep
up the friendly relations which had been begun.
To be sure, we took Alamayahu, the young son of
the dead Theodore, and were looking after his
education; for his father, in spite of his failings,
had come to be regarded by the British soldier as
a "good sport." But with Abyssinia itself there
was practically no intercourse, and the country
still remained to the British public little more than
a name upon the map.

Now to return to our Mission: our cavalcade
consisted of a small contingent of British blue-
jackets, naval and military officers, Egyptians,
Arabs, Sudanese, and a train of baggage mules
loaded with cases of rifles, ammunition, and a couple
of ship's cannon as presents to King John and his
chiefs. Our commissariat animals also carried huge
bags of silver dollars to pave our way through the
territories held by feudal lords — or, as we call those
gentry in these days, cutthroat banditti — between
us and the capital of Abyssinia. Indeed, the country
we were nearing was similar in many ways to the
old feudal conditions in England nine hundred
years ago, before our King John signed the Magna
Charta. Ras Alula, the frontier chieftain, was the

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

Earl of Warwick of the situation, the Lord Warden
of the Marches, and only through his lands and
by his permission was it possible to reach the king.

If he was in feud with some local baron who
held temporary sway over a portion of the domain
we had to pay that gentleman as well, in order to
go unmolested, the tribute money being divided
between him and the Ras. Therefore, it was a
happy-go-lucky proposition — this unique journey
back to the ways of the world of a thousand years ago.
While I was dreamily thinking these things out,
jogging along in the midday heat, the admiral's
aide rode up to me, saying that his chief would like
to talk with me.

"Now," I thought, "I am in for it. I wonder if
he will turn me back?"

"Ah! Mr. Villiers," said Sir William, with a cheery
smile as I joined him, "glad to see you; but how is
it you are here?"

I told him that I was acting as private secretary
to Mason Bey. "Well," he continued, "I was just
thinking before I saw you what a pity it was that a
Mission like this, so full of color and adventure,
should not be chronicled outside the bald official
letters."

"With your permission, sir," I replied, "I am
capable of doing it, if Mason will allow me."

"That's right, I hope he will, though of course
I can't interfere with any of his staff. Ride by my
side a bit, Mr. Villiers, and clear up one or two

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

points of the Russo-Turkish war, which have
always been a bit hazy to me.5' We talked until
the force went into camp at the foot of the hills.
The inhabitants of Ailet ran out, greeting us with
their peculiar "lu lu" cry of welcome as we pitched
our tents.

Here a small guard from the Ras's camp arrived
to guide us up the Mahenzie range which stood out,
a purple lowering mass in our front, its serrated
peaks ringed with flickering lightning. These
soldiers were the first real hillmen we had seen.
They were a fine agile lot, a little truculent in
bearing. They took more interest in our empty
beer bottles than in anything else belonging to the
Mission, and of these they slung as many as they
could carry around their waists. Over them they
folded their shemma, or toga.

I found they had an excellent way of baking
bread quickly. All carried, tied up at one end of
the toga slung across their bodies, a quantity of
flour. Some of this they would mix with water and
roll out into a thin layer of paste which they placed
over a round stone that had already been heated
in the camp fire, then the rocky dumpling was
buried for a minute or two in hot ashes, and lo!
in the twinkling of an eye the dough was cooked
through and ready to serve. This was a veritable
hot quick lunch. It is said that they never lack
warm meals, for during a cattle-lifting raid, when
hurriedly returning followed by the enemy, they

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

cut a slice of meat from the flank of a looted animal
and devour it raw, filling the space up with clay.
This, I know, is a fact, though I have never seen
it done. The attitude of the native toward the brute
creation in general easily gives credit to the story.

Next morning we were soon on our journey up
the pass, if the way traversed by the terrible zigzag
mule path could be called one. However, we
traveled by easy stages, for we always had to keep
the baggage in sight, and in climbing this 8,000-
foot mountain we passed through many different
zones of temperature. Sometimes we would camp
in a tropical grove full of flowering cactaceous
growth, and one afternoon we entered a pocket of
a valley full of the wonderful candelabra giganticus
in the stately shade of which we spent the noon and
night.

One evening in camp the admiral asked me to
dine with him and Mason Bey. During dinner
champagne was opened and Sir William drank my
health, wishing me many happy returns of the day.

"But how did you know it was my birthday?"
said I.

"Because you told me you left England for the
Russo-Turkish war on St. George's Day, your
birthday. This is the 23d of April." It was a
pleasant thing to have a birthday remembered in
probably the wildest country on earth, especially
with a wine of a quality only to be found ordinarily
in the most highly civilized lands.

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Soon we struck a temperature like that of central
Europe where boxwood and wild roses and waterr
cress grew in abundance, and that afternoon we
suddenly found ourselves emerging on the plateau of
Asmara.

After having journeyed through solitary mountain
forests, clambered almost inaccessible heights,
straight up from the thirsty plains of Ailet, it
seemed like taking one long step with the seven-
leagued boots into another world, for the atmos-
phere that was over 100° F. in the shade below was
43° F. at the same hour on this airy tableland.

Its inhabitants differed almost as widely from the
people of the Red Sea littoral. On the shimmering
stretches of sand and mimosa beneath us men
moved about in a state of seminudity, ate rice and
ghee, drank nothing but water, and wore their
weapons like the rest of the fighting world. But
here at Asmara, a distance of only a few hours by
foot and a few minutes as the crow flies, people
strutted about in togas almost Roman in their
picturesqueness, with capes of lion or leopard skin,
drinking intoxicating beverages and eating raw
meat. Words of command and the King's orders
were rapped out on kettledrums, and, merely to be
unlike any other people, the soldiers wore their
sabers at the right side of the body and drew with
the right hand.

When we arrived at Adowa, where King John
was to meet us, we found the inhabitants all huddled

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

together for protection against the leopards, hyenas,
and jackals which prowled the streets at night.
They lived in the same houses with their cattle,
fowls, dogs, cats, and a wonderful collection of
insects which they seemed to foster with the greatest
care by never touching soap and using very little
water. An Ethiopian will tell you apparently
without a blush (for his skin is deep chocolate in
color) that he is necessarily washed at birth, cleans
himself on his marriage morn, and hopes to be
washed after death; that once every year he dips
himself in the river on the Festival of St. John,
and regularly every morning he wets the end of
his cloak with the moisture from his mouth and
freshens up his eyes. Whenever he feels hard and
uncomfortable, he will anoint himself with mutton
fat till his body glistens in the sun.

We found the walls of the churches covered with
scriptural pictures, and those of the cathedral with
the exploits of the then ruler, Johannes. His vic-
tories over the Egyptians were fully represented
in wash colors — blue, mustard yellow, red lead, and
lampblack. Though limited to these, which were
the only pigments obtainable in the country, the
artist did not make up for crudeness of color by
the accuracy of his drawing, and if there was any
merit in the work it was in originality of treatment.
For instance, at Gondor, in a picture representing
the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, Pharaoh carries
in his right hand the latest specimen of six-

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

shooter and in his left a pair of field glasses, while
his Egyptian host sport Remington rifles. All
movement of figures is from right to left, and heads
are full-faced, with the exception of Satan and the
hated Egyptians, who are painted in acute profile to
show their lack of honesty and good faith in not
looking you straight in the face. It is a deplorable
fact, which ladies will at once say proves the igno-
rance and barbarity of the Ethiopians, that the
evil spirits in these compositions are always repre-
sented as members of the softer sex, generally
showing their naughtiness as some children do — by
putting out their tongues. The church painter
goes so far as to question the gallantry of St.
George — the Abyssinian patron saint — by depicting
that warrior, instead of doing battle with the
dragon, about to spear the graceful undulations of
a long-tongued woman.

A kind of parasite belonging to the church,
called the Deftara, preyed on the general ignorance
and superstition of the people. He was a scribe
who copied the holy books, but made a consider-
able income by the manufacture of love philters,
which have more or less curious effects upon the
unconscious recipient. Our doctor was consulted
one morning by a man for some means to alleviate
the distress of his brother, who was acutely suffer-
ing from the effects of one of these concoctions
administered by some young lady who wanted this
indifferent youth to look upon her with love and

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

devotion. But the philter had the contrary effect — •
had not touched his heart, but had upset his
stomach. At first I thought this unromantic result
must be a mistake; but I found out by personal
observation that the seat of affection in an Abyssin-
ian generally lies where the philter attacked the
doctor's unfortunate patient, for feasting seems to
be his only joy and comfort. All repasts were
more or less composed of the Abyssinian piece de
resistance — raw meat. If you happened to be
seated near the open door during a banquet, you
might see this course prepared. An ox is brought
into the compound and its throat is skillfully cut.
Before the animal has fairly breathed its last,
skinning is commenced. The flesh is then cut into
long strips and brought still warm to the hungry
and impatient guests, who devour it, not quite
like wild beasts, but with the use of weapons of all
kinds, from daggers and swords to pocketknives.
The consumer of this delicacy takes one end of the
strip or string of meat into his mouth, placing it
between his teeth. In his left he holds the viand
bodily, and with the right gives a drawing cut
with his saber, severing the flesh close up to his
lips. When one piece has been devoured the opera-
tion is repeated. This mode of feeding requires
some practice and has its inconveniences, especially
to people with long noses and a thirst for strong
drink, for it is generally a sign when noses begin to
suffer cutaneous losses from a too close proximity

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

of dagger or saber that the host's tedge (a native
drink) has been both strong and plentiful.

The Abyssinians have a curious superstition
regarding eating in the open, and will hide them-
selves under their togas during this function. To
them a fit of indigestion from overfeeding is
evidence of the evil eye and indicates that some
part of the performance of appeasing their appetite
has been observed. People carry amulets contain-
ing prayers to counteract this evil, and rolls of
parchment several yards long with pictures illustra-
tive of the triumph of the Good Spirit over that
wicked orb are kept in their houses for protection.

If an Abyssinian sells you anything and is kindly
inclined, he will caution you to keep it indoors or
covered up, for if it comes under the glance of a
devilish eye it may spoil or disappear. The latter
contingency is by far the more likely: I have seen
eyes of this description glancing about. I came
across one of them one day walking off with some
dollars from a pile in our paymaster's tent.

The Marie Therese dollar piece was the only coin
recognized in the country, and it had to be in good
condition. The jewels on the crown and necklet
must not be in any way obliterated or the coin
was condemned. We secured all the dollars we
could at Massowah before we started, and examined
them carefully. All those whose jewels were not
intact we relegated to a separate bag for gifts to
the Abyssinian priests, who made them into silver

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

ornaments for their church. These silver coins,
with bolts of cloth and bars of rock salt ten inches
long, served as their ordinary medium of barter.
Members of our Mission traded a good deal with
empty beer, wine, and soda-water bottles, receiving
two chickens and a dozen eggs for a quart.

This craze for our empty bottles was extraor-
dinary. The natives seemed to be fascinated by
the fact that the liquid could always be seen. I
was out shooting with an Abyssinian chief one
morning and when we sat down in the shadow of a
rock for luncheon I offered him some whisky and
water out of a Worcestershire sauce bottle which I
carried. To my surprise he showed intense conster-
nation at the sight of it. At first I thought this
might be due to his being a total abstainer, but I
soon found that his remarkable behavior was
caused by the bottle and not by its contents, for his
hands trembled with excitement as he examined it.

The glass stopper was the thing that astonished
him most. He held up the sparkling lump of glass
in the sunlight for a while, and then, with evident
enjoyment, replaced it in the bottle and said:
"Honored stranger, you must indeed be a great
chief to own so wondrous a thing. Only the Negus
Negusti and his chief, the great Ras Alula, possess
the glass bottle, and theirs have no plugs but pieces
of rags on the cone of a mealy. There is no such
thing as a stopper of glass in the whole Abyssinian
kingdom/'

riLLIERB; HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

"Well," I said, "there's nothing mean about me.
You seem to take a fancy to my hunting flask; keep
it; take it away; it is yours."

For some time he could hardly realize the serious-
ness of my generosity. At last with a gleam of joy
in his face he caught up the precious object, and,
cautiously looking round in case of a wandering
evil eye, wrapped it in the end of his toga. He
then pressed me to come home with him; his
daughter was young and comely; would I not
stay in the land? There was meat and drink and
shooting and a wife who would make a loving
helpmate into the bargain. I told him that I must
report myself in camp that night, and I would
think over his generous proposal.

I hurried back to Adowa and Sir William Hewitt's
little encampment. The following afternoon my
much-indebted friend called for me and took me to
his home, where the ladies of his household, with
their Nubian slaves, were preparing cakes for a
banquet in my honor. His daughter was indeed a
beautiful type of Abyssinian girl with large, lustrous,
sloe-black eyes and glistening white teeth. Her
hair was plaited in four lateral plaits across her
cranium which met in a little knot at the back of
her head. A large lump of butter that had been
placed on the top of her head early in the day
had gradually thawed and was now dripping from
the knot behind and trailing in dark lines down
the profusely embroidered gown which clung to a

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

figure almost equal to that of the Venus de Milo.
The only thing to mar her loveliness was her right
ankle, swollen to twice its natural size owing to a
guinea worm which was forcing its way up to the
surface of the skin. This trouble is very prevalent
in Abyssinia, due, some say, to the custom of eating
raw flesh; others say it is caused by drinking from
pools of stagnant water. The beast grows to an
enormous length in the human body, and when
once it breaks through the skin the head of it must
be tied to a small stick and gradually wound round
until its whole length is drawn out.

That little trouble spoiled the romance of the
situation for me, and my visits to the house became
less frequent. But the father never quite forgot
his gratitude for my present. He would send his
slave with an occasional jar of excellent tedge with
which to regale me and my companions.

Tedge, or mese, as it is sometimes called, is not
unlike new cider. One part of honey is mixed with
about six parts of water and stirred until completely
dissolved. Then It is poured into a narrow-necked
earthen jar and a bitter herb called sesho, the bark
of the traddo tree, is added. The liquid is then
left to ferment and at the end of four days it is
ready for consumption. For a snappy drink I
can highly recommend tedge. It is strained through
cotton cloth, tied round the mouth of the earthen
jars, into cow horns which are used as drinking
utensils. The beverage can be made sweet or bitter

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OP ADVENTURE

according to taste, and is most refreshing and
sometimes very potent — especially the bitter variety.
I think this would satisfy some people in these
prohibition days who like to have a "snap" in
their drink, for with perseverance one could get
quite forward on sufficient horns of tedge. This so-
called barbarous land had drastic liquor laws long
before the more civilized countries of Europe and
America ever thought of them. In Theodore's
reign in 1868 the common people were not allowed
to make tedge because their Emperor came to the
conclusion that they did not get drunk like gentle-
men, but made beasts of themselves and quarreled
in their cups. The drink which he permitted the
lower classes to have is less harmful to the human
stomach than near-beer. It is made from toasted
bread soaked in water sweetened with honey and,
like tedge, strained into earthen jars. This drink,
I am told, resembles an old fifteenth-century
beverage in England called mead.

Abyssinia is also ahead of us in prohibiting
smoking. Theodore's measures were cruel but
sound. The punishment always fitted the crime;
for instance, the use of tobacco was punished by
cutting off the lips of the smoker (or the nose, for
snuff-takers), but I have seen many natives chew
the latter with impunity.

We were awakened early one morning in our
little encampment in the southeast corner of the
Adowa Valley by a distant noise, quite indistinguish-

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

able at first, but gradually developing into the
sound of a drum beaten slowly and methodically,
drumming out some order or command, to judge by
the recurrence of the same tones.

We knew this signaled that the King was about
to start on his final stage to Adowa, because for
the last few days rumors had come into camp that
he was slowly but surely nearing us. Presently
low chanting and the tinkling of bells were heard
coming from the direction of the town, and a stream
of church dignitaries, followed by a choir of boys,
wended their way past our camp and over the hills
in search of their royal master. The beating of
the drum never ceased its monotonous refrain,
which Captain Speedy, our chief interpreter, was
now able to read. It sounded, "John hoi, John hoi,
John," which means in English, "I am he, John, I
am he, John." When "he — John" at last came,
Admiral Sir William Hewitt and Mason Bey were
received with their respective suites in audience by
His Majesty. On entering the palace — if the huts
which constituted the royal residence could be
called one — we found the Negus Negusti, King of
Zion, seated on a throne covered with violet satin
cloth, and supported on either side by pillows of
the same rich stuff, with the Cross of Solomon
worked thereon in gold.

On his right side stood a servant with a silver-
handled horsehair switch, which he kept swaying
to and fro to prevent the flies from feeding off the

VOL. II. — 3 *9

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

butter on the royal head, for His Majesty indulged
in the habit of greasing as well as his lowly sub-
jects; and the fat sparkled on his crisp black hair
which had been neatly plaited in three broad bands
stretching from the forehead over the cranium to
the nape of the neck where they narrowed and
were held together by a diamond-headed pin.
Drawn up just over the tip of the nose and totally
covering the lower part of the face and body was
the shemma, or toga. The King, who looked to be
all eyes, scanned us each suspiciously as we ap-
proached the throne and bowed.

He shook hands with the two envoys. This
movement necessitated the partial uncovering of
the body, disclosing the massive cross of the Order
of Solomon gleaming on a gown of black silk. But
only for a moment was so much royalty seen; as
the admiral and Mason Bey seated themselves the
toga was up to his mouth again, as if our presence
had suddenly made him feel very ill. When, however,
servant after servant had carried in the numerous
presents we had brought with us and placed them
at the feet of the Negusti, a deep interest was
apparent in his keen black eyes; and when the
glittering plated weapons came to view as box after
box was pried open, Johannes gradually dropped
his toga and his dignity and became visibly affected
by the sincerity of a Mission thus provided with
such valuable arguments.

After a short introduction the admiral told him

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

the object of his Mission and presented the Queen's
letter, the envelope of which was at least a foot
square and was incased in a rich sack of velvet
embroidered with gold. The King now smiled and
unbent, for he dropped the shemma to his shoulders,
and we could see that his face wore an amiable
expression. It was oval and regular, but the chin
receded slightly. It was a face that suggested
nothing of the cruel, sensuous type of despot that
some had accused the Ethiopian emperors of being.

There was nothing about his palace to show that
it was a royal residence except the throne on which
he sat. The room was circular and the walls were
made of ocher-washed mud; the roof was of thatch,
much stained by the smoke of the small fire in-
cessantly burning in the center of the rush-covered
floor to drive the mosquitoes away. There was an
outlet in the roof through which the smoke was
supposed to find its way out of the room.

There was about this King of Kings of Ethiopia
little of that ostentation or love of finery and out-
ward show which generally characterizes monarchs
of his race and color.

A few days later the admiral applied for per-
mission to send an officer to the coast with dis-
patches. This request was granted, but we found
that the Negus Negusti evidently thought that
there was no immediate hurry in the matter, for
day after day passed by and the necessary escort of
Abyssinian soldiers was not forthcoming. There

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

was no doubt, at this period, that the Italian consul
at Mocha was using all his influence to minimize
the success of our Mission. One day we intercepted
a letter to the Negus from an Italian who claimed
to have solved the difficulty of steering balloons
against the wind. The intention of the letter was
to impress upon the King the superiority of the
Italians over the English in the art of war.

Meanwhile, the King and his courtiers and the
officials attached to the palace began to show us
marked coolness. The British admiral suppressed
his anger at this treatment as long as he could,
which was remarkable, considering his choleric
disposition. However, one afternoon, as I was
about to call on him, I was suddenly arrested by
vigorous and emphatic expletives coming from the
direction of his tent. He was pacing up and down
in great dudgeon, very red in the face and evidently
bursting with indignation. •Occasionally he halted
and shook his fist toward the King's palace up on
the hill, and the following language was plainly
audible, "By G — ! if I only had my Euryalus
[his flagship] up here I would give you, you infernal
nigger, something for your insolence!" This, I
concluded, meant a few live shells dropped into the
reception room of the King's palace.

The Italian letter, the cause of all the delay, was
written in English of sorts, for all foreign corre-
spondence with European powers was carried on in
that tongue. It ran as follows:

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

TO THE RULERS OF NATIONS, EXPLORERS OF

THE EARTH, AND INHABITANTS OF

THE GLOBE

THE FIRST DIRIGIBLE BALLOON, 1884

I announce to you that I have discovered the secret
of navigating the air in a balloon against the wind.

I have not yet put in practice my great discovery
because the means are still wanting, but long study, and
repeated experiments have assured me of a successful
result and that in a short time men will be able to navi-
gate round the world in a balloon.

Now this being in many respects a delicate subject
as the peace and tranquility of the woold might be en-
dangered by the areonaut carrying arms and bombs
across the confines of even the most powerful states and
so exciting general uneasiness, it may be readily imagined
that, desirons as I am that my invention be beneficial
to the would and not hurtful, I cannot divulge my segret
till I learn the views and intentions of the different
governements and so avoid all un necessary suscepti-
bility and the possible effusion of blood and treasure to
the alter destruction of all peace and security.

If then my invention he trought worthy of your appro-
bation, I await a reply before publishing my secret.

FRANCESCO MASTRODOMENICO.

Castlenuovo di Consa Provinvia di Salerno.
Naples — Printed by Ferrante Vico Tiratolo. 25

Abyssinia will always be remembered by me for
its extraordinary thunderstorms. Never in any
other part of the globe have I seen such marvelous,

F I LITERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

almost appalling, lightning effects or heard such
aerial bombardments as on the plateau of Asmara.
And this really wonderful and beautiful country
will always live in my memory for yet another
reason — its large and interesting simian population.

In the patches of rocky ground round about
Adowa monkeys were teeming — all kinds of simians,
from the big baboon down to the delicate blue
monkey. One could pass through miles of this
territory and see its inhabitants sitting on the
rocks on either side of the mule path. They would
chatter at you, make many faces and probably say
rude things, and a few would dare even to throw
stones.

These were the militant and restless kind. Gen-
erally the monkeys were far from aggressive and
would sit about in family groups, huddled
together in the most human, domestic fashion. On
a stranger's passing, many of the males would run
toward their females and young and sit with their
arms about the waists of their wives or best girls
in a most pathetic and imploring manner, as if to
say, "Please don't break up our happy home"!

Though these monkeys are accustomed, nearly
every day, to the crashing blast of the thunder in
the surrounding hills, the sharp crack of the rifle
made them crazy with fear.

One morning while passing through their territory
I happened to fire at a guinea fowl for the midday
meal, and in a moment the whole welkin rang with

THE NEGUS NEGUSTI

the most piteous cries and squeals, and a mob of
several hundred simians rose up, as one man, and
scurried over the scrub and rocks to places of
safety — their lairs between the bowlders. To see
the mothers snatch up their young, the husbands,
grandpas, sisters, cousins, and aunts all scattering
frantically from the crack of that shot was a sight
worth traveling for.

In returning to camp I was passing through a
picturesque copse with a rivulet sparkling through
the undergrowth, when two Abyssinians came
toward me leading by a grass rope a little monkey
who was limping painfully behind them. I stopped
as usual to greet the men in my best Amharic,
when the monkey immediately rushed at me and
scrambled up my leg. Putting his little head under
my left arm he trembled with excitement. I took
my knife, cut the rope, and threw the natives a
dollar. Then I examined the monkey and found
he was bleeding from the mouth owing to a piece of
wood having been thrust between the jaws to keep
him from biting. I carried him to the stream,
washed his mouth and took him in triumph to our
camp where he was not long in becoming a favorite
with all hands.

Chapter II

CATASTROPHE

The return to the coast — The simian's attempt to desert — The mummers —
Lion — The palace — The catastrophe — A curious sunrise — Adventures
of William Ridley — Down the Red Sea — Alexandria — Paris — London —
He meets his old enemy — Arrested by police — His incarceration — His
end.

WHEN at last the admiral was allowed to
send a special messenger down to his flag-
ship the Euryalus, at Massowah, to notify that
the Mission would be on its return to the coast
shortly, I accompanied the officer. The handy men
in camp, the bluejackets who had taken a tre-
mendous fancy to my monkey, made out of empty
commissariat boxes a special cage to shelter him
from the vagaries of the weather during the 8,000-
foot descent to the sea, for the rainy season was
about to commence and there is no rain in the
world quite like the Abyssinian downpour. My
dear friend Mason Bey, on hearing the story of my
little monkey's miseries, before I took charge of
him, was good enough to accept him as a permanent
addition to our camp and showed his amiability
still further by christening him William Ridley.

CATASTROPHE

I could not make out the reason for this name, but
it pleased Mason, and I didn't mind, as the monkey
answered to it readily enough, but afterward I found
out that William Ridley was the hero of a favorite
song he had heard sung away down in Georgia.

Everybody fell in love with William; the blue-
jackets would insist on supplementing his diet of
nuts and berries with onions which were found in
abundance in the vicinity of Adowa. My monkey
reeked with the pungent, aroma, and when he showed
me any extra affection by rubbing his little head
on my cheek, I had perforce to pinch his tail in order
to make him keep at a respectful distance. He
would then spring away chattering the rudest
simian expletives that occurred to him, until he
shortly forgot all about the affront.

That journey back to the plains was full of light
and shade owing to the joyous versatility of Ridley.
One morning just as we were about to break camp
he got loose and kept us all on the hop for an hour
till he was recaptured. He had been secured round
the waist by a halliard a few yards long, to give him
free play in his antics. He careered over the rocks,
with it trailing behind, and up and down trees;
but at last in climbing a branch the rope caught
and he hung kicking and swaying at the end of it.
We eventually sawed through the cord, by reaching
it with a spearhead, and caught him as he fell. He
probably realized we were leaving his lovely temper-
ate climate for the hot and dreary plains and

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

thought he would make a last struggle for the land
of his birth.

That day was full of adventure; in the afternoon
we entered a gloomy valley, densely packed with
foliage that led toward a high rocky ridge, which
we had to climb for the final lap to Asmara and
Alula's Plateau. A narrow stream sped noisily
through the underbrush playing round huge bowlders
which lay scattered about. I was ahead of the party
with my monkey seated on my shoulder when he
became uneasy, clinging to my neck and peering
through the dense, somber bush. With an uneasy
premonition that there was something wrong,
I tried to pacify him, but still he fretted and
kept up his chattering. Presently a native in
full war toga rushed from the bush flourishing a
spear and ordered me to stop.

I turned to our interpreter who had just arrived
by my side. "Don't move, sir," he cried, "and
show no alarm," but the monkey chattered ter-
ribly at the spearman as he stood now pointing
his weapon in the direction of the bush. Then,
suddenly out of the gloomy shadows, with loud
shouts and yells about thirty natives leaped toward
us, brandishing spears or striking their sabers on
their silver-bossed leathern shields. They stabbed
and slashed at the ground, and then at the trees.
I stood petrified with this sudden frantic, apparently
hostile rush, but no spear was thrown at us, for the
whole party had now ridden up. Swords were

CATASTROPHE

brandished within a foot of our heads, but no cuts
were made. Then the natives ceased their yells
and disappeared into the scrub and sank behind
the bowlders. Quietude reigned once more.

Presently we found those who had retired were
grubbing in the earth, evidently searching for
something, and soon parts of human skeletons were
brought to us with great glee. One man held in
front of me a skull split transversely so that he was
able to grin through the gruesome empty eye
sockets. I had to signify my admiration at his
attempt to frighten me, and smiled approvingly.
Our interpreter now explained to us the erratic
conduct of the native soldiers. They were only
play-acting, trying to describe, by their excellent
mumming, how they had destroyed the Egyptian
forces under Arundrap Bey and Count Zichey a
few years before on this very spot and the bones
were the remains of those officers and their un-
fortunate followers. The Khedivial army had been
allowed to invade the country unmolested till they
reached a place called Gorra, containing a stream
of fresh water. After a long, waterless march across
the Godofelassi Plateau, toward sunset, the baggage
animals scented the precious water and hurried
forward to quench their thirst. Ordinary military
precautions were disregarded. That sparkling stream
was too much of a lure to thirsty men and animals,
and they hurried down 2,000 feet of this rocky
declivity and scattered over the valley — a dis-

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

orderly crowd which fell an easy prey to the cunning
enemy, hidden in the bush and behind the bowlders.
Of the thousands that entered that somber valley
few ever returned to Egypt, and those were brutally
mutilated. All the equipment and baggage fell into
Abyssinian hands, as well as the treasure chest
containing 30,000 golden lire (this coin is the
equivalent to the English sovereign). But Ras
Alula's men had no idea of the value of gold, and a
few months afterward they were willing to trade
their lire with Greek traders, visiting the country,
for bright silver Marie Therese dollars worth a
little over fifty cents.

That evening we arrived on the plateau, and we
were just about to camp for the night when a
thunderstorm burst upon us. The rain hammered
us so heavily that for a time we could not budge a
foot, and had to sit on our horses till it stopped.
My top-boots were so full of water that my servant
had to slip them off and empty them before I
could dismount in comfort. However these storms
go as quickly as they come and in a short time
kettles were boiling, tents were up and we were
drying our clothes by a merry camp fire. William
Ridley was uncaged and became, as usual, the life
and soul of the party. We soon found food for the
pot only a few yards away, for guinea fowl were so
plentiful that there was no necessity to spend a
cartridge on them; we knocked them over with
sticks or stones.

CATASTROPHE

After dinner we were starting our pipes when
William began to show signs of distress. He seemed
by his unmistakable gestures to be listening, and
then he climbed up my leg and sat on my shoulder
trembling violently. It was a moonlight night,
but the ground was throwing off a vaporous haze
after the torrential rain; everything looked gray
and shapes seemed to double their size in the thin
mist. Presently came a< throaty, sonorous roar
close at hand. "Lion!" was the cry, and we all
jumped to our feet. We at once piled more logs
on the fire and immediately ignited another by
the horse lines. Then we loaded our rifles and
waited.

Soon the long, lithe body of a lioness slunk past
the outskirts of our camp, the light of the fire
blazing red in her glowing eyes as she looked at us
with a snarl and turned away. She had evidently
been told off as a scout by her lord and master, a
big fellow with a splendid mane, who presently
appeared and rubbed noses with her. Then they
both slowly disappeared in the mist. We itched
to ease off our rifles, but the visibility was not good
for a sure shot, and a wounded lion might give lots
of trouble and further disconcert the horses and
mules, which were already frantically straining at
their heel ropes in their fright.

The fires were kept burning throughout the
night and a lively watch was set, in which I know
William joined, for his murmurings and chatterings

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

disturbed me as I tried to slumber. By dawn the
dreaded beasts had gone back to their lairs and we
slept in peace till the sun was well up.

The journey down to the sea took only a few
hours and we were on the scorched plains of Ailet
before nightfall. Looking back toward the plateau
of the mountain we could see the regular afternoon
thunderstorm bursting, spreading its refreshing
rains over the verdant hills, while we were in a
country where it rained on the average only once
in three years.

Arriving in Massowah I hired a fast dhow to run
over to Aden, where my dispatch was placed on
the wires, a message of two hundred words to the
Daily News, the most costly cable that paper had
ever received, but it gave a draft of the famous
treaty made with the Negus Negusti, King of
Zion, and King of Kings of Ethiopia. This was
published in London a few days before the British
government, through its agents, was made ac-
quainted with the terms, and was the first word
to be received in England of our safety. The
government was already being abused for having
bottled up Gordon in Khartum and Admiral
Hewitt in Abyssinia, and when on top of this my
telegram was made public a question was asked in
the House of Commons why the Daily News was
more favored than the British government in getting
such important word from the Mission.

The palace of Massowah, of which Ridley and I

CATASTROPHE

were the sole occupants, on our return to the coast,
was a completely square two-story building sur-
rounded on three sides by the sea and connected
with the mainland by a narrow causeway. It
was built of rock coral and stood on a reef of that
porous material. There was a veranda right round
the upper story on which my simian companion
and I slept.

The second night after our arrival I was lying
on my camp bedstead under its shelter with William,
who was quite close to me, attached by his cord to
the balustrade.

The moon was shedding her full, mellow light
over land and ocean and, as I dozed, the scene was
perfectly peaceful. There was not a ripple on the
waters, which lay like a sheet of burnished steel,
and only the striking of the ships' bells in the
harbor broke the quietude of the night. Suddenly
I awoke with the whir and squeal of bats as by
hundreds they left the nooks and crannies of the
portico. I tried to open my eyes, but the lids
seemed to be glued together with a thin layer of
dust; when at last I was able to look around the
calmness of the sea was broken by thousands of
small fish leaping out of the sheen, the light of the
moon turning their bodies into glittering silver,
and, as they fell, they lashed the sea till it hissed
and bubbled for miles. Immediately, the whole
palace seemed seized with an attack of St. Vitus's
Dance. The sensation brought to my lips the one

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

word "Earthquake!" and as the building squirmed
and rocked I cleared the balustrade at a bound
and came down on all fours on the causeway and
raced for the open. But I suddenly halted, for
such a piteous, heartrending cry from William
made me look back. He had certainly leaped for
life, but only to the end of his tether, and he was
now swaying with the building — a miserable scared
little monkey with hair standing like quills upon
the fretful porcupine. I doubled back, cut his rope,
and with my released and grateful companion hang-
ing round my neck rushed again into the open,
where we remained. At last the palace seemed to
pull itself together from its drunken orgy and
stood steady and serene once more in a placid
ocean. I sat with my monkey on the sand till
sunrise. This happened in a most erratic kind
of way, as if the property man at a theater was
lighting up a few gas jets below a stage horizon.
There was, apparently, a jerkiness about the glorious
orb that morning. At last he shot up looking for
a few seconds like a full ripe apricot balanced on
the sky line; then he sailed majestically into the
blue and commenced his scorching process again.
When we returned to the palace the scared bats
were tucking themselves into their shady haunts
out of the glare; the cook had already arrived
from his safety zone on the desert; and my coffee
was steaming on the table.

Two years later I read in my morning paper in

CATASTROPHE

London that the whole town of Massowah had
been destroyed by a similar visitation. There was
no mention of the palace, so I hope it suffered no
more damage than when William and I left it that
memorable night rocking upon the face of the
waters.

The crews of our two ships in the harbor had
suffered terribly from the intense, stifling heat,
waiting for the return of the belated Mission.
Half the complement of H. M. S. Euryalus was down
with fever and there had been two deaths a day
from sunstroke for the last week.

The composite gunboat H. M. S. Coquette, on which
I had my quarters, was painted black, and therefore
her hull absorbed the blistering sun's rays much
more than her sister ship, which was of the Indian
squadron anc painted white. When I got on
board with Ridley I found the only men who were
fit to call themselves "able seamen" were the
paymaster and the captain; the rest were down
with fever and sun, with the exception of a stoker
and the chief, who were lying about the deck suffer-
ing terrible lassitude.

When we arrived at the next port of Suakim,
there was still some fighting going on with the
Fuzzy Wuzzy, and the men had orders to stand by
their guns. They managed to crawl to positions,
and there they lay in a state of torpor waiting for
the supreme moment when they had somehow to
serve their pieces. Things went from bad to worse

VOL. ii. — 4 35 \

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

on board, and eventually the Coquette became hos-
pital ship to her own crew, for there were no
men fit to work her, and she had to be towed to
Suez.

No wonder that the men were in such sore plight :
the Red Sea at this time of year is practically a
molten mass of brass from the rising to the setting
of the sun, and the water, apparently at boiling
heat all day, is also on the simmer all night. More-
over, there was no ice aboard and the whole ship
was teeming with cockroaches. We breathed an
atmosphere of roach; one could scent them within
ten yards on nearing the ship side. Everything edible
was tainted by them — soup, fish, or fowl; all drinks
on board savored of the horrible beetles, and if one's
toes were left uncovered at night they were nibbled
by them till dawn. William, whom the sick sailors
loved and fed with onions, became a blessing in
disguise, as his aromatic presence would often
squelch the nauseating scent of those ghastly roaches.
At Suakim we left the "Cockroach," the nickname
her sailors had given her, for there was nothing
about her suggestive of the joyness of the Coquette,
and we were glad to board a Red Sea trading
steamer bound for Suez.

It was a very rough passage. Being Ridley's
first experience of the pitch and toss of the sea,
he couldn't understand it, and I had to nurse him
like a baby. He would lie limp in my arms or in
the covers of the boats for days. The only time

CATASTROPHE

he showed any energy was when I was compelled
to leave him to get my meals, when he would
stagger to his feet, and with the lurch of a drunkard
make wry faces at me and swear in simian like a
trooper, till he fell back exhausted. But on my
return he would try and make up for his loss of
temper by tucking his little head under my arm and
falling asleep.

By the time we reached Suez William was him-
self again, full of fun and frolic. On board the
train to Alexandria the ticket examiner demanded
his fare. He couldn't class him as a child under
twelve and wanted a full adult fee. This I flatly
refused to pay; I argued that he was really a babe
in arms and was altogether exempt. Then the
official tried to capture him, but William scored
at that game, till the train suddenly started and
the man was left shaking his fist at us from the
platform.

The principal thing that seemed to attract my
monkey's attention on this journey was the sudden
appearance and disappearance of the telegraph
poles along the track. Each time they came into
view the monkey cringed as if they were about to
hit him and, when nothing happened, he could
not account for their disappearance. The move-
ment of his head was so incessant as he followed
the moving poles from right to left and his brain
became so rattled that he couldn't stand it any
longer, and he would come to me and look dreamily

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

up into my face as much as to say, "Master, it's
one of those things that no fellow can understand 1"

At Zagazig, an official came to our carriage, for
he had been advised of Ridley's presence, and
wanted his ticket. I told him there was "nothing
doing," I was not going to pay. The station master
was called and he insisted that something should
be done; then the goods clerk was consulted;
but he couldn't find the price for simians in his
passenger-fare book. He did, indeed, have a list
for live stock, but we found no monkeys scheduled
in it. The matter was eventually settled by my
paying the freight fee for a bicycle, and William and
I were satisfied to let it go at that.

On arriving at my old hotel in Alexandria, I
went to my room, and taking my monkey witft me,
locked him in while I ordered my dinner. On my
return William had disappeared, but on the floor
lay a smashed ewer, the debris of much shattered
glass and a general mess-up all round. I saw at a
glance what had happened. The monkey, being
thirsty and smelling water, had jumped up on the
washstand and dipping his head into the grateful
liquid, had upset the jug on to the carpet. Then,
in his fright, he had leaped to the mantelshelf and,
discovering his replica in the looking-glass and
thinking it another monkey, he had in his excite-
ment swept the shelf clean of all its usual orna-
ments.

Finally in utter consternation he had made for

CATASTROPHE

the bed, where I found him, a shivering, chattering
heap of mischief, hiding under the sheets. It was
quite a time before I could pacify the little devil,
but at last I took him, well brushed and combed,
down to dinner, where I arranged a special chair
for him. There he sat peacefully till the dessert
came, when he regaled himself on nuts and bananas
to the delight of all the hotel guests. This, his first
advent in orthodox society, was a genuine success.

We left Egypt for the port of Marseilles on
board a French steamer. I could not get a saloon
passage for William, and he was ignominiously
handed over to the butcher for the journey. But
Ridley would always make friends. I went to the
steerage to see him the morning after we sailed,
and he hardly recognized me. He was so busy
with his antics and was already the life and joy of
that part of the ship. Especially at mealtime he
would show his popularity. A queue of sailors
would pass dishes with food from the galley from
one to another until they reached their owners.
William, with wonderful dexterity, swinging from
bulwark or rateline, snatched titbits as the dishes
passed him, then he would hike away up in the
rigging and throw the scraps he did not want on to
the heads of the delighted men below. All the
good manners I had taught him had gone entirely
to the winds and he was an unkempt, wild little
savage once more. Day after day his popularity
increased, and when he got to France there were

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF AD7ENTURE

many heartaches among that rough crew at the
going of Ridley.

Cholera was raging at Marseilles, and though we
came from an open, clean port with a sound bill of
health, we were placed in quarantine for a few days
and anchored close to the gloomy walls of the
famous Chateau dTf, that figures so dramatically
in Alexander Dumas's story, The Count of Monte
Cristo. I could easily reconstruct in my imagi-
nation the incident of throwing out the sack into
the dark waters of the bay and the wonderful
escape of the hero.

Eventually we landed and there was a rush for
the Paris train. All the carriages were crowded by
frightened citizens escaping from the terrible epi-
demic. The weather was intensely hot and most
of the passengers sweated and fumed with dread of
a visitation before they could reach Paris. William
had to make shift on the rack in the lavatory, and
saved his fare by keeping very quiet in an open
battened box, which the ticket collector, so occupied
with the terrible forebodings of cholera, took for a
peach crate from the sunny south.

Arriving in Paris, I thought I would give my
Abyssinian friend a taste of the joys of the city, so
we went to the Hotel Continental, then just opened,
off the rue de Rivoli, and he had the run of a sector
of a balcony on the third story. He, of course,
was the life and soul of that floor — at least with
the bonnes. They were with him every time

CATASTROPHE

they were off duty, feeding him on the best. Now
William never refused things edible. He would
seize them, and if he couldn't eat them, he would
hoard them* for a rainy day in a corner. Eggs he
never cared for, but the chambermaids evidently
thought monkeys sucked these delicacies raw.
These eggs were, therefore, hoarded and reserved by
Ridley for exercise and amusement. One morning
I had left him on the balcony with a long tether so
that he could frisk and skip about. On coming
back to dejeuner I found a small crowd outside the
hotel; and an irascible and gesticulating individual
cursed and swore in the gentle manner which is the
custom with Frenchmen, as he brushed his silk
hat, which was irredeemably damaged by a shattered
and ancient egg. I looked up at my balcony and,
as I feared, there was the little, impudent monkey
face peering through the railing. I hurried up to
the room and at once requisitioned the remainder
of Ridley's reserve commissariat and hid him till
the matter of the soiled hat settled down.

Paris was getting much too warm for William,
who was so pleased with the moving targets below
that he would throw whatever food he could not
consume for the moment over the balcony, and,
though those subsequent shots were not as good as
his first, they brought the attention of the police,
and we had to clear out. We therefore started
by the next day's mail for London. At the customs
office in Dover I was able boldly to state that my

7ILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF AD7ENTURE

simian companion was from the court of King
John, and the douaniers and police were much
impressed, for whether or not it was the effect of
the rather somber climate of England, after the
joyous, sunny lands we had passed through, my
friend was depressed and very sedate, and received
the numerous handshakes of welcome at the fa-
mous Channel port in as stately a fashion as an
ambassador.

My studio at Primrose Hill in London was
William's address for many months. He would
settle himself on a parrot stand, to which he was
chained, and slept on the crossbar. Of an evening
I would take him out with me to call on friends.
He would hop and skip along by my side till he met
a dog, when he would run up my body and sit on
my left shoulder, whence he could abuse that
animal in the most lurid Amharic simian tongue.
Cats he didn't mind, he had contempt for them and
could almost articulate their mews, but the dog
was to him a fearsome beast with a bark that
evidently shocked him by its coarseness. An
incident worth mentioning that occurred within his
short life was the arrival of the envoys from
Abyssinia, with a return message from the colored
Emperor to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

I invited the envoys to a party in my studio
and asked quite a few members of London society
to meet them. The latter were mostly ladies, who
wore the fashionable toque much in vogue, a con-

CATASTROPHE

faction of fruit and flowers. They all took a fancy
to William, who was dolled up with a rosette and
looked absolutely charming. They would approach
him with endearing terms, which he took very
sedately, but if they placed their pretty faces too
near to his whiskers he would snatch a handful of
the vegetable trimmings ofF their hats and bonnets,
put them to his lips, then finding that they were
only " make-believes" cast them with much disgust
on the floor. He was certainly not amiable that
afternoon. Whether he had a premonition of
what was about to take place I don't know, but
when my servant announced the arrival of the
Abyssinian delegates, and the first chief entered
the studio in full rig with shemma and the Order of
the Black Leopard across his shoulders, the monkey
at once recognized an old enemy. In a flash, with
fiery eyes and gleaming teeth, he leaped forward
at him to the full length of his tether, but luckily
he fell half a foot short of the chief's head. The
whole party was paralyzed at his behavior and no
doubt thought what an unreasonable and very
rude simian my pet was. I rolled him up — a
chattering, irate, struggling piece of fluff and fury —
in a sheet, and like a bundle of soiled linen he was
shot into a clothes basket in my sleeping room, and
there remained until my august guest and his retinue
had left. Then I told the remainder of my visitors
of my first meeting with Ridley in that little wood
on the Abyssinian plateau, of his bleeding mouth

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

and his misery, how he took to white men and how
he hated colored gentlemen, and confessed it was
all my fault, as I ought never to have placed him in
such a delicate position. My friends insisted that
the monkey should be released from the clothes
basket; so combed and brushed he was soon back
in the studio, and as a sort of apology for our un-
kind treatment we regaled him with strawberry
jam, a condiment which had come to him with the
dawn of civilization, and which he much enjoyed.

As another war was at hand I had to leave my
little friend in the care of others who did not know
monkey ways. He eventually got arrested for
stealing some Indian corn which a denizen of St.
John's Wood had grown with much patience to
maturity in his conservatory at the end of his
garden. This gentleman was an invalid, and said
that the sight of the golden grain took him away
from the murky climate of the metropolis, back to
the sunny Southern land of the U. S. A. But Ridley
in a mad freak jumped the whole lot one night;
the police were called in and the crime was easily
fixed on my monkey. He was sentenced for life
to the common simian cage of the Zoological Gardens
in London, and there a few months after he died,
no doubt from a broken heart. And as the great
bard says, "I shall never look upon his like again."

Chapter III

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

Dongola and its Mudirie — Oriental splendor — A quaint fleet — By Nile
and desert — / interview the Mudir — / am disillusioned — My first
immersion in the historic river — Crocodiles — I lose my kit, but save my
life — Kitchener comes on the scene.

WHAT contributed more than anything else
to my resolve to share the fortunes of the
British army in the Gordon Relief Expedition of
1884-85 was an article which I read in one of the
daily papers. In it was a description of the palace
of the Mudir of Dongola.

The Oriental splendor depicted in the account
written by the author of this article could not be
excelled by the best story from the Arabian Nights.
The Mudir, according to it, was the Oriental po-
tentate of one's boyhood's conception, attired in
turban and Turkish trousers, with a scimitar by
his side. His throne was a Turkish carpet of rare
beauty, on which he lounged, supported by soft
cushions of Broussa silk; Damascene lamps, burn-
ing fragrant oil, hung from the lofty Moorish ceiling
and diffused soft light on the swarthy faces of his

'VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

courtiers, who prostrated themselves before their
ruler. A screen of the finest masharabeyeh, or
latticework, divided the divan from the harem, and
soft laughter, the low beating of a tom-tom and the
scraping of a stringed instrument told the western
visitor that the life of the stern-featured Mudir
had its softer side.

This was more or less the tone of the article I
read, and I resolved that I must see that Mudir
and, if possible, have a peep into his harem. There
must also have been a spirit of adventure in this
daring correspondent, for no person was allowed
outside the British outposts; so he must have
given the sentries the slip and crossed a weary
stretch of desert, and he must have suffered much
hardship for many days before reaching his goal.
I read that article over and over again, and longed
to follow in the author's footsteps.

At last the order came from my paper to join
Wolseley's expedition, and I hurried to Cairo.
Gen. Charles G. Gordon, with but one other British
officer to assist him in keeping the Egyptian garrison
up to their duty, had for months been holding
Khartoum against the forces of the rebels led by a
"descendant of the Prophet" — as wild and deter-
mined a collection of Arab tribesmen as ever put
rifle to shoulder. His urgent representations and
those of the Khedivial government had repeatedly
been disregarded by the powers-that-be in London,
but now, when the ultimate fall of the devoted city

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

seemed unavoidable, an eleventh-hour military
expedition was at last being rushed to its relief
under the leadership of my good friend of the first
Egyptian campaign, Sir Garnet (now Lord)
Wolseley.

A few hours in the city of latticework and I
made my way to Asiout. Here I found the expedi-
tion leaving the next morning by steamer for Wady
Haifa. I waited up all night. When, at an early
hour, the general's train arrived at Asiout, I met
him on the platform and reminded him of his
promise to befriend me and asked permission to
join his party. This was speedily granted. I was
made a member of the headquarters mess and was
soon steaming up the Nile in the direction of
Dongola and its palace of Oriental splendor.

What a charming journey that was! We took in
all the wonderful temples during the day, and
when we anchored at night we were entertained in
quaint Arab fashion by the elders of the nearest
village. The lilac sunset, the yellow moonlight, the
stars hanging like clusters of gems in midair — and
then the ruddy dawn. The chocolate-brown waters
reflecting the cobalt blue of the sky, the rich yellow
sand dunes, the glorious green of the palm trees,
the quaint mud villages with their blue-gowned
inhabitants, all these things made the voyage
delightfully interesting and picturesque. At last
the First Cataract was reached and we visited
Philae while our steamer braved the rapids and

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

arrived safely in calm waters beyond the wondrous
isle.

Then we were once more aboard, steaming up
the Nile to Korosko, where poor Gordon had
abandoned his last contact with the outer world
and pressed on into the desert for Abu Hamed,
Berber, and Khartoum — never to return. When
Wady Haifa was reached the general came to a
halt for a time, waiting for the whaleboats which
had been built in England, in which the farther
ascent of the river was to be made.

When these craft at last arrived they were
collected and portaged round the Second Cataract,
and an advance on Dongola, by land and water was
made. What a quaint fleet that was as it stood
out under full sail from the Saras levee — the Camel
Corps cheering from the shore as the Canadian
voyagers steered their English brethren safely past
the porphyry rocks which looked like huge black
teeth in the desert sand on either side of the narrow
pass that enters the Saras Basin!

I bought a camel at Wady Haifa, and made my
way with Company D of the Camel Corps! A
strange march that was under the blazing sun. We
slouched along at a})out two miles an hour through
short deserts, always gaining the Nile by night-
fall. Some of us who could not stand the glare of
the sun would keep our eyes fixed on the ground,
watching the numerous trails and wondering what
beast or reptile it was that had left its mark on the

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

yielding sand. Others would watch the shadows
of the camels gradually shortening till the sun told
us that midday was nigh, when we would halt for
some canned beef, biscuit, and water. Then, after
an hour's rest, we would move forward till four
o'clock, when we settled down on the bank of the
Nile for the night.

While the rations were cooking we would take
pot shots at the crocodiles, which lashed the waters
furiously with their tails when a bullet struck a
crevice in their armor. Many a cartridge was
thrown away on a snag of wood or jagged rock
sticking above the water — so keen was our belief
that everything in the Nile was a crocodile till it
was proved otherwise.

When at nightfall we rolled ourselves up in our
blankets and courted slumber, a light breeze would
freshen the air, skimming the desert of its lighter
particles of sand and covering our bodies with an
impalpable powder which awoke us, almost choking
with its suffocating dryness, and banked our eyelids
with miniature drifts. When at last the reveille
brought us forth, we felt as if the last trump had
sounded and we, like the great majority, were
rising from our graves, so completely had we been
buried in the sand.

Soon the banks of the Nile assumed a greener
aspect. The cultivated fringe widened as we
entered the fertile Wady of the province of Dongola,
and presently on the west bank there was visible

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

the city itself, the goal for which I had endured
considerable hardships.

Alas, the city of Oriental splendor was an utter
delusion. Surely this straggling town of squalid
mud-and-plaster houses and half-ruined mosques
with their tottering minarets could not be the
beautiful Dongola I had read about? In spite of
this cruel disappointment I was still hopeful; the
splendor of the Mudirie might only be hidden like
a Kimberley diamond in its original setting of
clay. With beating heart I crossed by the ferry
and soon found myself in the streets of the ram-
shackle town, which turned out to consist of narrow,
tortuous alleys winding through labyrinths of mud
walls.

A hasty breakfast and I was ready for the glories
of the Mudirie. A native pointed out my road,
and I made my way to the palace. As I entered
the compound, it flashed on me at last that the
special correspondent of the London daily had
never been there at all. I mounted the steps of the
whitewashed building, and was motioned by one
of the attendants to wait awhile. The Mudir was
about to receive his officers, or sanjaks, in durbar.
My heart sank within me. I mournfully realized
that I had been utterly deceived by the brilliant
imagination of a Fleet Street special.

This is what I saw. In a whitewashed square
hall, opening on to a balcony, was the Mudir, just
seated, not on any Turkish carpet, but cross-legged

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

on a Vienna bentwood chair. By his side was
another chair, across the cane bottom of which was
a dervish sword — the symbol of justice — pen, ink,
and sand, and the seal of office. Behind him stood
a servant waving to and fro a bamboo to keep the
numerous tame sparrows from settling on his chair.
His costume was the simple black Stambouli frock
coat, a fez with small green turban, trousers rather
short for his legs, and red morocco slippers. Above
him, from the mud ceiling, hung no Damascene
lamp with oil of rare fragrance, but a two-and-
sixpenny opaque glass kerosene lamp, also from
Vienna, which exuded a strong smell of paraffin.
After paying my respects I entered the reception
room. There was no Oriental splendor here! A
cabbage-rose-pattern Brussels carpet partly covered
the floor. A divan, draped with cheap French
damask, occupied three sides of the dingy apart-
ment. A table in the center wore a red baize cover.
Standing against a column supporting a fly-blown
lime-washed ceiling was a tall French clock with
flower-painted face, which struck the wrong time
with uncertain vigor. I left the Mudirie sad and
dejected, but on lighting my pipe and reflecting
for a while I came to the conclusion that, after
all, probably the Fleet Street special's description
was much more pleasing and satisfactory to the
unthinking public. People at home naturally look
for something Oriental from the East and they got
it — laid on with a generous brush.

VOL. II. — 5 S1

HLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Two years after this little incident I was at a
public dinner in London when the author of the
Dongola article was introduced to me. I looked
at his interesting face, said I had longed to meet
him, expressed enthusiasm for his work, and told
him how much impressed I had been with the
description of his visit to the Mudir of Dongola.
He beamed with satisfaction; in fact, he was
rather pleased with that article himself.

"Yes," said I; "it impressed me so much — so
very much, that I resolved to — "

"Pwhat?" he asked, falling back in his chair.

"Go there myself," I slowly continued, "and
what is more, my friend, I HAVE BEEN!"

After concentrating at Dongola, the army made
a farther advance to Korti by river and desert.
At about this period I came to grief. My colleague
Charles Williams and I were in a whaleboat, trying
to make headway against a very strong current on
the Nile below Debbeh, and were steadily drifting
toward the bank when we were attracted by the
report of a rifle which came from a steam pinnace
purring up the river. The captain was firing at a
huge crocodile basking on a sand bank. Presently
the crocodile, grazed by the shot, furiously dashed
into the waters. We hailed the boat as it passed
and asked the skipper to tow us out of our difficulty.
He shouted; "Heave a line aboard, but be quick!"

As the little steamer came up to us and hove to,
a rope was doubled round our mast and passed to

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

the two natives in the bows to thread through the
ring at the nose of our whaleboat. This these
colored gentlemen, out of pure perversity, did not
do. When, therefore, the line was made fast to
the pinnace and she steamed ahead again at eight
knots the rope shot out of the hands of the niggers.
In an instant it came up taut on our mast; in
another moment our boat was dragged completely
over and turned turtle. I saw Williams jump
clear; but being in the stern sheets it was too late
for me, so in spite of my efforts I went under, and
our little craft formed a sort of dish cover to the
repast my fertile brain imagined that the crocodile
was about to make of me. Where would he begin ?
That was the only question.

My colleague, becoming exhausted, had now
seized the keel of the boat, which gradually tilted
with his weight and thus released me. When I
came to the surface, the captain of the pinnace,
who had been watching for my appearance, threw
a line which luckily struck me across my forehead
and brought me to my senses. I caught hold at
once and in a few seconds was dragged, half dead,
on board.

That day I owed my life to Commander Mont-
gomery. But for his watching for me I should
surely have been drowned, as I was in top-boots
and overcoat and was so heavily weighted that I
rose only sufficiently to take my last look round.
This naval officer wears on his right breast both the

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

French and English Humane Societies' medals for
saving life.

My principal thought during all this trouble was
what a wonderful advertisement my valise, with
the name of my journal printed on it in large white
letters, would have made floating downstream on
the river Thames! It was sadly lost on the Nile,
and, what was worse, it contained my bed furniture,
tea, sugar, canned beef, tobacco, a bottle of pickles,
a pepper mill, an extra pair of boots, a dispatch
case, and a bag of sixty sovereigns. All the rest
of the kit went to the bottom of the river or into
the inner being of the crocodile. It was a sad
sight to me to see all my earthly treasures float
away like this. Only campaigners can appreciate
the bitterness of such a catastrophe. I knew that
my personal comfort was wrecked for many months
to come, for there were no shops or stores handy
in the wilds of the Sudan. I had nothing but the
clothes I stood up in, and they were excessively
wet. The captain put us ashore, and next day we
walked across the desert to Korti to dry ourselves,
a distance of some thirty miles, arriving in camp
long after nightfall.

The following morning, as soon as our plight was
known, I might have set up a slopshop with the
superfluous number of odd garments sent to me
by good-natured British officers. When I called on
General Wolseley to report myself, he was kind
enough to express regret at my accident, and was

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

sorry he could not furnish me with some wearing
apparel. He had only two flannel shirts for him-
self, and these were so precious that he could not
afford to wash them, so he simply gave them an
air bath, which in the brisk atmosphere of the
Sudan did just as well. A splendid example of the
soldierly qualities of a great general!

This was not the first time I had been unfortunate
with my wearing apparel. Once in Egypt my kit
was upset , in the Sweetwater canal and remained
at the bottom — a bitter experience to me, as I had
nothing left but a small bag containing flannel
nether necessities and a dress coat and waistcoat.
I was saved from the experiment of campaigning
in evening dress by a colleague, who, jealous, no
doubt, of the distinguished figure I should cut on
the line of march with swallow-tail coat, white
waistcoat, and top-boots, supplied me with a brown
holland jacket which was more in tone with the
sands of the desert.

At Korti the base of operations was formed, the
battalions massed and headquarters stationed, for
owing to news reaching us of Gordon's imminent
peril the army now had to be divided. Sir Herbert
Stewart with the two thousand of the Camel Corps
was to cross the desert of Bayuda by forced marches
to Metamneh, and then push a few companies of red-
coats into Khartum to augment the garrison,
while a contingent of infantry in whaleboats was
to move up the Nile to Abu Hamed and Berber

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

under General Earle, in support of the Desert
Column.

It was my fortune to follow the adventures of
the latter brigade. I will not go into the details of
the extensive preparations necessary to fit out an
expedition of this kind by land and water. The
men of the boats, when they arrived at the
rendezvous, had been perhaps more thoroughly the
worse for wear than the men of the camels. There
was a good deal of patching to be done, in which
sailcloth and slabs of biscuit tins figured conspicu-
ously. Moreover, Christmas Day was nigh and
considerable brushing up was necessary for that
occasion. Even puddings were made — the day
would not be complete in camp without that
luxury — and there was church parade which pre-
ceded their consumption.

Double rations of rum and tobacco were served
out; the men took it easy, and many added to their
rations by fishing from the banks; for there was a
big and ticklish job in store for them, and it might
turn out to be the last Christmas for many.

One afternoon down by the horse lines, while we
were still at Korti, I met Captain Kitchener. He
was in the center of a group of native camel scouts
with whom he had just returned from the Jackdul
Wells to report on the possible route to be taken by
the Desert Column. There was a look of resent-
ment in his face, for he had heard that he was not
to go forward with the expedition — Lord Wolseley

ORIENTAL YET OCCIDENTAL

wanted him for some other purpose. I little
thought, as I looked at his slim, gaunt figure and
youthful face, that here sat the man who, above
all others, was soon to make Europe ring with the
story of his achievements in the field.

Chapter IV

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

Sir Herbert Stewart — The Desert Column — The camel and his ways — Abu
Klea — Mayor French's squadron to the rescue — By the skin of our
teeth — The march to the Nile — The knoll at Metamneh — Our general
placed hors de combat — The forlorn hope — The bloody square — The
Nile at last — A silent reveille — Correspondents' casualties 50 per
cent.

CIR HERBERT STEWART, who was given the
^ command of the Desert Column, was one of the
"Wolseley gang," as the officers who enjoyed that
general's confidence were called by their less fortu-
nate brethren. My confrere, Archibald Forbes, had
been the first to recognize Stewart's ability by what
he saw of him on the lines of communication in
the Zulu war in South Africa. In those days
generals would listen to the advice of war corre-
spondents of the caliber of Forbes, and eventually
Wolseley took Stewart on his staff. He was now
chosen as leader of the gallant two thousand who
formed the "forlorn hope" about to attempt the
rescue of Gordon.

Just before we left Korti I visited Stewart in his
tent. He told me that it was not the fighting that

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

caused him anxiety — with his two thousand he
was ready to meet any odds — but the water ration.
The small capacity of the few wells to be met with
en route and the question as to how much work he
could get out of the camels presented the real
problems. While orderlies were coming and going
and officers were reporting the hundred and one
details of preparation for the coming march, the
home mail arrived and the general became absorbed
in his plans for the installation of electric light in
the numerous buildings in which he was interested
at home, where, especially in Chelsea, he was re-
sponsible for the reconstruction of certain residen-
tial areas.

"It's a little relief," he said, "from the drudgery
of campaigning to go through these papers."

The night before we left the river and entered
the vast unknown the troops gave a vaudeville
entertainment under the light of the Egyptian
moon, and at dawn the two thousand, to the blare
of bugles, marched off over the plain and were soon
lost to view in the folds of the shimmering desert.

This was to be an expedition by camel. Now
the camel is mostly a beast of burden: you cannot
make a pet of him. Young, old, or middle-aged,
he is the same unsociable, awkward, indifferent,
grousing beast. He is unpleasant t,o ride. His eye
is calm and doelike, but hides an uneven, fretful
temper. I was puzzling myself one morning how to
convey an idea to the readers of my journal of the

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTIRE

manners and customs of this beast, when I chanced
to overhear a soldier singing a verse from a song
that was in those days familiar to frequenters of
any English watering place: "When he's up he's up;
and when he's down he's down; but when he's only
halfway up he's neither up nor down."

Surely the author of these beautiful lines must
have had the camel in his eye when the inspiration
struck him; for nothing can be more expressive or
to the point in describing the movements of a
camel when you are about to mount him. When
he's up it's all right; when he's down it is just as
satisfactory; but when he is halfway between is
the critical jerking and neck-breaking moment.

A camel will start from his sitting posture by
rising on his fore-knees first, throwing you violently
back to his haunches. As he lifts his hindquarters
one is jerked suddenly forward. It is at this
moment — when all seems to be lost and a close
proximity of your nose to the dust must be your
lot — that he invariably staggers slowly to his fore-
feet, keeping you hanging on more or less in suspense
according to his amiability of temper. When the
brute is up safe and sound and begins to walk
there is a sort of four-time jolting movement — a
shift forward, one to the left, one to the right, and
then to the rear, the effect of which is heightened
in keeping with the haste of the brute. It was
computed by a calculating young Scotch subaltern,
counting by the telegraph poles along the way,

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

that a human being mounted on a camel is subjected
to twelve hundred and eighty-five distinct jerks
per mile. As several of us suffered the second day
out from severe stiff necks which our doctor did not
attribute to colds, it is more than possible that the
young sub's total was correct. The bluejackets,
who can generally adapt themselves to novel situa-
tions, took some time before they understood this
beast of burden. They would sit sideways on its
hump and work the nose rope as if they were pulling
the rudder lines. I heard Jack grumbling one
day:

"Why, the poets call this 'ere thing the ship of
the desert; I calls it a hardship."

"What's the matter, Jack?" said I.

"Why, sir, the tackle of my saddle is all adrift.
I don't think this gear has got any stern lashings.
The ship of the desert! Why, with a new set of
boilers (and it don't much matter how much coal
yer put in her bunkers) she wouldn't go more than
two knots. And look at that funnel of a neck for
a forced draught! No wonder Charley rides a
moke, sir. He knows a thing or two, does Beres-
ford." (Lord Charles Beresford, who was in com-
mand of the brigade, chose a donkey for this desert
march.)

The troops kept their spirits up by chaffing one
another.

"Ha! What would my poor mother say if she
was to see me now? Why, when I was a-laying at

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Woolwich she used to bring me jam tarts. How
many pulls to a quart would ye take now, Bill —
eh?"

"Why, I couldn't drink a bottle of shammy unless
it was well frappy."

I will not go into details of our twelve days'
march across the desert. It will suffice to say that
from the conditions under which it was carried
out it was the most remarkable desert march
which has taken place by the British in the Sudan,
and probably that has ever occurred in the annals
of war. Never was heroism less daunted by the
most cruel hardships. Only a short time since a
Russian officer, who would be little likely to flatter
our national courage, compared it to the exploits
of Xerxes imbued with the spirit of the Spartans
who died in the pass of Thermopylae.

After our column had watered at the Jackdul
Wells, called by Tommy the halfway house across
the Bayuda, we started out in search of the enemy.
Toiling for many days over the parched-up desert
we sighted a ridge of hills one afternoon looming
up in front of us. We came to a halt while our
scouts pushed forward to reconnoiter. Some of the
officers always went outside our formation shooting
sand grouse for the pot, so we took little notice of
occasional firing. But presently the scouts came
tearing back with the news that the wells of Abu
Klea, in a dip beyond the hills, were occupied by
the enemy, and that they had been fired at.

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

We all braced up at the prospect of an immediate
scrap, and a thrill of joy passed down the ranks.
The bugles sounded the advance and we pushed
forward toward a narrow pass in the rocky ground
leading right into the wells. I suppose we took
this risk to get to the water that night, for the
horses of our squadron, the Nineteenth Hussars,
were almost done in for want of it. But luck was
not with us; we were held in check till early the
next morning by the enemy sniping at us from
the heights.

We had as usual formed a zereba, or square of
commissariat boxes, and were able to hold the
enemy at bay till the sun was up, when we marched
out, still under fire, to do battle. We got fearfully
mauled by the enemy and might have been cut up
to a man but for Major French, who nursed the
weary and thirst-mad horses of his Nineteenth into
such a formidable-looking squadron that the der-
vishes, seeing this unlooked-for array on their right
flank, began to lose heart and retired in dismay.
It was a splendid bit of bluff by their commander,
for these horses were so dead beat that if you patted
one on the neck he would take advantage of your
kindness by falling asleep on your shoulder. That
gallant young officer of the Nineteenth has distin-
guished himself since those far-off Sudan days, for
in the recent Great War he became Lord French of
Ypres, the hero of the retreat from Mons and of
the first battle of the Marne.

7ILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

In this fight of Abu Klea we lost many fine
officers, among whom was Col. Fred Burnaby.
Lord Charles Beresford had a narrow shave. His
donkey was shot and fell over him, thus saving
him from being speared by the enemy. However,
the most trying and heroic episode in this coura-
geous though fruitless struggle to save Gordon and
his beleaguered garrison took place after the bloody
fight of Abu Klea and our weary and thirsty night's
march toward the Nile.

Shortly after dawn the next morning the mud-
baked walls of Metamneh glistened with the early
sun through the mists enshrouding the Nile Valley;
presently the low sound of tom-toms came from
the direction of the town. Outside its walls, across
the clearings, down into the mimosa bush, thousands
and thousands of the enemy hurried to intercept
our advance to the water. Completely surrounded
by the dervishes, we formed a zereba on a knoll
commanding a view of the town and fought at bay,
almost hopelessly and against enormous odds, till
two in the afternoon.

General Stewart had been wounded early in the
action. He was standing on an ammunition box,
looking through his glasses at the encircling swarm
of the enemy stealing up through the bush from
Metamneh, when he received a mortal wound. I
was by his side a moment after, for I saw him fall
and with Maj. Frank Rhodes was the first to tend
him before the surgeons hurried up. From that

THE FIGHT FOR THE

moment a gloom was cast over our little force that
was difficult to shake off, for no officer was more
beloved by all ranks. Though the surgeons thought
the wound was not fatal, Stewart seemed to know
that he was doomed. All the cheery brightness of
the man departed and he seemed already to be on
the threshold of eternity.

Cameron of the Standard now met his fate, shot
through the lungs. The band of death grew tighter
and tighter. Six hundred fierce Baggara horse-
men hovered on our flanks and rear waiting for the
time when the square should break. Something
must be done. In a few hours water would fail us
entirely.

In this extremity Sir Charles Wilson, who took
command when Stewart went down, resolved to
force his way through the enemy, march a square
to the river, build a fort by the water, and return
for the survivors left behind in the zereba. A force
of 1,200 men was at last formed up. I decided
to go with this brave little band, on which the
whole safety of the brigade depended.

I tried to take my pony with me, as he was fear-
fully thirsty and I thought one of us might reach
the Nile and get a drink that day; but down at the
horse lines I found that horsemen were not to be
allowed in the square.

Just as I was statting back I saw St. Leger
Herbert, the correspondent for the Morning Post,
getting something from his valise. He had volun-

: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

teered like myself, so we walked together toward
the forming square. The men were ordered to
throw themselves down as they arrived in position,
for the scathing fire from the bush was already
making many casualties. My friend had worn out
his khaki and was wearing a red tunic he had bor-
rowed from an officer. "You are drawing the fire
with that infernal jacket" I cried; "take it off."
Receiving no reply I looked round; poor Herbert
was lying on his back with a bullet through his
brain.

I knelt by his side. His large blue eyes were
staring up at me, but with no speculation in them.
He was dead. Then in a frenzy of grief I began to
drag his body toward the square, but an officer
crawled up to me on his knees and said: "Hurry up,
Villiers, leave the body where it is; they will pick
him up from the zereba. We don't want dead men
with us."

The whole Arab fire was now concentrated on
that patch of human beings sprawling on the sand.
When we had all assembled we sprang to our feet,
at the word "advance," and slowly moved off. Men
at once fell thickly around and were hastily carried
into the zereba, which was still within reach; but
when we entered the mimosa valley we cut our-
selves adrift from our guns and supplies.

The scrub seemed alive with musketry. Clearly
we could not let the enemy have it all his own way;
something must be done to steady our nerves.

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATEk

Presently the clear voice of Colonel Boscawen (now
Lord Falmouth) was heard above the terrible din
as if on parade: "The square will halt!" When we
had come to a standstill he continued: "The
square will fire a volley at two hundred yards.
Ready!" j

Then from our front and flank belched forth fire
and smoke. Our targets were only the white puffs
of smoke from the Remingtons of the hidden enemy;
yet this effort freshened up our men and gave them
better heart, for at last we were "at 'em." After
firing one round we would move forward again
at the same funereal pace in order to give our
bearers an opportunity to pick up our wounded
and put them in the cacolets, or camel chairs, where
these poor fellows were often shot through and
through, for, perched up on the "ship of the desert,"^
they were directly in the line of the Arab fire.

Thus we wended our way through this veri-
table valley of death. By this time there was
not a man in the square who was not bespat-
tered with gore. Casualties were becoming so
frequent that stretchers and camel chairs were
rapidly filling, and the enterprise began to look
like a "forlorn hope" indeed. My camel boy came
rolling under the belly of my baggie (baggage camel)
with a bullet in his heart, and at the same moment
the animal was hit in the neck. I heard the twang
of the bullet and expected to see the poor beast
stumble at once, but he simply turned his long
VOL. ii. — 6 67

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

neck in my direction and opened his gazelle-like
eyes to their full extent, as much as to say, "Did
you do that?" Then a shiver shook his body,
and he lumbered steadily forward, continuing to
chew the cud as if nothing had happened.

Presently a bullet passed through my left puttee
or leg bandage which was bulging out from below
my knee. Every moment things became more
lively. The air was now so thick with the hum of
missiles that it seemed a marvel the little force was
not annihilated. Lord Arthur Somerset, Count
Gleichen, Lord Airlie, and several other officers
were hit, and matters looked at their blackest, when
to our utter astonishment the enemy's fire suddenly
ceased.

We now found ourselves in a sandy depression
with less scrub about, and after taking stock of the
immediate surroundings we looked at one another
and wondered at the silence. However, there was
not long to wait. From the zereba far in our rear
Norton's screw guns opened fire and a shell whistled
over our heads, bursting above the ridge in front
of us. The square, on this signal to look out,
came immediately to a halt. Almost instantly
afterward points of ragged banners rose above the
sky line and our men gave a grunt of satisfaction,
for the enemy had now taken some tangible form.
Here we were in the open on equal terms with them.

There was a twitch of the shoulders of each man
as he settled his heels firmly in the loose sand,

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

wiped the dust from the lock of his rifle and stood
ready for the onslaught. If ever I had for a moment
doubted the possibility of our little force getting
through to the river, this action of the soldiers
convinced me that we should reach the Nile that
night. For a moment longer there was dead silence,
then, with tom-toms beating and loud shouts and
yells, the Mahdi's spearmen bounded on — not
running, but leaping forward — brandishing weapons
which mirrored shifting lines of light as the sun
glinted from their balanced spearheads.

The emirs led the van, followed closely by their
standard bearers. Soon the mass had closed around
us. Then from our square, when the enemy were
within three hundred yards, there poured forth
volley after volley of deadly hail into the midst of
the dare-devil foemen. I hurried about, filling the
empty bandoliers of the men with fresh cartridges.
When the dense fog of smoke cleared away there
was nothing left of this bold charge but its dead
and dying. A few slightly wounded struggled on to
meet their fate.

The sudden collapse of the attack was almost
beyond realization. Some five thousand warriors —
they looked like a swarm of locusts enveloping our
little fighting force of twelve hundred — had been
driven off the field by a handful of British soldiers
worn out with fatigue, racked with thirst, an army
of mere rags and bones.

Powder begrimed, blood bespattered, foul with

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

the paucity of water, Tommy looked at his best
to me that day. For a few moments there was
hardly a word uttered in our little square. Then
burst forth a cheer that went up from the valley
from parched and thirsty throats. Weak and
feeble as it was, every man's heart was in it. It
might have answered for a prayer. There was
about it an unmistakable tone of thankfulness for
our safe delivery from those merciless hordes that
day.

We now marched for the water. Some of the
men, overwrought with emotion, embraced one
another. The parched lips of the wretched wounded
were moistened with what was left of the dregs of
the waterskins, now as black as ink, but precious
liquid all the same, and we moved forward, un-
molested, in the direction of the river.

The sun had dropped below the horizon, but the
faint light of the young moon showed us in the
distant gloaming a wide streak of silvery sheen
gleaming up from out of the dull gray of the des-
ert. It was the glorious water. "The Nile!" The
Nile!" burst from every throat.

The soldiers of Xenophon shouted, "Thalassa!
Thalassa!" when they saw the sea on whose tide
they were to come home after their long, weary
pilgrimage; but to us the flowing river meant more
than did the Euxine to Xenophon's Greeks. That
river was to us the veritable water of life; but for

that precious current of fresh water not a man

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

would have survived to return to that ocean across
whose bosom lay the path to home.

The square was made to halt for a few minutes;
the wounded were lifted from their litters to see
the river they had so dearly fought for — the precious
liquid that was to soften their caking wounds and
quench their feverish thirst. With greedy looks we
longed to dip and wallow in that silvery mass;
but we must await the return of the scouts to
report "All's well" in front, for Bagarra horsemen
were still hovering on our flanks, looking for an
opportunity to cut in upon us.

I could not help admiring the discipline of the
British soldier in this more than trying situation.
Almost mad with thirst and with the water in plain
view, there he stood patiently waiting till he was
ordered to be watered by companies. Instead of a
maddened rabble tearing toward the river, he went
down to the water waiting his turn in this way.

The three steamers sent by Gordon to meet us
arrived two days after our reaching the river and were
sent on to Khartum with a small force of soldiers
under Sir Charles Wilson. One morning early, be-
fore the moon began to wane, I was awakened by
a sentry whose post was near me.

"There's a boat coming this way, sir. Do you
think I ought to challenge her?"

"Certainly."

"But," said he, "I have no orders to challenge
boats, sir; I think I had better ask my sergeant."

V1LLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

Presently the sound of rowlocks came down the
stream. Then a boat flashed across the shimmering
band of moonlight.

"Halt! Who goes there?" shouted the sentry.

"Friend!" came a voice from the boat.

It was the voice of young Stuart Wortley. I
awakened my friend Harry Pearse, of the Daily
News and told him of the mysterious coming. We
feared the worst. When the sun arose on our
camp so hushed was the little fort that the reveille
brought no wonted stir. From mouth to mouth
was whispered, "Khartum! Khartum has fallen!"

All our fighting, all our maddening thirst, all
our waste of precious blood and weeks of misery,
had availed naught. Our advent on the Nile had
but been the signal for the sack of Khartoum and
for Gordon's doom.

We were now with our backs to the water only
four hundred able-bodied men behind a line of
shallow intrenchments, in front of which and to
the right, only two miles away, lay the town of
Metamneh harboring over twelve thousand of the
enemy, while the Mahdi, with a battery of Krupp
cannon and twenty thousand of his victorious
troops, fresh from the capture of Khartum, was
now on the march toward our left flank.

However, that splendid soldier and much ma-
ligned officer, Gen. Sir Redvers Buller, saved the
situation. On hearing the news of our predicament
he came to our rescue by forced marches and

THE FIGHT FOR THE WATER

brought our little remnant, with all its sick and
wounded, out of the Abu Klea gorge into the open
desert just as the advance guard of the Mahdi was
sighted by our scouts. Duller had secured all the
wells behind us, so the enemy could not maneuver
far from the river, and we were safe from attack
directly we entered the vast wilderness of the
desert.

We eventually managed to get Sir Herbert
Stewart back to the Jackdul Wells, where he died.
The expedition, in so far as its main purpose — the
relief of Khartoum — was concerned, had ended in
failure. However, it is well known now that the
Mahdi could have taken the place practically any
day he chose during the previous month or six
weeks: our appearance in the vicinity was merely
the signal for its fall, which nothing short of an
expedition by airplane could have prevented.

In this expedition which had been so destructive
of man and beast the war correspondents suffered
no less severely than their brethren in uniform.
Out of eight who started with Stewart four were
killed and one was wounded, making our casualties
more than 50 per cent — a circumstance which
alone is quite indicative of the character of the
fighting.

Chapter V

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

A "baggie" and his ways — Wolseleys anxiety — / return to Cairo —
Wrecked — / keep the gangway — A topsyturvy life belt — A gruesome
find — Rescued by friendly enemies — The solar topee — Brigand and
cutthroats — A merry crew — The case of a mummy — In the meshes of
Shepheard's once more — The terrible curse — Ingram's fate — A sailor
field marshal — The lines of communication.

'T'HE first Nile campaign was now practically
-•• ended. I tramped the last few miles of my
weary journey across the Bayuda Desert to Korti
on foot; in fact, I was obliged to do so, for my
wretched camel had broken down when just within
sight of the green fringe of the Nile, and the only
resource left to me was to trudge the last weary lap
through the heavy sand.

Camels are curious animals, and occasionally
they are extremely irritating. A horse when nearing
his destination after a long, tiresome journey will
prick up his ears, brace himself generally, put on a
spurt and try to come to time. With a camel it is
otherwise — at any rate, it was with mine. As soon
as he sighted the glorious streak of silver with
its verdant fringe, he began to slow down and

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

seemed absolutely indifferent to the restorative
properties of the water that danced and sparkled
in the distance. Yet he had not been watered for
five days! The more I exerted myself to hasten
him forward the more the beast seemed to lag,
and at last I had to use the rawhide whip with as
much vigor as my weariness permitted.

Under this punishment the animal simply stood
still and slowly moved his head round in my direc-
tion, showing his teeth and plainly meaning mischief.
A camel has a long neck and he has an extensive
reach with it. When this beast's head came up on
my right hand, with his teeth all eager, I found it
advantageous to slide down the left bank of his
hump to the ground and so get dexterously out of
reach. Perceiving that I was too nimble for him,
he at last dropped on his knees, settled himself
comfortably in the sand, gave a grunt of satisfaction,
and flatly declined to move a step farther. I there-
fore left him and my baggage on the desert and
tramped the rest of the stretch on foot into our
encampment at Korti. At any rate he was only a
"baggie" or baggage camel, an animal as inferior
to a trotting camel as a donkey is to a race horse.

On my reporting at headquarters Lord Wolseley
was good! enough to ask me to dine with him. I
found that the general's hair had grown much whiter
since our little force had made its final dash across
the Bayuda Desert. This I attributed to anxiety
caused by the absence of tidings from the Desert

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Column, for he told me that after a certain date,
when the lack of news from us began to create
uneasiness at headquarters, he would ride out
alone every afternoon to a commanding knoll on
the outskirts of the desert and gaze through his
glass across the arid stretches for some sign of the
gallant little army that seemed to have been
swallowed up in that sea of burning sand.

The general advised me to take a holiday for
two months, when a fresh campaign against the
Mahdi would begin. So confident was he of this
that the next day I heard him address the native
chiefs who had befriended the expedition and tell
them, "It is the intention of Her Majesty's govern-
ment, cost what it may, to crush the power of the
Mahdi and avenge the death of Gordon."

Within a week, however, Mr. Gladstone in
London had decided otherwise. Wolseley had to
eat his words and the British army was returned
down the Nile, leaving to the merciless wrath of
the Mahdi and his followers the loyal chiefs who
had assisted our advance.

If we had carried out Lord Wolseley's intentions
we could easily have crushed the Mahdi, for all
that long line of communications by desert and
river was by this time working smoothly, and
large reinforcements could easily have been poured
into the Sudan. The dervishes, so elated with
their capture of Khartoum, would eventually have
wrecked themselves by attacking us in positions of

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

our own choosing, and Mahdism would have been
crushed for all time. But Gladstone got "cold
feet" on the venture and the British public, to
save him a little anxiety, had to pay the piper ten-
fold in after years.

At about this time a Khedivial paddle steamer
was leaving Korti for Dongola with wounded. I
was anxious to return to Cairo with my very large
budget of sketches, so I took passage in her. My
"baggie" had ultimately sauntered into camp
with my belongings about three days after my
arrival. He was in good condition after his rest.
Indeed so well did he look, in spite of the bullet
received in the fight at Gubat which was still in
his neck, that I was able to sell him for eleven lire.
As I gave only fifteen for him at the beginning of
the campaign, I considered that I had done pretty
well out of him. When I think of that poor beast,
though I loathed him while I was on his back, there
still remains with me a vague sentiment of gratitude,
for he carried me safely through all the vicissi-
tudes of that trying campaign, and though wounded
in my service he was never on the sick list, but
always r^ady for duty.

I spent a happy time steaming down the Nile
once more, enjoying the sheen of the water in
pleasant contrast to the weary stretches of sand,
and the steady motion of the river paddle boat
instead of the erratic movements of the "ship of
the desert." The comfort, too, of stretching one's

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

legs under the proverbial mahogany, after one had
been for weeks cramped up by the side of a camel
saddle or commissariat box, was almost indescrib-
able. I shall hardly forget my first meal in the
saloon of that little river steamer.

It was not so much the actual food that appealed,
or any proficiency on the part of the ship's chef —
for Chicago canned beef, hardtack, and jam were
still the prominent dishes in our menu — but the
pleasures of a cushioned seat, a comparatively
clean cloth, and a sparkling glass. The luxury of
the Savoy or Delmonico's seemed satisfactorily
embodied in the simple saloon of this puffing old
stern-wheeler, snorting down the Nile.

We had a number of sick and wounded on the
upper deck and a few Greek merchants and sutlers.
One of the wounded was Captain Poe of the Marines,
who was the last man hit during the attack on
Metamneh. Poe and St. Leger Herbert were the
only two men in the force who unwisely wore red
tunics. Poe lay on the deck on an angareeb, a
native bedstead with rawhide laced over it. He
was in a very bad way, poor fellow, for his right
leg had been amputated close up to the hip. I
was by his side a good deal and did my best to keep
the flies and mosquitoes from irritating his arms
and face as he lay, pale, wan, and almost inanimate,
-on his rough bed. At night, when the rising moon
sent trembling slants of light across the waters
which settled for a moment on his pinched, pallid

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

features, Dore's famous picture of "The Passing
of Arthur" recurred to my memory, and I wondered
if Poe was about to die.

It was on the morning of the second day, when we
were nearing Debbeh, that an event transpired which
put a damper upon the charm of this Nile passage.
The man at the wheel, who was also our pilot, was
an evil-eyed, cross-grained, fanatical-looking Arab — •
a man whom one might feel inclined to shoot on
sight in order to make the world better. Ophthalmia
had in his early childhood destroyed the sight of
his left eye, dulling it to the opaqueness of that of
a boiled mackerel. This accentuated the brilliancy
of the right, which seemed to mirror every touch
of light from the sky and the waters, mingling them
into one evil, malignant glare. The moment I set
eyes on the fellow I thought there would be trouble.

It came.

At about seven bells in the morning watch we
were steaming merrily through the placid waters
between two low sand hills where a small, oblong,
sandy island lay close inshore. I had been smoking
a cigarette after breakfast and was lazily leaning
against the wheelhouse, when suddenly I was
shot forward and found myself sprawling on the
deck. A shiver ran through the vessel, accompanied
by a curious grating sound as she took bottom on
the sand.

"Reverse engines!" calmly commanded our cap-
tain, Lieutenant Colville, of the Royal Navy.

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

But the order was of no avail; we had somehow
run 'upon a sunken ledge, which we found out
later was the only obstruction for miles, and we
were jammed upon it with a vengeance. The
reversed paddles only churned up the water, and
the steamer slowly swung out of her course and
began at once to heel slightly over to starboard.

Vigorous language was used upon the pilot.
His sound eye sparkled the brighter with evident
satisfaction at our plight as he gave his lying expla-
nation of the disaster. But there was no time to
argue with him; the steamer had split open and
was sinking. Fires were immediately drawn to
prevent an explosion and the only. boat we carried
was got ready for the wounded. I hurried to Poe.
Though a little paler, he was bearing the strain
bravely. Two men were holding on to his bedstead
to save it from sliding aport. When the boat
came alongside, the steamer was settling at such
an angle that Poe's bed could be slid quite easily
into it over the side rails.

At this moment the Greeks on board, who were
very excited, made a rush for the boat, and I was
asked to keep them at bay, which I did by threaten-
ing them with my revolver until the little craft
with her pathetic freight was at a safe distance
from the sinking steamer.

The captain then requested me to go below to
see what water we were making. I reported that
it was pouring through the jalousies of the saloon.

80 "

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

There was now considerable confusion owing to
the foreign element on deck, for the water could
be seen welling up from below. Orders were given
to prepare for the worst, and the majority of us
stripped. A bluejacket was hurrying by me
with some life belts and I secured one, as the current
was strong and I was not an expert swimmer. The
vessel now gave a great lurch to starboard, her bow
dipped under, and I with many others, on hearing
the cry, "Save yourselves," jumped in. I had
been under a whaleboat in the Nile during the
early part of the campaign and I resolved not to
repeat the sensation with the steamer Nassif-Il-Kir.
I jumped clear, and in another moment was whirled
away into midstream.

The belt probably saved my life, but in the mean-
time it came near being the death of me. It was a
small one, and in trying to get my head and
shoulders through the loop I got stuck with one
arm in and the other out. The result was that
my head was canted over my left shoulder, and my
mouth was almost under water. To make things
worse a strong wind had sprung up, breaking the
surface of the river into little wavelets which surged
round about me, broke in my face, and at times
prevented me from breathing.

Occasionally strong eddies would whirl me round
and suck me under; then I would shoot up again
owing to the buoyancy of my belt, choking and
struggling for dear life. An hour of this buffeting

: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

made me think life rather dear at the price, and I
almost resolved out of sheer weariness to disengage
myself from the belt and allow the waters to
swallow me. Then the memory of the dear Old
Country would^loom up before me and the faces
of those I loved, and I would strike out once more
for the shore, but hopelessly, for the current ran
like a mill race.

In the midst of one of these futile fights with
the waves I saw a man swimming toward me.
He had his helmet on and I noticed a yellow
paper stuck in its puggaree. I struggled to meet
him, thinking we might readjust the life belt and
assist each other ashore. He seemed gradually
gaining on me. I stretched out my hand. The
helmet whirled by me, and to my horror I saw
there was no one under it. The poor fellow had
gone down.

Toward noon I became conscious of my feet
touching something soft. I struggled onward, and
presently found myself on solid land. A few yards
in front of me was a sand bank and above me was
a large sakieh, or irrigation wheel, creaking and
moaning as it ladled up the water for the fields.
The river was now down to my waist, now down
to my knees, when, completely exhausted, I stumbled
forward and fell. Something flashed over my
head and fell across my body. It was a grass rope
torn from the sakieh. I had just enough strength

left to twist it round my left wrist.

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

Soon I found myself being dragged up the slope.
The shingle cutting into my flesh gave me great
pain. I must have become unconscious for some
time, for the next thing I remember is sitting up
on the sand with the sensation strong upon me that
I had been somehow dozing. With shrill cries
several dusky forms were flying from me in all
directions. These were Sudanese ladies, who with
the inquisitiveness of their sex had been examining
this apparently dead, strange-looking, white creature
cast up on their shore. Their cries of consternation
at my untimely awakening were still ringing in my
ears when a burning thirst came upon me, for my
only garment was a flannel cricket shirt and the
sun in the Sudan at high noon is a baking one.

I found seated close round me a number of men
and boys. I made signs to them for water, but
they shook their heads and offered some mealies
instead, thinking no doubt that I had had water
enough. Presently a boy came running up from
the river with a soldier's helmet which had been
washed ashore. I recognized it at once, for the
yellow paper still stuck to its puggaree. As the
boy jammed it on my head, and it crushed down
over my temples, an icy chili ran through my
veins. It seemed to be a gift from the dead, a
grim but valuable return for my attempt to save
its owner. But for that helmet I should have
certainly succumbed to the fierce heat of the sun.

However I felt happier now that my head was

VOL. ii. — 7 83

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

protected, and looked round with a smile at the
assembled gaping crowd. The ladies whom I had
scared by my sudden return to life had come back,
and there was much talking and wonderment about
this curious stranger with the pink skin and the
green eyes. Was his epidermis diseased? How
wonderful! It was white all over!

On my right sat an elderly man who held the
other end of the grass rope which had hauled me
high and dry. I pressed his hand in gratitude for
his timely help, when my shoulder was tapped
rather roughly from behind. On looking up I
discovered a tall, fanatical-looking dervish standing
over me. In his right hand was a spear. At first
I thought he was about to plunge it into my body.
I closed my eyes and waited. I was too weak to
resist. Then I saw the barb lifted on high, the
blade in the fierce sun flashing a long shaft of light
toward the heavens. In a loud voice, which seemed
to silence the gibbering crowd, the dervish shouted,
"Allah! Allah!"

I understood him then; he wished to impress
on me what at the moment I had quite forgotten,
that an Almighty Providence had saved me. I
felt abashed. It seemed curious to be reminded in
this way by a person whom most civilized people
would look upon as a savage. He was a good, big-
hearted savage, too, for when I tried to walk, and
after the first hundred yards my blistered feet
could not stand the burning sand, he hurried into

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

the crowd and returned triumphantly with a pair
of sandals. I was then led along the bank of the
Nile in the direction of the wreck and at last found
myself with my fellow survivors. Poor Poe was
under the shadow of a tree, and not suffering so
much as I expected from his terrible shifting
about.

Toward evening we sighted the stern-wheeler
Lotos, and Poe, with the rest of the wounded, was
taken on board. The Nassif-Il-Kir was not en-
tirely submerged. Her stern still hung on a pinnacle
of rock. The rest of the survivors-^of the wreck
were encamped on the small island close inshore.
I crossed over and joined the little party, the captain
having resolved to remain there pending the find-
ing of the bodies of the drowned. Divers had been
at work on the wreck and had recovered some
blankets, tinned beef, and a barrel of rum. We
made tents of the awning of the ill-fated paddle
boat and lived fairly comfortably for several
days, till a steamer came to our rescue. Luckily
the weather was extremely warm, night and day,
and I found my cricket shirt almost superfluous
clothing.

On examining the piece of yellow paper stuck
in the solar topee which had come to me from the
river, I found there was writing upon it which the
water had nearly obliterated. It was a receipt for
a postal order sent by the late owner to his sweet-
heart in Old England. Poor fellow! That after-

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

noon his corpse was washed ashore, and before
sundown I raised his helmet in respectful salutation
as his body was laid to rest in the sand.

After about two days' journey with the rest of
the shipwrecked crew, I was landed at Dongola,
but still with only a shirt, solar topee, blanket,
and cricket shoes to my name, a penniless wanderer.
Fresh regiments had arrived, but the men and officers
were all strangers to me. Therefore my heart leaped
with joy when a discharged Greek servant met me on
the levee. He was also glad to see me and immedi-
ately assisted me out of my predicament. He pro-
vided me with coat, trousers, and a fresh shirt; took
me to a bakery where he was employed by some other
Greeks in kneading dough, and introduced me to
four men who sheltered and fed me and who eventu-
ally made me a proposal. They were all outlaws-
cutthroats and brigands from Greece — trying to
make an honest penny by selling grog and stores
to the troops, and they wanted to get to Wady
Haifa unmolested by the Egyptian authorities.
Their proposition to me was that they would pro-
vide me with a camel and provisions for the trip
if I would accompany them on the twelve days'
journey by the west bank of the Nile, less fre-
quented than the east by their enemies, the
Egyptian authorities.

I consented and we made a start, the bakers
loading one camel with thrice-toasted bread, to

last us the twelve days. We were to depend upon

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

the villages en route for fresh meat. I think I
shall never forget that trip. During the day we
would travel well inland through desert country,
but always getting down to the water by sundown,
where we could bathe in pools by the side of some
picturesque ruined Greek temple; and as the big
moon's disk climbed the sky, one felt that one was
dipping into liquid amber, so mellow was her reflected
light. We had no tents, simply a blanket to lie upon;
but there was only a light dew falling and the air
was always dry and balmy. Before dawn we were
on the alert and at the peep of the sun were out in
the desert once more, lost to the vigilant eyes of
the "Gyppy" police.

I had been elected chief by the Greeks, and they
had taken an oath to abide by my decisions on all
matters. The most important things I insisted
upon were not to molest the inhabitants by the
way and to pay for everything we took.

My followers soon found out the wisdom of this.
On the second day out we bought a sheep, and
toward evening, on our approaching a village, a
mob of irate natives brandishing their spears
stopped our progress and one of them accused us
of stealing the sheep. The Greeks were for fight-
ing, but I knew that if a shot was fired all that
side of the river would be up in arms; so we
camped outside the village till one of them brought
up the man from whom we had bought the animal,
who showed them the money he had received.

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Then they were fully satisfied as to our honesty
and became most friendly.

We had an interpreter with our party, a Maltese
rascal of a jocular frame of mind, who announced
to the villagers that I was a great hakim in my own
country, and presently many sick and lame people
came to see me. Of course we had no medicines.
This was a great drawback, for a purgative goes
a long way to inspire confidence in a native, but I
could give advice, though in this the interpreter
had it all his own way. After a short talk with me
he would give his diagnoses; some patients went
away bright and happy, but not a few departed
with gloomy faces. However, the great stunt of
the evening was to bring them up for me to look
into their mouths and tell their age by their teeth
with the aid of a flaring torch from the camp fire.
Natives never know when they were born or how
old they are, wherefore this trick became most
popular. The women, like their more civilized
sisters of western Europe, were rather shy on the
question; but I always let them off easily with a
few years to the good. The news spread like wild-
fire along the riverside that there was a hakim
with our party, and this did us a world of good.
Our progress now became a triumphal march until,
on the evening of the twelfth day, Wady Haifa was
sighted off the opposite bank of the river and our
charming journey came to an end.

At Wady Haifa I found some decent clothing

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

which had been sent up from my reserve wardrobe
in Cairo; and I drew a check on the principal Greek
storekeeper for a good round sum, so I was at last
in clover.

At the little hotel I found Walter Ingram, who
had been with me through all the battles of the
desert war and was returning to Europe. We
went together to a mummy shop, which was kept
by one of the consuls, to take back a souvenir. In
one room of the second story there were several
coffins. Two were opened and, only a few jewels
being found, the bodies were pitched out of the
window by the irate Egyptian ghouls. When the
third case was about to be pried open, my friend
Ingram said to the consul: "I will buy that, stock
and barrel. Don't open it." I envied Ingram the
purchase, for it was a fine case and the interior must
contain some wonderful scarabs, possibly a mask of
gold, and all the extraordinary things of weird beauty
one finds in some of these thousand-year-old shells
of Egyptian dignitaries. The case was shipped in
Ingram's name to Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo.

I was seated in my accustomed chair on the
stoop of Shepheard's, once more as the journalistic
spider waiting for the flies from the station to
bring something to his meshes in the famous hotel,
when Ingram's purchase arrived and was placed
against the glass windows in front of my bedroom
and his.

I was anxious to see it opened, but Ingram

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

rightly waited till he had an expert to do the job.
I had to leave Cairo on important business for a
few days, and when I returned found the case had
been opened in my absence. When I saw my
friend he said, in a jocular way: "I struck a snag
with that mummy. He is some very bigwig who
lived thousands and thousands of years ago, a
priestly gent of great importance, for there was a
long papyrus on his breast setting forth a horrible
curse. It threatens anyone who disturbs his long
rest in his sarcophagus with a violent death and
predicts that the bones of the culprit will be swept
to the seas or scattered to the winds."

Having seen the awful desecration of some of these
poor bodies left to the blazing sun and the dogs of
Wady Haifa, I felt that the old priest was some-
what justified in his wrath. What became of that
mummy case I don't know, more than that it
eventually found its way into the cellars of the
British Museum in London, but poor Ingram was
destined to fulfill the prophetic curse. When he
arrived in England he married and settled down,
and all his friends thought he had finished with the
nomad life. But a few months afterward he seemed
impelled to go into the wilds once more, and he was
eventually trampled upon and pierced by the tusk
of a rogue elephant while shooting big game. There
is a legend that his body was hastily buried in the
sand and his bones washed by heavy rains into the

sea,

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

Whoever came in actual contact with that
mummy after it left its home in Egypt suffered in
some way or other, and I heard in one of the clubs
in New York in the spring of 1919 that it had been
sold to an American who didn't care a row of pins
about these Old World legends, and that while he
was bringing it to the New World it went down
with its owner in the ill-fated Titanic.

The lure of Shepheard's brought the late Field-
Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood one day when I was
seated on the stoop. I had previously met him
outside of Alexandria when he was conducting the
first land action in the Egyptian campaign of
1882 by attacking Kafir-el-Douar. There was no
officer in the British service who had seen more
varied fighting or been in the thick of it more
than Sir Evelyn.

There was something remarkably fascinating
about his personal appearance, an alertness about
his face and figure that stamped the man of action.
I remember, in 1883, when he was invited to re-
organize the Egyptian forces after the defeat of
Arabi Pasha at Tel-el-Kebir and became the first
Sirdar, that he affected the picturesque Bedouin
Arab headgear, with a fillet of black goat's wool
and gold thread to keep it in place, instead of
wearing the plain red tarboosh. So rigged out he
was easily the most striking figure in Cairo.

Sir Evelyn Wood might well be called the father
of the Egyptian army, and he must have felt proud

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

of the prowess of the young officers who were under
his command in those early days of the British
control in Egypt, for they have all distinguished
themselves and their names are household words of
the Empire: witness the late Earl Kitchener, Sir
Francis Wingate, the Right Hon. Lord Grenfell,
Gen. Sir Archibald Hunter, Sir H. C. Chermside,
Sir Leslie Rundle, and many others.

He was the general in command of communi-
cations for Wolseley's expedition up the Nile, and
it was owing to his restless energy in pushing up
supplies and in pulling the steamers up the cataracts
with his well-trained fellaheen troops that Wolseley's
army was never at any time during that eventful
expedition delayed for want of munitions.

On returning to England Sir Evelyn took com-
mand of the Eastern District. Not long after, I
was asked to deliver a lecture at Colchester on my
experiences of the Egyptian campaigns, and Sir
Evelyn kindly took the chair. After the lecture
I returned to his quarters, and I shall always re-
member the pleasant time I spent with him over
a cigar, chatting about our campaigning days.

One of the reminiscences he related of the time
when he was a middy during the Crimean war I
have never forgotten. It was one of the many
brave deeds that were done by the men of the
Bluejacket Brigade before Sebastopol. "I can see
the man now/' said Sir Evelyn, "with his thumb
on the vent of the gun; Michal Hardy was his

WRECKED A SECOND TIME

name. He was in my battery facing the Malakoff.
One of the gunners was drinking a ration of rum
when a shell took off his head, and Hardy's face
and neck were in an instant covered with the poor
fellow's brains. We were all speechless with the
horror of the thing. Without moving his right
thumb from the vent, Hardy wiped the horrible
mess from his face with his left hand, and con-
temptuously said to the rest of the gun's crew who
were still staring at the ghastly corpse: "What the
hell are you looking at? Is he dead? Take the
carcass away. Ain't he dead? Take him to the
doctor."

Then inquiring of the loader if he had rammed
home, he gave the order: "Run out/ Ready!"

Chapter VI

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

A Serb-Bulgar quarrel — A novel way to gain the front — A retreat — The
Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta — My harem — Safe in Belgrade —
/ beat the mail, am delivered before the letters — On the road to Mandalay —
Bells and pagodas — An amiable viceroy — An adventure on the Irra-
waddy — The reception at the palace of the bloodthirsty monarchs — I am
introduced to a great general — / tell my story to Sir Frederick Roberts.

AFTER my vicissitudes with Wolseley's army
up the Nile and my subsequent return from
Egypt I was in England but a short time before
there was little flare-up in the Near East. The
blaze did not last long and was eventually squelched
by Austria's action in bringing about an armistice.
King Milan began this war (for no particular
reason beyond that of having a nice little army
at his call, and an aggressive temperament) by
marching into Bulgaria one morning for the purpose
of "readjusting" the frontier to Serbia's advantage.
The first fight occurred in the Dragoman defile
when, a fog coming on, the forward scouts of the
Serbians fired into their own supports, and the
Bulgarians, warned in time by this fusillade, out-
flanked the Serbian advance force and compelled

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

it to retire in a far from orderly manner. The
Serbs had to recross their frontier and were now
on the defensive. At Pirot they made their last
stand, but they were driven back on Nish at the
bayonet point. The King was the first to go, then
came the wounded, then followed the army with
the Bulgars hard on their heels; and Prince
Alexander of Battenberg would have carried out his
threat of eating King Milan's breakfast in Nish
the following morning but for Austrian intervention.
So ended the Serb-Bulgar fiasco of 1886.

On the first news of the fighting I started for
Paris and Vienna and found myself one morning
in the Serbian capital applying to the War Office
for the permit necessary to frank me to the front.
I thought that there would be little difficulty in
getting what I required, for I had been with the
Serbian army ten years previously in their war
with Turkey and had been made by King Milan a
Chevalier of the Takova for some little service
which I had rendered. I felt, therefore, that I
should be a persona grata with the authorities; but,
alas! I discovered that neither I nor my services a
decade earlier were remembered; for at that period
Englishmen and everything Britannic, with the
exception of the current coin of the realm, were
looked upon with hatred and suspicion.

I gave up the War Office in disgust, and retired
to my hotel despondent, but not beaten. Jim, my
servant, a smart little chap, came to my assistance.

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECIDES OF ADVENTURE

He had been a jockey in the stables of Prince
Batthyany, and had gravitated from Vienna to
Belgrade. Being well acquainted with the Slav
language, he was also serving me as interpreter.

"Mr. Villiers," said he, "I will get you to the
front if you will do exactly what I tell you."

"Well," said I, "what is it?"

"Be ready to start to-morrow, sir, and I will let
you know how I have arranged matters when
once we are en route. I can tell you no more at
present."

I thought I had best be discreet and not put any
further questions, for there was something in the
little fellow's face which seemed to say, "Leave it to
me and I will put you through."

The next morning we took train for Nish. My
servant had already secured two saloon seats, and
my scanty baggage was arranged on the empty one
opposite me. As I puffed away at a cigarette and
counted over my belongings I discovered a carpet-
bag which I had not before seen among my kit.
It probably belongs to my servant, thought I, and
has been placed there for safety. But what a thing
to travel with — a most flaring, cabbage-rose-pattern
carpetbag, very full of something hard and heavy.

What has Jim got in that bag? I wondered, as I
turned it carefully over. Nothing of an edible
nature; it was too hard and lumpy for that, and
for a similar reason it could not be wearing apparel.

On arriving at Nish my servant personally took

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

charge of the carpetbag, and, following a porter,
proceeded to the hotel. When I was comfortably
seated by the side of the German stove in my bed-
room, I questioned Jim about the gaudy grip-
sack, which I found had been carefully deposited
with the rest of my luggage in the room.

"To whom does that frightfully hideous bag
belong?" said I.

"It's yours, sir," said the unabashed Jim. "I
procured it for you in Belgrade. It's part of our
scheme," he said, smiling.

"Part of our scheme! What scheme?" said I.

"Why, getting to the front, of course, sir."

"Do you mean to tell me that that inartistic,
ugly receptacle, or its contents, has anything to
do with my getting to the front? Now, be sensible,
Jim. What do you mean? And be quick about it?"

"Look here, sir, you mustn't be angry; but that
is really the most important part of my plan."

"Well, let's have the story," I said. "You are
doing your best, no doubt, but it seems funny —
very funny."

"Well, sir, you must know that recently a lot
of coal has been discovered in these here parts.
But people, especially foreigners, have been rather
shy of investing capital, owing, probably, to the
great unrest lately throughout the country, and
though one or two mines have been opened, they
have been going badly. Anyhow, it struck me that
if I turned you into an American, sir, and gave

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

out that you have no end of capital and were going
about searching for coal, there would be little
suspicion regarding your real profession if only you
were occasionally to open that there bag."

"Ah!" I cried, jumping up in great glee, "that
wretched bag contains coal? Jim, you're a trump!
You have saved the situation!"

So we journeyed on, Jim producing the coalsack
whenever the eye of suspicion glanced at us. Thus
we were enabled, without arrest, to arrive at the
front just in the nick of time to see the final fight
in the streets of Pirot.

The only means Jim could find to carry us to
this fight was a springless araba or peasant cart.
The roads were so bad and heavy with mud that the
military engineers had corduroyed them. Jolting
over those logs gave me the most dismal headache.
When I arrived in Nish I was indifferent to every-
thing but my head. On gaining the hotel I threw
myself onto the bed for a well-earned rest, and
was just on the point of dropping off to sleep when
I was disturbed by a Serbian sergeant, who delivered
a note to this effect :

That all males, men and boys, were ordered to throw
up trenches for the defense of the town and to report
themselves with pick and shovel within the hour.

I sent my servant to the officials to remonstrate
against this order, for I was an alien and sick. But

he returned with the curt reply that it was for a

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

sudden emergency and all hands were needed;
furthermore that the penalty for disobedience of
the order was death.

It had been raining for many hours and the
prospect of digging all night in this inclement
weather after my strenuous work during the day
made me feel miserable indeed. Just at this dreary
moment I heard the cheery voice of an old friend,
Baron Mundy of the Austrian Red Cross, shouting
for something to eat down below. I was by his side
in an instant and told him my dilemma.

"I will make it all right, my dear Villiers," said
he. "I have just come in with the Austrian Red
Cross train of the Sovereign Order of the Knights
of Malta. I'll explain matters to our chief, Prince
Lichnowsky. We will smuggle you on board the
train and you will be in Belgrade to-morrow
morning."

I had collected all my gear and was preparing
to leave the hotel when, much to my disgust, the
three chambermaids of the hostelry, finding I
was going to leave the city, prayed me to take
them along; they were so frightened of the Bul-
garians. They wept copiously and clung to me
in the most dramatic movie fashion. They were
dressed for the streets and each had seized a piece
of my baggage in order to accompany me to the
station. There was no time for argument, so I
started, and under their cover I arrived at the
depot unmolested by the military, for the girls were
VOL. n.— 8 99

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

fussed up to the nines and I was evidently taken as
their manservant.

Anyway, to my delight, the hospital train was
in the station ready to start with its complement
of wounded. Wherever I went the ladies followed
closely. I interviewed the baron and explained my
difficulty, for the girls now refused to deliver up
my baggage without a safe-conduct for them-
selves.

The baron saw his chief about it, but at first
Lichnowsky was adamant and said that he had
room for mfe, but certainly not for my harem. I
explained the matter to the ladies, but they burst
into tears again and clung to me in such a sisterly
way that I was absolutely nonplused, until the
good-natured baron swept them into the train,
saying, "It's all right, my dear Villiers; we will
make them work their passage as Red Cross sisters."
I must say they worked like Trojans all night for
the wretched sufferers. At dawn we were in the
Serbian capital.

I am not very emotional; that is probably why
I might have seemed a bit of a bear, but those
three chambermaids were so grateful for what I
had done for them that whenever they met me on
the street thereafter they would embrace me, much
to my consternation and the amusement of passing
pedestrians.

By this time the winter had set in with the
severity usual in this part of the world. Of a night

100

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

the thermometer would fall to 20 degrees below
zero. The Serbian sentries on outpost duty on the
snowy uplands of the Balkans were frozen to death
in appalling numbers. I was, therefore, very
pleased to receive a telegram from my paper, re-
questing me to go to Burma. This journey
assured me of a grateful change of temperature, so
I started at once, and in less than two weeks my
pocket thermometer changed from below zero to
106 degrees in the shade. My ingenious servant
Jim I had to leave behind, for he had a wife and
family in Belgrade, and did not relish the idea of
being away from them for so long a period.

So I left the Serbian capital alone one morning
for Vienna, arriving there just in time for a bath,
a dinner, and the express train for Venice. In the
city of the Doges I got on board the P. & O. liner,
which in those days picked up the mails at Brindisi
and then proceeded with them to Alexandria.
Here I had time to drive around the forts, which
I had seen knocked about in the bombarding days
of June, 1882, and to have luncheon with some
old friends at the club. Then I boarded the train
for Suez, where I found the Bombay mail steamer
in readiness. My object in thus hurrying was if
possible to catch up with Lord Dufferin, who^ had
been deputed by the British government to take
over officially the Burmese territory recently annexed
by us on the deposition of that bloodthirsty
monarch, King Theebaw.

101

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

I learned at Suez that, even if I continued my
journey without the slightest delay, I could not
possibly catch up with the viceroy, but that he
would be at least four days ahead of me. This
was most provoking, but as hitherto I had always
been successful in "getting there" I resolved to
continue my journey and chance it. Something
might turn up to delay his lordship's departure
from Calcutta and I might yet be in time. In
the old days there was much more enjoyment on
board Indian mail steamers than at the present
time. Every evening there would be a dance on
deck, some youthful sub or young lady fresh from
school officiating at the piano. In the Red Sea of
nights we would leave our stuffy cabins for the
deck, and sleep under the stars.

On arriving at Aden I found to my great relief
that the viceroy had been delayed, through a
slight indisposition, in his journey down country
to Calcutta, and therefore would not start for
Burma at the date appointed.

"Well," I thought, "this is good luck for me,
if rather poor for the representative of Her Most
Gracious Majesty. I may, after all, reach India
in time." I had but little anxiety now that I felt
my old luck still standing by me. When we finally
arrived in Bombay I found that by traveling
straight on I would reach the capital on the very
morning of the departure of Lord Dufferin for
Rangoon. Therefore I would not wait for the

102

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

passenger boat, but, by permission of the genial
captain, was allowed to go down with the letters in
the chute to the mail tender. When I arrived at
the bottom I felt it was tender only in name.

On landing with the letters I hurried to the
railway station, and after sending a telegram to
the viceroy's secretary saying that I was coming
and wanted, if possible, to go on with the vice-
regal party, I was just in the nick of time to catch
the mail express for Calcutta. The days and nights
were hot on that special occasion and I arrived in the
city partly roasted and somewhat boiled. A stalwart
Sikh, in the gorgeous livery of the Indian vice-
roy's establishment, was awaiting me at the ter-
minus with a large sealed envelope. I hurriedly
tore it open, and rapidly glanced over its contents.
It was short and anything but sweet. It ran some-
what to the effect that "His Excellency was unable
to take on Mr. Villiers with his party, as he had
been compelled to refuse all correspondents because
of the numerous applications, and therefore could
make no exception in his case. But if Mr. Villiers
traveled to Rangoon by mail steamer, on arriving
at that port His Excellency would do all he could
to assist him."

On the back of the note in pencil was the follow-
ing: "There's a British India S. S. leaving an hour
before the viceroy — don't miss her."

I did not. Within an hour I and my kit were
safely on board the train bound for Diamond Har-

103

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

bor, to meet the little mail steamer for Rangoon.
It was a curious proceeding to get on board Indian
steamers in those days. First of all the passengers,
together with their luggage, were carried by stalwart
natives out to small rowboats, as there was no land-
ing stage. Then the small craft were rowed into
midstream just as the steamer was sighted. On
nearing us she slowed down, but, because of the
strong current, she never stopped. Ropes were
thrown from us to men waiting on her port bow
and we were hitched on to her bulwarks and towed
along by her till all the passengers had scrambled
on board. Then our baggage was hauled up. After
that the small boats were cast off and the steamer
shot ahead again at full speed.

While we were crossing the Bay of Bengal a hurri-
cane cropped up, and for a day and a night it was
touch-and-go whether we would go under so
terrible was the sea and so heavily laden was the
ship. It was a wonderful sight, for the squall came
upon us as quick as a flash. One moment it was
brilliant sunshine, the next darkness came like the
blackest of nights; tempestuous seas broke over us
from all quarters, and for hours we expected funnel,
masts, spars, and all deck gear to be swept into the
boiling ocean.

The viceroy's ship was also delayed by the storm
and I succeeded in landing shortly after her arrival
in Rangoon. Here Lord Dufferin kept his word and
befriended me, giving me permission to take a

104

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

berth in the advance guardship of the viceregal
flotilla of three. I had a most delightful half-hour
with the famous diplomatist at his temporary
residence in Rangoon, and he was much interested
in what I was able to tell him of that second mili-
tary fiasco of Milan of Serbia. I have always a
keen remembrance of that calm, impenetrable,
rather ascetic face and the grace and charm of
manner of Her Majesty's greatest of viceroys.

On the night of my arrival in Rangoon I left by
train for Prome, the terminus of the rail on the
Irrawaddy. There was a company of Ghoorkas on
board, besides a Catling gun and some bluejackets
who would be useful if it became necessary to
clear the banks of the river, should Dacoits attempt
to stop the steamer. Therefore there was a touch
of adventure about the journey as well as novelty
in our surroundings. A quaint river is the Irra-
waddy, a shallow and uncertain stream, which
sometimes necessitated our hugging the shore so
closely that one could almost step on land. Indeed,
our armed force was absolutely necessary, so easy
would it have been for any desperate men suddenly
to attack and board us from the banks, down to
which stretched mighty teak forests in a somber,
impenetrable jungle. Shafts of dazzling light oc-
casionally sprang out from the dense thicket where
graceful pagodas reared their gold-tipped spires to
the sun, and the silver tinkle of their temple bells
lingered quiveringly on the air.

105

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

On the afternoon of the second day we were
rounding a sharp turn of the river a short distance
from the temple city of Pegram, the "City of
Pagodas," when the steamer suddenly stuck in
midstream. We at once reversed engines, but the
paddles merely churned up the water. We then
threw out anchors, and steadily steamed against
them, but without avail. The unfortunate steamer
was fairly embedded in a sand bank. There was
not the slightest movement forward, only a percepti-
ble lurch to starboard as the sand began to silt up
with the strong swirl of the current.

We signaled to the viceroy's steamer as she
passed that we could not proceed, and immediately
the rear guard ship was ordered to take up our
post. Soon both steamers were lost to sight in the
bend of the river and the coming night. I stood on
deck dazed with the misfortune which had so
suddenly befallen me. Here was I, after traveling
straight from the Danube to the Irrawaddy,
thwarted in this unfortunate manner just when my
goal was in sight.

The captain, a genial, good-natured fellow, seeing
my state of mind, said: "Mr. Villiers, you shall
succeed. I am very sorry, and I will do all I can
for you. Here, take one of the boats. I will furnish
a crew. If you pay them well they will get you on
board the viceroy's ship before to-morrow morning."

For the moment I thought that the amiable
skipper was "talking through his hat." But he

106

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

assured me it was the custom on the Irrawaddy for
all vessels to anchor at sundown. "So," said he,
"you will have plenty of time if your crew pulls
well. Give the niggers plenty of rupees and they
will do the trick."

The boat rattled down the davit falls. Two
rifles and a few rounds of ammunition were thrown
in, in case of an attack by pirates, and we pushed
off into the darkness, for the great river had turned
from molten gold to russet, from russet to purple,
and was now a sullen inky black.

I was making myself as comfortable as possible in
the stern sheets, when presently my feet began to
feel cold and clammy and I discovered water rising
rapidly in the bottom of the boat. We tried to
bale, but the water gained upon us. It was a case
of foundering or getting back to the steamer at
once.

"Five rupees apiece," I stupidly shouted, "if we
get back before going to the bottom." The men
seemed to mutter, "No fear, sahib, we are all in
the same boat,"and they pulled madly at the oars.

The water was almost oozing over the gunwale
as we touched the steamer. So near a shave was it
that three of my crew saved us from being swamped
by jumping clear and clinging to the ship's rigging.
I found that the plug was out of the boat, and in
addition to this her ribs were warped, for she had
been hanging up in the davits, unused, for months.
She was simply a sieve.

107

FILLIERS: HIS tlVE DECADES OF 4DFENTURE

"Well," said the captain, as I stepped on board,
"this is a setback certainly, but you shall still
succeed. You shall have my gig. She is decidedly
bigger, and will take a larger crew. It's only a
question of rupees."

"Oh, hang the dollars! let me have the crew,
there's a good fellow," and in a few minutes I
was pushing off once more.

I was still to have trouble before the night was
through. The Burman who acted as pilot began
to fall asleep, and the boatmen would continually
run us inshore. This was rather a dangerous pro-
ceeding, inasmuch as we might be looted if we
were not strong enough to hold our own against the
piratical fisher-folk, so I stirred the pilot up with
the toe of my boot. Then he got sulky and refused
to do duty. This necessitated my placing the
muzzle of my revolver to the nape of the old sinner's
neck to steady his nerves; and in this fashion he
was kept awake till we sighted the viceroy's craft
just in the eye of the dawn.

I stepped on board and reported myself to Lord
William Beresford, the military secretary, and the
viceroy was good enough to keep me as his guest
till we landed at Mandalay. All my vicissitudes
had been crowned with success. Here was I in
Theebaw's city after journeying twelve thousand
miles from east to west practically without stopping,
being delivered four and twenty hours before Her
Majesty's mails.

1 08

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

The next morning there was a great function up
at the palace. Lord Dufferin stood at the foot of
the throne whereon but a few weeks previously King
Theebaw, in all his bloody glory, ordered the de-
capitation of eighty of his relatives (consisting of
his cousins, sisters, aunts, and other connections by
the score) as he drank gin toddy and smoked the
abnormally large cheroot of the country, supported
by his two amiable wives, one of whom, Souperlait,
was an even more bloodthirsty monster than
Theebaw himself.

In illustrating the historic scene, I had only time
to sketch in the head of Lord Dufferin, so the
next morning his son, Lord Clandeboye, was good
enough to get into his father's viceregal robes and
pose at the foot of the Burmese throne, that I
might finish the picture.

During the previous day's reception, after being
presented, I had joined the small crowd standing in
a semicircle by the throne. Presently a very smart
little man in the uniform of a general came up to
me and said, "Mr. Villiers, I believe?"

"Yes, sir, that is my name."

"Well, mine's Roberts," and for a moment there
was an amused twinkle in his gray eyes.

"Oh, yes," I said, rather confused, for I now
recognized the face. I had always associated the
great soldier with the early-Victorian, unwarrior-
like mutton-chop whiskers and lank hair from the
phonographs I had seen of him. Now his hair was

109

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

closely cropped and his lean, eager face was adorned
only with a gray mustache.

"You were with General Stewart during the
Nile expedition for the relief of Khartum? I have
read about you in Sir Charles Wilson's book on the
campaign. Well, if you have the time, come and
chat over it to me in a quiet corner."

We had a considerable talk about the famous
march across the desert and the fights of Abu Klea
and Gubat; then the general asked me to luncheon
at his quarters at the palace the next day. During
the repast I told him how I missed joining his fa-
mous march to Kandahar because my journal had
recalled me from the Afghan campaign to go to
Australia.

"Ah," said the general, with a grim smile, "you
will probably be in the next."

"When will that be?"

"Possibly next year, and I hope, Mr. Villiers, if
it comes off, that you will join my staff."

"You are very kind, General, I shall be delighted;
but with whom will be the fighting?"

The Commander-in-Chief looked at me with real
astonishment and I felt myself squirm under his
cold gaze, for I thought there was a slight glint of
contempt in it at my evident crass stupidity.

"Why, with the Russians, of course," he quickly
replied.

Then I realized for the first time that the Musco-
vite invasion of India, at the idea of which so many

A SHORT CAMPAIGN AND A LONG JOURNEY

of our statesmen scoffed, was a real and possible
danger. There was no false confidence on General
Roberts's part in the impregnability of the passes.
The ever-vigilant Commander-in-Chief never took
his eyes away from the Afghan border.

However, Roberts's Russian campaign never came
off, and I settled down for some time painting
pictures for the Academy in my studio in London.
When at length I broke loose once again it was to
find myself crossing the Atlantic for a tour in the
Dominion of Canada.

)

DECADE

i 8 90- i 900

Chapter VII
1890-1900

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

A governor- general of ancient lineage — "On, Stanley, on!" — Canada from
coast to coast — Some of her cities — Plains, forests, and a few of her
denizens.

\ HAVE watched the recent growth of the Domin-
* ion of Canada with the greatest interest, for on
my first journey in 1888 I saw her far-western
cities practically in their swaddling clothes, mere
collections of log cabins and tin shanties, which
have now developed into municipalities with palatial
buildings of brick and stone. It was my happy
privilege to be the guest of the Governor-General,
Lord Stanley of Preston, the late Earl of Derby,
who seemed to be following in the footsteps of his
great ancestor by carrying out the last words of the
dying Marmion, "On, Stanley, on!" He was
making a tour of the Dominion from the Atlantic
to the Pacific and, rain or shine, at every halting
place he had to make an address to the enthusiastic
crowd assembled to do him honor — a speech, more-
over, which must show considerable knowledge of

VOL. ii.— 9 115

riLLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTIJRE

the industries of each locality and the hopes and
ambitions of the country.

It was no light task this — roughly three thou-
sand miles of speechmaking from Quebec to Van-
couver. Even the red Indians intercepted him on
the Regina Plains and would have their full share
of palaver; but this, I think, the Governor-General
really enjoyed, for the Indians did most of the
talking.

The reception of the vice-regai party by the
Blackfeet was especially interesting. The Governor's
carriages traveled over the trackless prairies toward
a vast level horizon without the slightest sign of a
living being to be seen anywhere, when, suddenly,
a smudge of dust flecked the sky line and then as
quickly disappeared. Before we could speculate
whence they came a squad of mounted Indians in
full war-paint were thundering down upon us.
With weird war-whoops and cries the wild horse-
men surrounded the carriages, forming a rough
and picturesque escort. Points of numerous tepees
now broke the horizon and we presently found we
were in the center of the Indian encampment.

Crowfoot, the chief of the Blackfeet, who greeted
us, surrounded by his braves, was almost Glad-
stonian in appearance, for he had a face and bearing
remarkably like the great Liberal leader and his
speeches were as long and as emphatic as those of
our Grand Old Man. His fine, bold eyes had a similar

fierce glare in them when he warmed to his work.

116

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

His oratory impressed us all for at least half an
hour, though we did not understand one word of
what he was uttering. We listened spellbound
by his earnestness and charm of manner. The
interpreter stood up after the great chief had
finished, and told us the gist of the speech more or
less as follows, "The chief of the Blackfeet and all
his tribe is proud, he say, and glad to meet the
Great White Chief who represents the 'Great
Mother' across the water."

Here the interpreter hesitated for a moment, and
then burst out in a quick, jerky manner, "He, the
chief of the Blackfeet, say he want more flour, he
want more pork, he say his people have no too
much smoke, and would like more tobacco."

Yes, the whole of that remarkable oration boiled
down to those three simple requests. It seemed to
me a splendid lesson to some of our politicians in
saving the time of the House by coming down to
the "pork and flour" of things at once.

Most of the time crossing the plains was spent
by the ladies of the viceregal party on the cow-
catcher, where a prettily decorated platform had
been rigged up by the engine-driver. The viceroy
never missed a meeting or any function of interest
for the welfare of the great Dominion on that long
and eventful journey. He inspected between
Toronto and Calgary every industry, from lumber-
ing to coal, gold, and silver mining, wheat raising,
flour milling, and cattle ranching; and then ex-

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

amined the remarkable engineering feats of the
Canadian Pacific Railway in the mountain ranges of
British Columbia. Thence he went to Victoria in
Vancouver Island.

In all that journey, lasting several weeks, there
was not the slightest accident from start to finish,
but on our return from Victoria to Vancouver City,
on the mainland, we met with a setback of a
serious nature. H. M. S. Amphion had been placed
at the service of the viceregal party, and Captain
Hulton, in command, had made all arrangements for
a quick and pleasant voyage. Unfortunately, when
a few hours out of Victoria a dense, opaque fog
came on — a fog peculiar to those parts and almost
as impenetrable as a blanket.

In spite of this we were compelled to run at
about seventeen knots because of the strong current
through the Kelet Pass, off the United States
coast. I was on the quarter-deck at the time with
Lady Stanley and the other ladies of the party,
when I suddenly saw, through a slight break in
the fog, a huge, rocky headland. I thought then that
I had never been so near land but once before, and
that was in clear weather when rounding the North
Cape in Norway.

Next moment I found myself rolling on the
deck, but I was quickly up again trying to assist the
ladies to their feet, while the ship trembled from stem
to stern with the shock of the impact as she dashed
into the headland of the Kelet Bluff, A horrible,

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

grating sound thrilled all on board, and then the
vessel quivered violently and came to a standstill.

The ladies showed remarkable sang-froid, and the
first thing one of them said was, "Mr. Villiers, I
am sorry for the captain, aren't you ? "

He was on the bridge giving orders in a quiet,
reassuring manner, though the rock we had struck
had torn a hole in the ship's bottom through which
a team of oxen could have drawn a wagon. The life-
boats were at once stored with water and provisions
and swung out on their davits; collision mats were
lashed over the holes; and we backed slowly off the
rock. The ship at once began to list a-starboard,
but with our torpedo-boat escort steaming ahead
we slowly made our way back toward Vancouver
Island. The good ship heeled over perceptibly as
the bulkheads let go one after another, but the
captain insisted that we should have our meals
served as if nothing had happened, and we went
down to the saloon whenever the gong was sounded.

By luncheon time the ship was at an angle which
necessitated the wedging of our table napkins under
the soup plates to keep them level, and by dinner
hour she was heeling so much to starboard that
we had to make a wedge with the napkins rolled
around the glasses. Only one screw was working,
for the starboard fires had been drawn early in
the day, as the fire room on that side of the ship was
flooded.

By courtesy of the chief engineer, I was invited
119

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

below to see the damage. Some of the bulkheads
were so strained that the water was squirting
through the bolt holes in all directions, and in the
light of flickering candles relays of bluejackets
could be seen working with all their might at the
head pumps to keep ahead of the rapidly rising
waters. All the electric generators in the ship
were put out of gear and altogether the situation
was uncomfortable, to say the least, but it was
really worth the risk and discomfort to watch the
admirable conduct of officers and men in the trying
position in which they found themselves. Not a
voice was lifted in anger. All orders were given and
obeyed as if nothing had happened. The fog was
still so dense that the torpedo boat, steaming a
few yards ahead, was sometimes hardly discernible.
Suddenly the stillness was broken by rifle shots.
I at least distinctly heard them, though my fellow
travelers insisted that I must be mistaken, for it
seemed ridiculous to hear rifle shots so far from
land. Nevertheless, I well knew the sound of them
and I had no doubt about it. I resolved to tell
the captain, but when I suggested to His Excellency
that I should go on the bridge he said, "You will
only disturb the captain at this trying moment
with, probably, a mere fancy." I came, neverthe-
less, to the conclusion that the slightest thing out
of the ordinary should be reported to the bridge,
so I went up to Hulton and told him what I had
heard.

120

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

"You are sure they wete rifle shots?" he asked.

"Absolutely certain," I replied.

"Thank you, Mr. Villiers." His face brightened
and he added, "Then I know where we are — just
outside the buttes at Victoria. It's their target-
practicing day," and he steered accordingly.

The captain now made for Esquimalt, where
there was a possibility of docking and finding the
extent of the damage. Before night had set in
the fog suddenly lifted and a glorious full moon
lighted us into Esquimalt Harbor not a moment
too soon, for the list of the ship a-starboard was
such that we could not stand on deck without
taking hold of something. The water was nearly
up to the rail as she entered the haven of safety.

Since then I have twice sat upon the twisted
mass of steel that was once the keel of H. M. S.
Amphion, lying in the gorse on Beacon Hill, Vic-
toria, and smoked my pipe in contemplation.
Many years later I met Captain Houlton, who
had retired and was living in Bath. On chatting
over the incident of the Amphion, I told him that
I had almost been dissuaded from going up on the
bridge. "Well," he said, "I don't know what
might have happened if you had not given me
my position. You saved the ship."

Another Canadian governor-general from whom
I have received much hospitality while he was in
office was the Earl of Minto, afterward viceroy of
India. When I was with the Russian army in

121

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Bulgaria he (then Lord Melgund) was witnessing
the campaign from the Turkish side. The year
following I met him at the capture of the Khyber
Pass, on the northwest frontier of India, and when
Arabi gave us trouble in 1882 in Egypt I came
across him again, at the battle of Tel-el-Kebir.

The Earl of Aberdeen also entertained me at
Rideau Hall, and the most popular viceroy of
Canada, the late Earl Grey, was my host the last
time I was in Ottawa.

It is always a delight to me when in Canada to
spend a time with that fervid imperialist, Col.
George Denison, now retired from the army and
performing the duties of a magistrate in Toronto.
Coming from a family of fighters — for his maternal
grandfather was at Waterloo, and his paternal
grandsire, his father, and his father's brother
served in the affair of 1837 — he is full of the most
interesting anecdotes of the doings of the famous
Canadian militia, in which he first commanded a
troop in his seventeenth year. Viscount Wolseley,
in The Story of a Soldier's Life, says of him:

"One of the ablest and, professionally, one of the
best-read officers I ever knew is Col. George Denison
of Toronto, who for many years commanded the
Governor-General of Canada's bodyguard."

Referring to the Fenian raid across the Canadian
border in 1886 and the work of Denison's troops on
that occasion, he says further:

"They were just the corps for that work? and he

J22

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

was just the man to command them effectively.
I realized at that time that no similar number of
regular cavalry could have done that duty as
effectively. But he was a man in a thousand, and
a born cavalry leader."

Wolseley's eulogism of him was a sound one, as
subsequent events proved. Denison, when not
soldiering, practiced at the law, and though his busi-
ness was a good one he found time to go in for one
of the most remarkable military competitions of
the time and carry off the first prize.

The Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia had offered
prizes, ranging from sixteen hundred to four
thousand dollars, for the best work on cavalry and
military operations on horseback in all ages and
lands. The competition was open to officers of all
nationalities and Denison resolved to enter the
lists. The work was to be done in two and a half
years and to be written in the Russian language.
The way he set about this gigantic enterprise is
characteristic of the indomitable pluck and energy
of the man. He was able to read only French and
English, so he engaged a translator in New York,
sent to an agent in London for all books referring
to cavalry, and set to work. For two years he
worked eight hours a day on his cherished theme,
in addition to managing his own law business.
He told me that he often heard the town-clock
chimes at 6 A. M., having already put in two hours'
hard work. In these two years he waded through

I2J

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

seven hundred volumes, mostly in foreign tongues,
and eventually spent the last two months in St.
Petersburg. Finally, when the manuscript was
translated into Russian by some seventeen copyists,
he was one of three out of twenty-three competitors
who sent in completed books. He eventually
captured the first prize and his triumph was
crowned by a special presentation to the Tsar.

After the Fenian raid in 1886 Denison paid a
visit to England, and on returning to Canada
stopped at Moville, in the north of Ireland. Excite-
ment was still rife in the Emerald Isle over the
Fenian business and the authorities were anxious
lest Fenian agents from the United States should
create trouble. Denison was traveling with his
brother Fred, who was afterward one of Viscount
Wolseley's trusted officers in the expedition for
the relief of Gordon. Both were wearing the cow-
boy "wideawake," and the colonel sported a
mustache and what is known as a "Charley" or
"imperial." On visiting the fort at Moville they
were shown round the place by a soldier who,
overhearing the colonel's remarks about the guns,
whispered to him in a rich brogue:

"Sure, now, it's from the other side ye be
coming."

"What do you mean?" said the colonel.

"Ye come from across the Atlantic?"

"I do," replied Denison.

"I thought it. Ye know more about soldiering
124

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

than ye pretend. Ye were out wid Meager on the
Potomac?"

"I was not," said the colonel, emphatically.

"That's right, sorr, stick to that. It's not safe
for ye to let on. Stick to that. It's well I be wish-
ing ye, sorr. God bless ye!"

"And," as Denison laughingly averred, "he
warmly shook my hand and I left for Canada with
a Fenian's blessing."

Denison made a good magistrate with evidently
a leaning in favor of the frailties of the soldier.
One morning in his court when the "drunks" had
to be dealt with a soldier appealed for leniency re-
garding his behavior the night before when a pal
whom he had not seen since a certain battle had
treated him to liquor and he had taken too much
owing to his joy at the meeting.

"Well," said Denison, "I ought to give you ten
days, but I will discharge you this time with a
warning."

The man drew himself up, expressed his thanks,
and as he left the dock saluted the colonel. Denison
at once said, "You just come back again, my man,
and I will give you the ten days, for you are no
soldier: you have saluted with the wrong hand."

The last time I saw Queen Victoria at any state
function was at the wedding of the present King
and Queen. Arriving in London after a long visit
to the World's Fair at Chicago, in 1893, I found a
letter at my office, commissioning me to sketch the

125

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF AD7ENTURE

wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York. The
auspicious event was on that very day, so I hurried
to get into the necessary attire, and soon arrived
at the chapel royal fully fledged, even to an orchid
in my buttonhole. I found my pass an open
sesame to the police barriers, and in the twinkling
of an eye I was past the numerous tribunes erected
in the palace yard, crowded with the nobility and
beauty of all England, and found myself one of the
chosen few to enter the historic chapel. My seat
was immediately behind Mr. Arthur Balfour and
the ministers of the opposition in the House of
Commons. The Liberal party had a similar sector
of the chapel opposite, and I shall always remember
their great leader, Mr. Gladstone, slowly moving
toward his seat, and close by his side, his gloomy-
looking wife who surreptitiously tugged at the tails
of his Trinity House uniform as he hunched and
twitched to ease the tightness of the coat round
the armpits, for he had apparently grown out of the
official attire which he only affected on these special
occasions. His monkeyings, one could see, annoyed
his better half, and her nervous little jerks were
gentle reminders to the "Grand Old Man" that he
must behave himself, for he was in the limelight.

There was another remarkable personage who
was also in the limelight, and she knew it — the late
Baroness Burdett-Coutts. She was seated in a
little private box opposite — I believe her privilege
by right on functions of this kind in the chapel

126

ONCE A GREAT LONE LAND

royal. Though much past threescore and ten
years, she drew the attention of everybody by her
youthful dress and girlish demeanor. The frivolous,
gayly dressed old lady in Sir Forbes Robertson's
production, "The Passing of the Third Floor Back,"
reminded me of this remarkable character of the
Victorian era. Both these celebrities kept the
waiting throng amused, as the proverbial Derby
dog does on Epsom Downs when the police have
cleared the course and the impatient crowd is
waiting for the start.

The first of the royalties to arrive was Her
Majesty the Queen, as ever, punctual. She was
escorted to a seat near the altar by her grandson,
the Grand Duke of Hesse. The Princess of Wales
followed, and she was as perfect in figure and as
charming as when I first met her in '81.

Nearly all the other members of the royal family
had now arrived, almost crowding the little chapel.
There was at this moment a halt in the proceedings,
hardly noticeable but for the impatient movement
of the Queen's little foot as she quietly tapped the
carpet, as much as to say, "When are that grandson
of mine and his bride going to turn up?" Her
handsome young escort tried to engage her attention
by bending over her with some engrossing small
talk, but her head was always turned in the direction
of the door, and I could almost hear her say to herself,
"When will young people ever learn punctuality?"

I never saw Her Majesty again. When she was
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VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

lying at death's door in her residence at Osborne,
I was living at the picturesque old Mill House of
Bedhampton, a few miles from Portsmouth, opposite
the Isle of Wight.

On the morning of January 22, 1901, about
nine o'clock, I had walked down a spinney by the
side of the mill stream and was standing on the
bridge spanning the water when I heard the dull
methodical throb of minute guns booming through
the mist. "Ah!" I thought, "our greatly beloved
has passed away."

The guns were still booming, so I hurried back
to the house and brought my wife to the bridge,
for it was only there I could hear the ominous firing.
She was very much startled at the solemn sound
and came to my conclusion. We felt convinced
that it was the notification of the Queen's death,
for no gun practice was allowed while the Queen
lay sick.

At about ten o'clock I went down to the railway
station of Havant, expecting to have my fears
corroborated, but no one had heard the mysterious
gunfire and the latest news was that Her Majesty
was still alive. I was sitting down with my wife
to dinner when the telephone bell rang, and a
friend in Portsmouth called me up to say the Queen
had died early that evening. We looked at each
other and a curious uncanny feeling crept over us.
Why should we, alone of the whole countryside,

have heard those guns?

128

Chapter VIII

TOPSY-TURVY

The Land of the Rising Sun— Where East is West— Ping Yang— Um-
brellas in action — Kinchow — A pawnbroker's shop — Sacks of jewelry —
The egg— The dragon-eyed general— Capture of "the Chair Hill"
— "Hang out our banners" — Chinese methods of attack — The streets of
Port Arthur — A bloody business.

TT was only a few months before I was tearing
*• across the Canadian Pacific once more, but now
en route to the Far West, where it eventually be-
comes East. I found the land of the Rising Sun and
its inhabitants still in a delightfully primitive state,
for this was in the year 1894. In fact, after having
procured my passes from the War Office in Tokio,
I had to affect the native costume in some of the
smaller towns to avoid an inquisitive crowd of
people who had never before set eyes on a white
man.

West is East and East is West, just as you please
to call it, which is characteristic of the reversal of
things in this curious country, where one com-
mences dinner with sweets and finishes with soup
and where kissing is considered vulgar and is looked
upon as a silly and unsanitary method of expressing

129

HLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

one's affections. I shall never forget this bouleverse-
ment of things in Japan. When a Japanese is sad he
generally has a gladsome smile: I have seen a
funeral procession looking like a wedding party for
joyousness, but the hearts of the followers were as
sad as could be.

They were a topsy-turvy people in those days.
I have seen a man with a samurai blade whip a
Chinaman's head off with one slice, just to test
the temper of the steel, and later on share his
ration of rice with another Celestial. Beware the
Japanese smile, obsequious bow, and soft manners;
for in a flash the hair may bristle, the body stiffen,
and the eyes grow to pin points of venom. Then,
look out! This China had learned to her regret
when in 1894 the Japanese Imperial government
suddenly cast aside all pretense of diplomatic inter-
course and openly embarked upon a military expedi-
tion which had for its purposes the overthrow of
Chinese authority in Korea and the subjection of
that once independent state to Japanese control.

Before the Chinese were driven out of Korea
there was considerable fighting at Ping Yang, a
picturesque old Korean town surrounded by a
substantial Chinese wall. Here I saw, I suppose
for the last time, troops fighting under umbrellas.
When the Japs invaded Korea and marched on
Ping Yang, the Chinese commanders dressed their
men in brand-new uniforms. Their gorgeous blue
jackets with circles of paint as large as a dinner

130

TOPSY-TUR7Y

plate over the heart, denoting the regimental
number, formed excellent bull's-eyes for the Japs to
aim at. And their pigtails were very useful to the
enemy when they were captured. Several times I
have seen one little Jap driving a four-in-hand quite
easily by their pigtails.

At Ping Yang it rained heavily when the
Japanese attacked, so the Chinese commander, to
save the new uniforms from being spoiled, ordered
all the umbrella shops in the town to be ransacked,
and every third man was employed to hold an
umbrella over his two comrades. The fighting was
soon over and I secured a couple of the umbrellas,
which for many years decorated the interior of my
studio in London.

These poor, simple Chinamen had not a ghost of
a chance with the Japs. At the taking of Kinchow,
in Manchuria, we found the old walls armed with
muzzle-loading field guns, many so rusty that they
exploded and killed their gunners, and not a few
with pieces of red rag tied round their muzzles to
make them shoot straight, while the Japs attacked
the place with up-to-date howitzers. After the
capture of the place I was billeted in a pawn-
broker's shop. The rooms of the house and the
compound were strewn with old Manchurian silver
enamelware and rich furs and silks which had been
thrown aside after the retreating Chinese troops
had ransacked the store. In a few days the pro-
prietor came back and I assisted him to fill a few

VOL. II. — 10 11

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

sacks with pieces of jewelry. All the pawn tickets
had been lost, so there were no legitimate owners.
I bought a small bag of the gems for a few dollars,
which were afterward exhibited at Tiffany's shop
in New York City.

I shall never forget an incident in Kinchow
characteristic of the love and respect children bear
to their old people in the Orient. My billet was a
room in which there was a fireplace and a comfort-
able settee. When I arrived to take up my quarters
I saw two young men weeping bitterly as they were
dragging a chair in which sat their shriveled, ancient
grandfather, within a few weeks of a century in age,
to the door.

I said to my interpreter, "What's all this about?"
He told me it was to make room for me. Of course
I at once cried a halt, and the old gentleman was
reinstated in his place before the fire, and the two
boys were mightily cheered.

During my prolonged stay, while the Japanese
were preparing to march on Port Arthur, I lived
in the room with the old man. One morning it was
very sunny and the old fellow was able to totter
about. He expressed a great desire to trot round
the compound. I assisted him and when, with the
aid of a stick, he had come to a certain spot at the
foot of a wall he removed a square stone; then
looking around cautiously lest his grandson might
see him, he knelt down and clawed at the ground
under it. The vitality of the old chap was remark-

132

TOPSY-TURVY

able: he tore up the earth with his claws like a cat.
Soon he peered around again to make sure that
we were alone, then he seized upon something he
had unearthed and hastily stuck it in his pocket,
covering up the hole as carefully as possible. With
much glee the old man hastened back to the warm
room, for the chill had made his nose and hands
quite blue. Then he bolted the door and cunningly
produced from his pocket an egg. It was black in
color and with the warmth of the room an odor
was already exuding from its shell. With both his
hands, which trembled with excitement, he presented
the delicious morsel to me.

I understood by his manner that it was a little
return for the kindness I had shown him. I thought
it very sweet of him, for no doubt the old fellow
had been treasuring it for months as a piece de
resistance. The room by this time was a treasure
house of aroma. I expressed my thanks and, trying
to hide my emotions, said that I would eat it alone
where no vulgar gaze should see my thrills of de-
light. I left the room and dropped the gift, as soon
as possible, in the half-thawed pond at the bottom of
the compound, where the horrible object found a
watery grave.

The great objective of the Japanese army was the
forts, citadel, and harbor of Port Arthur. I was
attached to the advance brigade under General
Yamagi, a wizened, olive-colored little man with
a sour visage. To add to his repulsiveness he had a

133

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

blind eye — a blood-red ball that rolled fiercely in
its socket. This unfortunate defect gained for him
the sobriquet from his troops of "the dragon-eyed."
It was owing to his cruelty that Japan was stigma-
tized with the massacres of Port Arthur. The gov-
ernment was heartily disgusted when it learned of
the action of its general, and much to its credit,
Yamagi was cashiered and disgraced.

The Japanese march into Manchuria was my
first glimpse of the modern style of warfare: there
was no blare of bugles or roll of drums; no display
of flags or martial music of any sort. A band
eventually turned up at Port Arthur after the fight-
ing was over, but during "business hours" its
members were otherwise employed. The low notes
of the company officers' whistles and a shrill
"banzai" from the throats of the little men when a
position was won were the only sounds heard except
the voices of the guns. It was most uncanny to me
after my previous experiences of war in which
massed bands cheered the flagging spirits of the
attackers and bugles rang out their orders through
the day. All had changed in this modern warfare: it
seemed to me a very cold-blooded, uninspiring way
of fighting, and I was mightily depressed for many
weeks till I had grown accustomed to the change.

When at last we began to tighten our grip round
the great fortress of Port Arthur and arrived within
rifle shot of its walls by way of the Suichi Valley
it was indeed a curious sight. The hills protecting

TOPSY-TURVY

and shutting in the harbor were serrated by
thousands of huge banners of various colors. Here,
by way of contrast, was the old medieval mode of
fighting — a brave display of bunting intended to
shake the invaders' nerves. Shakespeare's "Mac-
beth" leaped to my mind, and its line with the
disputed punctuation, "Hang out our banners on
the outer walls, the cry is still they come," was
evidently the version favored by the Chinese.

But this quaint show and the clash and thunder
of war tocsins did not in any way deter the steady
advance of the Japanese. The enemy therefore
came down from their heights to check us. They
advanced in three columns under cover of the fort
guns, which threw old and half-filled shells that did
little damage. The first column was tangled up
in the foothills on our right, so I did not see what
occurred there, but when the fighting in that quarter
had evidently slackened in our favor, the second
column boldly advanced down the center of the
valley in a long, oblong formation, the men a few
feet behind one another and at every twenty yards
standard bearers with the enormous flags which
we first saw above the hills.

Presently the Japs opened with their howitzers
on the head of the column, and at the same time
sharpshooters began picking off the standard
bearers, who made excellent targets with their
bunting flying in the breeze, and knocked them
over like ninepins.

135

: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

The way the Chinese stood this punishment was
admirable. The oblong came to a halt apparently
awaiting some order, but it was soon whittled
down to a mere remnant: yet the survivors began
to retire only when the third column made its
appearance. This was in quarter column with a
general at its head riding a gorgeously caparisoned
white horse and flourishing his sword in the manner
one associates with ancient martial pictures.

However, his men did not show as much gump-
tion as the "oblong" fellows, for when their com-
mander and his beautiful steed went down his
soldiers shook the dust from their feet and hurried
back to the fortress, much to the distress of the
Chinese Commander-in-Chief, who had seen the
three columns start, and, thinking the sight of them
would frighten away the enemy, had comfortably
settled down to his midday chow. The Japs pressed
their enemy hard, attacked the key of the position
called "the Chair Hill/3 carried it at the point of the
bayonet and had Port Arthur in their hands before
sunset.

It was shortly after the capture of the forts that
the troops under Yamagi, arriving on the outskirts
of the town, came across the heads of Japanese
soldiers stuck on poles decorating one of the city's
gates. Naturally the Jap soldiers were furious at
the ghastly sight; all restraint went to the winds
and a general massacre of the citizens took place.

I tried all I could to save life, but being an alien

136

TOPSY-TURVY

I was in jeopardy myself. The next morning I
was passing down a street with all its shops closely
barred, when I saw a group of three soldiers who
had broken in a shutter. One was raising his rifle
to fire, and I hurried up and slapped him in the
small of his back just as he was about to pull the
trigger, for a glance through the chink had showed
me a wretched old man in frenzied fear with his
arms round a woman and child. They were saved
by the shot going through the ceiling. The three
soldiers turned and were about to seize me when
I laughed and touched my water bottle, which
contained sake, and offered them a drink. I was
still laughing, and pointed to my brassard, which
bore my name and that of my journal written in
Japanese, whereupon they became so interested in
me that they forgot their victims and we all four
sauntered up the street.

In the afternoon a regiment was billeted in the
shops of this very street and I saw the same old
man handing rice rations to the soldiers. On seeing
me he ran forward and embraced my knees, and I
knew by the joy on his face that his family was
safe. I got hold of the old fellow by the throat and
straightened him up against the wall to steady him,
as it was not policy to te seen by the Japs showing
any particular favor to the Chinese. To my amuse-
ment, however, a Jap soldier came up and shared
his ball of rice with the old man and looked at me
as much as to say, "You white men are too rough

137

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

with these people; you should treat them gently,
as I do."

It was not all balls of rice with most of the
citizens, however. I never saw so many heads
rolling about a city's streets as at Port Arthur.
But the bloodletting by the Japanese in Manchuria
in 1894 will, I think, never be repeated. From
what I heard afterward of their behavior at Tientsin
and from what I myself saw later, there are no
more humane troops in the world than the Japanese
have generally shown themselves to be.

Chapter IX

PATHS OF PEACE

The Antipodes — Australia and South Africa — Governors-general — Tas-
mania— A popular Prime Minister — A Western state governor — A
simple knight — The late Lord Brassey — "I'm not a Seidlitz powder" —
An indiscreet nobleman — Artistic coteries — The Sydney Supper Club
— Verse between two cigars — Phil May — South Africa — / dine
with Cecil Rhodes — Diamond hospitality — Jameson's Raid — Million-
aires in a night — How pebbles of the right sort are found — The
last of the Tsars — He crowns the Empress — Their bloody end.

f DID not return direct to England from Japan,
but went to Australia on my first tour in the
Antipodes. In my journeys through the different
states I enjoyed the hospitality of numerous
colonial governors. In Tasmania that tall, portly
soldier, the late Lord Gormanston, entertained me;
and while I was staying in Hobart Town I became
acquainted with the popular Prime Minister, Sir
Edward Braddon, brother of the famous novelist.

It came about in this way. I was lecturing ori my
experiences during the then recent Chino-Jap War.
One morning I visited the Tasmanian Legislative
Assembly, when, to my astonishment, the Minister
proposed the adjournment of the House earlier
than usual to give members an opportunity to hear

139

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Frederic Villiers, the war correspondent. This
proposition was vigorously attacked by the oppo-
sition; it was put to the vote, then came a division.
It was an interesting moment for me, seated alone
in the strangers' gallery, my presence unknown to
the members, awaiting the result. At last came the
verdict, "The Ayes have.it."

I met Sir Edward afterward at the club and
thanked him for his courtesy. The leader of the
opposition, who was in the same room, came up
and frankly told me that he was compelled to
oppose the adjournment. It was merely a matter of
form. In fact, he said, he knew it would be carried
unanimously in my favor and had already booked
seats for my lecture for himself and his friends.

Lord Tennyson, son of the late Poet Laureate,
who eventually became the first Governor-General
of the great Australian commonwealth, presided at
my first lecture in Adelaide; and Lord Lamington
presided at Brisbane. In the state of western
Australia there was no "noble lord" presiding
over the destiny of the colony, but just a simple
knight,. Sir Gerard Smith, K.C.M.G.; but the
people, though less honored in titular manner than
those of other states, had an excellent governor in
Sir Gerard. He fathered them like the patriarchs of
old. He gave many entertainments in the magnifi-
cent ballroom which the governor had built for
Her Majesty's representatives in the beautiful city

of Perth.

140

PATHS OF PEACE

One dance night the guests had remained much
longer than usual, enjoying Sir Gerard's hospitality.
It was getting into the small hours, and there was
no -evidence of a break-up. Twice had he left the
supper room, but there was no sign of a move home-
ward on the part of his guests; so Sir Gerard chose
a most drastic and efficacious method to intimate
that the hour had come for them to depart. He
went into the ballroom and began to turn out the
electric lights.

An excited aide-de-camp rushed up to him and
said, "But, sir, there are a number of people yet
in the supper room."

"I know," replied the chief; "but it's quite time
they went home to bed, where I am going; and you
can just tell them so from me."

The telephone had at this time only recently been
installed in Australia, and was being used for all
informal invitations. One of the governors of a
certain state rang up the Minister for Agriculture,
but the wires must have been crossed. After trying
for some time to get a coherent answer he lost his
temper.

"Look here," he shouted; "is that the d d

Minister for Agriculture?"

The person at the other end of the wire recog-
nized the voice and replied.

"No; it's the d d Bishop."

One of the most popular governors in the Antip-
odes was the late Lord Brassey, and his was a

141

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

most charming and tactful personality. On the
first night of my lecture season in Melbourne he
took the chair. My wife sat beside him; toward
the end of the lecture she noticed that the governor
was apparently dozing, worn out, she hoped, by the
exigencies of official duties. One of the A. D. C.'s,
Lord Richard Nevill, nudged him in the back just
as I was finishing my discourse; His Excellency
was on his feet in a second and delivered his vote
of thanks and a charming little speech with much
vigor.

There was always a placid, somnolent manner
about Lord Brassey, but no man kept his eyes
open much wider on occasions than he, and the
people of Victoria lost a good and generous friend
when he retired from his post.

Sir George Verdon, who was Treasurer for Victoria
when I was in Melbourne, told me that one of the
most interesting incidents during his term of office
was the Russian scare. A certain Russian squadron
had left San Francisco without making known its
destination. When some little time transpired
without its whereabouts becoming known His
Majesty's government cabled out, "Prepare for
emergencies." The excitement in Melbourne was
considerable. Guns were made ready upon Queens-
cliff, commanding the approach to the harbor, and
every means was taken to give the ships, if bellicose,
a warm reception. But Verdon, knowing how
little could be done to prevent the landing of a

142

PATHS OF PEACE

hostile force in those days, took the precaution of
emptying all the banks of their specie, and carted
the gold and silver by ox team to places of safety
in the impenetrable Australian bush.

There ensued days and weeks of considerable
anxiety for the citizens of Melbourne. Anxious
ears were strained night and day to catch the
distant rumble of cannon, but no hostile fleet
arrived. It was simply a piece of Russian bluff,
and the bags of precious coin were triumphantly
brought back to the banks, luckily without any
leakage — even the bushrangers, who were rampant
in those days, being patriotic enough to leave that
coin alone.

Very often when a new governor arrives in one
of the colonies the local secretaries make some
fresh arrangements, for the benefit, as they think,
of the social side of things. On a certain occasion
it was decided to make some little distinction
between the habitues of the governor's more private
parties and those not quite so intimate with the
Government House coterie. Blue and white tickets
were sent to the guests. The favored possessors
of the "whites" were to enter a certain door which
gave them precedence over the "blues," who were
to gain admittance by another entrance. A man
and his wife who were both invited received, by
mistake, a ticket of each color, and on arriving at
the "white" entrance the A. D. C. on duty told
them they could not enter together, for the lady,

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

having a blue ticket, must present herself at the
other entry. The wife indignantly refused to be
separated from her husband by such an absurd
regulation, and, fixing the young official with a
stony glare, she said:

"Young man, my husband and I are not a
Seidlitz powder!"

One of the most remarkable men of that colony
was the proprietor of a great morning paper. When
he first befriended me in Australia he was hustling
at his journal, which he had nursed from its baby-
hood to full vigor as the first paper in the Antip-
odes. He was of all men in the colony the most
sedate and correct. Yet one day at Government
House he found himself in a most equivocal posi-
tion. A new governor-general (who was the youngest
and most indiscreet nobleman who probably ever
filled that social post) had arrived, and invitations
had been sent out for a reception. Two undesir-
ables of the fairer sex had managed to get hold of
tickets, and, having no escort and feeling rather
nervous, waited till the respectable and fatherly
looking member of the sterner sex passed through
into the reception room.

My sedate friend appeared to be the very man
they wanted, and they bustled in front of him as
his name was shouted. With his usual courtesy of
demeanor he naturally made way for the ladies.
Later on one of the aides came up to him and
requested him to come and speak with the governor,

144

PATHS OF PEACE

who was very angry and, to his utter astonish-
ment, suggested that he had chaperoned the ladies
in question. The newspaper proprietor's indignation
made him speechless, and was of the sort that no
subsequent apologies could ever mitigate.

Both Melbourne and Sydney have excellent
artistic coteries, and in visiting these cities it was
always a joy to me to be entertained by the young
and talented artists whom Victoria and New South
Wales have produced — men who have fought their
way to the top in spite of lack of encouragement
by the public of either state.

When last in New South Wales I was dined by
the Sydney Supper Club. During the dinner a
young member of the staff of the Bulletin, Mr. V. J.
Daley, wrote the following verses, which were
recited during the evening and published after-
ward in his paper. It is a clever piece of satire, and
one of the smartest pieces of work I have come
across, especially considering that it was written
between two cigars.

TO MR. FREDERIC VILLIERS

We hope, dear sir, you will excuse
The Supper Club's disordered muse —
We mostly keep our Bard roped tight,
But somehow he escaped to-night.

Glad are we all to meet you here
In our own proper atmosphere
Of smoke, and talk, and lies and beer!
145

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

A most impertinent member said,
"Sir, did you never feel in dread
When round your head the bullets spat,
All in the commissariat —
And you were fighting, fierce and keen,
To save the Empire — and canteen?"

And this — good Lord — and this to him
Whose pencil drew the pictures grim
That terrified each Afghan clan,
And paralyzed the fierce Pathan!

What sent them home in fear and dread?
"Twas Villiers' pictures/ ' some one said.
"Our Tommy Atkins, Kipling's pet,
Slays thousands with his bayonet,
But Villiers, with his pencil free,
And pen, as generous as he,
Slays tens of thousands easily."

Another said, between two beers:
"Are you a man that nothing fears?
Or can you, without catch of breath,
Face sudden, sure, disastrous death?"

You stood up straight, you stood up square,
You never turned a single hair,
Yourself to your full height you drew —
"I've faced the Supper Club," said you.

And what made you so desperate?
What made you trifle so with fate?
You smiled and stroked your spiked mustache;
Your voice was like the sound of cash
146

PATHS OF PEACE

In hungry times when Trust is dead;
Yet these were all the words you said —
"Villiersism of the Villiers; so
Lord Palmerston said long ago."

The Supper Club says, with a sigh,

"Good health, good friend! Good luck! Good-by!"

Phil May was working hard when I was in
Sydney on that remarkable Australian illustrated
weekly, the Sydney Bulletin, or the "Australian
Bible," as most colonials called it, owing to the
faith the people of the Antipodes placed in it and
because it comprised most of the Sunday reading
throughout the colonies.

I first knew Phil May when, at the World's Fair
in Chicago, we walked together about the grounds
to pick up subjects for camera or pencil. He was
always keen on the ludicrous and chuckled im-
mensely over a two-foot "Keep Off the Grass"
notice stuck on a barren slip of land.

He called to my attention also how characteristic
of the countries they represented were the notices
one met with on the show cases in the various
sections. In the English section it was "Please do
not touch." The Canadian notice showed a nearer
approach to the manners of the hustling country
that had no time for superfluous courtesy; it read
curtly, "Do not touch." But the Chicago notice
was straight to the point: "HANDS OFF; THIS is

MEANT FOR YOU."

VOL. II. — 11 147

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF AD7ENTURE

Phil May was one who strenuously burned the
candle at both ends, and, like most of his fraternity,
was lovable and generous. None of his less fortu-
nate brethren ever wanted a helping hand if he
knew they were hard up. So many of his friends
knew of this trait of his that he seldom went home
but with his pockets empty, and that after having
started out well stocked with coin of the realm.
The thing that puzzled me, as well as most of his
friends, was how he could get through so much
excellent work when so much of his time was
spent in pleasure; for one would see him of a morn-
ing in a broad-check riding suit with black patent
riding boots and a rose in his buttonhole, appar-
ently in search of his hack; or surrounded by a
legion of admirers at Romano's, or, with beaming
face and big cigar, in a fauteuil at the Empire.
Yet all England was made merry every week
over his admirable work, which was turned out
regularly and just as certain in artistic excellence
as ever.

He asked me to breakfast one morning in
Kensington. When I turned up at nine-thirty his
man showed me into the studio, where I waited
for some time, admiring May's method of work.
Every figure was accurately drawn from a model
first of all in blue pencil; then came his peculiar
art of leaving out superfluous lines, working over
the blue with pen and ink where the lines only
suggested form, thus giving the whole drawing

PATHS OF PEACE

that wonderful sketchy, light touch with which
all his work impressed me.

Presently I found May in bed with a ghastly
headache. He had been at a smoking concert the
night .previous and had not turned in until the
small hours. While I was away getting phenacetin
at a neighboring druggist's my breakfast was being
cooked. Poor May could not touch any. However,
the sketch on the easel was to be finished before
twelve, so he struggled into his dressing gown, and,
with a wet to welwrapped round his head, finished
his drawing, which was as usual, in spite of his
shaking hand, faultless in execution.

I had always looked forward to meeting Cecil
Rhodes, for his brother, Capt. Frank Rhodes,
aide-de-camp to General Stewart, would often
chat about him to me while we were on the famous
march across the Bayuda Desert to the relief of
Gordon at Khartum. I well remember, when
Khartum had fallen and the defeated relieving
party was wondering whether it would ever re-
turn to the joys of civilization, Frank Rhodes
said to me one day, "If I ever get out of this,
Villiers, I will join my young brother in South
Africa, take off my coat and, like he is doing, dig
for diamonds."

I thought this a splendid scheme and such a
nice opportunity of making one's fortune easily.
Now a decade later I went to South Africa from
Australia and found my friend Frank Rhodes

149

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

president of the Consolidated Gold Fields Co.,
with a fabulous income and a nice residence in
Johannesburg, where he very kindly asked me to
stay. One morning I reminded him of what he had
said about his young brother.

"Ah," he smiled, "he has done remarkably well
since then."

It was in the autumn of 1894 and Rhodes was
at the height of his power and success.

"Would you like to meet him?" asked Colonel
Frank as I was leaving Johannesburg. "I will give
you a letter to him; I am certain that he will be
glad to see you."

I called at Cecil Rhodes's office in the government
buildings when I arrived at Cape Town, and found
him in a sparsely furnished room in an old wooden
building off the main street. He had a very hearty
and genial manner with him as he cordially invited
me to dine the next night at "Groote Schur."
"Come about eight o'clock."

It was Christmas Eve — a splendid moonlight
night — when I got out of the train at Rondebosch
and walked toward the famous old Dutch residence.
I think I have scarcely ever experienced more
delight in my surroundings, for the extreme heat
of the day was now comfortably tempered by a cool
breeze from the sea, and Table Mountain lent a
purple background to the old Dutch garden, full of
the most wonderful blossoms, that embellished the
quaint white farmhouse where Cecil Rhodes dwelt.

150

PATHS OF PEACE

He was still dressing when I arrived, so I sauntered
from room to room and out on to the terraces.

In the hall and each room was a hat, either on
chair or table — old hats of soft felt and of exactly
the same pattern and color. This, I found out
later, was Cecil Rhodes's one peculiarity: when-
ever he left the house, whether by the main entrance
or through one of the numerous windows leading
out on the balconies, there was always a hat to
hand, and there was no necessity for him to go to
the hall for his headgear or to ring for a servant
to fetch it. Sometimes one room or the hall would
be strewn with a half-dozen hats. Then it was the
special duty of one of the servants to redistribute
them through the various apartments.

The dining room especially attracted my atten-
tion, for on one wall was a remarkable piece of old
Gobelin tapestry. At dinner that night I sat to
the left of Cecil Rhodes, and on my right was the
late Alfred Beit, his brother and another man being
opposite me. It was quite a merry repast, for my
host (so his secretary said) had never been more
genial and happy.

During dinner Mr. Beit took from his pocket an
ordinary letter envelope and, breaking it open, spilled
its contents on the tablecloth. Like liquid fire,
numerous diamonds trickled in between the coffee
cups and among the roses on the table, flashing all
the hues of the rainbow under the powerful electric
rays from the hanging center lamp. Some of the

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

gems were as large as cherry stones. I immediately
picked up one of these and remarked as I put it in
my pocket: "Really a dinner of this sort savors of
magnificent hospitality. I suppose this one is for
me?"

Beit looked rather serious and replied: "After all,
that is really not a very good specimen. The next
time you come I will have something better. I
sent these diamonds to Europe in the rough, to
be cut, and have just received them from Amster-
dam by this mail. The one you have was intended
as a Christmas gift to a lady friend."

I apologized and returned it to him, to the de-
light of Rhodes, who laughed heartily at my little
joke.

"Well, what are they worth?" I inquired.

"About three thousand pounds," was the reply.

Over coffee and liqueurs our host, who was
unusually communicative, was talking about the
meanness of the government in not meeting him
halfway in his pet scheme of running a telegraph
line from Cape Town to Cairo. He had offered to
lay the wire if the government would promise to
take a share in the maintenance. From that we
talked of exploration parties upcountry and the
British officers in command of the levies in British
East Africa.

"They do themselves too well, Mr. Villiers,"
Rhodes remarked. "Three meals a day and little
else but taking photographs or catching butterflies.

152

PATHS OF PEACE

Then, through their inactivity and overfeeding,
they get fever and are obliged to be sent home — •
having accomplished practically nothing. What we
really want these young men to do is to go ahead
and take the initiative in any daredevil enterprise
that may add something to the glory of the Empire.
Of course, if they get into serious trouble they must
take all the risk and blame, but if they succeed —
well, they are made for life."

Rhodes had a very weak, piping voice, which at
first appeared ridiculously incongruous to his burly
frame and ruddy face. His full blue eyes almost
danced with indignation at the idea of the laxity
of the British government in taking so little interest
in this remarkable continent that was absolutely
waiting to be annexed. He was certainly the
ambitious empire builder that night, and his re-
marks struck me at times as being peculiarly signifi-
cant and almost prophetic.

While he was playing at billiards with the Beit
I sat by his secretary.

"I think I told you," said he, "that Rhodes is
more than usually genial to-night. Something has
pleased him."

"Is it true that he is a woman hater?" I asked.

"No, nonsense; he likes 'em well enough; but
I think he never intends to marry because he has
so many schemes on hand which, if known before
they were quite ripe, might fail. He knows that
so many big ventures have come to grief by the

153

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

indiscretion of the fairer sex that he would rather
not risk matrimony, for the relations of man and
wife would be too close for him. You know, Mr.
Villiers, Mr. Rhodes has taken a liking to you and
will probably want to see you again. What are
you doing next week?"

"Next week? Why, I shall be on my way to
England; I leave Cape Town to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" replied the secretary, in surprise.
"You must not go; the times are too stirring in
this part of the world for you to leave South Africa.
You must not go!"

"But," I replied, "I have booked my passage."

"Never mind," said he, "I will send you a note
early to-morrow that will induce you to stay."

When I bade him "Good night" he again ex-
horted me not to go.

I found the landlady at the Royal Hotel still up.
She asked how I liked my trip to Groote Schur. I
told her how delighted I was.

"Ah," she replied, "I think Mr. Cecil Rhodes one
of the nicest men I have met; we are great friends.
He very often comes in here to borrow half a crown
to give to some needy person in the street. He
seldom carries any money in his pocket. If he did
he would probably give it all away."

On paying my bill the next morning I found the
old lady quite sure that I would be back in the

spring.

"What for?" said I.

154

PATHS OF PEACE

"The Boer business," she replied.

"Oh yes," I laughed; "we suffer from that
craze in Europe; there is always to be some 'trouble
in the spring.' Mostly in the Balkans. That
season tallies with your autumn and is fine weather
for fighting. I shall, no doubt, be back. Good-by."

As it turned out, there was no letter or message
for me the next morning from Rondebosch. I
waited till the last moment, fully prepared to
remain if there was any great inducement. How-
ever, as there was no word from the genial secretary
I finally went on board, and at midday the
Castle liner steamed out of the harbor. But when
we arrived at Madeira the agent brought aboard
the up-to-date flimsies, and there was one among
them that sent a thrill through every soul on
board, for it curtly described Jameson's Raid into
the Transvaal. Then I knew that I had made one
of the mistakes of my life; I ought to have re-
mained behind.

The legend of how the Kimberley mines were
first discovered was told me by an old friend who
knew the man who set the whole business going.
This was a lawyer in Cape Town, who one day
was looking over some papers of a client who had
recently died. Now, this client had been a mission-
ary and had wandered a good deal over South
Bechuanaland and the Orange River country.
Among his papers was a roughly sketched map
of the Orange and Modder River district, and in

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

one corner of it was written, "Diamonds may possi-
bly be found here."

The lawyer pondered long over the sketch and
that annotation. At last he became fired with the
spirit of adventure and showed the map to young
Cecil Rhodes, who had lately arrived in the colony
for the benefit of his health and was ready for any
venture. They decided to make a hike together,
so the story goes, to the spot and search for the
precious gems. Not knowing a diamond in the
rough state if they saw one, they took a third party
into their confidence who had this qualification.

After a delightful trek upcountry they came
upon the ground marked in the map; it was in the
center of a dreary waste stretching for miles, broken
only by one or two native mud huts and a well,
from which clay had been dug for building purposes.
They pitched their tent near one of the huts and
the lawyer struck a match on its sun-dried mud
wall to light his pipe. The match ignited with a
snap, for it had struck a pebble hidden in the dried
clay. The striker cut the little stone out of its bed
with his pocketknife. It was opaque, whitish, and
odd shaped, and was nothing much to look at.

"That's a diamond safe enough!" cried the third
party, and the three trembled with excitement.

"Yonder is the hole from which came the clay to
build the hut; let's have a look at it!" said Rhodes.

They soon had their bucket at work, and in a
short period it was filled with mud and stones.

156

PATHS OF PEACE

The third party turned the stuff over with his
hands, broke up the blue lump of clay and found
a number of the same kind of pebbles. The three
then commenced to peg out their claims and started
on the pleasant business of becoming millionaires.

Fate, having decreed that I was to miss the
Jameson Raid, sent me in a direction just opposite
to South Africa, for in the spring of 1895, shortly
after my arrival in London, I was invited to a
crowning, and found myself once more in Moscow,
for the coronation of Nicholas II, the last of the
Romanoffs and of the Tsars. The pageant was
just as magnificent and the night illuminations
were even more remarkable than at the crowning
of his father, for electric lights had taken the place
of gas and wax. The municipality of Moscow had
spent half a million dollars to install electricity in
the Kremlin alone.

The sumptuous apparel of the Empress at the
impressive function was richer by far than that of
the Dowager Empress during her coronation; her
robes of jeweled cloth of gold and her carriage and
the gayly caparisoned team of horses that took her
to the cathedral cost thousands of pounds more
than the House of Commons voted for the whole
coronation expenses of Queen Victoria. The splendor
of her stately presence as she stood in her gorgeous
raiment beside the Emperor after he had placed
the Imperial crown, with his own hands, upon her
head, was a wonderful sight.

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

When one thinks of the ghastly last scene, when
that once stately figure lay huddled with her
wretched daughters, outraged and murdered by the
Bolsheviks, one must feel that the present1 appalling
state of affairs in Russia is a just retribution for
that dastardly and unparalleled crime.

1 Written in 1919.

Chapter X

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

7 land at Volo — The broken siesta — A turbulent night — / keep gate at the
British consulate — My cinema camera — How I nursed it — A crude
machine — 7 am hostage in the land of the unspeakable Turk and find
him a good fellow — An Englishman's word — The last fight at Domokos —
The war of the cinema — Barnum's axiom.

TN the last decade of the past century Greece
* was one of the small belligerent nations in the
Near East, always giving trouble with her ambitious
aspirations. She seemed especially anxious to get
into difficulties with her great Mussulman neighbor
on the off chance of success, knowing full well that
her bigger Christian sisters would see that she was
not too much spanked by the Turks if she failed.

In 1897 she had stirred up strife with her
neighbors and her citizens were clamoring to invade
Turkey; but the powers would not allow it and
blockaded her ports with a combined fleet. I was
bottled up for many weeks in historic Athens and
enjoyed her ruins immensely while waiting for
her to comply with the allies' mandate. I was
acquainted with Greek spurts of bluff, but at last

159

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADF3NTURE

a time came when her sisters evidently thought a
little punishment would be salutary.

I will not enter into the reasons why Greece
forced Turkey to declare war upon her. Once
hostilities had commenced, however, it became
apparent that the Hellenic Kingdom was totally
unprepared for any belligerent emergency what-
ever, and could not have had the slightest chance
of success at any time, for two prime reasons.
First of all, she had practically no system of com-
missariat, which is the first necessity of successful
campaigning; and secondly, with one exception,
she had no general officers who were conversant
with the ordinary tactics of war. There was not
the slightest preparation for any reverse — hardly a
stretcher or a bandage ready for a single casualty,
nor a crust of bread or a drink of water to be found
anywhere with any certainty, when once the troops
were in action.

Greece suffered terribly from her arrogance
and folly; but in her struggle more than one
battle was fought valiantly and well by her only
general, Smollenski. Under him some of the
Greeks fought like men, enduring hardships of a
nature commensurate in severity with those endured
by the soldiers of any campaign I have witnessed.

I arrived in Volo, the famous port of Thessaly,
from the Piraeus on the afternoon of Saturday,
the 24th of April. The ship which carried me to
my destination was one chartered by many patriotic

1 60

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

Greeks in Athens and fitted up as a hospital boat.
The Red Cross service on board was conducted by
ladies and gentlemen of the best Athenian families,
who with great self-denial devoted their time and
money to this humane cause. As I lay in the hold,
where troops had only a few hours previously lain
groaning from the soreness of their wounds, I was
half poisoned by the fumes of the disinfectants
permeating the ship, and many of the live stock
these poor fellows had left behind found comfort
and sustenance on me. These pests always seem
to look upon war correspondents as fair game, and
if they had forgotten me on this occasion I might
have felt slighted.

Irritated by these old campaigning parasites and
with a ghastly sick headache, I landed at last on a
sultry hot afternoon in April. The town lay quiet,
for in spite of war the noontide siesta was in full
swing. Volo was sleeping. But, great Heavens, to
what an awakening!

When the hospital ship touched the quay one of
the three gentlemen awaiting our approach hurried
on deck. In evident alarm the nurses and doctors
crowded round him, for his face was leaden in
hue and his eyes were swimming with tears. In a
low voice, trembling with emotion, he addressed
his compatriots. A suppressed shriek came from
one of the little crowd, a chair was hurriedly
brought forward, and the matron of the ship fell
fainting into it.

161

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

"Mr. Villiers," said one of the Greek doctors,
"kindly leave the vessel as soon as you can, for
we shall want all the space we can get. There is
news of a great disaster to our arms, and the
wounded are expected here every moment."

My servant and I hurried ashore with our luggage
and made for the Hotel Minerva. The town was
still sleeping. Soon the stillness was broken by the
rattle of a solitary carriage on the main street.
Then suddenly the vehicle turned into the narrow
thoroughfare leading to my hotel and drove up to
the door.

Gray with dust, two figures tumbled out — one
a clean-shaven youth, the other a man with a big
yellow beard. Both were dirty and dusty, and
evidently very thirsty, for the first words that
simultaneously burst from their pardied lips
suggested a drink, and a long one at that. The
yellow-bearded man seemed a familiar figure to me,
though when an individual is disguised in dust it
is difficult to place him. As he dug the dirt from
his optical cavities with his knuckles two big blue
eyes began to glimmer from their depths.

"Why, it's Kinnaird Rose, for a dollar!" said I.
And so it was. Then my old friend of Plevna
days told me the story. The fight, the sudden
retreat, the stampede on to Larissa, the wild shoot-
ing of the Greeks at one another throughout the
night, and the terrible cry of: "The Turks! The
Turks are upon us!"

162

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

The trying vicissitudes of that ghastly night,
over the memory of which barely a short day had
passed, seemed to have affected my friend's nerves
considerably. He told me that the army was a
mere rabble, its retreat an utter rout, and that
the defeated battalions, spiritless and broken, were
making their way toward Pharsala or to the sea-
board at Volo.

The inhabitants were, at last, awakened from
their siesta, for the dire news spread fast through
the town, though the full extent of the disaster was
not yet known. The crowds of gloomy-looking
soldiers pouring through the streets for very shame
would not recount the full measure of the humilia-
tion of the Greek forces; and, indeed, the majority
of these knew but little of what had occurred, for
they were mostly cowardly malingerers, hundreds
of whom were always loitering in rear of their
regiments and formed, I was only too soon to
discover, the inevitable van of a Greek retreat.

My servant had found me a room in a small
hotel in which a chair and table constituted the
sole furniture. Unrolling my valise on the floor,
I threw myself upon it and tried to sleep. This
was impossible, for my head was still throbbing
with the poison of the ship. Presently the murmur
of the streets grew to a low roar. On looking out
of the window I found the road crowded with
panic-stricken peasantry and a sprinkling of those
who by courtesy were called "irregulars," though
VOL. ii. — 12 163

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

in reality nothing but cutthroats and brigands.
They were the scum of Thessaly, armed and let
loose upon the country, ostensibly to wreak
vengeance on the Turks; but actually they gave the
enemy a wide berth and looted their own people
whenever they got a chance.

Suddenly I bethought myself of the cinemato-
graph and films I had with me. The latter, if
exposed to the light, would be completely ruined,
so I resolved to house them from a possible raid
from these ruffians in the British consulate. The
red, white, and blue of the Union Jack shone in
the rays of the consulate lamp as it hung over the
balcony, below which a crowd of excited citizens
had gathered. I rang the bell at the gate. It was
immediately answered by a voice from the balcony.
I gave my name and was at once admitted. The
consul and his wife were at home. In fact, they
had been for hours very much at home to the
panic-stricken people and were exceedingly glad to
see another Englishman come upon the scene, for,
with the exception of his wife, her maid, and an
old woman cook, the consul had been entirely
deserted. He was much fatigued with his exertions
in suppressing the terror of the crowds of women
and children clamoring for safety at the consulate
gate; so I offered my services to relieve him for a
time, which were readily accepted. The consul's
latest news was that the Crown Prince's army had
retreated in hot haste to Pharsala, leaving the

164

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

road to Volo entirely open to the Turks and
abandoning the wretched inhabitants to their fate.

No wonder the poor, terror-stricken citizens rallied
round the flags of the foreign consulates, for they
knew the atrocities of which the Turks were capable.

I surely, of all people, was acquainted with the
barbarity of the Mussulman, for the massacres at
Yeni and Eski-Zagra and Batac in the Balkan
Peninsula, to which I had been an eyewitness
twenty years ago, were still fresh in my memory.
Nothing was left of these villages but charred
smokestacks, looking like grim funeral columns
studding a cemetery that had spewed up its dead.
The gay, ribbon-bedecked heads of young girls
lying in the gutters were bones of contention
between swine and dogs. The wells were reeking
with corpses and the streets were slippery with
blood. So these poor people who paced backward
and forward in front of the consulate gate that
night, sobbing, shuddering, and clamoring for
protection, enlisted my heartfelt sympathy. For
what horrors the dawn might bring them!

My gatekeeping had also its touch of comedy.
Early in the night two Greek gentlemen arrived
and, brushing aside the rabble outside, rang the
bell. I found that one of them was an important
official of Larissa who had been the first to leave his
post and seek safety in Volo. I could hardly keep
from laughing at his fright and pleas for admission,
for this gentleman a few days before was harangu-

165

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

ing the citizens of Larissa to "Up and arm them-
selves, and fight the enemy to the bitter end," and
he had spent quite a little fortune in supplying
his gallant countrymen with guns and ammunition.
The gate remained closed to him.

What a rich man I might have become with the
bribes offered me that memorable night! One
wealthy merchant besought me to succor his wife
and child. For himself he did not care; he would
face the bashi-bazouks if they came. But his
poor wife and child! And there was something
else — and he cautiously looked around as he
whispered even lower to me — a small Chubb 's safe
containing the hard-earned money of many years.
Would I befriend him, and so much per cent would
be my reward? I took in his wife and child, but
left him out in the road with his safe.

The consul had told the four English nurses
working in the Volo hospital to rely upon him in
case of danger. To-night the situation evidently
warranted this action on the part of the ladies of
the Red Cross, who soon arrived, but to our
astonishment they brought their wounded with
them. For the moment these poor sufferers could
not very well be turned back, so we made them
snug and comfortable on the ground floor.

A little later the bell was rung in rather a peremp-
tory manner by a lady in black. Stretchers, bearers,
and carts with wounded were standing in the road.
This lady was the matron of the hospital, and she

166

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

had brought to our doors all the remaining invalids
of that establishment, also the whole paraphernalia
necessary to hospital comfort.

The consul and I were fairly staggered for the
moment with the lady's audacity. When we
pointed out to her that the consulate was reserved
for British subjects — or at most for alien women and
children, but certainly not Greek soldiers, wounded
or otherwise — the lady fumed and stormed and
threatened to inform the British public by means of
a London newspaper of the inhuman conduct of
the consul, and she flounced back to the hospital
with her contingent of invalids trailing after her.
As it was, the wounded men we had already
succored might become a serious danger, for if the
Turks had entered the town fighting that night
and had discovered Greek soldiers sheltered in the
consulate, the British flag would have been little
protection for anybody, English or alien.

Toward morning there came a timid knock at
the gate, and a young soldier stood at salute in
front of me.

"Is this the British consulate?" he inquired, and
I discovered him to be an English volunteer. He
had been through all the fighting round Larissa,
and for many days had not had more than a few
crusts of bread to keep body and soul together.
Footsore and hungry, he now sought the protection
of the consulate. I was sorry for him, but he was
the very last man to apply at the gate. He had

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FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

broken the Foreign Enlistment Act by fighting for
an alien power and was practically an outlaw.
But "blood is thicker than water." He was a
Britisher, so I gave him a chance, which I am glad
to say he did not accept. I put the proposal in the
most delicate way possible.

"Now," said I, "supposing you happen to go
down to the beach and take a dip in the sea — for
I am sure a bath would do you good — and, when
you come out, don't trouble to find your clothes,
but hurry up here. I will rig you out in civil attire;
but don't stand at attention here in that costume,
for now you are to all intents and purposes practi-
cally a Greek."

After partaking of some little refreshment, my
footsore and weary visitor staggered back to the
front, having come to the conclusion that he would
stick to the cause he had in a weak moment so
generously espoused.

Just before the dawn things quieted down a bit,
and I fell asleep. It seemed to me that I had
hardly closed my eyes when I was again on my
feet. The consul and his wife were on the look-
out. Shots were most distinctly to be heard in the
distance. Presently shooting was taking place all
about us. The reason of this desultory fusillade
at last dawned upon me. It was the Greek Easter,
and, of course, the townsfolk were celebrating it in
the usual way — in spite of the close proximity of the
dreaded enemy — by letting off their pistols.

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AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

There is a type of Greek who will at any time
pull a revolver from his pocket and fire it off if he
is overjoyous, or feels unwell, or is bored. In fact
he fires off a gun as he would ignite a cracker or
burst a paper bag or make some noise to show the
world that he is uneasy and restless. Sometimes
the Greek soldiers used to startle their officers by
suddenly firing their rifles into the air on the line
of march or in the trenches. A few days afterward
I met with an incident illustrating this curious
trait of character. A young subaltern was very
much annoyed by this casual firing, so when next
this offense was committed he sent the culprit to
the rear to be dealt with by the captain of his
company, whereupon the offending soldier was
marched back to the subaltern, condemned by the
captain, as punishment for his crime, to be placed
first in the firing line. And even then he was
wounded in the back! It strikes me that with most
soldiers of other nationalities insubordination could
not be suppressed if the punishment inflicted upon
that Greek was meted out to them.

Directly the sun was up next morning I rode
toward the Turkish lines, and discovered things
not quite so bad as people imagined, for upon
arriving at Velestino I found Smollenski had
thrown the remnant of the Greek forces across the
Volo road and had stopped the victorious march
of the enemy. For a time the seaport was covered.
Steamships were able to ply safely all day in re-

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VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

moving the people from their perilous position.
They were loaded up to their gunwale with men,
women, children, goods, and chattels, odd pieces of
artillery, shot, and shell, and all kinds of govern-
ment stores from the municipal offices and maga-
zines. Within a few days Volo was deserted but
for about seven hundred unhappy people who had
been left hopelessly to face the incoming Turks.

Luckily I was well housed during the fighting in
front of Volo, for the British consul insisted on my
residing at the consulate. To me it was campaign-
ing in luxury. From the balcony of the residence I
could always see of a morning when the Turks
opened fire up on Velestino Plateau; then I would
drive with my cinema outfit to the battlefield,
taking my bicycle with me in the carriage. After
I had secured a few reels of movies, if the Turks
pressed too hard on our lines I would throw my
camera into the vehicle and send it out of action,
and at nightfall, after the fight, I would trundle
back down the hill to dinner.

The day the Turks cut the Greek forces in two
and Smollenski was in full retreat to Halmayos,
Volo was once more at the mercy of the enemy
and the panic was worse than ever. That night
at dinner I suggested to the consul that, as the
municipal authorities had quitted the city and the
government had done likewise, we should beard
the lion in his den and go boldly into the Moslem

lines to intercede with Edhem Pasha on behalf of

170

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

the remaining inhabitants. The consul said he
could not act alone: the affair must be inter-
national. After much persuasion and considerable
delay, we found that only the French consul would
personally join us; the Italian and Austrian repre-
sentatives rejected our proposition. We then
communicated with the Greek war vessels in the
harbor. The admiral told us we could do as we
pleased, and that his ships would clear out and
leave the entire situation to the consuls. We
hired two closed carriages and, to make the little
cortege more impressive, we placed French and
English bluejackets, with their respective colors
and flags of truce, conspicuously on the box seats.
We started at midnight so as to arrive at the
Turkish outposts at dawn, the Greek ships of war
illuminating our path with their searchlights till
that critical time arrived.

It was a rough climb for the horses and slow, and
it was just on the eve of dawn when we were
stopped at the first outpost. There was much
speculation all the way up on the possibility of the
Turkish outposts being dazed and puzzled by this
unusual and unique display and in sheer fright
letting loose a volley upon us. I discounted the
latter contingency by sitting with my back to one
of the carriage lamps, for by what I had recently
seen of the shooting of Turkish soldiers I flattered
myself that I should be comparatively safe from
any harm if they took aim at the candles. How-

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FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTVRE

ever, nothing of so exciting a nature happened, and
I was asleep when the carriage suddenly came to a
standstill, fn the gray of the morning two seem-
ing bundles of rags with muskets sticking up out
of their folds stood up on either side of us. We
were prisoners.

This rencontre took place on the Velestino ridge
just at the entrance to a narrow gorge which opened
out upon the plain. The Moslem forces were
already drawn up in quarter-columns of battalions
and were about to advance on the doomed town.
We were just in the nick of time!

It was a remarkably picturesque and weird sight,
this ever-victorious army — a ragged, scarecrow-look-
ing host. The majority of the men's faces were
brutal and sullen and boded no good to any
Christian who might fall into their clutches.

There was no difficulty in proving to the officer at
the outpost that our mission was a pacific one, so
we were at once permitted to push on toward
headquarters, a good two miles, while the whole
army wondered at our coming.

Indeed, we must have made an extraordinary
show. We had left our carnages, and were now
advancing in some kind of order. First came
bluejackets from the English and French ships,
struggling to keep their respective flags in line so
that one should not by a foot precede the other,
next fluttered in the breeze the flags of truce, then
came the French and English consuls — the French-

172

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

man, exceedingly short, gotten out in silk hat and
white gloves, and the Englishman, who stood a
good two feet taller, wearing a deerstalking cap
and a muffler round his neck. I, acting for the
moment as secretary to this mission, brought up
the rear wearing a black coat and a white solar
topee in virtue of my office.

Approaching the Velestino railway station, we
saw the field marshal's flag flying in front of his
quarters. Immediately upon our arrival the consuls
were granted an interview in which they were
received with much courtesy. The Pasha told us
that we were only just in time, for if the troops
had marched on the town and been fired upon,
nothing could have withheld them from taking
reprisals. We were assured, however, that Turkey
now conducted war in as civilized a manner as any
European power; and to bear out this claim the
Pasha gave us a firman from his august master to
read to the few remaining citizens. He also deputed
an aide-de-camp of the Sultan and an escort of
cavalry to return with us to the town.

The English war correspondents with the Turks,
among whom was that brilliant writer, the late Mr.
G. W. Steevens, were at the moment of our arrival
cooking their early coffee. Steevens generously
shared his ration with me before we took our leave
and hastened back to the expectant city.

As we gazed out across the Velestino plain before
descending the pass, five distinct columns of smoke

173

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

could be seen rising up from the village; the Turks
were at their old tricks again. Yes, we were only
just in time to save Volo. The deserted villas,
flowering gardens, and vineyards lay basking in
the morning sun, and we felt very glad our efforts
had been crowned with success, for it was a fair
city.

Great was our surprise, therefore, upon arriving
at the edge of the plateau, to see the Greek war
vessels still at anchor in the bay beneath. This
was hardly playing the game. The admiral had
not carried out his promise to withdraw. The
officer in command of our cavalry escort at once
ordered his Circassians to halt, and demanded to
know the meaning of the presence of the warships.
Were we leading him and his men into a trap?

After a rather heated discussion, the consuls
agreed to drive down to the quay and ascertain
the reason for the delay. I was left in charge of
the bluejackets — in fact, I 'became a hostage with
the Turks. It was an anxious time, this waiting,
for the Turkish cavalry were becoming restless and
Nejib Bey, the Sultan's aide-de-camp, who had
until now been all courtesy, looked a little ruffled
and very suspicious. I sat smoking cigarettes,
trying to feel unconcerned, watching those infernal
ships. At sight of this apparent treachery of the
Greeks the advance guard of the Turkish infantry
had also come to a halt, for at any moment the
face of the hill on which we stood might be torn

174

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

up by shells if the admiral felt so disposed. I tried
to explain to Nejib Bey that there was no reason
to expect foul play; that we should soon be able
to proceed; but within myself I knew for certain
only this, that my little band of Britishers would
have short shrift if a single ship's gun opened fire.

At last one of our bluejackets reported, "Anchor's
up, sir!" I jumped to my feet and pointed out to
Nejib that the smaller vessel was slowly steaming
out of the harbor and that the larger was under
way.

"Yes; I think we can go forward now," said he,
and after scribbling a message to the field marshal
he ordered the advance and we hurried down to the
town. A colleague, in the excitement of the
moment, had seized a flag of truce from the blue-
jackets and proudly waved it to the citizens as we
approached.

Personally I found the voluminous folds of this
flag most useful. The day was excessively hot and
I was perspiring freely. I had lost my handker-
chief, so, much to his disgust, I desecrated his white
flag by mopping the honest sweat from my brow
with it. Probably it was the first time a flag of
truce had ever been used in that manner.

When we arrived at Volo it took us some time
to find a responsible citizen to read to the populace
the proclamation of the Sultan. At last, from the
balcony of the mayor's house, the precious docu-
ment was interpreted — I believe by either a butcher

175

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF 4DFENTURE

or a baker — to the remaining townsfolk, insuring
their lives and property if they remained law-abiding
citizens and quietly accepted the Turkish occupa-
tion. Three nervous cheers from seven hundred
throats were given for the Sultan, and restless,
feverish Volo was at peace.

Upon first arriving in Volo I had engaged as
servant a Greek who spoke a little French, as I
thought that it would be a good practice to air
what I knew of that language. This arrangement
worked splendidly in many ways. For instance,
when I was irritated and lost my temper I also
lost my French and would let Demetri have the
full benefit of my wrath in the vernacular of my
own country. The result was that he would
patiently wait till I had finished and then politely
request me to put it into French.

But, after all, Demetri did not try my temper
much, for he was a good servant, and on one
occasion saved me much inconvenience by bring-
ing up a horse to me, at considerable risk to him-
self, just at the supreme moment of one of those
many Greek panics which ended in a disastrous
retreat. However, in return for this act I was
happy later to be able to save the good fellow's
life in a manner that I shall presently recount.

I found myself in rather an invidious position
after we had given the beautiful Tity of Volo into
the hands of the Turks, for here was I, a corre-
spondent with the Greeks, practically in the hands

176

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

of the enemy. The governor of the city appointed
by the Turkish field marshal was Enver Bey (no
relation to the leader of the Young Turks party
in more recent days). He knew that I had been
instrumental, together with the British consul, in
handing over Volo to the Turks. I resolved, there-
fore, to appeal to him for a safe-conduct into the
Greek lines.

"Well," said he, as he handed me a cigarette,
"you can go this afternoon. There is a steamer
leaving for Athens, and I will permit you to sail
in her with your servant."

"Thanks, Your Excellency; but can you befriend
me further?"

"In what manner?" said the bey.

"I want to know when and where the next fight
will take place. You Turks will take the initiative,
for the Greeks can now be only on the defensive."

The bey looked at me steadily. I suppose the
extreme audacity of the question rather staggered
him.

"You are an Englishman," he said at last, "and
I can trust you. I will tell you this: take this
steamer I have mentioned to Athens, then get
another to Lamia, the port of Domokos, and don't
fail to be at the latter place by Monday noon.
Now, Mr. Villiers, good-by," and he shook me by
the hand.

I was even astonished myself at the impudence
of my question. Asking the enemy to give me

177

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

news of so important a nature while he knew I
was about to join the other side! However, these
extraordinary things do sometimes occur. At all
events, I scored by following his advice. I arrived
in Athens just in the nick of time to catch my
steamer for Lamia, where I hired a carriage and
pair and was in Domokos on the exact day and
hour to hear the first gun fired by the Greeks at the
Moslem infantry advancing across the Pharsala
plains, which stretched like a calm green sea at
my feet.

The story of Domokos is similar to that of all
the abortive attempts in those days by the Hellenic
troops to stem the Turkish advance. Before
nightfall a clever feint, made at enormous cost
by the Turks upon the Greek center, allowed a
flanking party to work round the right so as to
threaten their line of retreat. Soon the familiar
tactics of the Greek leaders were resorted to: a
general retreat was commenced.

I hurried off to Lamia with the news, and reached
that place at one in the morning, only to find the
telegraph office closed to all messages. In disgust
I threw myself on to the floor of the deserted hotel
and tried to sleep.

At dawn I prepared to drive to Athens — nearly
a three days' journey — but when I was about to
start I found a soldier seated beside our coachman
and learned that the vehicle had been requisitioned
to transport the wounded.

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AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

Demetri remonstrated with a young officer near
by for taking over my carriage in this unapologetic
manner, and the officer struck him. Being a soldier
in the reserves, my servant could not very well
strike back, and the officer, taking advantage of
this, commenced to pommel him so unmercifully
that I thought it was time to interfere.

I threw my arms round the brutal assailant and
held him tight. Meanwhile my servant, finding
himself free and the officer secure, drew a revolver
from his pocket. At once two or three soldiers
rushed upon him and in a short period Demetri was
thrown into the common prison and condemned to
be shot within the hour.

It took me that full hour to soften the hearts of
the authorities sufficiently to induce them to spare
my servant's life. At last I was told that because
I represented a great London journal my servant
would be for the time returned to me under my
guaranty to deliver him to the authorities if called
upon. After all, the "fourth estate" has some
power, even in a foreign land. Demetri, when he
was released, wept bitterly and was profuse in his
gratitude to me.

"That's all right," said I, "but why do you cry?"

I found the cause of his sorrow was that the
soldiers had ransacked his pockets and had taken all
his coin, a letter from his sweetheart, and (what
humiliated him more than anything) had requisi-
tioned his revolver.

VOL. ii.— 13 *79

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

The delay over my servant's fate was almost
disastrous to my plan of being first in England
with my copy. I dropped the idea of getting to
Athens by land and hurried on my bicycle to
Stelitza. As I neared the landing stage of the little
port I saw some fifteen troopers about to mount.
They were men of the Crown Prince's escort.
Obviously they had not come to water their horses
in the salt sea. Far across the bay was a tug mak-
ing all speed in the direction of Thermopylae. I
surmised at once who was in that little boat, the
same who was the first to retire from Domokos
when our flank was turned — the Crown Prince.
Luckily for me there was a steamer in the little
port about to leave for Chalcis, so I climbed on
board. At midnight we arrived at the famous
gate of the Greek inland sea and a few minutes
later I was seated in a fly, driving like mad for
Athens.

At three the following afternoon I sighted the
Acropolis. At six I was interviewing the Prime
Minister of Greece — for all telegrams were obliged
to have his signature before they were permitted
to be placed on the wires. He came from his
dining room and was still eating as he advanced
toward me. I held my long telegram in front of
him and apologized for disturbing him at his dinner.

"I will read it while I finish," said he, leaving me
with a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

Presently he returned. "This can go if these
1 80

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

lines are omitted," and he pointed to these which
he had underlined. I struck them out, and then
he signed it, 'and in another ten minutes my message
was on the cable to the London Standard.

The Turks had gained another great success
and the Greek army was shattered. There was
much consternation at the palace over this last
disaster. Moreover, the King and Queen were
still uncertain if the Crown Prince Tino had been
killed by his own troops, for they had as yet
received no news from him or his army. My
arrival being known I was sent for to go to the
palace, and I relieved Their Majesties' anxiety by
my description of the Crown Prince's escort at
Stelitza and the tug steaming across the bay for
Thermopylae.

When this little war broke out I had ingenuously
thought that cinema pictures of the fighting would
delight and astonish the public. The cinema
camera was then in its infancy, so at considerable
expense I took one to the front, as I have already
mentioned. It was a laborious business in those
early days to arrange the spools and change the
films; and I sweated a good deal at the work, but
managed to get touches of real warfare.

It was a great disappointment, therefore, to
discover that these films were of no value in the
movie market, for when I returned to England a
friend, generally of ordinary intelligence, said to
me:

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VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

"My dear Villiers, I saw some wonderful pictures
of the Greek war last night."

By his description I knew they were certainly not
mine. I wondered at this, because my camera
was the only one to pass the Greek customs during
the campaign. Then he described one of the
pictures:

"Three Albanians came along a very white,
dusty road toward a cottage on the right of the
screen. As they neared it they opened fire; you
could see the bullets strike the stucco of the build-
ing. Then one of the Turks with the butt end of
his rifle smashed in the door of the cottage, entered,
and brought out a lovely Athenian maid in his
arms. You could see her struggling and fighting
for liberty. Presently an old man, evidently the
girl's father, rushed out of the house to her rescue,
when the second Albanian whipped out his yataghan
from his belt and cut the old gentleman's head off."

Here my friend grew enthusiastic. "There was
the head," said he, "rolling in the foreground of
the picture." Nothing could be more positive than
that.

I did not raise my voice or smile derisively; I
calmly asked him, "Have you ever seen a movie
camera?"

"No," he replied.

"Well, you have to fix it on a tripod," said I,
"and get everything in focus before you can take a
picture. Then you have to turn the handle in a

182

AN UNEQUAL STRUGGLE

deliberate, coffee-mill sort of way, with no hurry or
excitement. It's not a bit like a snapshot, press-
the-button pocket kodak.

"Now just think of that scene you have so
vividly described to me. Imagine the man who
was coffee-milling saying, in a persuasive way, 'Now,
Mr. Albanian, before you take the old gent's head
off come a little nearer; yes, but a little more to the
left, please. Thank you. Now, then, look as savage
as you can and cut away.' Or 'You, No. 2 Alban-
ian, make that hussy lower her chin a bit and
keep her kicking as ladylike as possible.' Wru-ru-
ru-ru-ru!"

A famous firm outside Paris made those films,
and since then many others of a similar nature
have delighted the movie "fan." Barnum and
Bailey, those wonderful American showmen, correct-
ly averred that the public liked to be fooled.

Chapter XI

SHADOWS OF THE PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS OF TO-DAY

Archibald Forbes — Fred Burnaby — Pellegrini — Sir A. Conan Doyle —
Thomas Plardy — Henry Seton Merriman — Scott of Chicago — Bruce
Ingram of the "Illustrated London News" — Sir Forbes Robertson —
Barry Pain — W. W. Jacobs — Richard Barry — Stanley Washburn.

OOMETIMES between campaigns I would return
^ to England and settle down for a time with my
wife and my son and daughter in the picturesque
little mill house of Bedhampton, in Hampshire,
where in my atelier I would often ruminate over
the glories of the past. There the pomp and
panoply of many scenes I had witnessed would
rise before me as the sunlight twinkled through the
masharabeyeh lattice at the window and its rays
fell upon some weapon, accouterment, portrait, or
treasured relic of bygone days.

One picture, above all others, always conjured
up a personality that loomed large in my memory.
That was the portrait of Archibald Forbes. He
was one of my dearest friends, and I owed much
of my success in life to his tutelage. As a young
artist, fresh from the Royal Academy schools, I

184

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

had met him in the manner described early in these
pages. We had chummed together at once, and
for three successive campaigns were companions in
many adventures.

He was a man of great physique and grand
courage. Moreover, he was by nature an ideal
war correspondent, for he could do more work,
both mentally and physically, on a small amount
of food than any man I have ever met. Amid the
noise of battle and in close proximity to bursting
shells, whose dust would sometimes fall upon the
paper, I have seen him calmly writing his descrip-
tion of the fight — not taking notes to be worked
up afterward, but actually writing the vivid account
that was to be transmitted by wire. His one great
aim was to get off the first and best news of the
fighting; and he never spared himself till that was
done.

It was a sheer impossibility for my colleagues
to compete successfully with Forbes, and it was
amusing to see the look of discomfort — almost of
dread — on the faces of his confreres whenever he
turned up in their vicinity. They seemed to feel
the master spirit of the man at once and to know
that all their owh plans for being first off" with
the news would be made in vain. I believe Forbes
never once failed, even from the time when during
the latter days of the Franco-Prussian War he was
the first correspondent to enter Paris and get safely
out again with a description of the state of the

185

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

city, which for months had been as a sealed book,
locked tight in the cordon of the Prussian army.

There was only one man who ever came near
getting ahead of Forbes, but he overreached him-
self in the attempt, and his ultimate discomfiture
was most humiliating. It was during the Serbian
campaign of '76. A correspondent for a rival paper
was in the frontier town of Alexinatz, then being
attacked by the Turks. Forbes had left for Deli-
grad with dispatches, but I expected him back
hourly. During the day the Turks made a
desperate onslaught, and the townspeople, frightened
to death by the near approach of the ruthless
Moslems, evacuated the place. This correspondent
immediately took it for granted that the Turks
were forcing their way into the town, and rode off
with the news to Belgrade, where he wired to
London that Alexinatz had fallen.

In the meantime Forbes, as he hurried back to
the beleaguered town, passed him on the road and
guessed the reason for the look of triumph on his
colleague's face. Finding that I had not yet left
the place and that the threatening Turks were still
a few miles away with a fringe of our men between
them and the town, Forbes elected to remain in
Alexinatz. We lived on the wholesome diet of
grapes and black bread for two days and a half,
when Forbes thought it was time to prove the
untruth of his colleague's telegram by a message
to the effect that we were still living in Alexinatz

186

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

and therefore the town could not yet be in the
hands of the Turks.

Col Fred Burnaby was another remarkable
person whose picture hung in that little gallery — a
man full of strange ideas, but always extremely
sane regarding their actual execution. I was lunch-
ing with him and a friend in the Middle Temple
only a few days before he left England for the
eastern Sudan. As he was not going out in any
official capacity my friend asked him why he was
so anxious to go. He laughingly replied: "For a
very good reason. I am about to run for Parlia-
ment in the Conservative interest, and I have
discovered that there is nothing like the adventures
of war to talk of to one's constituents; so I am going
to pick up material with which to interest them."

I was forcibly reminded of this conversation
when, a few months afterward, I happened to read
in a Midland newspaper Burnaby's speech to his
constituents. This was the gist of the address:
"The widows and orphans of the Arabs who had
so heroically fallen in the defense of their country
were wringing their hands and tearing their hair,
cursing the name of Mr. Gladstone, the British
Liberal Minister who was responsible for the war."
And yet Burnaby himself had made many a widow
and orphan, "sniping the niggers," in the language
of the soldiers, whenever they showed their heads!

The hero of the ride to Khiva was a lovable
creature in spite of his eccentricities, who endeared

187

I
VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

all by his wonderful pluck and good-fellowship.
In the night march across the Bayuda Desert
during the Nile expedition for the relief of Gordon
the following year his hulking figure was seen
everywhere, quietly keeping the column in order.
He seemed to be in his element when, there was
hard and dangerous work to do. I never saw him
look gloomier than during that march, for he had
a presentiment of his coming end. Yet there was
always a grim touch of humor about him. One
night I asked him what he thought of our chances
of reaching Khartum in time to save Gordon.

"The odds against us are about twenty to one,"
he replied, and added, "we Britishers are a curious
people. Why, do you know, I've been made com-
mandant of Metamneh, and we haven't got there
yet!"

Poor fellow! he never came within sight of his
command, for he fell in our first fight with the
enemy in the gorge of Abu Klea. Burnaby was a
thorough bohemian and a somewhat slovenly
dresser. Seemingly, he bore a considerable animus
to collars, for he generally wore a muffler and
never appeared so happy as when he was away
from the realm of barbers.

Sometimes when I glanced at a sketch pinned on
the wall there would stand before me the shadow
of the greatest cartoonist of the past century, the
inimitable Pellegrini of Faulty Fair. There was
something about his men and women extremely

188

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

ludicrous, yet never grotesque, and they presented
always a remarkable likeness to the person cari-
catured. He was never coarse or vulgar or very
unkind in his pictures, and was so artistic in his
work that distinguished people who had the good
fortune to be the subject of his humor could not
be angry with him — he seemed to dwell lovingly
on their peculiarities. To know the artist was to
love him, for he was generous and amiable. A
pale-faced dumpling of a man, with large, dark,
liquid eyes, always smartly dressed, he was very
proud of his trim little figure, which, as years went
on, sadly lost its earlier proportions. Though his
home was in England, and one would think him
almost Anglicized by his long residence in London,
he was a Latin to the very tips of the fingers with
which he gesticulated so fiercely whenever he got
excited.

I was talking with him one day about want of
exercise and the difficulty in keeping one's "Little
Mary" to the proper dimensions consistent with
an elegant figure.

"Ah, my dear Villiers," he sighed, "it is not
this," and he patted his waistcoat. "This will
come and it will go; I do not mind it. But, my
boy, beware of the flanks. When the sides have
no curve and when you have no waist — like me —
ah! then you may say the time is come: you are
getting old!"

During those quiet hours of leisure in my Hamp-

189

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECIDES OF ADVENTURE

shire studio there were so many souvenirs in the
shape of sketches, portraits, and notes to recall be-
fore my mind's eye those of my friends who have
figured large in art, Betters, and war.

Of English authors I have known who are now
living, I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the most
conspicuous. I was once lecturing on my war
experiences at Norwood when Sir Arthur kindly
took the chair. He made a charming, compli-
mentary speech when I had finished, and he had
such an excellent, full-toned voice and fine presence
that I suggested that he should lecture. The
idea had evidently never before struck him, but
I pointed out how interested the public was sure
to be to hear anything from him on the platform.
The suggestion seemed to take ground, for a short
time afterward I found him advertised to lecture
on the works of George Meredith.

This was hardly what I had expected. I thought
the discourse would be on how he evolved Sherlock
Holmes — a subject that would have taken the
lecture platform by storm. But his choice showed
the extreme modesty of the man and his shyness
in talking about himself. However, his success in
America as a lecturer, when he eventually was
persuaded to read from his own works, was re-
markable: his manager, my friend Major Pond,
told me that if he had remained longer in the
United States he would have made a fortune.

I happened to call upon Sir Arthur in England
190

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

one morning. He received me in his usual hearty
and breezy manner, but I could see there was
something weighing heavily on his mind. I dis-
covered that he had finally come to the conclusion
that his old and valuable friend Sherlock Holmes
must die. When he broke this painful news to me
he was in his little study surrounded by harpoons,
models of boats, tackle, and other gear necessary
to the exciting and dangerous sport of whale fishing,
with a few drawings of his uncle's (the famous
Dicky Doyle who designed the titlepage of Punch)
hanging on the wall.

He was quite perplexed as to how he should get
rid of Holmes. His publishers wished for more of
the astute detective, but he was getting tired of
the gentleman and wanted to devote his attention
to war adventures. He told me that he had the
spirit of the campaigner within him. Several of his
relatives \had seen active service, and he felt it in
his blood and longed to be free to work his will.
But first of all he must settle what manner of
death Sherlock Holmes should die.

"A man like that mustn't die of a pin prick or
influenza. His end must be violent and intensely
dramatic."

I could see that my dear friend of many happy
monthly issues was doomed to death. The author
of his being was inexorable on this point, and I
left the house with a touch of sadness in my heart.
However, I took away something to comfort me,

191

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

for in my hand was an autographed copy of the
author's first book of war fiction, The Great Shadow,
after which those delightful adventures of Brigadier
Gerard saw the light.

I became personally acquainted with another
famous author while I was entertained by the
sister of Gen. Sir Herbert Stewart, Mrs. Everett,
the wife of the Vicar of Dorchester.

I had not quite caught the names of one or two
of the guests before we sat down to dinner, and
found that I was placed between my hostess and a
quiet, rather pale-faced little man on my right,
who was very affable and gave me much informa-
tion about the county of Dorset, whose history he
seemed to have at his finger tips.

Presently he said, "You have been campaign-
ing for the Graphic, have you, not ?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I work for that paper occasionally," said he.

I was wondering who my little friend was, for
I had never met him on the warpath, when my
hostess, guessing my dilemma, whispered:

"That is Mr. Thomas Hardy, the author."

Then I remembered reading his first remarkable
story published in the Graphic, called The Mayor of
Casterbridge, for the weekly installment of which
I used to look anxiously forward when I was cam-
paigning in the Sudan. My hostess told me that
the author was born and bred not many yards
from the house in which we were dining. After a

192

SH4DOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

sojourn in London and a taste of the social success
which his sudden fame in literature had brought
him, he had returned to his old home, in the vicinity
of which he appeared to find most of the local
color for his novels. Thus The Woodlanders and,
probably the finest story he ever wrote, Tess of the
d'Urbervilles, owe their beautiful settings to the
country he so dearly loves, in which he was born
and stifl lives.

It was in 1877 when staying at the house of
Mr. Scott, the father of Hugh S. Scott, that I met
the young student who was to be the author of In
Kedars Tents, The Last Hope, and many other
fascinating stories. He was a fair youth, of a
very retiring and secretive manner. Being con-
sidered delicate, he remained much at home,
absorbed in literary studies, while his brother went
daily to the city. His father, feeling that it was
unjust that the one should be always at work
while the other was staying away under the excuse
of writing books, spoke to him about it one evening
on his return from business. He wanted to know
when he was going to drop this literary folly and
join his brother in the office.

"Now, if you could produce a book like this,"
said he, holding up The Sowers, which he had just
purchased at a bookstall, "you might call yourself

a writer."

Even then his son did not make himself known
as the author, but went on steadily working, achiev-

193

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

ing success after success under the nom de plume
of "Henry Seton Merriman." When at last his
people found out that he was the most popular
writer of the day, it is said — sad to relate — that
instead of being supremely proud of him, they /
raised a howl of indignation because he had been
receiving big fees for his books without letting
anyone know of his good fortune. They appeared
to overlook the fact that they had embittered him
by ridiculing his early struggle for literary fame.

Another Mr. Scott was one of the smartest news-
paper proprietors I have known: the late Mr. Scott
of the Chicago Herald. Scott was a founder of the
Argo Club, the members of which entertained most
of the Englishmen who were appointed in an official
capacity to the World's Fair of '93. The club was a
peculiar building and a landmark of American re-
sourcefulness. Landmark is, however, not quite the
right term, for in reality the clubhouse was the stern
section of a wooden ship apparently stranded on the
shore of Lake Michigan. It was high and dry on
the foreshore, propped up by balks of timber, and
access was had to it by means of a ladder.

As we sat on the poop one evening, looking over
the immense lake, whose waters the sunset was
turning to molten gold, my chubby little friend
remarked as he puffed at a long cigar, "A wonderful
view, Mr. Villiers."

"Magnificent!" I responded. "Splendid place
for a clubhouse, out of the broil of the city. But

194

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

I wonder you don't build a proper house — you
fellows are so full of push and enterprise. A palace
ought to be erected on this site."

My friend laughed softly. "You bet," said he,
"we would have done it if we could. Why, millions
have been offered the municipality to permit build-
ing on this foreshore. It ain't allowed, Mr. Villiers,
that's why. In spite of the fiat of the municipality,
however, we intended to have our club right here.
There was no law against building ships, so we
started to erect this hulk, which of course was
never launched, and here it has been ever since.

"We are pretty live people in Chicago; come
and see my newspaper office; I should like to
show you around."

The next afternoon I called on my friend at the
Herald building and was shown up to his private
apartment. It was a palatial room incased in
solid mahogany, with elaborate carved wainscot.
Scott was seated at a broad table of the same
polished wood. On it were many telephone and
telegraphic appliances.

"You see, Mr. Villiers, I am in touch with the
whole world right here in this little snuggery of
mine. I just start this instrument and can cable
and get a reply from every quarter of the globe,
and I can speak through these phones with any
city in the States. Have a drink?" said he, jump-
ing out of his chair and pressing a button to the
wall. A part of the wainscot slowly opened out-

VOL. II. — 14 195

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

ward, displaying an assortment of liquors, siphons
of soda water and a tray of glasses.

"If ladies come here, why we can give them tea
or coffee," and he touched the opposite wall, where
a panel slid open, exposing to view an elaborate
service of Sevres china.

"Now I will show you our working quarters."
And we passed out of the room and down a stair
leading to the compositors' room. It was a spacious
place, walled with white tiles, and bright and airy.

"Here," said he, as he pointed to a series of
lockers, "is where my men keep their store clothes
when they don their working togs. Oh, some of
them come here in frock coats with flowers in their
buttonholes. Well, why not? They make their
six pounds a week in your English money. After
the men have finished work they can have a hot
or cold shower before they put on their best clothes,
right here in this lavatory." Here I peeped into a
room fitted with marble basins and electroplated
taps.

"See this?" and he pointed to a shining iced-
water filter with a cup chained to it. "That mug
is solid silver. It cost but a few dollars, and the
men like the idea. I have them all over the build-
ing; it's a good cad.' It gets about that my fellows
drink out of silver, see?"

After taking me round the press rooms, he said,
"Now I will show you my last triumph." We then
went down below to the issuing department, the

196

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

counters of which were approached by a series of
narrow passages. The walls were wire screens, so
that each newsboy could be supplied without
being hustled by the others.

"Some of the boys are little devils. They used
to fight and hustle one another and the weaker had
to go to the wall; now, by these approaches, they
are all fairly served."

When we returned to his room Scott told me the
history of the journal.

"When I first bought this paper it was not much
of a property; I put all the money my father
started me with in the concern, and began to lose
steadily. The first year it was a pretty fair amount
and the circulation of the rag was steadily going
down. I found that I was not losing money quickly
enough, so I piled on the dollars. The second year
I overdrew my account at the banker's; I was
blowing the money in as fast as I could. One
evening the bank manager called to see me in this
very room — it was not so nicely fitted up in those
days — and said, 'Scott, I have come for a chat
about your rather big overdraft; let's have a talk
about the prospects of this paper of yours.'

"I told him that I felt there must be much more
money thrown into it before I felt easy about it.
'Well,' said he. 'I think I know a friend who is
likely to give you what you want. I'll let you
know about his decision to-morrow night/

"In the meanwhile, Mr. Villiers, I spent rather

J97

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

an anxious twenty-four hours. I knew I was not
losing fast enough, and I was getting in a hole.
Well, the manager turned up as promised, but
alone. I said, 'Where's your friend?'

"'I guess I am the man/ he replied, and with
his assistance for six months I lost hand over fist:
then we touched rock bottom and bounced up, and
we have been doing mighty well ever since."

Poor little man, he did not have long to enjoy
his prosperity, for he died shortly after my visit.
I shall not easily forget that interview or the heroic
methods with which he bid for success and got it.
It was a splendid idea. Instead of cutting down
expenses and giving the public less for their money,
as soon as he found that he was losing, he "lost
more," as he quaintly put it — that is, he gave the
public more and more for their money and made
them buy the paper.

Scott's method is the only sound one. Spend
money freely and fearlessly if you have a sound
business and you seldom meet with failure.

Another director of a successful enterprise in
journalism whom I have come across is young
Bruce Ingram, the principal shareholder of the
Illustrated London News, whose energy and lavish
expenditure to make good with the public during
the recent Great War sent up the circulation of his
paper far higher than any other weekly of a kindred
nature.

For a little recreation from his arduous journal-
198

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

istic duties and the heartbreaking work of dealing
with the press censors he came out to France and
Flanders to make a short tour with me through the
trenches on both the French and British fronts.
This trip so inspired him with the martial spirit
that he eventually left his post as editor and linked
up with the army to do his little bit for the Empire.

An artist contemporary of mine was Forbes
Robertson, the famous actor-manager. I think I
have never seen a handsomer type of humanity
in the first flush of youth than Robertson as an
art student. His clean-cut, classic features, fine
blue eyes, and auburn hair — whose golden hue most
women would envy — made a picture, as he sat
working in his studio, that Velasquez would have
loved to paint.

I shall hardly forget his first success as an actor.
He appeared at the Princess Theater as Chate-
lard to Mrs. Rouseby's Queen of Scots; and
his handsome bearing and fine elocution at once
gained favor with the public. Like many other
young men of the day, Robertson was a great
follower of Sir Henry Irving and his school; but
he is one of the few who were able to cast off the
peculiar mannerisms of the great master and
achieve an individuality of their own. It was a
great pleasure to me when, remembering that I
had been in the fight at Tamai in the eastern Sudan,
he asked me to arrange the correspondents' scene
in his excellent production of The Light That Failed.

199

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

A person whom I shall always associate with
quick repartee is Barry Pain. A few of us were
talking one evening about certain lucky individuals
who had recently been made Peers of the Realm.
One of the crowd said: "So-and-so would have got
his peerage, too, but for his thirst for liquor. You
know a few members of the Upper House asked
him to dine, to see what manner of man they were
about to admit into their ranks, and what do you
think? The fool queered the whole thing by turning
up squiffy!"

"Of course," said Barry Pain, "they were indig-
nant with him for anticipating the honor."

"How? "we asked.

"Why," replied Pain, "by being drunk as a lord."

Another time we were in the lower smoking room
of the Arts Club in Dover Street, Piccadilly, or —
as the street is better known to-day by virtue of
its many dressmakers' establishments — " Petticoat
Lane." Seated in the largest and most comfortable
of the chairs was a fair, pale-faced youth, apparently
just out of his teens. The author of a clever book,
recently published, was telling us one of his racy
experiences, when I chaffingly said, "Now, be
careful what you say before the boy," pointing to
the youth in the big chair.

"Oh," laughed the raconteur, "it won't hurt
him."

"Don't you know," asked a friend on my right,
"who that is?"

200

SHADOWS OF PAST AND HIGH LIGHTS TO-DAY

"No."

"He's the author of Beauty and the Barge, W. W.
Jacobs."

One of the cleverest youths I have met in my
profession was a lad a little over twenty years of
age, born in California, who like myself was rele-
gated by the Japanese War Office to General Nogi's
command during the war between Russia and
Japan in 1904. He had left his newspaper office
in such a hurry to catch the steamer for Yokohama
that he had nothing with him but the clothes he
stood up in, a notebook, and a sheaf of pencils.

Though he was absolutely ignorant of the
simplest rudiments of the war correspondent's
craft — not knowing common shell from shrapnel, a
counterscarp from chevaux-de-frise, or a glacis from
a marron glace — he was keen and alert and anxious
to learn, and with a little drilling turned out to be
one of the brightest of those who chronicled the
exciting events of the famous siege of Port Arthur.

I had not met him since those days, till I became
recently a guest at his house in New York City,
where I found him with a delightful wife who was
heart and soul in sympathy with his work, which
had developed from war correspondent to that of
novelist and playwright.

There was another young American besides
Richard Barry who received his baptism of fire
round about Port Arthur, Stanley Washburn. In
the recent war he was with the Russian army

201

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

when, in the early days of the conflict, it was the
"great steam roller" — till the liquor prohibition
ukase by the Tsar shut off* the steam and paralyzed
its efforts.

After the Russian Revolution Washburn joined
his brethren-in-arms under Pershing and was placed
on the General Staff with the rank of major. He
is now retired and resting in the bosom of his
charming family in a picturesque spot in New
Jersey, where he loves to roam the country with
his dogs wagging their tails at his heels.

DECADE
1900-1910

Chapter XII
1900-1910

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

/ try my friends the Japs once more — Am not disappointed — Curious
behavior of my colleagues — " You told the truth ten years ago; you
will tell the truth now" — Well chosen — The peculiar Chinese — A pet
fowl — Scattered leaves from my diary.

\\ 7HEN hostilities broke out between Russia
* * and Japan in the spring of 1904 I was for a
time on the horns of a dilemma as to which bel-
ligerent I should join, for I had been in the field at
different periods with armies of both nations and
had received the greatest courtesy and kindness
from the officers of both. I felt, however, a little
diffidence in joining the Japs again because I had
described in my paper an incident which occurred
during their last war with China that I thought
was very barbarous in its nature — and I had not
minced matters about it.

On arriving at Shanghai, where I intended to
trail off for Mukden to join the Russian armies
on the march, I found much difficulty in persuad-
ing the British minister to allow me to get through

205

VILLIERB: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

beyond Peking. It was the beginning of the official
"wait a bit" attitude toward members of the
"fourth estate." I was much embarrassed, for I
had come a long distance, just halfway round the
world; but still I intended to see something of the
campaign. However, there was no way left now
but to try my friends the Japs once more, so I
set sail for the Land of the Rising Sun.

On arriving I went straight to Tokyo and re-
ported myself to the authorities. I was walking up
the stoop of the principal hotel when I met a
brother correspondent who seemed startled at see-
ing me and at once framed an excuse for hurrying
away. "Sorry, my dear fellow, but I have an
important engagement; must hurry, dontyerknow!"
In the center of the vestibule I met the renowned
Bennett Burleigh. It was the same thing with him.
He nervously gave me his paw and said: "Holy
Moses, why the devil have you come here? Sorry,
but a man's waiting for me. Ta-ta."

Next I went up to see my dear friend Melton
Prior. He was down with asthma, but he sat up
and stuttered: "Why on earth have you turned up?
You will surely get your throat cut for what you
said of the Jap army ten years ago."

But I replied: "My dear boy, Japan is a progres-
sive country and it did them a world of good.
There's a new generation to-day and they won't
bear any resentment."

But in my heart I was not quite certain. Well,
206

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

anyway I had to face the music, so I retired from
my confreres' hostelry and took up my quarters in
Yokohama, and there I remained for many weeks,
living quietly in a friend's house, till one day I
received a note from the Japanese Admiralty which
ran as follows:

A steamer will leave to-morrow for Dalny with mem-
bers of both the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament
to visit Admiral Togo's fleet, and if you care to go there
will be accommodation for you.

I accepted at once and the next morning I joined
the distinguished party. The second day out a
very jovial-looking Japanese came up to me and
introduced himself. He was Baron Enouyi, who
had been in Great Britain studying the railway
system. He spoke English wonderfully well and
might have been taken for a ruddy Yorkshire
farmer rather than a Jap.

"Glad to see you," said he. "You were with our
army ten years ago."

I almost squirmed with anxiety as to what he
was going to say.

"You told us," he continued, "about something
we were very sorry to hear. You may be pleased
to know that the general you condemned for his
ferocious conduct was cashiered and died two
years afterward. It was a shocking business, which
the government deplored. I am glad you are with
us, for you spoke the truth on that occasion and
no dcubt you will speak the truth now,"

3Q7

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Shortly after my return from visiting Togo's
fleet I was notified to call at the War Office. There
an official told me to prepare to join the Japanese
army at the front. He refused to tell me where, so
I asked a few questions.

"Shall I want a tent and camping outfit?"

"No," said he; "you will find plenty of accommo-
dation in the villages."

"Shall I require a horse?"

"No."

"Then," said I, "we are going to Port Arthur."

"I never told you that," said the official, with a
frown.

"Never fear," I replied; "your secret is safe."

I found I was right. As there were villages all
the way from Dalny to Port Arthur and it was an
easy walk I simply took with me a valise and had
no need for anything more.

On landing at Dalny we were allotted quarters.
Rations of food were sent to us from headquarters,
and our party of ten correspondents was soon
split up into messes. Barry, a young Californian;
Ricarlton, the expert photographic artist, and
I received bread, potatoes, and two chickens.
Ricarlton took a great fancy to one of the birds,
and, being tender of heart, would not have it killed.
In fact, he was quite a Buddhist in many ways,
and would destroy only flies. It was an awkward
situation. I took no delight in the fowl's winning
ways, but simply wanted its flesh, and Barry was

208

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

of the same mind. Ricarlton at last proposed a
compromise. He said that he would take no share
of the bird that we had already doomed and he
would let us have the first dozen eggs that his
fowl, which he had christened "Kuroki," in honor
of the famous Japanese general, should happen to
lay. We agreed to this arrangement, but it was
most unsatisfactory, for although I feel certain
that Ricarlton was no party to the deception, the
wretched bird turned out to be a rooster.

Not yet having a servant or a cook, I immedi-
ately looked about the town for a restaurant of
some kind where I could have our ration properly
prepared. There was no such place in the Russian
quarter, but down in the native part of the city
were several eating houses. I chanced on one in
the principal street, which had borne a Russian
name a few weeks before, but was now called "Ko-
dama Avenue" after the famous Japanese chief
of staff. It was a quaint little one-story building,
with two side rooms leading off a shop, in the
center of which were piled cakes and bread fresh
from the bakery. On the shelves around the walls
was a most curious assortment of liquors, wines,
and beers of all brands and nationalities. This
must have been the loot of the Chinese banditti
that they were unable to consume after ransacking
the town before the arrival of the Japs.

The Chinese vendors had a most hazy notion what
to charge for it. Champagne of excellent brands

209

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

was offered at the price of whisky, the value of
which was well known to Dalny shopkeepers, and
excellent claret could be purchased for fifty cents a
bottle. Judging by the gaudy paper on the walls
and the type of kerosene lamp hanging from the
ceiling, the place must have been a Russian tea shop
of the lower sort before the advent of the Japanese.

The Celestials who were now running it had
introduced a little joss altar at one end of the room,
and on this were paper flowers and vases in which
burned colored candles in honor of the full moon.
Elaborate screens, on which rampant dragons
figured in gold on fields of blue and red silk, walled
off the tables and formed temporary cabinets where
one could sit in comparative privacy.

As I walked in the proprietor and his servants
showed evident pleasure at the coming of the
European. The place seemed well patronized by
Japanese officers and noncoms., who were much
interested in reading the inscription in red velvet
pasted on the white badge on my arm, which
stated my paper and nationality.

I handed over the fowl to the cook, and in a
very short time mutton cutlets were placed before
me. What had they done with the chick? I
wondered. Probably that would be the next course.
The next dish was a tomato stew. I hunted around
for portions of the fowl, but there was no sign of
a bird about it. Anyway, it was so good that I
came to the conclusion that I would let the matter

210

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

of my ration drop. After all, probably they were
reserving it as a bonne bouche. But the next item
was a sweet omelet; there was nothing of the
chicken about this, unless my bird had gone back
on me and laid an egg. The happy finale to the
repast was that the landlord only charged me for
cooking the fowl. I let it go at that and asked no
questions, for the ways of the heathen Chinese are
proverbially peculiar.

I always look on that chicken as a "good-luck
bird," for it was the means of introducing to me
the very best of all the servants I have ever em-
ployed in the course of my campaigning career.
Flies are plentiful everywhere in summer in Man-
churia, but in restaurants they are excessively
enterprising. A Chinese boy standing by my side
with a fan in his hand in a most dexterous manner
kept these villainous pests from devouring the food
before it reached my mouth, and then he most
unobtrusively prevented them from waiting on my
nose to raid the next approaching mouthful. He
was a clean, smart lad, and I noticed that he had
a white piece of paper for a pocket handkerchief
and that he took great pride in his pigtail, which
was jet black, glossy to a superlative degree, and
was kept clean, for it did not leave a dark streak
of grease down the middle of his back. His features
were gentle and kind, unlike the pronounced Mongol
type.

I was much impressed with the boy. Probably

VOL. II.— 15 2I1

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

he had also taken stock of me, for next morning
his brother, the restaurant keeper, wanted to know
if I required a servant, for he knew of a good and
willing lad.

"Send him along," said I; and shortly the boy
who had waited on me the night before turned up.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Cho-san," said he.

"Well chosen," whispered a voice within me, so
I decided to engage the lad at once. The first thing
my servant did was to take charge of my room.
It was in a building that had been wrecked by the
brigands, and it was full of broken debris of furni-
ture. When he entered he said, in his character-
istic way: "Chinese bligand allsame no good.
Master, you go away; Cho-san savvy, all-litee
makee."

And it was so; for when I returned my apart-
ment was transformed into a decent, habitable
place; the vermin-covered mats were thrown into
the courtyard, the floor cleaned, and a mosquito
curtain had been rigged up by some acrobatic
performance over my bed. A curtain, of sorts,
prevented the scorching morning sun from blister-
ing and baking everything within; and the wreck
of the wardrobe was improvised as a storeroom.
Barry, who lived in the next room and had agreed
to share Cho-san's services, was just as well pleased
with the boy as I.

Of the great campaign which followed I have
212

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

still a contemporary record in the form of a personal
diary:

DALNY, August iQth. — According to information re-
ceived by us late last night we are to meet General
Baron Nogi to-day at his headquarters in the village of
Sodiako, and then we may assume that we are practi-
cally at the front.

I note this welcome news down at dawn of this day,
August 19, 1904, as I intend from this morning to keep
a "Diurnal of Occurrents" of what takes place before
Port Arthur, for possibly no war correspondent will be
permitted by the military authorities to enlighten the
public by telegram or letter of the doings of the third
Imperial Japanese army in the field till after the fall of
the great fortress.

The sun is just peeping above the horizon as the war
representatives of the "fourth estate" leave Eijoshi on
foot for the headquarters of the besieging army at
Sodiako. On arriving about 9 A.M. we are at once
taken to Baron Nogi, who receives us most warmly
in the courtyard of the temporary residence of himself
and staff, the house of a wealthy Chinese merchant of
the district.

The general I find to be about sixty years of age and
in stature above the average height of his fellow
countrymen. His figure is square, upright, and lithe, and
his remarkable, pleasant face wears a close-cropped iron-
gray beard and mustache. As we are marshaled in a
semicircle before him his quick, searching eyes seem to
sum up our little contingent in a flash.

"Gentlemen!" he says, "many of you have come
twelve thousand and others six thousand miles to do
our country the honor of chronicling the deeds of her
armies in the field. I admire your pluck and enter-

213

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

prise. You have, unfortunately, been compelled to
wait many months for the time when the War Office
could permit you to proceed. You have at last arrived
here, and I welcome you, and I promise that you shall
see, without reserve, all the preparations of my army
before Port Arthur. Don't run into danger, and be
careful of your health, for there is much sickness about.
If any of you should feel at any time at all unwell report
yourselves at once to the headquarters hospital, and
my surgeons will give you every attention."

The general then excuses himself, telling us that
owing to military exigencies he cannot see us again for
the next three days; and he shakes us each heartily by
the hand.

We are all much pleased, and very happy at this
genial treatment, and are even more delighted when our
interpreter, Major Yamaguchi, informs us that we can
leave for the front.

Our baggage has not yet arrived from Eijoshi and we
have, therefore, to start for the battleground ill provided
with food. Luckily my water bottle is well rilled, so I
do not much mind. It is a trying eight-mile walk under
a scorching sun over a weary plain, relieved here and
there by patches of young green corn. The roads are
heavy, for the recent almost tropical rains have made
the rich brown soil a thick, unctuous paste, and where
the incessant passing of the transport carts has churned
it into quagmires we sink into pockets from one to two
feet deep.

On nearing our objective, the ridge of hills shutting
in the Suichi Valley (the old battleground of ten years
ago), we come across a contingent of some one hundred
and fifty bluejackets dragging a 4.7 gun. There is no
time to wait for the roads to harden; that gun has to
be there, for it is the last to make up the complement

214

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA .

of the naval battery that is to assist in the coming
bombardment. It is terribly hard work tugging at this
two tons of steel. The men strain and sweat in the
noonday heat, trying to keep their foothold in the
slippery mire, and at times the task seems nearly im-
possible, as this huge mass of metal sinks almost out of
sight in the deep ruts in the road. But it is in position
and ready to shoot before sundown.

"Where do we go now, Major?" I inquire of Yama-
guchi, as we arrive at the foothills. He points to the
highest peak of the range.

"Up there. That is Ho-o-chan; we climb that and
then we shall get a splendid view."

We are all fairly tired when we reach the base of the
mountain, but presently the sound of cannon freshens
us up. I know the old familiar sound will continue, so
I take it fairly easy till near the summit, when the
climb becomes almost perpendicular. The fire of the
guns is increasing, the "interesting beyond" is stilt
shut out from my sight, for there is yet a wall of rock
to negotiate. I scale the ridge and lie panting on a
rocky slab. Suddenly, two of our party who are "out
for fun" and not legitimate correspondents come bound-
ing by, and one of them, whom we call "The Toss,"
nearly breaks his neck over the rock in my front. A
shell has burst a hundred yards away, and he is much
excited, tells me what to do, what is the best cover to
take under the circumstances, and many other things
relative to heroic behavior in the field.

I am always afraid of "The Toss," because he carries a
loaded revolver which he doesn't know how to handle;
and I also know the, ominous fact that he and his stall
companion have made their wills, for the press censor told
me one day in perplexity that he did not think it was
legitimate business for him to have to wade through the

215

n LITERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

wills of war correspondents and interpret the same to
the staff. When I inform him of the dangerous weapon
"Toss" carries, the censor thinks seriously of insuring his
own life, if any company will take such risks.

The sight I see from my point of vantage certainly
repays me for all my toil. Spread out in my immediate
front lies the whole panorama of Port Arthur and its
outlying defenses, a ten-mile stretch from sea to sea.
The scene at first is one of almost bewildering beauty,
seemingly the fairest and gentlest of landscapes, com-
posed of verdant hills and golden valleys rich with
ripening corn and millet. Hamlets nestle in the folds
of the yellow fields, stately willows dapple the silver
streams with purple shadows; and between the gaps in
the hills peeps the cobalt blue of the ocean. But for the
dull gray battleships of Togo's blockading squadron,
lying in grim rigid lines on the horizon, the scene suggests
peace and plenty rather than the pinch of hunger and
cruel war.

The roofs of Port Arthur town glisten in the noontide
heat through a cleft in the chain of hills. Silent and
peaceful the houses lie fringing the waters of the harbor,
as if no sound, not even the blast of cannon at her gates,
could disturb the afternoon siesta of her inhabitants.
Behind the city stands out the mountainous promontory
of Laotieshan, piled up in a confusion of gray and purple
rocky peaks, and beyond that again the ocean.

However, the apparently peaceful slopes in our front
change their aspect on closer inspection, for their grassy
undulations are lined with freshly-turned red earth, and
their summits are broken by rectangular walls, scarps
and fosses. Then I quickly realize that those hills,
clothed in the gentle garb of green and purple, are lined
with deadly trenches teeming with armed men; and, as
I look, the peaceful glory of the scene passes and the

216

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

sullen voice of cannon begins to transform the smiling
paradise into a ghastly inferno.

All the permanent forts that top the hills in front of us,
skirting the valley from sea to sea, have smaller re-
doubts wedged in between them, some fifty in all, and
the majority of them are connected by covered ways,
the whole, apparently, forming a double line of im-
pregnable works that, if held by a strong garrison, might
even on meager rations keep a besieging army at bay
for months. Behind these formidable lines, standing
out in a yellow blaze of sunlight against the blue back-
ground of the waters, is the famous sea fortress of the
Golden Mount.

I wonder aloud if that is the reason of its name,
because of that yellow effect?"

"You're always lugging in some of your local color,
Villiers," chimes in a brother correspondent. "It looks
to me the hue of a mangy-backed mule."

But the bursting of a shell in our immediate front
stops short his comments, and from the golden fort a
column of white smoke rises in the air.

"There," I cry, "is the proper answer to your vulgar
simile."

However, the lo-inch shell is not meant for us, but
for the battery of howitzers on the foothills below. In
fact, the whole stretch of hills skirting our side of the
Suichi Valley is bristling with guns — 6-inch naval, 4.7*8,
howitzers, and field-guns — to the number of some three
hundred; and all these, so we are informed, are to
loosen their tongues in a general bombardment directly
that naval gun which we saw being dragged through the
mire arrives in position.

It is late in the afternoon when we leave Ho-o-shan
and descend to the plain below to commence our weary
march back to Sodiako.

217

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

August 2Oth. — Fine, bright, sunny morning but in-
sufferably hot directly the sun comes up. This is the
day of the great bombardment previous to the infantry
attack. I succeed in hiring a donkey, a sturdy little
brute, but rather short in the legs — so short, that if I
straighten my legs I can make a sort' of hobbyhorse
of him, for my feet touch the ground. This I find a
great advantage, as I carry an alpine stock, which I use in
going up the hills to assist the poor little brute in his
movements. The firing has already commenced as we
reach our point of vantage on Ho-o-shan.

"Major, what are those forts we are dropping shells
on just now?" I inquire of Yamaguchi.

"They are the East and West Ban-u-san. The large
fort to the right," he continues, "is Niroshan; those
forts below it in the valley are the Kuropatkin forts, and
then comes the gap leading into Port Arthur town.
To the right of the gap is Pine Tree Hill, and farther to
its right is Idzushan, or the chair."

"Why, yes, Major, I remember that fort well; it was
the key to the whole position in your war with the
Chinese, ten years ago. Nichi assaulted it with his
brigade at dawn, and Port Arthur was practically
captured before noon. Ah, it will not be such an easy
chair to take this time!"

"You are right," says Yamaguchi, who does not seem
to see my attempt at a joke. "Port Arthur is ten times
as strong as it was in those days."

There is no further inclination to talk, for the mighty
throats of the cannon are now in full voice, and the
ramparts, scarps, counterscarps, and trenches of the
forts in front of us are being tossed about in shapeless
masses by the bursting of the Japanese shells. We
seem to have it all our own way. Whether the Russian
gunners are paralyzed on seeing the immensity of the

318

ON THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA

damage done to their forts one cannot tell, but never a
shot is fired in return.

The hard regular lines of the Russian works are
knocked out of all form. East and West Ban-u-san lose
their shape entirely and are pounded into meaningless
masses of earth and stone. So the day wears on till
the sun dips below the waters of Louisa Bay and we
tramp back again to Sodiako.

At the foot of Ho-o-shan and on the shoulders of the
hills far to our right, the Japanese brigades are waiting,
ready for the ghastly fray that is to come. The men
stand to their arms in the ruddy afterglow of the sun,
their bright, cheery faces full of expectancy and eager
for the word "Forward." There is not a face among
the thousands that we pass that does not show a deter-
mined intention on the part of the man who owns it
to be a factor in taking those forts — or to die. I never
saw a finer spirit displayed by fighting men in the whole
course of my campaigning career than by the Japanese
army this day confronting these terrible fortifications at
Port Arthur.

We have hardly settled down and got our kettles
boiling, when Goto, one of our interpreters, comes in
much excited, and says:

" Gentlemen, I have orders to take you back to Ho-o-
shan at once. We must get to the mountain before
four o'clock to-morrow morning, for our attempt to take
Port Arthur commences at that hour."

Though longing for our well-earned rest, not a man of
our little crowd hesitates for a moment to face the long
march again; some even dance and sing for very joy at
the prospect of seeing something of what the little
Japanese infantry can do, for which we have been so
long waiting at the base of operations.

Good General Nogi, sympathizing with the consider-

219

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

able tramp that we have already made today, permits
us to requisition Manchurian carts, in which we bundle
our blankets and what provisions we can scrape together
at the moment; and toward midnight we start once
more for our mountain. The night is pitch dark and
the roads heavy, and these carts are so abominable that
most of us feel inclined to get out and tramp by the side
of our> baggage, but that we might break our necks
stumbling over the deep ruts on the way. For two hours
we miss the road and wander miles out of our course,
till just before the dawn the dark peak of our mountain
gives us our bearings, and we at last scramble up its
craggy heights to our position.

Chapter XIII

•
A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

The beginning of night warfare — A Whistler study — A nocturne in gold,
silver^ and blood — An attack under star bombs — Searchlight and the
crescent moon — Ban-u-san in the light of day — Japanese heroes —
Life on a mountain top — Dodging the eyes of the enemy — The Shinto
Shades.

August 2ist. — Fighting had already commenced under
the fitful light of the enemy's star-bombs or rockets long
before the sun had cast its first rays above the eastern
hills; the Russian guns have at last given tongue, for
they are pounding away at the approaches of the Ban-u-
san forts, whose glacis now seems to be their only target;
and scattered over its slopes are hundreds of huddled
little figures who but a short hour ago had faced its
trenches with such high hope. The fields below us are
being plowed up by Russian shells.

Lines of khaki-colored men press forward across the
valley through the tall stalks of maize and corn that
are being cut and scattered by the terribly concentrated
shrapnel fire of the Russians. At the foot of either glacis
of the objective forts are deep furrows or dongas in the
rich alluvial soil of the Suichi Valley. These give con-
siderable cover to the besiegers, if only they can live
through the storm of shot and shell ever tearing up the
earth in front of them.

Through the fields of towering maize whose kindly

221

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

shelter hides them for a moment, over bare open acres
Vvhose heavy soil blots them out for an instant, spurting
'up in dense brown clouds as shell after shell burrows
and explodes in the soft loamy earth, the sturdy little
men of Colonel Ouchi's regiment struggle onward toward
the shelter of the broken land at the base of the forts.
Followed and dogged every yard of the way by Russian
shrapnel, at least a few gain the deep furrows and throw
themselves down.

From the shadow of the donga a flag waves, the red
center standing out clearly as the sun catches it for a
moment. A "Banzai!" rings across the fields from the
throats of the little men still forging their way through
this living hell of fire, while their grim, determined
faces intuitively turn toward their beloved flag. It
seems hours before a sufficient number collect on this
rallying point in the donga, but it is actually only a
question of minutes by my watch. Russian shrapnel
snaps and crackles above their heads, but casualties
here are few, though the ghastly paths leading up to
the donga are strewn with little heaps of prone humanity
only a shade lighter, in their khaki than the mother
earth they embrace.

The fort towering above them looks an utter wreck
already, a grim, ugly, shapeless mass of clay, pitted with
countless shell holes. Its outer trenches are hardly
discernible in the ruin of the once smooth glacis. There
is little sign of life within the fort; in fact, it seems im-
possible that any living being can exist under the terrible
shelling it has received from the Japs yesterday and
this morning. Some of us look on the grim heap of ruins
and say to one another, "There is no one living there."

I cannot help but think of the '77 campaign in Bul-
garia, when the Russians, advancing against the Gravitza
redoubt, said the same thing. General Krudener had

222

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

pounded away with all his guns for several hours and
had mauled the outer works till there was no sign of life
within their ramparts. The Russian infantry leaped
forward toward their goal, thinking it would be an easy
job; but they encountered an enemy who hurled them
back in rout before the day was done.

Ah! There is the flutter of a regimental flag in the
donga, it flutters up out of the trench, and by its side is an
officer with drawn sword. He waves his weapon high in
the air, and his men swarm like bees around as they
hurry up out of the trench. It is the gallant Ouchi
himself, leading the third battalion of his famous regiment,
and he fiercely charges the enemy position. He has
asked for reinforcements, and he is told that he can
have no more men, but that he must capture the fort.

Knowing that the enterprise is hopeless, he is the first
to take all risk. For a short time he is distinctly seen
brandishing his sword in front of his men. Then, riddled
with bullets, he falls; his brave standard-bearer, Captain
Takbata, who has more than twenty wounds, is lying
in the folds of the flag but a few yards away. But the
banner is caught up by the others, and away it goes up-
ward toward the wire entanglements which have already
been broken in places by a forlorn hope of gallant
engineers. These men have destroyed the props of the
wire by thrusting explosives on the ends of long bamboo
poles against them, and their dead bodies lying stark in
the meshes of the wire prove the terrible nature of their
task.

Still up, up through the gaps in the entanglement,
hurry the heroic few. Still forward they spring, this
brave little band of survivors; but there is no flag to
follow. It is down again in the stiffened grasp of its
bearer far in the rear.

The men become desperate, for their numbers are
223

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

thinning terribly. The death-dealing machine-guns of
the Russians in the casemates of the fort are playing
ghastly havoc — such that only ascoreof Ouchi's battalion
reach the first ditch of the trench, when they throw them-
selves panting into the grateful cover of the shell pits
which their own artillery have torn. There they lie
gasping, black with sweat and dust, wounded and be-
draggled, to await the support which seems never to be
coming.

How is it more of those below don't follow? Are
these all the men still living of those who a few minutes
ago reached the shadow of the donga? Have no more
succeeded in crossing that shell-torn valley? It seems
not: there they lie, these few living units amid their
dead and dying comrades — and no succor at hand.

Once more the khaki figures swarm the valley, for
Ichinobe orders the Orishita regiment to the support of
the gallant few on Ban-u-san, while a battalion of the
right wing, under Major Yamamoto, attempts to engage
the enemy's left. The column struggles through the
ghastly shrapnel fire and into the deadly zone of the
everlasting machine-gun, and, badly shattered, reaches
the base of Ban-u-san. But only a mere handful springs
up on the glacis, and this handful gradually fritters
away to a few who will not retire, but instead will throw
themselves into the friendly shell pits, for it is impossible
to face the fierce fire of the Russian sharp shooters
lying under cover of the parapet of the fort.

The heat is intense and at midday almost unbearable
even for us, motionless on the mountain. What those
little men in khaki must suffer, toiling across that ghastly
valley and up the face of the sun-beaten glacis without
enough water even to moisten their lips, is inconceivable.

The friendly shade of night at last closes over valley
and mountains, but with it comes no rest to the belliger-

224

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

ents. The fighting, which has not ceased for the space
of a minute since an early hour of the morning, now
continues in a desultory manner under the searchlights
of the enemy. Worn out with long watching, I roll my-
self up in my valise and turn my back on the sour valley
and its corpse-strewn fields, to gaze toward the north
over the peaceful stretches of the Dojosho plain bathed
in that opalesque twilight, when the glow of the depart-
ing sun is merging in the first flood of the moonlight.

The cold breath of the coming night fans my face and
I fall asleep, when, as if by signal, a swarm of mosquitoes
arise from the rocks on which I lie, the noisiest beasts,
I think, by which I have ever been attacked. Literally,
the trumpeting of their legions skimming the heights of
Ho-o-shan almost drowns the distant crash of the
enemy's shells. I cover my head and hands with my
waterproof cape, but the venomous brutes steal in
under, or stab through, the material, till I have to give
up the idea of further slumber; so I light my pipe and
walk about, dodging the searchlights whenever they
cross my path.

It is now just before midnight and the battle starts
again in all its fury. The gallant Orishita regiment,
with the remnant of the Yamamoto battalion, nothing
daunted by its failures during the day, is making
an effort to retrieve its prestige by storming the posi-
tion at night.

August 22d. — It is i A.M. and still the fight rages
furiously. Three of the nine searchlights that the
Russians appear to possess are playing incessantly on
this section of the battlefield, and star-bombs and rockets
are bursting continually, their incandescent petals spread-
ing fanlike and falling slowly to the ground. So brilliant
are these lights that the moon, now nearing the horizon,
seems but a faint slip of silver in the sky. The color of

225

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

this night warfare is something that Whistler would
have reveled in. The deep purple of the mountain
against the nocturnal blue, the pale lemon of the moon,
the whitish rays of the searchlights, the warm incandes-
cent glow of the star-bombs, the reddish spurt from the
cannons' mouths, and the yellow flash from the explod-
ing shell, all tempered to mellowness by a thin haze of
smoke ever clinging to hilltop and valley, make the
scene the most weirdly beautiful that I have looked upon
during all the wars I have seen. In the old campaigns
both armies usually ceased hostilities at some period
between sundown and sunrise, but here at Port Arthur,
a new kind of warfare has developed and the night is as
the day. For four hours the little Japs have gallantly
tried to cross the death-ridden valley in the broad glare
of these artificial lights, and under a decimating machine-
gun and rifle fire from forts on either side of their ob-
jective.

From Niroshan — in Chinese Urhlung, "Double Dragon
fort" — the devilish searchlights, like the fiery glare from
the eyes of those monsters of legendary lore, slowly
sweep the valley, and when one rests its rays on any
vital spot red spurts from the black void behind belch
forth shells which tear ghastly gaps in the Japanese
lines wading through the millet and cornfields below.
In spite of the terrible carnage a few remnants of these
brave battalions under Ichinobe reach the base of Ban-
u-san and clamber up the glacis with faint shouts of
"Banzai, Banzai!" which are echoed by their comrades
across the valley. But they can go no farther; they
halt, press forward a few yards, then break and hurry
down to the friendly shelter of the donga below. I
wonder, in spite of much heroism I have witnessed
during many years of warfare, if any other troops could
have done quite as much.

226

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

With the coming of the sun the fury of the fight
slackens and only a desultory snapping of rifles comes
up from the valley. The slope of Ban-u-san is a terrible
sight, ghastly with Japanese dead; and it is patent to
all that the fort is still in the hands of the Russians. I
have hardly finished my scanty breakfast of hardtack
and tea when I notice that there is still a spark of life
in that fearful hecatomb on the glacis. From the parapet
on the fort rises a column of dense smoke, a flame shoots
upward, then a loud report is wafted across the valley.
One or two of the Jap soldiers whom we have thought
dead hurry up into the trench immediately beneath the
parapet. The attention of all of us on Ho-o-shan is at
once riveted upon that trench; yet fully fifty minutes
elapse before there is any further movement perceptible.

To understand the significance of the explosion it
is necessary that we turn back, for the reader's benefit,
and follow the course of events with the gallant remnant
of that Japanese assault party which we saw withered
at the foot of Ban-u-san during the attack of yesterday
morning. All that was left of the Ouchi regiment sought
shelter in a trench below the parapet, about fifty men
in all. This work is twenty-four feet deep, twelve feet
wide and about ninety feet in length. At its bottom
there is water from two to three feet deep and the mud
reached to one's knees. Heaps of slain lie piled up above
the water line. The refugees have built up a shelf on
one side, on which the wounded are placed, their able-
bodied comrades standing night and day in the muddy
water among the dead. Their one day's ration of food
has already given out. They have searched the pockets
of their dead for the last crumbs of biscuit and grains of
rice and are now drinking the bloody water in which
they stand. These men have watched from hour to
hour during the last two days the failure of all attempts

VOL. II.— 16 227

VI LITERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

to succor them in their deadly peril. They know that
regiments of their comrades have been wiped out even
in the desperate struggle to reach the foot of the glacis.
There is absolutely no hope. They must die of starva-
tion or by the bullet of the foe.

Captain Sugiyama, in command of the unit — his
name will live for ever in the hearts of his country-
men— is suddenly possessed of a mad idea. He proposes
to Captain Kabayama that a final assault be made on
the fort above: a whole division of the Japanese army
before Port Arthur has attempted it and failed, but he,
with his half-hundred starving, will creep up to the
enemy's casemate and destroy their machine-guns, and,
if he succeeds, his brother officer shall charge with all
the survivors from the trench.

Hand grenades with fuses attached are hastily made
and Sergeant Himeno and two soldiers are finally in-
trusted with the forlorn hope. He orders his two com-
rades to lie under cover in some shell holes while he shifts
himself forward on his back with face turned skywards
so that he can more easily feign death. In this way the
sergeant slowly wriggles his way upward till he is within
a few feet of his goal, where he lies stiff for so long a
period that his comrades, watching anxiously below,
think he is already dead.

Presently he slowly turns over on his stomach and
crawls to the outer slope of the casemate and lights the
fuse. Then, risking all, he rushes headlong forward
and thrusts the grenade through the loophole. Himeno
then hurries to the friendly cover of one of the shell
holes. An explosion takes place in the casemates;
he looks backward and sees that a small breach has been
made in the wall; he returns to the trench and reports
the matter to the officers.

The sergeant is then given more hand grenades, and,

228

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

with three others, he takes the same route. They
advance in Indian file and assemble at a deep furrow
on the glacis. There they lie as if dead for some time,
when Captain Sugiyama, becoming anxious, sends
forward two others, each with a bamboo pole of ten
feet in length. These men arrive safely at the sergeant's
rendezvous, and the whole six creep up to the fort. One
of them succeeds in throwing an explosive through the
loophole of the casemate while the other four place
grenades upon the caponniere, when they hurry for their
lives back to the crevasse.

We, on Ho-o-shan, hear the terrific explosion, the
roof of the casemate flies high into the air, and the
machine-gun is shattered to pieces. One explosion after
another rends the air. The greater part of the capon-
niere is destroyed. The men in the trench below forget
their terrible plight, clap their hands in ecstasy and
shout "Banzai!"

But there is one of the bamboo poles not yet exploded.
Five minutes have passed and still it has shown no sign.
It had been placed on one of the angles of the capon-
niere by Private Nakijima, who is charfingly called to
account by his daring comrades for its failure. He
rushes straight toward the fort, and on examining the
grenade discovers that the fuse has been extinguished.
He calmly strikes a match, relights it, and places the
explosive in position. The angle of the casemate flies
into pieces; another "Banzai!" comes up from the
trench below, but Nakijima, as he turns homeward,
stumbles and falls — his duty gallantly done.

This sudden attack on their fort, coming apparently
from an unseen quarter, rather demoralizes the garrison
behind the works. Sugiyama, perceiving unmistakable
signs of this, urges his brother officer to effect a charge.
Now it is that we, across the valley, are able to detect a

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VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

stir of life. Some seventy men in all, for a few of the
wounded have rallied sufficiently to join, sweep up the
slope from the trench in the twinkling of an eye. Captain
Kayukawa is the first to fall. His place is taken by
Lieutenant Tanaka, who carries the flag of the Ouchi
regiment, followed by his daring comrades, right into the
fort.

Lustily shouting " Banzai! Banzai!" they drive the
Russians over rampart and counterscarp and from
traverse to traverse at the point of the bayonet, back
toward the farther side of the redoubt.

In the valley below Major General Ichinobe, seeing
this sudden change of affairs on Ban-u-san, immediately
orders a contingent of troops to attack the rear of the
Russians and sends a body of sappers to the fort and
pushes forward two machine-guns.

Very soon, however, the heroic little band on the
hill find their ammunition running short and some of the
men begin to lose heart. The two officers threaten to
shoot any man who turns his back upon the enemy.
There is little use of this for they have hardly uttered
the threats before both are killed by a shell, but, even
so, there is no move to the rear on the part of those
gallant little men. They stand their ground; and when
Ichinobe, who determines to proceed to the fort in person,
arrives with further reinforcements he finds thirty of
the seventy still fighting. More Japanese supports
rapidly pour in and desperate fighting continues till
long after noon, when the Russians are finally routed.

It can be seen at this period that some of the enemy
holding the fort on the left, which is called the Ban-u-
san, show considerable signs of consternation at the
fate of the eastern fort. The Japs therefore turn their
attention to them. The position is reconnoitered from
the newly captured position and two companies are

230

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

sent forward under Captain Hamaguchi, who addresses
his men before he gives the word to charge. He urges
them, as the whole issue of the battle depends on this
enterprise, to fight to the last man. Under cover from
the machine-guns of the west fort the companies reach
the first line of defenses and quickly carry them, but the
Russians stand their ground gallantly. The Japs make
assault after assault, losing nearly half their number
before they finally take the position, which, by my
watch, falls at about 8 A.M.

August 24th. — A curious incident occurs this morning.
A Japanese war correspondent who has been watching
the many assaults on Ban-u-san, comes up and reminds
me that he was with me on the adjacent hill during the
attack on Port Arthur ten years ago. An hour later
one of the Japanese interpreters also comes to me to
remind me that we were together during the assault
on Idzushan a decade ago when General Nogi was then
only in command of a brigade. Later on I meet General
Ichigi, the Chief of Staff, who tells me that he also
knew me in those days before Port Arthur. It
strikes me as somewhat remarkable that we four who
were together in 1894 should be watching the attack
on the fortress today. The Japanese army is spread over
a wide area, facing many objectives, and yet we are all
here together.

August 26th. — Fighting is so slack today that all
the correspondents but Ricarlton, Barry, and myself
seek the comfort of their tents at the base of the hill and
come up on to the top only when there is something of
interest to be seen. I, having no tent and my village
being eight miles away, resolve to remain on the
mountain a few days longer. .It is rather trying, for the
sun is almost tropical and there is little shadow from
the rocks, but all this discomfort is better than daily

231

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

climbing the almost precipitous heights and suffering the
long, weary walk back to the village. Though we are
not allowed to keep up a fire after sundown, we can do all
our cooking (which, after all, is simply making tea or
coffee) during the day.

Ricarlton, who always carried a black silk umbrella,
has rigged it up permanently for cover on the shoulder
of the hill — I warn him that it is a dangerous thing to do.
"Some day a young Russian officer will say 'Let's disturb
'-.hat fellow over there under the umbrella/ and a shell
will come along and spoil the contour of your dapper
figure." But the intrepid photographer simply laughs.
Why should he care? He came out to take snapshots
of bursting shells — he is too modest to own it, but this
I know is his intention — and it is refreshing to find a
man who is so anxious to get the real thing, and ready
to risk his life for it.

The capionniere on Ban-u-san is still smoking and
rapid fire is going on between the captors of the east and
west forts and the Russians on the heights of the Cocks-
comb range beyond. A thick haze of smoke hangs
over the valley, which must be a blessing to the wretched
wounded lying on the glacis, since it screens them to
some extent from the full glare of the sun's rays.

I have arranged with a coolie to refill our water bottles
with the boiled water served to the troops in a village
about a mile away, and I have set to with Barry, collect-
ing the shattered rocks from a crater made by one of
the enemy's lo-inch shells to make a cellar to shelter
our water bottles from the burning sun.

We lie about the mountain top, nursing the scant
shadows of the rock and waiting for the next move of
the belligerents. But apparently the besiegers are count-
ing the cost of these terrible assaults, for they are simply
holding on to their prizes and not attempting a farther

232

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

move forward. One officer tells me that the Japanese
have lost over fourteen thousand men since the igth.

August 27th. — Dull morning, rather an uneventful day
in comparison with the last five. A desultory cannon-
fire is kept up by both sides until the afternoon, when
it lulls for a while. Very few of us leave the mountain
because of the possibility of another big fight, owing to
the favorable weather conditions for an attack. The
sky is overclouded and the troops will suffer less from
thirst than when struggling up the usually sun-scorched
glacis of the redoubts. Our expectations during the
day are not realized. The sun goes down in a sullen
sky heavy with mist. I spread out my valise on a level
patch on the rocky summit of Ho-o-shan and prepare for
bed. The Russian searchlights glance from hilltop to
valley with watery eye and the rifle shots of the outposts
lose their crisp crack in the heavy shades below. The
mosquitoes this evening appear to be depressed by the
heavy atmosphere: they are rather half-hearted in their
attacks. I soon fall asleep.

Suddenly I am awakened by a vivid flash so glaring
as to liken the strongest searchlight to its shadow,
followed by a crash that no earthly piece of ordnance
could equal, and from hilltop to mountain and away
through the passes roll the echoes which equal a hundred
guns in their intensity, I scramble to my feet in spite of
the deluge of rain that is pouring off the rocks above
and get into my boots and waterproof. The sight is an
appallingly grand one and absolutely indescribable in its
weirdness. Between great peals of thunder the
booming of cannon is heard. Lightning flashes from all
points of the compass, and when the vivid flashes die
away the tale is taken up by shrapnel and bursting
shells that shriek and crash, pounding earth, rock, and
human flesh. The Russians, under cover of the storm,

233

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

are attempting to retake West Ban-u-san, and the Japs
are trying to hold to their captured fort where so many
thousands of their comrades lost their lives.

It is a ghastly fight, for the battle wages amid the
sour atmosphere of a hecatomb of corpses — the slain of
the previous days' fighting. The thunder rolls, and for
hours the warring of the gods above and the battle of the
mortals below continues until the full gray of dawn
peeps through 'the dense sulphurous pall hanging over
mountain and valley.

August 28th. — As the fury of the storm abates and
the anger of the belligerents gradually calms the fuller
light of day is falling broad and clear on Ban-u-san and
I see that its ramparts and ditches are thickly sprinkled
with hundreds of bodies, less sodden and mud-stained,
but as still as those who passed into the Shinto Shades
three days ago, and the rain-swept glads' trickling streams
run red to the valley below.

It seems gross and horrible to think of one's own
comfort with such a scene of suffering before one, but I
wonder if anyone of my colleagues on Ho-o-shan is
going to boil a kettle; I never felt before so badly in
want of a cup of tea. As the fighting lulls considerably
during the morning I resolve to return to my village.

I looked forward to the rather mean shelter of my
Manchu residence at Sodiako with a certain amount
pf pleasure, for at least I knew I should get some
rest from the venomous mosquitoes, and should also
be able to change my clothes. I had been on Ho-o-
shan for over a week without any cover, night or
day; and the last night's storm proved to me
that my valise, an old one, was not waterproof
and that I had better not run the risk of another

234

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

night in the rain. I therefore quitted the good old
mountain for a time, leaving Ricarlton and Barry
there as the sole campers. I picked up a Manchurian
donkey and walked and rode back to the village,
eight miles away. Cho-san had no idea of my
returning so soon, but when I arrived at the cul-de-
sac, at the end of which was my shanty, my servant
was there waiting for me with his usual smile of
welcome.

"Chow all right, Cho-san?"

"Have got," he replied; and he was as good as
his word, for when I entered my cottage the fumes
of stew regaled my nostrils.

After my repast and a pipe I said to myself,
"Now I will have my long-looked-for unmolested
rest." As soon as I entered the little vestibule
leading into my room I observed that there was a
considerable amount of cooking going on, but little
did I know what a disastrous effect this would
have upon the sleep I anticipated.

When I turned in under the mosquito curtain
and stretched myself on the mud divan I noticed
that the atmosphere was very stuffy. I had hardly
fallen into a dense slumber when I awoke with a
start, feeling as though I were already roasting in
that place which most men hope to avoid when
they shuffle off this mortal coil. I was absolutely
scorching. I scrambled off the couch and rushed
into the hall. What on earth were these Chinese
fiends doing? I found one man kneading dough,

235

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

another busily decorating the metal pan of the
copper with cakes, and a third at a bellows, tinker-
ing up the fire under the pan — and this same fire,
after the thrifty and ingenious Chinese fashion
served to heat the flue running into my room and
under my earthen divan.

I dragged the man from the bellows up to the
divan and made him sit on it. He recognized by
the effect on himself the impossible situation he
had made for me. He and the others brought in
stout planks wherewith to upholster my couch, but
the wood soon began to char. Then bricks were
placed to raise the planks; but the heat still worked
its way upward, and toward morning I found
myself rolled up in my blanket on the stoop out-
side— unrefreshed and miserable, my bones aching
and my flesh feverish and sore.

I called on Goto, one of the interpreters, and
requested him to get me another residence, which
he did. Before sundown Cho-san moved my things
to a house in a large compound at the back of a
Chinese sutler's shop on the main street. From the
end of the compound I could see the life of the
village with greater freedom.

The landlord of this house rented mule teams to
the Japanese transport service. I was standing at
the entrance of the yard when these animals, un-
escorted by man or boy, came home from their
day's work. They were excessively polite: the first
mule that arrived, on seeing a white man — ap-

236

A MIDNIGHT INFERNO

patently for the first time — stood on his hind legs
with astonishment. I moved to the left to make
room for him; he then waltzed to the right and
stood opposite me; he seemed to be saying by this
action, "You first, please."

The other six, who had now left off pawing the
air, followed suit. I was slightly embarrassed, but
thought this might be the rule in Manchuria, so
made a swerve to my right. The animals then, in
Indian file, trotted into the compound and com-
menced rolling their hot and weary bodies in the
dust. They were regaled on chopped cornstalks
and beans moistened with water.

The landlord and his family took their evening
meal with the mules in the compound — a less
coarse diet but of a similar vegetarian nature.
Babies who could hardly toddle sat down with
their parents and tried to feed themselves rice with
the aid of miniature chopsticks. These people sit
at their meal during the twilight and long after the
stars come out and seldom use the light of their
candles except for going to bed.

Chapter XIV

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

More scattered leaves from my diary — Silver fish — A bad cat — / change
quarters — Cho-san takes a hard drink and becomes soft — My colleague's
birthday — Land of the Morning Calm — The Palace of Prosperity and
Virtue — We interview royalty — The chief eunuch — Morning Calmers
and their ways — Togo and his ships of war.

August 30th. — Beautifully bright morning. I am
awakened by my servant haggling with a fish vendor in
the yard. I find a man with a huge basketful of the
most curious fish I have ever seen. Things with heads
like herrings and bodies tapering off like eels, but flat
and looking like pure silver; some are at least a yard
long. They are sold by weight, the fisherman using a
primitive scale which he slings over his shoulder. There
must have been a good catch, for I noticed the sheen of
the fish all over the village. One sees the children
struggling home with their arms full of the bright silver,
and the sun dances and sparkles on their long, sinuous
bodies hanging from the eaves of the houses to dry.
I must tell Cho-san to boil the next lot, for the grease
which he uses in frying (strong, and to the Celestial
taste) no doubt spoiled the delicate piscatorial flavor.
The breakfast has not been a success.

August jist. — Cho-san stupidly left the lid of the
improvised stewpan unsecured by the brick which
usually keeps it in place, and the wretched cat with one

238

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

vicious eye, from next door, has eaten the contents
left over for lunch. I don't care, so long as young Barry
doesn't turn up. I can do till the evening ration comes
along; but Barry is always so infernally hungry.

Cho-san tells me, on return, that the people next
door are indignant at their cat for eating my meal, and
that as a punishment for evil-doing they are going to
eat him. I insist on the sacrific- r not taking place. Cho-
san remonstrates with me.

"Cat all same no good; he catches one piecee stew
two piecee time."

"Never mind," I say, "I must see that one piecee cat
all alive in one piecee morning."

September 6th. — Leave Sodiako for good this morning
with Yamaguchi, our chief interpreter, to take up my
quarters at the village of Tobeshin. There is much
official leave-taking. The chief of the commissariat is
exceedingly hospitable and insists on opening some
wine. It is about 8.30 in the morning — an unusual hour
for drinking burgundy, but it is uncorked specially for
me and I am obliged to honor the occasion. Cho-san is
made happy for a time with sake, which he has never
before tasted, and is very unhappy later; during the
march he has to sit down.

"What's the matter, Cho-san?"

"Master, my no savvy. One piecee sake my take
two piecee master my see."

I place him in the shadow of a tree till he gets over his
dizziness.

September 8th. — Barry breaks the news to me this
morning that he is going to celebrate his birthday, which
is on the loth of this month, and he will invite myself,
Goto, and Yamaguchi. Ricarlton says that he will not
be of the party because he thinks the whole thing too
frivolous during a siege; but then, he has seen more

239

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

than fifty birthdays and probably is fed up with them.
I sympathize with Barry, especially when I hear the
good rations he is about to provide. Anyway, it will
kill time, which always hangs heavy in the life of a war
correspondent before a beleagured city if there is no
other kind of killing going on.

Nothing but outpost affairs today.

September loth. — Barry's birthday. Splendid morning.
Cho-san during the afternoon turns us out of our room to
prepare for to-night's feast, saying; "Master, you go; my
savvy all litee."

When we return to dine we find our guests waiting
outside, and Cho-san, with door barred against all in-
truders, still busy within. We knock for admission,
but the hammering does not affect our servant till he is
quite ready. Then with great pomp the door is thrown
open. It is really a remarkable transformation from our
dull, gray hole of a dining room. Many candles, stuck
into jam pots, illumine the scene from certain points of
vantage and there is a cluster of them in beer bottles on
the table, casting their light on a surprising novelty to
our guests as well as ourselves — a dazzling white table-
cloth, with four rosy apples as a centerpiece (a birth-
day present from Cho-san to Barry) and a serviette
apiece.

We all marvel at the genius of Cho-san in evolving a
tablecloth from the wilds of Manchuria, but I discover
later that it is one of Barry's nightshirts cut in two with
the sleeves split up into table napkins.

September i^th. — "There's not much going on this
morning;" says Barry. "I want to know if you have
time to tell me about the Manchu Maru trip — you saw
the Korean Emperor and Admiral Togo and the Japanese
fleet. Have you time?"

"Oh, yes," I reply, "I have just sent off my budget

240

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

to the News, and have nothing immediately to do. Of
course you know we called at all the Japanese naval
bases en route to Korea, and I can assure you it was a
revelation to me; these Japs have done wonders since
I was with them ten years ago. I feel it as a personal
satisfaction that they have advanced so much with their
navy, because what I saw of the handling of the ships
and the way in which they disembarked their infantry
on the Liaotung Peninsula, a decade since, inspired me
with the happy thought of suggesting, in several press
interviews I had in 1895, an alliance with England which,
as you know, afterward came about.

"They can make everything necessary to carry on a
naval war, with the exception of battleships and cruisers.
I saw one first-class torpedo-boat in course of construc-
tion. Their workshops and machinery for making guns
and ammunition are equal, for the size, to any of the
arsenals in Europe. Then the training of their cadets —
well, nothing can be much better. The physical end of
it is certainly finer than any I have yet seen. Of course,
I did not see the gun factory at Osaka; but you will be
able to judge what work they are capable of turning
out when those n-inch mortars arrive. I bet they will
surprise the Russians who believe up to now that we
have nothing to equal their lo-inch coast-defense guns.

"Sasebo, one of the most important of their naval
stations, is the most snug and curiously hidden, out-of-
the-way place you could possibly imagine. Viscount
Enoui, who was with us, told me there was a similar
harbor in the North Island, almost opposite Vladivos-
tok. The contour of the coast near Sasebo is such an
upheaval of volcanic matter — a chaos of rugged hills —
that the opening into this wonderful harbor is difficult
to discover among the many false inlets breaking the
coast line. When you do find the opening, the narrow

241

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

straits leading into the bay are bristling with guns, but
when they are passed the stretch of water before one
looks like a placid Cumberland lake with no sign of big
craft upon it.

"You steam a mile along this lake toward steep hills
that drop sheer into the waters; then, just as you think
you are running into them, you turn suddenly to your
left through another narrow pass, and there appears a
haze of smoke through which numerous transports and
ships of war are seen, and beyond, busy docks and a
bustling township. Two hundred ships can lie hidden
in that harbor, while all the fleets in the universe might
be roving outside for months on the lookout and never
find them.

"We had an excellent crowd on board the 'excursion
steamer,' as some, who were sorry they didn't come,
christened it. There were Jap peers, members of the
legislature, and naval attaches galore. I had a most
interesting chat with a prominent member of the Lower
House as to what Japan will do after the war if she is
victorious. He told me that he knew it was the intention
of the Mikado's government not to annex a foot of
Korea or Manchuria. They are not going to play the
game of bluff that Russia has been playing. They will
show the whole world that the war is being carried on
to make sure that Japan will have no more fear of an
inroad by the Muscovite on the dear, beloved Land of
the Rising Sun. Korea will be for the Koreans and
Manchuria will still belong to China. In fact, they will
occupy the latter country as we occupy Egypt — what-
ever that may mean. Open doors everywhere, but
Japan with the first foot in.

"She has the first foot in Korea; you may be certain
we found this everywhere. Her Consuls have the finest
sites for their residences, and there are Japanese colonies

242

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

in every town. The people of Korea don't seem unhappy
in face of this inroad, except for one thing, and that is
that wherever the Jap goes he carries cleanliness and
tidiness with him, and this the inhabitants of the Land
of the Morning Calm seem to abhor. I don't think I
have ever met with people who live in such a state of
filth, though at first you think, by their costumes of white
cotton, which the highest and the lowest of them wear,
that they must be quite a dainty, well-washed people.
This is not the fact, believe me. They do little washing
— only their clothes, and of those but the outer garment.

"They are a gentle and amiable race, and seem to
smoke their lives lazily away through pipes at least a
yard long. They wear the most curious-looking hats,
which are somewhat like the Welsh stovepipe, and
ordinarily black; but owing to the death of the Empress
all Korea is in mourning, and most people have gone in
for white hats — just the reverse of the European custom.
Those who can't afford to purchase a white one stick a
piece of white paper the size of a luggage label on the
top, and presto! they are at once in the fashion.

"They really wear a double headgear, for under these
hats — which are jauntily tied with tape below their
chins — are skull caps so tightly bound round on the
head that the flesh bulges out below the strap. It is said
that one can always tell the skull of a Korean from that
of any other nationality by the indentations round the
cranium caused by their excessive pressure. This curious
head-and-skull cap figures considerably, not only on
their heads, but in many things. For instance, before
European uniforms and kepis came into fashion, a
company officer instead of saying to his contingent, 'The
right file will move three paces to the front, quick
march,' would order, 'The front and rear hats on the
right/ etc. -f

VOL. H. — 17 243

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

"Oh, they are a quaint people! A Korean woman,
when she marries, never sees her husband till the day
of the wedding, and when married is not permitted to
speak in his presence till the first child is born."

"And," chips in Barry, "when that event occurs, you
bet, Villiers, they make up for lost time."

"Mothers-in-law are not allowed to make conversation
for their daughters. A Korean honeymoon is therefore
probably dull. Yes, they are a curious people. In the
markets in Seoul eggs are sold by the yard, packed up in
long tubes of straw three feet in length, and small birds
are strung on string and vended in the same manner.

"Still, not all people lead quiet, uninteresting lives in
Korea. For those living up in the hills there is consider-
able sport. The men hunt the tiger for six months, and
then, when snow is on the ground, the tigers hunt the
men for the other half of the year."

"Tell me about the Emperor."

"Don't get impatient, Barry; try a pot of raspberry
and mark time with the spoon. I am coming to him
soon. The day before His Majesty accorded an inter-
view to our party he gave us a splendid luncheon in the
grounds of the Palace of Prosperity and Virtue. We
made a brave show in rickshaws and carriages driving
through the narrow streets toward the Eastern Gate.
The foreign naval attaches in their gold epaulettes and
aigulettes and with their white uniforms plastered with
decorations, members of the Japanese House of Peers
in the newest and shiniest of silk hats, the Japanese
correspondents in frock coats and solar topees, the
English war correspondents, mostly in evening dress
with pith helmets, represented no less than nine or ten
different nationalities.

"We suddenly left the filthy streets and passed
through a gate into a fairyland of greenery, shady

244

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

avenues, lotus ponds, and Chinese pavilions. On the
second floor of the largest of these, overlooking the
lotus pond, we were treated to a cold collation in
European style which would have done justice to a
Delmonico or a Carlton. The wines were well matured
and of the choicest brands, while the cooking was simply
perfection. It was a blazing hot day and I can assure
you that the ice cream was one of the most popular
dishes going. I discovered that the feast was provided
under the personal superintendence of an Alsatian lady,
a Miss Sontag, who had been for years, I believe, at the
Russian Embassy and had found her way into the house-
hold of the Korean Emperor, who had retained her on
purpose to look after European guests at the Imperial
Court.

"I tell you what, Barry, the Emperor may not be able
to govern his own country, but he knows how to enter-
tain European visitors as well as any ruler in a more en-
lightened land. The following day he granted his guests
of the Japanese government and passengers on the
Manchu Maru an audience. After the peers, attaches,
and members of the Diet had been presented, those of
the * fourth estate* were received.

"George Kennan suggested that, as I was the doyen
of the correspondents, I should take the lead. The result
was that the master of ceremonies coached me in one
or two matters regarding our behavior before the Em-
peror, in which I was to tutor my colleagues. The
European frock coat and silk-hat costume is the fashion
for presentation during the day in Korea. But our
crowd had a curious assortment of apparel, evening
dress predominating. The chamberlain excused us on
the score of being travelers and informed us we might
wear anything of a dark nature. One of the amateur
correspondents had managed to rig up a sort of evening

245

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

dress and looked all right till you came to his shoes — and
they were of the lawn-tennis description, which he had
well chalked for the occasion.

"I told him that I couldn't pass the shoes. He pro-
posed to take them off, but his socks were colored with
a brilliant aniline dye. The Imperial Oriental eye,
keen to bright colors, would notice them at once. He
then seemed to be struck with a happy thought and
hurried out of the room. Just as we were being
marshaled into the corridor leading to the Imperial
presence, he returned with a pair of ammunition boots
that he had borrowed from the sentry standing guard at
the American Legation. To my astonishment he wore
two medals.

"Did you borrow these as well?' I whispered.
"No,* he indignantly replied, 'they are my own.'

"'Didn't know you had seen any fighting,' I said.
'But what are they? they are too pretty for war medals.'
"Fact is,' said he, 'one is my football medal, and the
other — well, three of us had made a journalistic scoop,
and we wanted to remember the occasion, so we pre-
sented each other with medals. Hope you like the
ribbon; my best girl gave me that. I tell you, Villiers,'
said he, 'this is a most exclusive decoration — there are
only three in the whole world. Now look at yours.
One of them, I know, is as common as peanuts' (he
was referring to the South African); 'there are at least
150,000 kicking around.'

"I couldn't well contradict him; besides, there was
no time. We were now in the presence of the Ruler of
the Land of the Morning Calm. It was a large room,
with a dais at the farther end, looking very much as if
it were arranged for amateur theatricals. The ceiling
and walls were white and there was a cluster of electric
lamps hanging over the dais, which was covered with

246

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

red cloth. On either side the ceiling was supported by
white columns, up which wriggled Imperial yellow
dragons. At the back of the dais was a silken screen
with reeds, storks, and other birds embroidered upon it.
In front of it stood the Emperor, by the side of a Louis
Quatorze chair. On his left was the Crown Prince,
also standing; and on the second step of the stage, to
the right of the Imperial Prince, was a tall, sickly-looking
person, dressed in a costume similar to the emperor's —
which was an ivory-white gown with a girdle of the same
color and the white Korean cap with short wings on either
side of it. This was the Chief Eunuch, a most important
personage at the Korean court.

"As I entered with the contingent of war corre-
spondents they took the signal from me and we made a
low bow. We then skirted a large table which was in
the center of the room; thirty feet from the door we
made another bow, and finally, on arriving within six
feet of the throne, we made a third obeisance — a long one
to the Emperor and a shorter one to the Crown Prince.

"The Emperor was a small man, with a rather bright,
intelligent face. His son was more robust and a foot
taller, with a long flabby countenance and a vacuous
stare. The Chief Eunuch had a most intelligent face,
but looked much more bored than the other two. The
Emperor put on a good-humored expression when the
bustling little Master of Ceremonies took the bunch of
cards from me which I had collected from my colleagues.
He handed them to the Crown Prince, who fingered
them very gingerly, and did not seem to know quite
what to do with them. He held them for a moment or
two in the direction of his royal father and then nursed
them carefully with both hands. The Master of Cere-
monies motioned me to step forward, and our interpreter
came up to my side. His Imperial Majesty then spoke.

247

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

" ' I hope, said he, 'that you and your brethren of the
press have had a pleasant journey.'

"Your Imperial Majesty, we have had a most delight-
ful journey.'

"The Emperor showed his teeth and smiled in the
most urbane manner upon us all. Then there was rather
an awkward pause, and I understood that it was time to
go. I bowed very low to him and slightly to the Crown
Prince and, still facing the throne, backed my way
toward the door. It was a difficult matter, because I
knew there was that wretched table in the center of the
room; but I managed to avoid it and safely reached
my destination. I did this as quickly as I could because
I wanted to take a few notes of the scene on my shirt-
cuff. As I was doing this, to my horror I saw my
colleagues, having bowed to the Emperor and Crown
Prince, make a very profound salaam to the Chief
Eunuch, who was evidently disconcerted. But the
Emperor seemed to enjoy this faux pas on the part of
my brethren of the press, and smiled still more benignly.

"We returned to the reception room, where we were
served with cake and some excellent champagne, in which
we drank the health of his Imperial Majesty. Then we
got into our rickshaws and drove back to the hotel."

"Now what about Togo?" says Barry.

"Well, we first of all tried getting up the Yalu to
Antung; but the tide and rapids, owing to the recent
rains, prevented us from going up the river. . . ."

"Great Scott! what's that?" I cry as a tremendous
explosion is heard outside. "That's a big one, let's
come and see!"

We hurry to the end of the village and meet d'Adda,
our Italian colleague, who is a little excited.

" Foyons, mes amis!" says he. The marquis always
breaks into French when agitated. "It is hot absolu-

248

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

ment" — he is juggling a segment of shell from hand to
hand — "if you hurry not you all will it miss."

A lo-inch shell had burst against a rock in the dry bed
of the watercourse at the end of the hamlet. It seems
that a party of about fifty soldiers had been seen by
the enemy skirting our village; hence the coming of the
projectile. It made a big hole in the stony river bed.
Chinese children are already hunting for the pieces. As we
returned to our hut Barry says, "Please continue about
Togo."

"All right, if you take the chair I will sling myself
in the hammock and start afresh. How far had I gone?"

"You spoke of the Yalu River."

"Oh, yes; the Manchu Maru left that vicinity
suddenly, after a couple of days at Chimulpo, during
which I had a chance to revel in the most delightful
landscape and seascapes, full of the most delicate color in
the morning and of the richest and most gorgeous hues
I have witnessed at sunset.

"Toward evening a torpedo boat seemed to have
dropped from the heavens and began shooting through
the water like a lively porpoise, now to port of us and
then to starboard. One of Togo's scouts had sighted us.

"The next morning was misty and the Manchurian
coast was hardly visible. Soon a dull gray ridge stood
out on the horizon, ahead and to starboard of us, and
genial Captain Takarabe told us that it was the Elliott
group. There was considerable excitement on board,
especially among the correspondents. We were now
nearing 'A Certain Place* — the mysterious naval base
whence came all those sharp and incisive attacks by the
Japanese on Port Arthur. Soon the grayness passed
away and bright patches of blue sky gradually lit up
the islands; but there was no sign as yet of any naval
life in these waters.

249

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

"It came upon us as a flash, this 'Certain Place.' Those
who were eagerly watching through their glasses almost
gasped for breath. A wide bay suddenly opened out with
a dense cloud of smoke hanging over it, and in the center,
near a lofty gray rock with a crown of emerald on its
summit, the victorious fleet lay at anchor. The sun was
setting behind this conical shaped island, whose sides
were as sheer as that of Gibraltar, turning everything
into tones of russet and molten gold. The black pall of
smoke above looked like a curtain about to descend
and shut out the picture.

"It was a busy scene — some forty ships ready and
alert with fires and banked, all vomiting forth smoke.
Twenty of them were in their dull slate-colored garb of
war. Battleships, first-class cruisers, destroyers, and
torpedo craft; and trailing off to the right of the
emerald-capped crag, stretching toward the mainland,
were transports, repair ships, colliers and the hospital
boat Rossetta Maru. Those battleships we now admir-
ingly gazed on had all made history. Everyone had
seen action and had gone through inconceivable stress
and wear.

"The Kasuga and the Nisshin, the armored cruisers
brought out from Italy by English and mixed crews,
were lying at anchor in front of the line of battleships
composed of the Asahi, Fugi, Yashima, and the flagship
Mikasa. ?-We steamed past the two guard-ships — one, the
oldest vessel in the Japanese service, still a useful and
well-appointed craft. When she first arrived in Japan in
1882, the country was overjoyed in possessing at last
a European-built war vessel, and people visited her by
thousands.

"We anchored near these outposts as night fell. From
the masts of the guard-ships a bright light suddenly
flashed out and as quickly died away — the commander

250

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

was proving the electric circuit. Then the whole fleet
disappeared in the gloaming and not a light — not even
the glow of a cigarette — pierced the darkness. We
were in the zone of operations not more than three hours'
steaming from the Russian squadrons at Port Arthur.

"This * Certain Place* is the most ideal rendezvous;
it is guarded by small islands threaded together by ten
miles of booms composed of steel hawsers and lumber,
which are stout enough effectually to prevent a torpedo
rush by the enemy. Perfectly snug and comfortable,
the Togo fleet had been there since the first attack on
Port Arthur, and the Russians had not been able to
locate it, or, if it had been located, they had not dared to
attempt a raid. A wireless station on a headland with
substations along the coast in touch with scout ships
might at any time bring the message, * Russian Fleet
is leaving the harbor/ and within a short time Togo
would be drawn up in battle array ready to bar the
further progress of the enemy.

"Next morning we were shifted out of sight of the
fighting squadron. In the forenoon the Manchu Maru
went out with a scouting section along the coast to
within ten miles of the Muscovite stronghold and re-
turned south via the Blonde Islands, where, anchored
in the middle of the group, we found the great Togo
himself on board the Mikasa ready to receive us. I can
assure you that it was a moment one would always
remember, when our boat, steaming between the flag-
ship and another battleship, dropped anchor.

"A crowd of men with eager, interested faces swarmed
the decks of those towering gray hulls, anxious to get a
glimpse of the newcomers who had just arrived from the
peaceful world without. Soon the pinnaces were busy
and we were all put on board the Mikasa. Admiral
Togo is a small man, turning gray, with a short-cropped

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

naval beard and a face that shows little emotion. Most
polite in manner, he paid us remarkable attention con-
sidering that his time was taken up with vastly more
important matters. He complimented us on our enter-
prise in coming so far from the other side of the globe to
see what his countrymen were doing. Then we drank
his health; and after that we were let loose over the
ship.

"I have been on British warships while in action or on
the verge of meeting the foe, but I never saw any decks
more trim or the men and officers neater and smarter
than the crowd on the Mikasa. Of course, they were
prepared for us; but still in time of war admirals are too
busy to waste much time in furbishing up for visitors.
The great man had a peculiar way of standing with his
arms akimbo. I took a sketch of him in this position;
and then I found a most amusing coincidence: from the
Chief of Staff down to the middies, all aped their beloved
chief and stood in the same attitude.

"Of course, Togo could not tell us anything regarding
the situation, but I think he felt fairly satisfied with what
had been done and confident that he would eventually
smash the Russian fleet.

"When I returned to the Manchu Maru I found the
admiral's card with a polite message asking me to excuse
his not returning the call, as he was just now so fully
occupied."

"That's fine," said Barry. "How exceedingly polite
these Japs are. By the bye, you know that we have been
invited to visit that everlasting bone of contention,
Ban-u-san?"

"Yes," I replied, "so we have — at 9.30 sharp, to-morrow
morning."

September i6th. — Our promised visit to the famous hill
is at last to take place. On arriving on the scarred glacis

252

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

of the fort we find the position still a warm corner in
spite of the fact that four weeks have passed since its
capture. Its rear trench confronts the enemy's sharp-
shooters, who are intrenched within fifty yaids of the
Chinese Wall where it passes below the Boudisan, or
Watch Tower Hill. The traverses are teeming with men
ready for any possible assault by the Russians. Bullets
are continually singing over our heads and showers of
shrapnel rend^the air, for that rear trench is under fire
night and day, and is a target from both front and flanks.
The Muscovites have rushed it time after time, holding
it for a few minutes until driven back to their own lines
below the wall.

Through the day the maimed bodies of the sentries
keeping guard by the shattered parapets are noiselessly
brought down on dripping stretchers to the surgeons
below, or with a blanket to hide their rigid face and
stiffening limbs they lie in the shadow of the trench
through the terrible noonday heat till night allows their
comrades to give them decent burial. Those who survive
the terrible watch in that trench are relieved every
half-hour. The colonel told me that he could not expect
his men to stand the awful strain of that bloody sentry-
go for a longer period. On the strength of this I at once
christen it the "Thirty-minute trench."

Only two men are allowed to go into the trench at a
time, for the enemy are sure shots. So we start, with
ten yards interval between us, toward the zone of the
fire. Taking our cue from an officer who steals on in
front of us, we pause when he stops, take cover when he
makes signs, advance at the double, or slowly work our
way along the wall. The sun is beating down upon us in
a pitiless manner, the air is close and oppressive. In
spite of the sanitary state of the fort — which is marvelous
considering the men cannot move an inch outside its

253

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

parapets — the air soon becomes more oppressive and
absolutely nauseating.

"Please excuse,'* whispers the officer conducting us
(for no voice is now raised above a whisper, as we are
within hearing of the Russian sentries), "if the scent be
too bad; but we cannot help it."

We peep between the planks supporting a bomb-proof
shelter. It is a gruesome sight; the dead of the assaulting
parties have been there since the capture glistening in
the sun not more than twenty yards away. The Russians
will not allow us to sprinkle the ghastly heap with whole-
some earth. As I look at this weird sight I remember a
similar scene. The Russians suffered in the way the
Japs do to-day when holding the Gravitza redoubt at
Plevna in the summer of 1877. The Turks would not
allow them to bury their dead. It made the situation
more terrible for the Russian outposts to face the fester-
ing heaps of their dead comrades, night and day for
four weary months, before the fall of that fortress.

This present is a dangerous game, nevertheless. But
the little men facing these horrors on Ban-u-san will not
be cowed by a barbarous Turkish trick; they will fight
all the better. They take it as a stimulant; for the
spirits of those uncremated bodies, lying stark to the
sun, are now ever at the elbows of their living comrades,
urging them to do the last offices to their material remains
so that they may gain eternal peace in the Shinto Shades.

The sentries in that appalling place are moving about
like caged animals, stealthily creeping from one loop-
hole to another, getting a snapshot at the slightest
movement of any living thing at the opposite side of
the parapet and then quickly diving for cover. The
slightest sign of animation from our trench or the sound
of a voice will bring a deadly volley from the enemy's
marksmen. The bullets plunge into the sandbags,

254

SCENE IN THE LATE RUSSIAN-JAPANESE WAR

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

splinter the stout timber shelter-frames; and the ricochets,
spurting in their erratic course from all quarters as they
strike sandbag and rock, make me come to the con-
clusion that I was never before in quite such a hell as
this "Thirty-minute trench." I take much less than
the allotted time of sentry duty to do my work and
gracefully retire, having seen enough for one forenoon.

As usual, when we get back to headquarters we find
an excellent luncheon provided for us, and General
Oyshima presents us with some sweetmeats which his
wife has made and just sent from Tokyo. I am intro-
duced to Major-General Ichinobe, the officer who eventu-
ally succeeded in occupying the fort after the terrible
Dassault of the Japanese last month. But for his dark
skin, made darker by the tan of the sun, he might be
taken for a European, for hJs stature is above that
usually seen in the Japanese and the strength and expres-
sion of his face remind me of my late friend and com-
rade, Archibald Forbes.

The Toss turns up at luncheon, gets much excited
with good fare, and then, as usual, has a fit of generosity.
He takes a great fancy to one little officer who is ex-
cessively polite to him. The Toss pats him on the back
and pulls out his card-case.

"There, that's where you'll find me — the Junior, you
know. Tell you what, when you come to England you
let me know! We'll have a good time. We also have
got some fine geishas, I can assure you. I'll take you
to the Alhambra. Then you must come and stay with
me at my place in the country. Tell you what, we'll go
and see the Autumn maneuvers!"

I look at him in astonishment. The audacity of the
man! Here are we, seeing some of the biggest fighting
of the century, and he suggests, as an amusement, the
English Autumn maneuvers!

255

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

The officer he addresses is smiling and bowing, not
quite understanding what he means; but another by my
side at once has taken out his pocket dictionary and
turns the pages over rapidly. At last he stops. "Ah!"
he says, gazing at The Toss, " I see; yours is an agricultural
district. The autumnal manuring — most interesting/*

The harvest moon is splendid to-night; Goto and I
take a walk before supper to look at her mellow disk.
The sturdy Manchurian husbandmen are busily thrash-
ing corn. The yellow maize, beaten out of its husks,
lies piled on the smooth mud floor, looking like a mass
of burnished gold as the sun takes a last peep at it before
leaving the valley. Naked children are playing around
the golden pyramids of grain, imitating with their wee
voices the incessant singing of the passing shells, with
a final bang for the bursting. One little mimic has got
the hammer of the machine-guns by heart, to the intense
delight of his companions.

Sept. 26th. — "Is that you, Cho-san?"

"Alice litee, master."

"Good; I thought it was the cat again after more
stew. How on earth did you get in? Oh, yes; I re-
member. Barry-san had a bath in the antechamber and
left the hall door open. What! water boiling? I wish
you would not break up those biscuits, Cho-san; I would
rather do that job myself. My fingers, I feel, are cleaner
than yours after messing about with the fire. Anyway,
if not, it's my own dirt, which is more or Jess a comfort."

Slight rain during the night has made the morning
hazy. There is the usual greeting from the Russian
batteries, and no answer from the Japanese.

The fighting during the night was, as I expected,

the enemy attempting to prevent the work of the

256

GREETED BY THE EMPEROR OF KOREA

sappers. Just heard how Major-General Yamamoto,
of the 1st Brigade of the ist Division, met his death;
he was shot through the head in a trench at the
foot of 203 Metre Hill.

There is considerable hammering in the ante-
chamber, and I discover that Cho-san is struggling
to make a fresh meat ration, which has just been
sent from headquarters, into a tender steak. Still,
when the midday meal arrives the perpetual stew
is brought on, but by way of variety it is called by
Cho-san, "Ilish."

After dinner I light my pipe and wander into
the open. The harvest is just over and but for the
incessant rumble of cannon one would never guess
that a great war was in progress. The donkeys
move unmolested up and down the roads, picking
up stray beans and millet stalks, enjoying a well-
earned rest after their exertions in bringing in the
harvest, for their duties have indeed been heavy.
I have seen these animals, some not bigger than a
Newfoundland dog, struggling homeward with a
load as large as a tramcar.

The "Chinese horse," as the little beast is called
by the Japanese, is long-suffering and long-enduring,
as well as long-eared. I have never had so much
respect and admiration for any ass before. Why
has that name come to be suggestive of stupid
imbecility? A horse is a far sillier animal. He will
go on, if man will let him, till he drops dead. A
donkey will go on till he gets tired, and then he

257

V1LLIMS: BIS flFE McADES OP

will sit down. I am well acquainted with this
sensible trait in this much despised brute, for it
was demonstrated to me the other day, when I
had to smoke at least two pipes by the roadside,
seated on my haversack, till the donkey felt re-
freshed enough to proceed.

When at last the triumphal Jap army was march-
ing into Port Arthur after the fall I was on my road
back to Japan with the full story of the assault,
and eventually arrived in England just in time to
spend Christmas day with my wife and family and
to publish the first book on the war which appeared
in Europe — for nothing was allowed to be published
of the three months' siege till after the final occupa-
tion of the fortress.

Chapter XV

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

Up the Nile — Across the desert — A movie camera and iron horse cause
jealousy — The advance on Omdurman — A scorpion and its ways —
A gunboat darkroom — A setback — The dervish attack — Saving the
Camel Corps — Winston Churchill — Lieutenant Beatty — Their first
rungs of the proverbial ladder — A solemn ceremony — The men of the
momenty MacDonald, Huntertand "Sack-acker" Gatacre.

\ X 7HEN I joined Kitchener's expedition in the
* V Sudan to avenge the death of Gen. Charles
Gordon, I took with me a cinema camera in spite
of my setback with one in the Greek war. I
thought that in this case I might get some of the
real stuff before the fakers set to work, because it
would be hard for them to'vamp up the local color
of the desert, dervish costumes, and so forth. I
kept the matter a secret from my confreres as much
as possible, for, naturally, I wanted to be the first
in the field. But soon the bulk of my camera gave
the secret away, and of course the other men wanted
to take movies as well. Why they imagined they
could get the necessary camera and spools simply
by wiring to Cairo, as one would for a packet of tea,
I have no idea; but, anyway, the whole thing caused
VOL. ii. — 18 259

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

no little excitement in our mess. The two who
were going to upset my little plans would occa-
sionally look at me with a kind of pity for the
"beat" they were making. Presently their box ar-
rived, and the look of triumph quickly died out
of their faces when they found that instead of a
camera it contained a lantern projector and quite
an amusing series of films of a racy terpsichorean
nature to please an Egyptian audience.

I also had with me a bicycle, which my colleagues
looked upon as a mad idea. However, I had been
over the ground before and knew that throughout
a considerable part of the desert there was a light
covering of sand over a hard floor called the agaba.
I could always get a spin over that and my camel
could carry my "iron horse/' as the natives called
it, on his hump whenever I came across heavy
sand. My tent was also a new idea for the desert,
a glorified umbrella that could be put up in less
than five minutes by tugging at a cord. You only
want a cover from the sun in the Sudan, for no
matter what precaution you may take you can
never keep out the impalpable dust and the filthy
flies.

The campaign was intensely interesting to me
in that the advance was so different from Lord
Wolseley's just thirteen years before. In that
campaign the commanding general was an alien
leading an alien army. Everything had to be paid
for through the nose and one had to be gentle and

260

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

persuasive with the natives if he wanted any work
out of them. The slowness of the "Gypies" could
not be hastened in those days with the whip or a
threat of sudden dissolution.

Moreover, in Wolseley's days the Sudan was an
unknown country which he had to explore as he
advanced, and Kitchener was one of his tentacles
to probe the lay of the land. During the subse-
quent thirteen years, however, Sir Francis Wingate
had followed every move of the enemy, through
his intelligence department, and Kitchener, being
the Sirdar, was practically an Egyptian and could
stoop to Egyptian methods. Unlike Wolseley, he
had everything pretty well mapped out, even in-
cluding the monetary cost — which is always the
thing that interests a government — before he started
on his venture.

But with all this advantage, when the great
fight took place at Omdurman in September, 1898,
the Khalifa escaped; and he remained at large
till the following year, when Wingate rounded him
up and killed him. The credit for the reconquest
of the Sudan was due mainly to Thomas Cook &
Son, Sir Francis Wingate, Sir Percy Girouard, and
the Egyptian convicts who, under the lash from
dawn to sunset, carried the sleepers to build the
Nubian Desert railway which made the campaign
possible.

During the march upcountry General Kitchener
lost no chance to practice for the coming struggle.

261

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

He kept his men in the pink of condition for the
final fight and took the greatest pains with every
detail of his advance, so that when at last we sighted
the Khereri Hills, which look down on Omdurman,
we were all spoiling for the fight. We then encamped,
while the gunboats opened the ball, demolishing a
few dervish forts along the Nile bank. About
midnight we struck our tents for the march at
dawn.

We were lying sleeping in the open when un-
fortunately it commenced to rain. I drew up over
me a lap of the waterproof canvas of my tent and
dropped off to sleep. Suddenly I leaped up with a
cry, for I thought I had been stabbed. My servant,
who was sleeping near me, evidently guessing what
had -occurred, caught me in his arms and brushed
something from my shoulder; then he commenced
rubbing the place vigorously. The pain was so
intense that I almost collapsed. He said, "Try and
rub, master; rub till I come back/' and rushed
away.

Presently he returned with a bottle, forced the
neck in my mouth, and commenced pouring the
contents down my throat. He told me afterward,
for I was too far gone at the time to know, that it
was raw whisky which he had borrowed from my
friend Bennet Burleigh.

Not till half that bottle had been poured down
my throat was he satisfied. It was a drastic measure,

but it probably saved me for the next day's fight.

263

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

I had been stung by a scorpion that was trying to
get in under my cover from the rain.

Luckily for me that day the dervishes did not
attack. We marched into position as on a field-
day and were stationed with our front to the desert
and our rear to the Nile, supported by the gun-
boats. I was able to crawl to the shadow of a mud
hut by the river and there I lay as though stunned
during the heat of the day. Toward the evening I
was well enough to walk round our position and
saw the enemy begin to advance outside the walls
of Omdurman; but there was no attack. At sunset
the expectant armies faced each other in dead
silence.

It was exceedingly bright moonlight that night.
I dared not load my camera in the shadow of the
hut or even in the interior, the light was so powerful.
Therefore I went down to the right flank gunboat
and Commander Gordon allowed me to change my
films in her hold.

I was there working for many hours — the films
for movies were difficult to fix in a hurry in those
days. When I had finished I nearly fainted from
the suffocating heat and the aftermath of the
sting. The late Prince Francis of Teck, who was an
officer on board, dragged me up on deck and brought
me some water, which soon revived me.

By this time it was dawn and I was preparing
to land with my apparatus when the boat began to
move. We had received orders to find the Camel

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VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

Corps, which had not returned from reconnoitering,
and to hurry back for the general attack. This was
annoying, but Gordon told me I could erect my
tripod in the aft battery, which had been put out
of action the previous day; and as his boat would
be close in-shore I should see everything.

I thought it was a good idea, for I had a level
platform and a wonderful coign of vantage. We
steamed northward for some distance, but did not
find the Camel Corps, so we returned to our posi-
tion. The dervishes were now streaming toward us
in great force — about ten thousand spearmen —
just as I wanted them, in the face of the early sun
and in the face of my camera.

I had just commenced to grind the "coffee pot"
when our fore battery opened fire. The effect
on my apparatus was instantaneous and astounding.
The gunboat had arrived on the Nile in sections
and had evidently been fixed up for fighting m a
hurry, for with the blast of her guns the deck
planks opened up and snapped together, and down
went my tripod. The door of the camera flew open
and my films were exposed. However, I had no
time to weep over spilt milk, for the fighting had
commenced. I pulled out my sketchbook, and my
only comfort was that from my vantage point I
saw many things I should have missed ashore and
that no camera of my kind could have registered.

While the masses of dervishes hurried forward
under the black standard of the Khalifa to attack

264

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

our front, thousands of spearmen, led by another
black flag, were marching round the Kereri Hills
on our right flank, just as if the frontal attack had
been arranged to screen their movement. But
that screen within a half-hour was wiped out by
our infantry and machine-guns. From the gun-
boat it looked as if the vast plains in front of us
had suddenly been snowed upon, for at least nine
thousand white tunics patched the yellow sand.

Once more we were ordered to search for the
Camel Corps; so we returned northward. We
found them being driven through a narrow khor
in the Kereri Hills by the dervish flanking army.
Our camel men simply stood at bay with their
backs against our hull, for we were touching the
banks. As soon as the gunboat went into action
our machine-guns proved too much for the enemy
and they hastily retired, to swell the flank attack
on MacDonald's black brigade. We then steamed
back to our position and arrived in time for one of
the most exciting events of the day — the charge
of the 2 ist Lancers. I saw little of that but the
dust and the spear points, for it took place on
the extreme left of our formation and I was on
the extreme right. Even so it was a brave show,
I have always envied that intrepid young officer,
Mr. Churchill, who was attached to the Twenty-
first and received his baptism of fire that day. He
rode in that never-to-be-forgotten charge and later
gave a brilliant description of it in the Morning

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FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Post and in his own intensely interesting book,
The River War.

Shortly after the fall of Omdurman a selected
number of men from each regiment were taken
across the river to Khartum. The gunboats were
drawn up under the ruined walls of the palace and
a funeral service was read over the spot where
Gordon fell. The Last Post was sounded to the
booming of the guns. This solemn function was
more than impressive to me, for when waiting with
the rest of the old relief column at Metamneh
thirteen years before I was the first to hear, down
by the river, of the death of the man whom we had
now at last avenged and whose memory we had
just honored. I was so cut up over the soul-
stirring ceremony that I was glad to get out of the
mournful crowd and be befriended by Commander
Beatty on his Nile gunboat, which I had seen him
fix up on the river earlier in the campaign.

There were two men in the Kitchener expedition
whose careers are phenomenal for their rapid rise
to fame and fortune; I doubt if there is a parallel
in the whole of British history. One of those men,
Lord Beatty, now heads the Imperial Fleet, and
the other, the Right Hon. Winston Spencer
Churchill, is a distinguished Cabinet Minister.
But I think the palm must be given to Churchill, for
the vicissitudes of his career are almost equal in
excitement and adventure his great ancestor Marl-
borough's, and his pluck and resourcefulness in

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

gaining each rung of the ladder even surpass those
of the great duke.

Before leaving the column I called on Kitchener
to wish him good-by. It was the third and last
time I interviewed him, and I found him a different
man altogether from what he was when I visited
him a few months prior to this final march which
brought him victory and fame. His face then was
seamed and stern and the peculiar cast in the right
eye was very pronounced. The years of hard work
in organizing the Egyptian army for the great
event in his life, the smashing of the Dervish power,
had considerably told upon him. He had been
sleeping in the courtyard of a house in Berber and
was seated on an angareb or native bedstead,
from which he had just arisen when I entered, and
was stirring a cup of tea.

Now I hardly knew him; he was so changed. His
face suggested a power that was never there in the
early days. It seemed as if a new spirit had entered
the man. It was a hard, impenetrable face, and the
cold gray eyes, by virtue of the defect in one of
them, never seemed to fix their gaze. One had
the impression, when he spoke, that the eyes were
either looking straight over the top of one's head or
piercing one below the knees. A most useful defect,
I thought, when receiving some of my colleagues
bent on extracting precious news; for those eyes
could never belie what the lips uttered. Like most
generals in command he looked upon war corre-

267

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

spondents as a great nuisance, and I must admit
that if I were in a similar position I should hold
most of them in the same light. But Kitchener,
unlike many of his predecessors who have accepted
the war fraternity of the pen and pencil as a neces-
sary evil and have become reconciled to their
presence, seldom disguised his aversion but looked
upon all with suspicion. Yet no officer in His
Majesty's service has been treated more loyally,
and I must say, at times, more leniently, by the
war correspondents under his command than the
late Earl Kitchener.

All who were at the battle of Omdurman know
what Hector MacDonald did to insure the final
victory. I was lucky enough to see the great
Dervish flank attack develop, and know the set-
back we should have had but for that heroic soldier's
quick and decisive movement to meet the whirl-
wind of fanatics. This was the first time I had seen
MacDonald in action, and for a moment some of
us had qualms as to the steadiness of his blacks
in stemming the surging crowds of white-gibbehed
Dervishes sweeping down upon them.

But MacDonald seemed to have no doubt; he
was as cool and as level-headed in all this turmoil
as when I met him the preceding year at a sale of
correspondents' superfluous stores at Berber, when
he quietly nodded to the auctioneer to knock him
down some canned peaches and a Christmas pudding.
What a fine, healthy, square-set type of humanity

268

KITCHENER IN THE SUDAN

he was! Who, having once seen him, can ever
forget that bright, ruddy face with the firm set of
the jaw, the lively blue eyes, and the alert, up-
right figure, with just a touch of the drill-sergeant
about him.

What a different type of soldier was the man
who so ably assisted MacDonald in that gallant
stand, Gen. Sir Archibald Hunter! Dapper, smart,
and dainty in attire, with nothing suggestive of
the fighter .about him, he was nevertheless as
keen and alert as his burly Highland comrade in
that day's work. Yes, Kitchener had excellent
officers under him in the Sudan campaign to help
him up the ladder of fame. The ubiquitous Maj.-
Gen. Sir William Gatacre was a perfect dynamo
of energy — up before reveille and the last to retire
after "lights-out."

Not a thing that he asked a man to do but that
he could do as well or even better. If a Tommy was
slow at emptying a railway truck of meal sacks,
he was up on the pile himself with his coat ofF,
showing the men what they could do if they chose.
The "Back-acher" they called him, but no men
bent their backs to their work more than Gatacre,
and for that reason his soldiers loved him and worked
like niggers under him.

I remember coming across him on the afternoon
before the battle of Omdurman; he was in command
of the British brigade, and after a long weary
march lasting from dawn till late in the afternoon

269

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

some of his men seemed to be lagging. Kitchener
sent his brother, who was chief of the transport,
with an offer to General Gatacre of a number of
camels to assist the men.

Gatacre was on foot, as usual when his men were
on a long march, showing them that he could stand
the strain as well as they. His face was very red
and his angry eyes gleamed with indignation as he
blurted out, "Sir, tell General Kitchener it can't be

done! No, by the men shall walk! It would be

an insult to the country from which they enlisted
if they rode while the men of other regiments were
on foot. No, sir, no! Tell him that it can't be
done!"

Unfortunately most of this burst of indignation
was lost on the transport officer, for he was stone
deaf. But he gleaned the purpose of Gatacre's
remarks by the peppery appearance of his face, and
dashed back to report to his brother. Though the
men were sorely distressed they bucked up on hear-
ing the reply of their beloved leader; for they felt
that Gatacre was right. At the battle of the Atbara,
which paved the way to Omdurman, he was the
first to clear a breach in the enemy's zareba under
a galling fire, to make it easier for his men to push
through. Soldiers never forget such deeds as that.

DECADE
1910-1920

Chapter XVI
1910-1920

CLAIRVOYANCE

7 am told my fortune — I sail for the Cape — Land at Port Elizabeth — The
trail of the prophecy — The Magersfontein affair — The prophecy comes
true — Sunnyside — Lumbago saves a brigade — Major Haigh — General
French — Brabawn of the Guards — / miss my silver disk — Cecil Rhodes
besieged — I interview the Empire-builder — He takes me round Kimber-
ley and shows me the sights — Methuen and his night attack — The
passing of an Empress — The mystery of the cannon.

TF anyone was to ask if I were superstitious, I
* should certainly answer "No," yet I cannot say
that I have no belief in clairvoyance; for during
the South African campaign I came across some-
thing which seemed to go rather beyond the bounds
of mere coincidence. On the voyage out to Australia
for a lecture tour, my wife and I met a charming
little woman with whom we struck up a friendship;
and we found that she was a member of an occult
set in London.

When war with the Boers was on the eve of being
declared she came to see us at our hotel in Mel-
bourne, and my wife asked her to read my palms.
When she had finished I suggested that she might

273

7ILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF

tell me what was going to happen to me if war
broke out in South Africa.

"Yes," she said, "I will do my best."

She dropped my hand, then looked into a corner
of the room in a half-dazed sort of way and told me,
as though slowly reading from a book, the following:

"You will go to South Africa with Australian
troops, on board a ship bound for Cape Town, but
you will not land there." This, I remonstrated,
was unfortunate, because the headquarters of the
army would be established there and I must get my
official permits for the armies in the field.

"That will be all right," she continued. "You
will get your passes and will proceed to the front,
but you will be stopped on the way. This will give
you some annoyance, but you will be allowed to
continue your journey by applying to a person in
high quarters, and I see you will carry dispatches
to him from another person in high quarters."

"My dear lady," said I, "it's rather out of the
war correspondents' province to carry dispatches;
generals don't trust the members of the 'fourth es-
tate' in this manner nowadays."

"I know nothing about that," she answered, "but
you will do so. You will meet the person in high
quarters who befriends you, and find you have met
before — and he will be seated in a cart or carriage.

"This can't happen," I laughed, "for generals
commanding in the field generally ride their
chargers."

274

CLAIRVOYANCE

"Well, this one won't," she confidently asserted.

"Never mind him," I replied. "Please let me
know about the fighting."

"I can see," she continued, looking dreamily at a
corner of the ceiling, "a mist or gloaming. It's not
night nor day, but evidently between lights, and
men are hurriedly coming back."

"Are they in open order?" I inquired.

"What's that," she asked. I told her. She was
still looking intently into the corner of the room.

"No, I can see they are close to one another in
clumps and running."

"That's shocking," said I, "for that looks like a
British disaster."

"Will he be killed?" asked my wife, "No; not
if he carries a token I will send him before he leaves
Australia; but he will possibly be sick. However,
if he sticks to the token he will get out of the war
safely."

Now this is what happened. We left Sydney on
a trooper bound for Cape Town where I intended to
land. When we arrived at Algoa Bay the harbor
master came aboard and told us that General
Gatacre was about to move on Stormberg. I
immediately left the ship and landed at Port Eliza-
beth, with the intention of joining my friend Gatacre.
But when Colonel Fairholme, the commandant of
the town, told me that Lord Methuen was about
to relieve Kimberley, I changed my mind again
and decided to join his command; for to get into

VOL. ii.— 19 275

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Kimberley and be the first to interview Cecil
Rhodes would be a tremendous journalistic score.

The commandant of Port Elizabeth kindly wired
to Cape Town and arranged for my passes to be
sent on to the junction at De Aar, then the com-
mandant of that station brought me my passes and
I continued my journey to the Modder. Arriving
at Orange River we had to change trains and the
officers in charge of the station told me, to my
astonishment, that in spite of my credentials I
could not proceed, for Lord Methuen had been so
fed up with war correspondents that he wanted no
more.

This was a grave setback. I tramped the plat-
form for some time hardly knowing what to do.
However, I was allowed to wire Lord Methuen.
I spent a restless night rolled up in my blanket at
the station. Early the next morning a reply came:
"Glad to see you, come at once."

But there was no train till evening. It rained all
day. The metals of the permanent way were
submerged, so abundant was the downpour. My
train, consisting of commissariat trucks bound for
camps all the way up to Modder River, was to
start at eight. During the afternoon the officer in
command of the troops at Orange River phoned
to ask me to carry important dispatches to General
Methuen, as he could not spare an orderly for the
purpose. As the train was about to start a messenger
arrived with a long blue envelope and told me from

276

CLAIRVOYANCE

the brigadier, "If the train is attacked, don't
destroy the papers till the situation is hopeless."

I jumped into the guard's van and with the
carcass of a sheep for my bed and a sack of potatoes
and onions for my pillow, tried to settle down for a
night's sleep; for the morrow was to be an eventful
day.

I was aroused by the dull booming of cannon,
and found myself in the gray of the dawn at Modder
River station. I rushed into the station hotel,
got some hot coffee and a hunk of bread, and rushed
out, following the sound of the artillery fire, for I
could see nothing — so dense a mist arose as a result
of the downpour of the previous day and night.

Presently some loaded carts loomed up out of the
fog, which I found were full of food for the starving
folk in besieged Kimberley. Presently the High-
landers escorting them hurried forward to the head
of the column and commenced skirmishing. I
followed them and discovered, as the mist lifted,
that they were covering the retreat of the High-
land Brigade, the regiments of which had been
bunched up and almost decimated in a corner of a
purple hill called Magersfonteiru

We were able to stem the onrush of the Boers,
and some of our stretcher-bearers began picking
up our wounded. Having filled my book with
sketches, I suddenly found the long blue envelope
in my pocket and at once became anxious to deliver
it to the general. I asked everyone I met if he

277

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECIDES OF ADVENTURE

had seen Lord Methuen, but without result until a
Tommy said, "I think, sir, you will find him over
there," pointing out at the same time a Cape cart
standing under cover of some short scrub. I went
straight toward it and found a staff officer stand-
ing by the cart. I addressed him civilly and asked
if Lord Methuen was there. With an extremely
supercilious air he said, "And what do you want
with Lord Methuen?"

"That's my business," I replied; "so the general
is there?"

The officer grunted an affirmative and added,
"You can't see him."

"I must," I insisted, "I have important dispatches
to deliver."

"I'll take them," said he.

uThe devil you will!" said I. "Take my card at
once to the general."

He looked very sour but he had no alternative,
and presently returned to say the general would
see me.

I stepped up to the cart. Methuen was lying
back with one leg cocked up on the opposite rail.
He had been wounded at Belmont and was compelled
to travel in this fashion. He smiled at me and said,
"Now what can I do for you?"

"It's the other way about, sir," I replied, "I
have a letter for you." And I delivered the despatch.

He thanked me and said, "What do you think
of this business?" I laughingly replied, "It is only

278

CLAIRVOYANCE
a setback. Surely you must expect a check some-

times."

"Yes/' he said, "but this is a bad business.
Come and dine with me when the fighting is over."
I shook hands and left him.

A few days later I visited Methuen at his head-
quarters at the Modder River station and found
that the attempt to capture Magersfontein had
cost us more than was at first realized, and that we
should not recommence the offensive for some
weeks; so I resolved to take a holiday and join my
wife at Port Elizabeth for Christmas.

While I was looking up at the stars one night as
I was trying to sleep in a cattle truck, journeying
to the coast, I wondered at the vicissitudes I had
just gone through — they all seemed so familiar to
me. Then the prophecy of the clairvoyant flashed
into my mind. My wife had managed to trace my
movements and met me on the tram's arrival at
four in the morning. Before we drove to the hotel,
I asked her to relate the prediction, and I found it
tallied in every detail with what I had gone through,
She then asked me if I still had the silver token the
clairvoyant sent me on leaving the Antipodes. As
we looked at it and read its mysterious inscription
"Aum Mene Padme Aum" which means "the
pearl in the heart of the lotus," a thrill of wonder
passed through me. Her prophecy up to the present
had come so true that I was glad I had not lost the
token : evidently it was a true mascot.

279

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

That Christmas week was a gloomy one for our
armies in South Africa. The disasters at Storm-
berg and Colenso were followed closely by that of
Magersfontein. Shortly after Christmas I started
for Methuen's command once more. Arriving at
Belmont, I learned that an attack was about to be
made by our forces on the town of Douglas, so I
jumped off the train. The station hotel was so
crowded that I had to sleep on the floor of the
waiting room. During the night the temperature
fell and I woke up with an attack of lumbago. I
was able to crawl to a native hut, where I lay all
day on a bed of straw, almost paralyzed with pain.
Toward evening my native boy brought in Dr. Wil-
son of Montreal, attached to the Canadian contin-
gent, who plied me with phenacetin and promised
that I should be able to move about the next day.

He was right; I managed to climb into my Cape
cart and was just in time to be in at our capture of
Sunnyside kopje on New Year's Day, in which the
Canadians and Australasians played so important
a part. After the fight I collapsed from weakness
and could not keep up with the army when it was
subsequently forced to retire. I had to rest at a
Boer farmhouse by the roadside, the occupants of
which were so scared by the success of the British
that they treated me with much kindness.

The rear guard passed onward. I watched the
last cloud of dust kicked up by their heels in the
face of the setting sun; and I was left alone in the

280

CLAIRVOYANCE

gloaming with my friends the enemy. Toward
midnight I was awakened by one of the sons telling
his mother that he had seen the advance guard of the
Boers, who in great force were coming from Spey-
fontein to cut off the British camped for the night
at Dover farm, about five miles away. I left my
bed and staggered into their room and told them
that I had overheard the conversation and that I
recognized the boy as one of the guides to the
British the previous afternoon. I pointed out that
if the Boers arrived and had the slightest suspicion
of this fact he would be summarily shot; he must
therefore, hurry to the British camp with the news
and he would be protected.

The lad was reluctant to go, so I told him that
in the event of the Boers meeting with a reverse
he would certainly be shot by the British; he was
between the devil and the deep sea and of the two
he had better try the devil. I would give him a
note to our commander, who would look after him,
place him in safety, and pay him royally for his
services. At last I gained over his mother and
through her solicitations he consented to go.

Then I buried my revolver and ammunition so
that the Boers when they arrived could not take
me for a belligerent, threw myself on the bed,
took a sedative, and slept.

I was aroused at dawn not by a posse of rough
and truculent Boers but by the buxom landlady
with a steaming mug of coffee. The rest had done

281

riLLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

me so much good that I was able to get up and
drive into camp. My message had been delivered,
but there was no sign of a move till night set in,
when the order came to clear out. The four hundred
prisoners we had captured at Douglas were already
en route to our base at Belmont, so we nipped
through the encircling ring of Boers unimpeded
during the night and got in touch with reinforce-
ments just at daybreak. The success of the little
fight was due to Colonel Pilcher, our brigadier, who
on this occasion outwitted a crafty and brave
enemy; but I think my lumbago had also something
to do with it.

Affairs were still hanging fire with Lord Methuen's
command. I therefore tried other fields, but the
awkward part was that I had no permits to go with
any other force and I had to move about and try
to see as much as I could without them. These
stringent regulations may be all right in the case of
men who write and cable, but for the artist they
seem unnecessary and they are certainly a tre-
mendous handicap.

Shortly after the incident of Sunnyside I heard
that General French was moving on Rensburg. I
drove to Honey Nest kloof and put up with a friend
for a few hours till the train arrived for Nieuport.
I took off my heavy revolver-belt, to which was
attached my watch and the silver-disk mascot,
threw it on the table and tried to sleep; but in a

few minutes the train arrived much before the

282

CLAIRVOYANCE

scheduled time, and I jumped up and hurried to
the station just in time to board her when she
started. Shortly afterward I discovered, to my
dismay, that I had left my belt behind and with it
my silver disk.

On arriving at Nieuport I had to alight to change
trains for Rensburg. I found the late Sir Ashmead
Bartlett and a friend waiting for the connection,
and they asked me to come into their coupe. They
both had passes to French's command, but I had
none. When we arrived at our destination a staff
officer, Major Haig, came up and asked for our
passes. He questioned my two friends severely
while I was puffing at a cigarette in my anxiety.
Just as he finished examining Bartlett's pass I
threw the cigarette away, and with my hand on
my breast pocket strode toward him, when, to my
astonishment he waved his hand, saying, "That's all
right, Mr. Villiers, I won't trouble you," and turned
and walked toward the camp. I have always had
a deep respect for that gallant officer, who, as Lord
Haig, earned during the recent Great War the
gratitude of the whole Empire.

While General French was showing what could
be done with cavalry in defending a seventy-mile
front he was ably assisted by that gallant officer,
Brabazon, of the Household Brigade, straight from
those well-known sentry boxes in front of the
Horse Guards at Whitehall, where every morning
come enthusiastic citizens — especially the nurse-

283

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

maids and young England — to see the brave show
of changing the guard.

That delightful Beau Brummell of the British
army, I remember, in one of his thundering charges
had his horse shot under him, and on mounting
another his weight was too much for the brute,
which sat down under him; but the gallant general
got out of the tight corner without a bruise. In
1915 I saw him many times at the War Office,
waiting, at nearly eighty years of age, to be taken
for work on the Western front; and he certainly
looked quite fit enough for another scrap.

I was returning to Nieuport from the Rensburg
affair when I heard that a British officer and his
horse had been shot and killed at* three thousand
yards from a kopje on one of the roads off the
beaten track, so I resolved to return by that route
to see if the distance was accurate, for it seemed a
marvelous feat of marksmanship.

I examined the place — a gloomy pass in the
hills — and found that the distance was certainly as
great as had been stated. I jumped into my cart
again and trotted quietly along. It was midday
and the heat was intense. I was lying back dozing
when suddenly a bullet pierced the side curtain of
my cart and the report of a rifle awoke my boy,
who immediately lashed out at the horses.

I threw my arms round him and pulled up.
"Wang!" came another shot. As we came to a
standstill I threw up the back curtain and put up my

284

CLAIRVOYANCE

arms. Then I saw three men approaching in shirt
sleeves; two wore the sombrero of the Boers and
the third a helmet. When close up I saw that all
three were Tommies.

"Can I put my hands down now, or do you wish
to murder me? Who are you?" I asked.

"The Suffolks," they replied.

"Well, I shall report you for damned bad shooting
anyway. What did you think you were doing?"
I inquired, while I handed over my papers.

"Now, look here, sir," one replied, "you be
careful about this 'ere road. There's Boers about,
and the commanders always drive in Cape carts.
There's lots of our fellows looking out for them, so
be careful, or maybe you'll find better shooting

next time."

I examined the perforated curtains; both shots
were near calls. After that I told the driver to
stop whenever he saw anyone on the road, and we
continued our journey. But I felt uncomfortable;
I was longing to get back to Honey Nest kloof to
recover my belt with that silver disk. This was
the first time I had been without it. I had had a
narrow shave and I was almost beginning to feel
creepy and superstitious, when a shout, "Who goes
there," rang out from a rock. "Friend," I answered
briskly, and my papers were examined again.

On nearing Nieuport I saw a platoon of red-
coats astride the road, so I got out of the cart and
advanced. A sergeant came forward. "Who are

285

VILL1ERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

you?" I said. "The Bedfords," he replied. I
thanked him for his courtesy in not firing on me
before challenging.

"Why, sir! what do you mean?"

When I told him of my narrow squeak he laughed
heartily and said, "You must know, sir, they are
always called the 'silly Suffolks." I believe,
however, that in the Great War the men of this
regiment lived down that sobriquet.

When I arrived at Nieuport I saw some Tommies
standing round an order board on the wall of the
station. When I could get a glimpse I found it to
be a notice by General Duller, stating "that he
was about making a final effort to relieve Lady-
smith and there would be no turning back."

On reading this notice I decided (in sporting
parlance) to pull off a double event: to be with
Duller at the relief of Ladysmith and then double
back and join the Kimberley relief column in order
to enter the city and interview Cecil Rhodes. I
secured my mascot and belt and, hurrying down to
Port Elizabeth, picked up my wife and got on board
a trooper for Durban. Dut I arrived at Chievely
only to be checked by another Dritish disaster.
Finding the double event now out of the question
and that I might miss the relief of Kimberley if
I did not hasten back, I retraced my steps to Port
Elizabeth and thence to Modder River.

Cecil Rhodes was in his bath when, a few hours
after General French had entered Kimberley with

286

CLAIRVOYANCE

his relieving force, I arrived at his hotel, which I
found amply masked with sandbags and gabions — •
for the Boers knew that Rhodes was there and,
when opportunity served always dropped a shell
in the direction of that hostelry.

The wife of Rhodes' secretary received me and
asked me to be seated. Though I was half famished
and parched with thirst, I think I envied Rhodes
that bath more than anything in the world, for I
had not washed for days and my clothes were foul
and ragged with sleeping out in the open.

Knowing that my chat with the great man was
assured, I hunted up a hotel and took a bath myself,
then returned to find that Mr. Rhodes expected me.
He had altered but little in personal appearance in
seven years, though his voice seemed weaker and
the tone higher pitched.

After a short interview he said: "I will devote
an hour or two to taking you round the recently
beleaguered city. Have you had any breakfast?"

"Only a cup of coffee," I replied.

"Come with me."

I followed him into the dining room. One of his
secretaries was seated before a stout beefsteak.
Rhodes walked up to this gentleman and said,
"This is Mr. Villiers; he is hungry, and I want
him to share that steak with you."

The secretary dropped his glass from his eye,
stared at me, then with a sickly smile stuttered,

"Oh, yes — er — certainly — pleasure."
287

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Another plate was brought and the steak was
divided.

"Now, after you have finished that," said Rhodes>
"I shall be ready to take you round the town."

I expressed my gratitude and tackled the meat
and found it good, for I had not tasted fresh rations
for weeks.

Rhodes was awaiting me with a smart dogcart
when I had finished. In another moment we were
doing the town. My host said: "I am glad you
came this morning for you will see the place just as
it was during the siege. This afternoon the un-
employed will be set to work clearing all dugouts
and trenches and making the town shipshape."

By this time we had arrived at the emplacement
of the great "Cecil," a cannon that had been made
during the siege and named after Rhodes. It was
just as the gunners left it the day before when they
hurried forward to greet their deliverers. In a
pond near by Rhodes pointed out with great glee
certain pieces of wood floating about in the water.

"They are all shell-buoys. I have a splendid
collection of projectiles the Boers were good enough
to send me. They are all at the bottom of the
pond, attached by cables to the floating kits of
wood. To-morrow they will be brought up and
their contents emptied.

Rhodes had built a cold-storage plant, and when-
ever the Kimberley defenders were able to raid the
besiegers' cattle these were at once slaughtered — for

288

CLAIRVOYANCE

there was no feed for them in the beleaguered city —
and their carcasses were hung up in these cooling
chambers. I had followed my cicerone into the
freezing room from a temperature of considerable
over ninety in the shade when, suddenly, I felt a
sensation of intense faintness. I turned back to the
main entrance; the door was barred. I groped
about in the dark, but could not find the bolt.
At last I cried out and beat frantically at the door.
I was now on my knees with an icy chill at my
heart. Rhodes came hurrying up and forced the
door, and I dragged myself out into the sunlight.,

"Ought to have known better," piped my friend's
weak voice, "than to bring you straight in here
from this heat. My doctor warned me some time
ago not to do it myself, especially as my heart is
occasionally rather weak. Come, Villiers, back to
the hotel; I have some special brandy. It's the
only thing that will throw off that chill/' On
returning I found that Rhodes' remedy was the
right one and I soon came around under the influence
of that excellent cognac which some one told me
cost five guineas a bottle.

After luncheon, on chatting over the recent
situation, I found that my host evidently did not
get on with the military authorities. He was
rather indignant that Lord Methuen had never
asked him to assist in repairing the railway from
Modder River to Kimberley which had been de-
stroyed by the Boers.

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VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

"The military authorities may not like me;
but I am willing, for the sake of the Empire, to send
out hundreds of skilled workmen who could fix up
the job in a day or two. Now it will be weeks before
the line is repaired."

I certainly thought that Rhodes was right. The
railway was a strategic necessity. It meant a
possible danger to the progress of the campaign if
it were not made good at once; therefore it ought
to have been done with the least delay and by any
means available.

There is no doubt that during the siege Rhodes
was overanxious, and from a military point of view
Kimberley was not in such sore straits as to warrant
the extreme effort Lord Methuen made to relieve
it, which culminated in the disaster at Magersfontein.
And it was owing entirely to the representations
made to Methuen by flash light night after night,
at the direction of Cecil Rhodes, that he had felt
bound to make a move forward at any cost.

Incidentally, it soon came to light that the
Magersfontein affair was, after all, a close bid for
success. Shortly after the disaster I met Farmer
Bisset, a Scotsman, the owner of the Magersfontein
estate, who was on parole with the Boers on the
night of the attack. He told me that some of the
Highlanders had actually gained a vital position
from which the Boers had been driven, and that he
thought the whole thing over, when, suddenly, to
his utter astonishment, the Highlanders went back

290

CLAIRVOYANCE

and he had the mortification of seeing the Boers
reoccupy their vacated trenches. Then the .tide
turned against his countrymen for good.

In these circumstances why was any blame
attached to Methuen? The night attack was not,
as some have averred, a mad, rash act on his part,
but a well-planned attack which was spoiled by
some blunder of those immediately conducting the
assault.

With the relief of Kimberley my adventures in
South Africa virtually came to an end. I came out
of the war safe and sound, with the charmed amulet
still in my possession, and since that time I have
always been disinclined to deride the statements of
clairvoyants.

VOL. ii.— 20

Chapter XVII

RIFFIANS AND RUFFIANS

/ arrive in Melilla — The Berberine Coast — Corsairs of old — Pinto' s dis-
aster— Mount Gurugoo — A -polite General Staff — A courteous officer —
The best way to take Malaga — Riff manners and customs — I meet El
Garto — Spanish troops,

TN the summer of 1909, I joined the Spanish army
* in Morocco. I hurried by a P. & O. liner to
Gibraltar, and thence found my way on board a
Spanish transport to the Berberine Coast. On
approaching the rocky eminence on which the old
town of Melilla is built I felt a thrill at the sight of
the quaint old harbors in which not so long ago
the piratical Riffs sought shelter with their galleys
stuffed full of gold, silk, precious stones, and other
wonderful loot, including prisoners of all national-
ities. Many of these were my own countrymen,
who had to spend their lives as slaves chained to
the galleys, or sweated out their existence on harbor
work in the fierce Moroccan heat. This was the
Berber Coast, known to Europe as Barbary, and
the atrocious deeds of the ancestors of these very
Riffs we were about to face had been the theme of

292

RIFFIANS AND RUFFIANS

many books of travel and adventure with which I
used to regale myself when a boy.

A rocky isthmus, which carries the picturesque
old ramshackle Spanish town astride its back,
stretches toward the mainland and is protected by a
veritable chain of battlements, small serrated forts
curtained with loopholed walls. These face the
forbidding, rocky, precipitous mountain called
Gurugoo, one of the gloomy heights of the Atlas
range, in the very heart of which a bloody tragedy
had quite recently been enacted. There was no
trace of vegetation, but in the pockety valleys,
crannies, and crevices of the mountain the Riffians
live in their primitive stone or baked-mud dwellings,
cultivating little terraces of soil on which barley
seems to be the principal crop.

The rugged purple height which loomed above
the strand, harboring thousands of fierce tribesmen,
showed little signs of life when I arrived. Its
parched and sterile flanks were only now and again
seared with yellow flashes of light, which told that
a Spanish shell had split a chunk of rock. The
early morning haze was lifting under the fierce
sun and puffs of white smoke followed the staccato
detonations of the Remingtons of the hillmen who
had crept down the mountain in the gray of the
dawn and, secreted behind the cover of the bowlders
at its base, were about to waylay the daily food
convoy. I could see files of mules, with their packs
and infantry escorts at times wading ankle deep

293

HLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

in the scum of the tideless sea, wending their way
along the shore on their road to revictual the chain
of garrisons flung out along the coast.

The plan of campaign was now to surround the
mountain and, if possible, force the tribesmen to
come down and fight in the open by threatening to
bottle them up in their lairs. The Spaniards had
already attempted to storm the stronghold and
failed most woefully. The trouble had begun just
a year before I landed. Two Spanish syndicates
had been formed to work some mines under the
protection of El Roghi, a Riff chieftain, but after a
few months his followers, resenting the advent of
the foreign workmen, revolted and attacked the
mines. A few companies of Spanish troops were
forthwith sent out from Melilla to bring the Riffs
to reason, but they were cut to pieces in the attempt.
These sturdy Berbers had never been subjugated,
and this was their answer to the Spaniards. Then
General Pinto was sent out with a force to punish
them, but he made the mistake of advancing into
the mountain gorges and was ambushed in a pass
which almost splits the mountain in twain. Pinto
was killed and his force was decimated.

The moment I landed, I was able to secure the
necessary passes to carry me to the front, and was
at once with the army in the field. At that moment
all the fighting was being conducted only a few
miles from the fort itself, and after a passage d'armes
one could always get back to the little hotel in the

294

RIFFIANS AND RUFFIANS

... . • — i

business quarter of the town, which was well under
its protection, for after Pinto's "cut up" there was
considerable unrest among the inhabitants and the
army was kept close to home.

There was no ban on liquors in Melilla. Good
ruddy wine of Malaga was on the table to the
amount of two bottles per diem for each guest. As
my head, I knew, would not stand any such quantity,
I used to reserve most of my rations till I had a
sufficient quantity hidden in a corner of my sleeping
room to make a bath; then I would proceed to
sponge myself in the ruby juice. After a toilsome
day at the front I found the wine taken in this
way exhilarating, without upsetting either the head
or the stomach. It allayed the irritations of prickly
heat, and at the same time was a luxury which I
could not afford in ordinary circumstances. It
also made my flesh less appetizing to the mosquitoes
that infest every house in Melilla, thanks to the
picturesque pools of stagnant water in the marble
basins of the fountains always found playing in the
inner courts of Moorish houses.

My first journey to the front was to visit the
forts established along the seashore stretching to
the eastern wing of the mountain. The command-
ants had orders to keep out loiterers if they had no
cards of admission. One morning I passed the sen-
try outside one of these strongholds, although I had
not procured the particular permit that was neces-
sary on this occasion. He was too polite to ques-

295

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

tion me and as he guessed that I was a corres-
pondent and that I would be stopped farther on he
took little notice. Presently an officer bustled up
to me, saluted, and said he was glad to see me —
would I honor him by stepping into his humble
dwelling and having a cigarette?

Presently coffee was brought in. We were now
chatting in a friendly manner and I thought things
were going swimmingly when the officer stood up
and with a polite bow said, "Senor, this has been an
unofficial greeting, and I have been delighted to
meet you." Then he stiffened himself, "But, offi-
cially, will you kindly let me know to whose author-
ity I am indebted for the honor of this visit ? May I
ask you to be good enough to show me your passes?"

I told him my dilemma. At this I noticed a
sadness come over his face as with another courteous
bow he continued, "I deeply regret to ask you to be
good enough to consider yourself a prisoner on
pain of being shot if you attempt to proceed farther."
However, things never came to such a regrettable
finale, for a brother war correspondent arrived who
proved my identity, and I was allowed to inspect
the fort.

I have often compared the extreme courtesy of
this Spaniard with the insolence and "Jack-in-
office" attitude of certain army officers of other
nationalities whom I have met under similar circum-
stances. And what a delightful musical language
is the tongue of old Castile! During my inspection

296

RIFFIANS AND RUFFIANS

an artilleryman came up and said: "Sefior is Englise?
I spik a let til, I learnt spik in England, I was on a
sheep."

"Where>asthat?"saidl.

"Nuevo Castillo," came the reply.

I puzzled for a moment; then like a flash it came
to me, "Surely you mean Newcastle?"

"Ah! Si Seiior, ze Noo Castell."

Just think of it! Our smoky, sordid, murky city
of Newcastle to be glorified by the title of "Neuvo
Castillo" — suggestive of ethereal, romantic, sunny
castles of Spain.

I met several of the haughty Riff chieftains who
had come into the Spanish lines; they seemed to be
very friendly toward England and Englishmen.
The chief reason for this, I believe, is because they
have for many generations dealt with us in candles
and they will only have, in all Riffiandom, a certain
brand of night light made in the city of London.

I was so lucky as to become acquainted with
Sefior Macpherson, a gentleman who spoke pure
Spanish, but Scottish English, the principal share-
holder of the mines at Mar Chica, about fifteen
miles from the fortress. He knew many of the Riff
chieftains. One I shall always remember, a tall,
agile, sharp-featured man and almost white, unlike
the dark-skinned Arabs and Moroccans of the
interior. He had wonderfully strong fanglike
teeth gleaming through a black, curly beard. He
was much respected and feared by his fellows.

297

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

His name was "El Garto" which meant "the
cat," a sobriquet which he earned in his first
encounter with men of a hostile tribe, when he
threw himself upon his foes and tore their faces and
hair with his remarkably strong, long-nailed, claw-
like hands. Of course his beautiful teeth also played
a part in the melee. His antagonists were so taken
aback by this ferocity that they fled in dismay.

When my friend said to me, "Here comes the
cat," I naturally looked down on the ground, and
was about to cry "Pussy," for I rather like the
feline species, when this tall dignified RifF chief
stood in front of us.

He hospitably took us to a hut near Restinga, a'
supply base of the army, and regaled us with a
wonderful concoction of Chinese tea, flavored with
mint and sweetened with heaps of sugar. There
was no milk, however, which I thought was rather
rough on "the cat," but he consoled himself by add-
ing a dash of fig brandy; and after a few tots of this
poison his eyes certainly flamed with feline ferocity.

When later on I learned from Macpherson the
unexpurgated history of El Garto's career, I
wondered in all seriousness whether our English
word "ruffian" was derived from Riffian.

Still these Riffs have many virtues. There is no
divorce with them because, when a man is tired of
his wife — whom he generally buys — he simply
dismisses her as one would a servant, and not
necessarily at a week's notice.

298

RIFFIANS AND RUFFIANS

Marriage starts early in this country. At the age
of eight "the bells ring out the merry peals." The
bride keeps house with her mother-in-law till the
first child arrives. If it is a son and heir, then
there is much fuss, the mother-in-law menage is
broken up and the one-story house will probably
have a top story erected where the young people
shift, or they will take a flat next door. There are
many little concessions by the menfolk which the
women enjoy. All the money they earn is their
own, and they may have a voice in public affairs
if they choose, but in domestic controversy they
have to be careful or they are shown the door.

As far as I could make out, the people of this
country are quite democratic, for the poorest have
as much to say in the conduct of affairs as the
richest. All males, from striplings to those in the
"sear and yellow leaf," have a voice in their little
village congresses, and if anyone should have undue
power and become an argumentative nuisance or
wax "intoxicated with the exuberance of his own
verbosity," he is immediately sobered by lynch law.

The fighting did not last more than a few months.
We succeeded in drawing the Riffs into the open,
where we punished them severely. When the
little "kick up" was over I left this hot and un-
comfortable country with great respect for the
Spanish army, which had fought heroically during
a terrible heat against a brave but cruel and merciless
enemy.

299

Chapter XVIII

A GHASTLY BUSINESS

Gnce under the Turkish yoke — The quick change to freedom — Good
soldiers — Mustapha Pasha — Snapshots and movies at an execution —
Gruesome scenes — / meet King Ferdinand — He admires my leather
coat — War and water colors — His knowledge of my career — Belgrade —
Looking for trouble — The coming of the Great Storm — My incredulous
agent.

TN 1911 I had just arrived in England after a
•*• prolonged visit to far western Canada, lecturing
on the possible campaign of the future in which
dirigibles and airplanes would figure. In fact, the
newspaper captions of the reviews of the lecture
were: Filliers Says in Next War the Cry Will Be,
"Clear the Air." My contention was that the side that
downed the enemy's air-craft scouts must eventually
win and that all future wars would be finished by
battling planes.

In this idea I was following in the footsteps of
the late Earl Roberts, who was urging the people
of the British Empire to prepare for the coming
struggle. But little heed was taken of our warnings
and in some parts of the Dominion people almost
resented my endeavors. A social weekly paper in

300

A GHASTLY BUSINESS

Victoria, British Columbia, attacked me most ven-
omously for suggesting the possibility of a war with
such a Christian, lovable race as the Germans, with
whom we were on such intimate commercial relations.
It made the charge that I was a fire-eating corre-
spondent, wanting war, and trying to stir up strife
between two peace-loving nations.

When in the following year the Balkans were
ablaze I was not astonished to find myself once
more looking on those lovely mountains, pocketed
with fertile valleys, familiar to me from the days
when I was with the Serbian army in 1886. Now,
however, I was accredited to the Bulgarians. It
was a wonderful "ulat-pulat" or upside down of
things, as they say in Hindustan; for once upon
a time I was with the Serbs fighting the Turk on
behalf of the Bulgars, then with the Serbs fighting
their brethren whom they had so generously suc-
cored, and now I found myself with both of them
fighting their common foe, the Turk.

Both -the allied armies had much improved since
I was last with them, especially the Bulgars. They
were now fine soldiers; I could hardly believe that
such a cowardly, abject race as I remembered them
under Turkish rule could have developed so quickly
into so fine a fighting force. When I first knew
them the men would cringe as they approached you
and fall down and kiss your boots if any Turk of
authority was with you. Their women were given
up to the lust of their truculent masters without a

301

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

murmur. They were downtrodden and utterly
powerless under "the hoof of the Turkish horse"
and submitted to every humiliation. When people
talk of the brutality of the Bulgars of today, I can
hardly wonder at their indulging in a little retalia-
tion, but, like the huge wolf-dogs guarding their
villages, they seem, unfortunately, to delight in
snarling and snapping at friend and foe alike. I
saw only the siege of Adrianople in this short
campaign and the fighting was of the ordinary
seesaw nature till the armistice and ultimate
peace; but there was one unusual incident which,
much against my will, I had to witness. The
Bulgarians sent word to the correspondents as-
sembled at Mustapha Pasha that the execution of
two Turkish spies was to take place the following
morning. Execution of spies is always brutal and
not particularly a happy subject for illustration,
and I thought I would not go. But my servant told
me that all the other correspondents intended to
be there, and then I felt bound to show up, as I
was for the moment directing a moving-picture
operation called "kinemacolor."

The ghastly little tragedy took place in an orchard
by the side of a shed which had been the dumping-
ground of a bivouac and stunk horribly. When
I arrived to take up position, I found the two spies
being harangued by a Bulgarian officer who was
reciting their appalling deed to them while they
stood bound by the wrists under the shade of some

302

A GHASTLY BUSINESS

fruit trees, over the stout branches of which were
slung two ominous-looking ropes.

One of the condemned was a short, sandy-haired
Turk, the other was a tall black-haired man with
Jewish features and the most wonderful poise and
indifference as to what was going on. Indeed I
felt that he would like to say, "Oh! please stop the
cackle and get on with the show; don't you see
the audience is waiting?"

Before the final kick-off, a tin can was offered
the culprits to dip in an adjacent bucket of water
for the ablutions all good Mussulmans perform
before prayer. The sandy man waived this privi-
lege, but the other religiously went through the
whole ceremony, even to the washing of the feet.
Now the crowd was becoming impatient and I
think the tall Turk was playing with his audience,
for he had a sly, cunning look in his dark eyes.

At last he washed his toes and threw away the
cup. Then followed a scene that was indescrib-
ably disgraceful. The camera men — and there were
legions — crawled up the trees, mounted the roof
of the barn, and occupied every coign of vantage.
Bulgarian children, dressed in gala attire and ac-
companied by their fathers and mothers, crowded
up to the gallows trees to gloat over the misery of
these wretched men. I became so nauseated with
the disgusting sight that I closed down my machine
and fled.

Within ten minutes after this wretched experience
303

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

I was called to the bridge over the Maritza to see
King Ferdinand, who had just arrived and was
examining a part of the span that had been smashed
by the shell fire of the Turks that morning. He
was standing beside his motor car, chatting with
his officers about the damage. On seeing me he
shook hands and said in perfect English, "That's
a fine coat you have, Mr. Villiers!" alluding to a
leather slip I was wearing under my Burberry, for
it had been raining. "I should like to get one, for
I suffer from rheumatic gout, and a coat like that
would suit me, this weather."

I had been wearing it for many months and it was
too seedy-looking to offer a king, so I made up my
mind to do the next best thing and get another.
As things have since turned out I do not regret that
this generous resolve went the way of most good
intentions.

He was very pleasant to me and, knowing that I
was an artist, at once began chatting about water
colors and wanted to know the pigments that
would reproduce the colors of the setting sun now
turning the placid river below us into molten gold.

I found him delightfully courteous and urbane.
He had pale, refined features but for his nose,
which was rather long; and his gray eyes were
bright and kindly, but somewhat close together,
giving him a sly, foxy appearance. But I ought
certainly to testify to his discernment, for on leav-
ing the bridge he pointed me out to the chief of his

304

A GHASTLY BUSINESS

staff and said, "That man with the leather coat
has seen more fighting than any soldier alive today."

Shortly after the king's visit to the bridge an
armistice was arranged with the Turks and, as most
of the world knows, his army then immediately
began to scrap with the Serbians, and so the clouds
foreshadowing the great storm that was to deluge
the whole world with blood gathered and grew in
volume. When I was returning to England via
Belgrade, the Austrians were already getting on
the nerves of the people in the Serb capital. Every
night they played their searchlights from Zemlin
upon the demarcation bridge over the Save, evi-
dently on the lookout for trouble.

There was no need of great discernment to
prophesy what was going to happen, and I was
sure that the great debacle of the colossal German
Empire was about to commence. I called on my
agent to fix me^up with the usual syndicate, for
the great war had arrived. He almost laughed in
my face. "No, my dear Villiers," said he, "never
a war with Germany." Then I thought I must
see to matters myself, but no one would listen, till
at last France began to mobilize — and then I was
off by the day's mail for Paris without further
delay.

Chapter XIX
1914

Stranded war correspondents — Paris during mobilization — The last of the
Contemptible 's — After the Marne — Like rabbit-shooting — The Prussian
debacle — Tramping it — A shift in a furniture van — The Crown Prince
and champagne — The battle of the Aisne — I am taken for a spy — A
score for my paper — Early- and latter-day trenches — The Red Tabbies —
The British War Office and its way "peculiar" — / exhaust the Western
front of dramatic incidents — I seek fresh fields and pastures new — /
try East Africa-Mesopotamia without success and find incident for
my sketchbook on the northwest frontier of India — The Mohmands at
war — Armored carsy airplanes, and electricity surprise the hillmen.

A/IY train steamed in to the Gare du Nord on
* ' * time, though it was the first day of the mobili-
zation. Everything was moving smoothly; there
was no bustle nor any untoward excitement.
Little groups of men were reading the evening
papers at street corners and occasionally a fiacre
would pass by with a few enthusiastic youths
waving flags and shouting their satisfaction at the
news. There were none of the hilarious demonstra-
tions of '71, or shouts of "a Berlin; a bas les Preus-
siens." I was rather astonished, for it was not at
all like the Paris of old; the citizens were taking
things very seriously and for once were not under-
rating their enemy.

306

When I arrived at my hotel I was rather elated
at what I had seen en route. France was possibly
going to pull through, for I knew she could count
on England's lending her a helping hand directly
the fat was in the fire. Through the night troops
were marched to the railway depots and entrained
before the dawn; and at the first glimmer of the
sun there came through my open window the
distant martial strains of the Marseillaise, wafted
on the summer breeze across the slumbering city
as the trains with their drafts steamed out of the
station.

The next morning I went to the Quai d'Orsay
to ask for my permits and was told by the officials
that there would be little difficulty in my case in
procuring the necessary papers to go with the
French army, for the General Staff knew my record
as well as did the war officials in England. I re-
turned to my hotel much elated over the prospect.

For a few days Englishmen were not looked upon
with much favor by the Parisians. "Perfidious
Albion, what is she going to do; will her people
leave us in the lurch after all?" was the unexpressed
query in the eyes of every Frenchman as he passed
you. It became more unpleasant for us every
day till, one evening there was an electric change —
England had come into the hazard. I had for days
been wandering about the streets with much dejec-
tion, and it was a great relief to be able to hold
myself erect once more, look our allies straight in

VOL. II.— 21 ; 3O7

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECIDES OF ADFENTURE

the face, and grasp their hands in comradeship.
The crisis was over, for we were, too, proud to
fight.

I received a note the next morning requesting
me to call at the Foreign Office. When I arrived
I was delighted to hear that in two days I was to
receive my passes, signed by General Joffre, to join
the French army. Later on I called at the British
Embassy, and the First Secretary came to me with
a letter and said, "This is from the British War
Office; you are in touch with the correspondents
here, and His Excellency would like you to tell them
that they will not be allowed to go with the French
armies into the field."

This was a great blow to me, for we had all been
waiting anxiously to begin work and the first fight-
ing had already commenced. However, this extraor-
dinary farce was kept up for months, until the
authorities were at last compelled to change their
attitude, when certain correspondents were ac-
credited to each army.

In the meantime I had to do something for my
paper; so I became a tramp — a refugee — and saw
probably more of the picturesque end of the war
in this guise than if I had been properly accredited
to the forces. At first it was an irksome business
dodging those gentlemen in khaki with red tabs and
patches upon their caps and collars; but at last it
became a joy to circumvent the "red tabbies," as

one of our party christened them.

308

1914

Eventually I was allowed by the French to join
their army and I filled my paper with the doings of
the French. But at times I resented being so
scurvily treated by my own folk, when through
forty years of British warfare I had been persona
grata with generals like Wolseley, Roberts, Methuen,
Browne and Buller.

Time and again during the early days of the war
I called at the War Office in London to ask for an
explanation of this extraordinary fiat against the
artists, but with a shrug the officials told me there
was no explanation. The only reason that I could
find to account for the silly restriction was that the
War Office itself was trying to make a corner in
pictures, for it eventually produced some wonder-
ful films. They could hardly have entertained the
idea that our work might be a "give away" to the
enemy, for the press censors were lively enough to
see to that, and everybody at the front knew that
the Germans were always well acquainted with
our movements without the assistance of English
war artists. So well were the Germans posted
regarding all our actions that it was a common
thing when we put some fresh regiment into a
section of the front line to hear a voice shout from
the opposing trench: "What oh! Bedfords [or
Manchesters], how do you like your new quarters ? "

Their espionage system always knocked spots
out of ours. On my return to London from France
I was often questioned by inquisitive persons as

309

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

to the number of our troops at the front; and I
always replied that I did not know, and if I did
it was my duty not to tell; but if they really wanted
to know they could get the most accurate infor-
mation by asking the Germans.

There was much joy and enthusiasm when
General French arrived in Paris on his way to the
front, and I took the opportunity, as I knew him
quite well, to tell him through his secretary that I
would join his command later on if he would allow
me. How foolish of me to entertain the idea,
knowing the policy of the War Office! It seemed a
great pity, however, to let that wonderful epic of
the Great War, the retreat from Mons, go unre-
corded. That heroic deed of those estimable "Con-
temptibles" has never been pictured by any artist.
When I met Field Marshal Lord French again
sometime after the first battle of the Marne, he
told me that it was not his fault that no one repre-
senting the pictorial press was present; he would
have been glad to have me with him, but it was the
question of the War Office. I told him that as a
tramp I had seen something of it, but that I had
since been taken up by the French army and had
plenty of exciting work to do. He shrugged his
shoulders and replied, "But you ought to have been
with us."

In spite of the many restrictions much good
work was done in the tramping stage of the war by
men like George Adam of the London Times,

310

Philip Gibbs of the Daily Chronicle and the Times
of New York, Milligan of the Morning Post, and
Gordon Smith of the Herald, who tramped with
me, picking up copy in Flanders during the early
days. Philip Gibbs is one of the bunch who has
distinguished himself by sticking to his arduous
work all through the four years of the terrible
struggle.

After seeing a few of the dramatic incidents of
the retreat I was still tramping it when the great
rally of the French army gave the Hun his first
setback. The highways and byways were littered
with the dead of the Marne and the patches of
woods about Epernay resounded with shots as the
peasants potted at odd Prussians who had sought
shelter in the underbrush. It was just like rabbit-
shooting: an excited woman would rush along the
road and shout, all breathless with her exertions,
"I saw him go in there!" Then her menfolk would
cautiously stalk into the brush. Presently came the
sound of the cracking of twigs, a scuffle and then,
"le voila!" Sometimes it became quite uncomfort-
able for us in the road, as shots seemed to come in
all directions from excited villagers who had taken
up the hunt.

Gordon Smith and I had decided to tramp to-
gether. He had his bag full of canned goods and I
carried one of Pike's spirit stoves and a water bottle,
so we could always get a warm meal. He spoke both
German and French fluently, and my French was of

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

such a nondescript kind it might be easily taken for
a Belgian's. So our little camouflage, that we were
looking for friends and relatives in certain towns
(which we never wanted to get to), seemed to
work well.

On foot one could very often dodge the police,
but by automobile or wagon it was a different
matter. At last, however, we had to take the risk
and travel by cart, for we were footsore and weary.
We managed to get a lift in a furniture van which,
with several others, was making its way to Epernay.
I settled down in the straw behind a woman and
her two children, who were seated on a chair, so
as to be hidden from the view of any gendarmes
patroling the roads.

We had started at dawn from the town of Vertus.
At about half past eight the carts suddenly stopped.
I anxiously peered through the straw to see what
was the matter, when a motor drove up and a voice
said, "Is there an Englishman in there?" I thought
to myself, "Well, it's all up." A man had just got
out of the motor and on seeing me said: "I hear
you are an Englishman traveling to Epernay. Come
into my car; we shall be there many hours before my
vans. You are in one of them now: so come on."

I made a clean breast of it to him that I was
hiding from gendarmes, and he replied: "Have no
fear; they all know me. I'll see you get through
all right." When I was comfortably seated, my
host said, "If you are not in a hurry I want to

312

1914

call on some people en route." I told him that I
was at his disposal so long as I got into Epernay
that afternoon.

We first stopped at a small chateau and my new
acquaintance said, "This man is a champagne
grower, we will taste some of his stuff." I don't
generally start my morning's work with champagne
or any other wine at the hour of nine; but feeling a
bit exhausted with days of short commons and
considerable fatigue, I thought I would break
through my early abstinence this once, anyway.
It was certainly very refreshing, and when we left,
our host told us not to forget to call on another
grower outside the town — one upon whom the
German Crown Prince forced his unwelcome presence
while his army was marching on Paris.

The owner of this vineyard told us that the
Prince emptied many of his bins of the best vintage
and shot his coverts clean, till Von Kluck suddenly
stopped his direct march on Paris. Then one
morning the Crown Prince left the chateau in a
hurry, but had time to say to him, "My troops
will not molest the people of this wonderful wine
country. We want to be friends, for after the war
we shall annex all this district; so not good-by, but

au revoir."

We had a bottle of the Crown Prince's choice,
and I must say that, whatever mistakes he may
have made in conducting his campaign, there was
no error in his taste for champagne.

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

Of course, directly we arrived in Epernay the
Mayor was notified, and after a charming luncheon,
where we were regaled with the vin du pays, we
motored to the Town Hall. M. Pol Roger, the
Mayor, was the hero of the hour; for he had been
ordered to be shot by the Germans, and had man-
aged not only to escape the death penalty, but
even to save the city from pillage by paying an
enormous cash indemnity. To make things easier
for the inhabitants he then issued paper currency
in denominations as low as twenty-five centimes —
less than a five-cent piece — one of which he gave
me as a souvenir. About midnight I was disturbed
in the little estaminet in which my friend and I
lodged by the noise of cannon-fire. Every hour
the guns seemed to growl louder and oftener, till
just before dawn they roared incessantly.

This made us very restless; so we dressed and
hunted the town for some kind of vehicle to take
us toward the guns, and to our joy found a one-
horse carriage whose proprietor agreed to take us
into the fighting zone. We soon came up with
refugees driven in by the Germans from the river
Aisne. Here the Roches had evidently made a
stand after their retreat from the Marne, for on
arriving on the outskirts of the forest of Reims
we found the whole panorama of the beautiful
valley of the Aisne and the famous city of Reims
in a storm of shot and shell.

As soon as I saw that view and the position the
3H

19*4

Germans held, including the famous Fort Nogent
and the high ground it dominated, I said to my
companion, "The Germans are practically beaten
in spite of that wonderful position, for a phase of
the campaign opens with this battle which is en-
tirely contrary to all the calculations of their High
Command. It is the beginning of siege warfare
and the end of Germany. It will take at least a
year to turn them out of those trenches; but they
have lost the initiative. From this time on it will
be a war of attrition, and if I can gauge the spirit
of my countrymen and the stern resolve of France,
we can last the longer at that game."

From that day till the armistice I never doubted
that the Allies would eventually be successful in
spite of all the terrible losses and setbacks during
the subsequent four years — even to the very last,
when the United States came in and hastened
matters to an end. I felt certain that even without
the help of America's splendid legions, France and
England could have hung on and won, though beaten
to their knees.

On the return to our quarters that evening we
were dead tired. Refugees were still pouring
through the town and our little estaminet was over-
crowded. I was awakened in the middle of the
night by a loud knocking at the door of my room.
I knew it was not my friend, for his deep snoring
on the floors above told me that he was asleep.

The knocking grew faster and louder. I turned

7ILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

over and said to myself, "It's only some refugees
trying to get into my room." But the noise con-
tinued, so I shouted that the room was full up, and
to stop making that beastly row. But this seemed
only to increase the fury of the rapping, and presently
there was such a thunder at the door with fists,
kicks, and sticks that I jumped out of my bed and,
hastily sticking my sketches in my boots, threw
open the door.

The scene on the head of the stairs was truly
dramatic and picturesque. An old town guard
stood in front of me with a leveled revolver in his
hand. The light from a candle held aloft by another
guard, glinting along the barrel of the pistol, lit
up the malevolent eyes of two frowzy-looking
civilians standing in the background who were
pointing their lean and dirty fingers at me. The
group looked so like a Rembrandt — so weird in
effect, with the strong side lights and somber back-
ground— that I could not help thinking what a
wonderful study in black and white it would make,
and I was just about to say: "Don't move, please.
Keep like that while I get my sketchbook," when
the revolver was suddenly thrust at my right
temple.

It wabbled so erratically in the nervous grasp of
the old guard that I was compelled to say as I
threw up my arms: "You silly old ass, if you don't
take care the thing will go off and you will hurt
some one. What the devil do you want with me?"

316

He answered never a word, and I stepped back-
ward into the room as he pressed forward. Then
he said, "Dress and come with us."

"Why should I dress?" said I, "and why have
you entered my room in this manner?"

With a fury that startled me in its intensity all
four cried, "You are a German spy!" "A German
what?" I gasped. "You make a great mistake.
I am an Englishman, and no spy. I came to see
your Mayor this afternoon and to taste his famous
champagne." "It's no use," he growled, "I have
two witnesses here who overheard you speaking
German to another man in a cafe this evening, so
throw on your clothes and come along."

Three spies had been summarily shot that morn-
ing in Epernay. I was beginning to feel a bit un-
comfortable, when a series of groans and gurgles
came from my snoring friend on the floor above.
It flashed on me in a moment that upon leaving
the cafe that night he had used a few Hunnish
words to emphasize an argument. I almost laughed
for joy.

"Mon brave," I cried, turning to the old guard,
"vous faites erreur — you have come to the wrong
number, you want numero sept, deuxieme etage;
that's the man you want. Ecoutez, listen."

The snoring had ceased, then came a deep sigh
with, "Jess a wee dock undorous."

"Why, you can hear him talking German in his
sleep. Go and bother him with your wretched

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

revolver and leave me alone." My bluff, however,
was of no avail; I was the man they had fixed on.
I showed them all my papers and everything of .a
nature to prove my identity and emptied my
pockets, but it was all of no use until they dis-
covered in my purse the little twenty-five centime
banknote which was given to me by their Mayor
that afternoon. Why, I do not know, but that
little note seemed to satisfy them, and after an
entente cordiale shake all round they tumbled down
the rickety stairs out into the street.

My sketches of the battle of the Aisne I would
not trust to the courier, but carried them myself
to London; and they were the only pictures of that
phase of the war yet published. The other illus-
trated papers, I believe, made complaints to the
War Office that the Illustrated London News should
be thus favored; but our officials had nothing to
do with the matter. I was happily with the French
army, and what a relief it was not to be unnecessarily
interfered with!

When I asked a French officer whether I might
sketch a certain battery, he would say, "Why, yes,
if you don't put that road in or that clump of trees.
They might be a give-away to the enemy." But,
ye gods! just imagine making such a request of one
of the red-tabbed gentry. He would have foamed
at the mouth with indignation at the audacity of the
thing and would probably have put me under arrest.

The powers at the War Office were so sour with

their own countrymen of the "fourth estate" that
even after the ban was raised and we were allowed
to go to the front, I have seen Englishmen sent
back by the escorting officer while foreign repre-
sentatives of the press were given extended time in
the war zone. The only correspondent allowed at
first with the British fleet was a foreigner. Every-
thing that could be done to annoy, irritate, and
delay English correspondents in the execution of
their duty in the early days of the campaign was
done by the War Office officials.

The utterly illogical attitude of some of these
people was beyond comprehension. For instance,
ten full pages of war subjects had been passed by
the censor in London and published in my paper in
a single issue. The next morning a notice came from
the War Office to say that instead of being censored
in the metropolis, in future all pictures must be sent
to St. Omer for examination. I happened to be in
London when the new order arrived, so I went up to
the War Office and asked for an explanation; but
this, of course, was not forthcoming.

"Well/* said I, "you have allowed ten full pages
of my pictures to be published in my paper this
week. What is the cause of this double vigilance?
Now I have a sketch here I want censored. It's
a most innocuous picture and can't possibly give
any information to the enemy. It represents a
British soldier watering a patch of daffodils at the

back of his log hut with a perforated jam tin. Shall

319

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADFENTURE

I have to send that all the way to St. Omer to be
examined?"

He gravely looked at it and said, "I will submit
it to my chief," and away he bustled. When I
had exhausted my small stock of cigarettes he
returned shaking his head ominously.

"I am afraid this must go to St. Omer," said he.
I saw that further talk was useless or I might have
told him that if the jam pot was a give-away to the
enemy, I could easily camouflage it as a beer mug.

After sketching for nearly two years all the dra-
matic incidents of the war on the Western front — for
in that period I had seen the fighting from the sea
to the Argonne and Verdun — I thought I would seek
"fresh fields and pastures new"; so I started on a
lecture tour round the world, and in the course of
my wanderings shunted off to any battle area I could
find along my route.

Arrived in Egypt, I saw Allenby's cavalry pre-
paring for their raid through Palestine. In South
Africa I tried to get with General Smuts in the
East, but on reaching Durban I found such super-
human difficulties in the way of getting my mail
back to England that I dropped the idea. Then I
sailed for India and attempted to get into Meso-
potamia, but unfortunately it was at a time when
things were going badly there. I applied to the
Commander-in-Chief just at the moment when the
administration was about to be handed over by
the Indian government to the British.

320

*9*4

The campaign was being conducted under the
British War Office. I applied for form's sake; but
I knew they would shut down on any proposition of
mine. So, finding there was fighting on the north-
west frontier, I set out in that direction. There was
no difficulty in getting there. There was no attempt
to make a secret of the matter in India: indeed
they thought, as I did, that it was somewhat of a
feather in the cap of the British Empire that her
soldiers should be fighting on something like sixteen
different fronts and still holding their own. How-
ever, not one of my sketches was allowed to be
published after they arrived in England. This
closed chapter of the war I have since been able to
open. I have had the satisfaction of showing the
world a little of the strenuous work that was done
by our troops on the frontier of India.

The Germans had been spreading propaganda
throughout the Afghan tribes by stating that their
Emperor had taken up the cudgels for Islam. As
the British were fighting the Mohammedans in
Turkey and Egypt and as he was defending their
cause, it was the psychological moment for them
to do their little bit by invading India. Many
hunters and travelers, ostensibly out for sport,
holding passports of a neutral country, passed
through the northwest territory spreading this
propaganda, but, luckily for us, only one tribe
immediately responded to the call.

When I arrived at Peshawar I found that the
321

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Mohmands had been at war with us for nearly
two years, thereby preventing a considerable number
of white troops from augmenting our overworked
armies in Mesopotamia. This part of the frontier
is especially arid and wild; the rifts in th« hills
during most of the year are dried-up water courses
filled with stones and huge boulders, without a
vestige of herbage, but scrubwood and dwarf
palms sprinkled over the rocky heights which hem
them in. The gloomy country looks as if it had
once suffered a holocaust and had never recovered
from the roasting. In these forbidding, dreary
mountains the Mohmands with whom we were at
war lived with their herds of lean sheep and goats,
a gaunt, swarthy, semiwhite people whose features
and side locks suggested the possibility of the
legend that they were one of the lost tribes of Israel.
However, for centuries they have been denied that
which most Israelites crave, the opportunity to
sell something to some one, so they mostly lived
by cutting one another's throats and occasionally
raiding the British frontiers, slaughtering the
villagers, and carrying off their goods and chattels
to the mud forts and caves in their rocky defiles.
Luckily for us we had but twenty-five miles of the
Swat valley frontier to defend. Nevertheless, there
was a grave danger of the other hillmen throwing
in their lot with the Mohmands, who numbered 18,-
ooo fighting men out of a population of 65,000. We
had along this twenty-five-mile stretch several strong

322

Stone forts, linked up with barbed-wire entangle-
ments, and a live wire running the whole span, which
considerably upset the calculations of the enemy.

When at first they came across this up-to-date
mode of warfare they were much annoyed. They
swarmed down to their first attack quite ready to
negotiate the barred fence; but when they were
held up by the live wire, those who survived retired,
a little disconcerted, and consulted their mullahs.
These worthy gentlemen suggested that books of
the holy Koran should be carried in front, that they
might exorcise the evil influence of the new and
terrible device; but this Koran literature only
added the smell of burnt paper to that of charred
flesh as the limp bodies of its bearers shriveled up on
the wire.

Then their comrades became fairly indignant,
and sent in a note of remonstrance to the British
general asking why his soldiers did not come out
and fight in the open like men, as in the good old
days, instead of skulking behind this red-hot device
of the devil and behaving no longer as sportsmen.
This remarkable paper ended with ther threat that,
even if the wire was not taken away, it would not
stop them from getting under.

They eventually began to burrow of a night and
many succeeded in getting through; but as General
Dunsterville, in command of the forces, told me,
"It did not much matter, for when the few who
succeeded were beaten back, in the excitement of

VOL. n.— 22 323

riLLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

the fray they had no time to go the way they came
and forgot the live wire. They were hung up on it
on our side of the fence instead of the other — that
was the only difference."

The airplane was another new factor which the
enemy thought unfair, for when the Mohmands
would collect together in the hills preparatory to
an attack these beastly "white eagles" — so they
called them — would pepper them so unmercifully
with bullets that they had to break for the shelter
of their stony lairs. But there was one novel device
at which they more or less snapped their fingers;
that was the armored car which we called the
"tank of the northwest." The three cars which
we had on this front were of the Rolls Royce make,
and at times offered real sport to the enemy. Indeed
it was difficult to entice the wary hillmen down from
their lairs to be shot at by any other means. When
we wanted a field-day the three cars with a cavalry
squadron were sent out to draw the enemy, who
would seldom miss the opportunity of trying to
cut them off, and then sometimes our horsemen
would get a chance for a charge and scatter the
foe back to their fastness in the hills.

I went out one afternoon to see this tantalizing
maneuver. One of the hills was soon alive with
white-robed Mohmand sportsmen waving their
knives. As my car emerged from a fold in the
ground the enemy suddenly stopped their advance;
they had evidently caught sight of the other two

324

cars coming up in support and did not feel strong
enough to attack all three, so we returned un-
molested to camp.

There was, however, one field-day when the
hillmen strode down from their lairs in such numbers
that the three cars were kept busy for many hours
and at last were compelled to retire. There was
a stream on the enemy's side over which the cars
had to come by a plank bridge. The Mohmands
chased the three cars back to this bridge. Two had
passed over when the planks gave away and the
third had to find a crossing by trundling along the
bank. Her crew kept the enemy at bay until they
struck some shallows and eventually crossed the
stream in safety. A young wag of our party said,
as he placed his pane in his eye, "My dear Villiers,
by Jove! it's probably the first time that a Rolls
Royce was ever reduced to a Ford."

For two years there had been fierce fighting on
this frontier and at one time we had such a dressing
down that the 2ist Lancers (which years ago I
saw cutting its way through the Dervish ranks at
Omdurman) was compelled to sacrifice a consider-
able number of men in saving one of our flanks in a
kick-up with the Mohmands.

I stood for a moment on the very spot where their
beloved commander met his fate, leading his troopers
on that occasion in as gallant a manner as he had
led them in that more conspicuous charge in the
Sudan just seventeen years before.

325

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF AD7ENTURE

After my trip to the Mohmand frontier I re-
turned south, making my way through the various
provinces and eventually crossing the "ferry" to
Ceylon. I therefore saw the whole Indian Empire
from top to toe, and I came to the conclusion that
it was no longer a Sahib's country. I found every-
where a very different attitude toward Europeans
from that of a quarter of a century ago. The
natives seemed to be sullen and gloomy, and as they
looked at you there was often a gleam of insolent
defiance in their eyes. Servants were mostly
indolent, inattentive, drunken, and dishonest. It
was altogether a different country from that of the
days of Lytton's rule.

What had caused the change, I wondered? Was
it the result of a succession of weak and sentimental
viceroys, or had the natives come to feel the differ-
ence between the suburban, bourgeois state of
society that now exists in administrative circles —
crazy with bridge, ragtime, and flirtation — and that
of the sedate Sahib and Mem-sahib regime of years
ago, and to resent the change? Whatever the
cause, I felt that we were losing our grip on India
and that the glory of our great eastern empire was
much less brilliant than when I first visited it in
the year 1879.

Chapter XX

MY LAST CHAPTER

Four big sights in the four quarters of the globe — The Matoppos, South
Africa— The Khyber—The Great Wall of China— The movies, Cali-
fornia— People by the way — The City of White Light — Things to be
considered by the man who wants to be a war correspondent — Hors-
de-combat — Prolonged visits to certain Hotels Dieu — Canada and her
Sisters of Mercy — A famous surgeon and his patients — Good Samaritans
everywhere — Adieu.

CVEN while the Great War was still in progress
-" I became restless with the desire of world-wide
travel. Before threescore years and ten should
quell my roving spirit — and that time was quickly
approaching — I wanted to visit the four quarters
of the globe in which were four great wonders — the
Khyber Pass, the tomb of Cecil Rhodes, the Chinese
Wall, and, last but not least, the home of the great
movie industry near Los Angeles, in California.
I had been possessed and obsessed for years by these
ideas, but when at last I started on my tour to
other fronts I had no direct purpose in my mind
regarding these diverse spots more than that I was
impelled toward them by some spirit within me
that I could not easily quell.

327

VILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

So it came about that one morning I found
myself smoking my pipe while lying on the bronze
plaque that covers the sarcophagus of one of the
greatest of Englishmen, placed between four huge,
rugged bowlders standing as stately, mute sentinels
on the highest point of the Matoppos mountains.
It is here in the later days of his triumph that
Rhodes would sit smoking his pipe and contemplat-
ing the wild and unique scene before him while
conceiving schemes of empire. Over this scene
of profound desolation, where mighty monoliths
seem to have been sprinkled from a giant's castor,
lions roam when the shades of night have fallen,
and lift their sonorous voices to make the welkin
ring in somber salute to their great and honored
guest.

On my birthday and St. George's Day in April,
1917, I found myself standing on the Great Wall
of China, which trailed like a giant vine up almost
perpendicular hills to right and left of me from a
narrow ravine through the mouth of which one
could peer into the plains of Mongolia. This vast
bulwark of the Chinese Empire, with its serrated
masses of masonry and walls wide enough to carry
two cars abreast, this gigantic work which it took
thousands of years to build and which had stood
countless assaults by hostile legions, could now be
scattered to the four winds — curtains, towers, and
gigantic gates — within a few hours' time by our
modern engines of war.

328

MY LAST CHAPTER

I stood above the gate through which the great
caravans of camels slumped along in the old days,
coming from across the Gobi Desert and Mongolia
with their huge burdens of rich merchandise from
Persia and the West. But now all was still as death.
A few hundred yards in my front was a cone-
shaped kiosk with semicircular holes in its sides — a
mysterious object, looking as if it were the pay-box
of a movie theater stranded by the way.

"Ah!" I thought, "I know what this is," and
I shuddered as I imagined the gruesome scene
which might at any time be enacted there. Surely
this was one of the "baby towers" I had been
told about, where the Chinese father rids himself
of his superfluous daughters by placing the infants
on a little slab and leaving them there till another
Chinaman brings his own little lot, and, to make
room for them on the sill, pushes the earlier arrivals
off the slab to fall into the depths of the tower.
In this way each of the parents goes away perfectly
happy, without the feeling of having the blood of
his own offspring on his hands.

Presently smoke seemed to issue from the un-
canny kiosk and suggested to me the possibility of
the babies being cremated. I pointed this out to
one of the blue-garbed little boy guides who had
assisted me over the ruins of the famous wall, and
said, in my best Manchurian, "What's that?"

He put his hand to his mouth and gave a shrill
whistle, following it with a sush-sush-sushing noise

329

VILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

and a piston stroke with his arm. I immediately
understood him: the mysterious tower was a
ventilating shaft for the tunnel of the recently built
Mongolian railway under the Great Wall.

Yes, evidently the day of the old-time caravan
was passing away. The only place it can still be
seen in all its ancient, fantastic glory is in the
Khyber, Afghanistan, which had not as yet been
touched by modern transportation save for the
motor cars which are allowed at times to penetrate
the Pass as far as the fort of Ali Musjid. On these
days they delight the young Afridian gamins, who
sprint by their side, turning somersaults and doing
other stunts, just like the urchins one sees on
Derby days in the Old Country. Yet in the
Khyber Pass, despite this intrusion, the camels
still come swinging along with their merchandise
to dump, upon the Indian plains, as was their wont
thousands of years ago. The stately, uncanny beasts
thronging the narrow defiles make the passes hum
with their gurgles and grousings. The Khyber it-
self is wonderful and awe-inspiring, towering above
the plains like the purple, white-capped waves of
the stormy Atlantic suddenly arrested in action;
and, almost at its feet, standing out of the arid
stretches of the plains, is the fort of Jumrood — the
last outpost of the Empire, looking with its turrets,
curtains, wireless, and flag masts as if it were a
modern warship riding sentinel in the offing.

An old phrase to suggest to the imagination a
330

MY LAST CHAPTER

lengthy journey in bygone times was "From China
to Peru," but if one looks at the map he will see it
is almost as far from the Celestial capital to southern
California. I was there but a short time after,
staying with those hospitable and charming people,
the Andrew Storrows of Pasadena, where at tea on
the afternoon of my arrival I was introduced to
the very man whom I had traveled so far to meet,
Mr. Charles Chaplin. As he is continually surprising
one with his marvelous antics on the screen, so he
is even a greater surprise when one meets him off
the stage — a dainty well-groomed slender figure of
a man, with clean-shaven face, light hair, and blue
eyes. To watch him in his studio at Hollywood re-
hearsing one of his latest tit-bits is a privilege I
shall hardly forget. To see his methods of direction
and the pains he takes in drilling his excellent
company in the most minute details was in itself
worth a visit to the great movie factory.

Continuing my journey eastward I came to spots
that will linger in my memory for all time: River-
side and its Mission hostelry, with its quaint Spanish
atmosphere and its treasures of Old-World art;
Mount Wilson and its telescope; the drive along
the magnificent Columbia River in Oregon; and
Vancouver with its magnificent hinterland of
mountains and torrents.

It is a far cry from these scenes to the great mod-
ern City of White Light, New York. I know many
travelers will say, "Surely not that melange ot

FILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

abominable skyscrapers." Yes, I do, for New York
is of all cities the City of To-day. I remember
her when she was in her infancy; and a very ugly
and uncouth baby she was, perpetually struggling
with myriads of telegraph wires and the dirt of
her dust barrels — her only topknot the dome of
the World building. She had emerged out of this
squalor a very stately and wonderful metropolis.
I have lingered in her avenues and streets when a
mist softens the harder lines of her giant buildings
and they loom up in mysterious grandeur like some
fantastic drawing by the great Gustave Dore.
There is no sight anywhere quite like New York
just between lights, when her skies are swept clear
of mist and cloud and her lofty buildings begin to
melt into the purple of the night. It is a sight
worth crossing the ocean to see.

And her clubs — the finest in any metropolis
barring, perhaps, San Francisco. Ah! those clubs
where a stranger finds a half dozen homes within
a few hours of his arrival; and the hospitality of
their members: where will you find anything like
that in the wide world? The Union League, the
Players' and the good old Lotos — I have known
them since 1880. They have all, like the city
itself, grown in elegance; but the courtesy and
hospitality of their members have always remained
the same. Yet I sigh when I think of the joyous
legend over the place where I used to sit in the
Lotos Club — STAY ME WITH FLAGONS. Surely that

332

MY LAST CHAPTER

has been removed these days; it would be dese-
cration of the glorious past to serve ice cream
soda under that!

That famous war correspondent, the late Archi-
bald Forbes, used to say: "My dear boy, there are
five important things you must always bear in
mind in our profession: However interesting a
battle may be you must always get away before
your communications are cut, for your material
will be held up or may never arrive. You must not
be taken prisoner, for then you will be out of the
business completely. You must not get wounded, for
then you become a useless expense to your paper;
and if you get killed you will be an infernal fool."

As for sickness — well, the public think a corre-
spondent has no right to be ill, for he is supposed to
possess a cast-iron body with a radiomatic interior
and a soul for fearlessness unsurpassed by mortal.

But as this is my fifth decade of war and adven-
ture I feel that I have won my spurs and have a
right to be sick. After a fairly clean bill of health
for over sixty years, I have had at last to go through
the mill, like the majority of human beings.

There is a remarkable lot of charity to be found
in this weary world without looking for it. In out
of the way places and odd corners one discovers
the real Good Samaritan when one falls by the
way. I have personally found the four corners of
the earth full of friends who have fed me when
hungry, clothed me when naked, nursed me when

333

7ILLIERS: HIS FIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

sick, and have tried to cheer me when I have
been unhappy. During my recent tour of the world
I engendered a trouble due to the chill and dis-
comfort of two years on the Western front. I stood
up boldly and for many months I tried valiantly
to fight, but after several close rounds I eventually
got the knock-out.

This breakdown in health happened at a small
township in the state of Saskatchewan called Indian
Head. I had arrived at the little C. P. R. station
and soon found that I was alone on the platform.
While I was wondering where to stay for the night
— for I was to deliver a lecture there that evening —
a smart-looking young man came up to me and said:

"Are you Mr. Villiers?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I am the rector here, my name is Beauchamp
Payne, and my wife thought that you might be
more comfortable if you put up for the night with

us."

I could not help smiling at this joyous invitation,
for the last time I was accosted on the platform
was in Gippsland in Australia. I was in a similar
dilemma as to where to go, when a rather dirty,
slouching boy came up to me and said:

"Are you the bloke what's going to give the
movies tu nete?"

"I am Mr. Villiers," I replied.

"Ow! Then you are the gent for our pub."

I was glad of the rector's hospitality. My grips
'334

MY LAST CHAPTER

were bundled into his car and in another moment
I was in the warmth of his cozy rectory and in the
presence of his charming wife.

Little did I think that this visit to Indian Head,
which was to be for a night and a day, could be the
beginning of an enforced sojourn of many months
and that the rector and his wife and a host
of other generous-hearted inhabitants of the pretty
little township would be my Good Samaritans all
that time. When I think of it and of the utter
impossibility of showing adequately my gratitude
for their kindness and solicitude I hang my head in
very shame.

The little hospital to which I was carried was
bright and sunny and from the window of my room
I could very often see the Good Samaritans coming
to visit the stranded Englishman. The young
daughters of one good friend would bring me the
daily papers from Winnipeg and Regina between
their lunch and school-time, and cheer me up with
their bright young faces and local chat. Another
would come with some fresh flowers. Two hundred
yards away, by the side of a charming villa, was a
chicken-run. I could hear the cackling and conster-
nation in the henhouse, which always brought me
to the window to watch the daughter of the house
with her golden hair flowing in the wind as she
sought for new-laid eggs which every other day
she brought to me in a neat, dainty little basket.,

For weeks and months the Church of England
335

FILLIERS: HIS FIFE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

rector who had but recently returned to this quiet
spot from the alarums and excursions of the Western
front, where he had done wonderful, strenuous work
in his modest way, cheerfully attended to all my
correspondence and relieved me of many pressing
anxieties. Sometimes of an evening when the
outside thermometer registered far, far below zero
I could hear the tinkle of sleighbells nearing the
hospital, and presently my door would burst open
and the figure of a sturdy farmer in shaggy coon-
coat would enter; then a fur mitten as big as a
tea cozy was withdrawn from a sturdy fist and after
a handgrip, crushing in its cordiality, a parcel
powdered with crisp snow would be placed upon
my bed. "A little something in the way of cream
cheese and a loaf of home-made bread from the
wife," he would say, "and here are a couple of the
latest books." A packet of excellent cigars would
later come to light, wedged in between the volumes.

"Where's the wife?" I would inquire.

"I brought her in to a dance for the Red Cross,
and I came on here before joining her."

"It's a bit cold," I said, "for a jaunt like that."

"Yes," he smiled, "kinder chilly."

"Ye gods! why, it's fifty below," I cried, "and
you don't even call it frosty."

Then the tinkly bells told me he was off to the
ball. And the night's excitement was, alas, over.

In this little Hotel Dieu I first learned to appre-
ciate Canadian nurses — there can be no better,

336

MY LAST CHAPTER

surely, in all the world. Later on, owing to my
beginning work too soon, I found myself again a
patient, but this time in the Montreal General
Hospital. This institution is phenomenal for the
youth and proficiency of its surgeons and medical
men, and, I may add, for the youth, beauty, and
wonderful efficiency of its nursing staff.

Here I found it necessary to go through a second
major operation. I shall hardly forget the morning
of my arrival, when a young officer in khaki walked
into my room and told me that he was going to
fix me up. I squirmed somewhat with misgiving,
for instead of the mature surgeon of my expectations
here was a lively, smiling youth, looking not more
than a little over five-and-twenty summers, who was
about to .solve for me the question of life or death.
I hope Capt. Ralph Powell, M.D., will forgive my
slight sketch of him, for as I looked into his eyes I
was comforted at once. Indeed it was as though a
well-remembered young and radiant face had loomed
out of the past, for years and years ago at University
College Hospital, London, I saw a youth with a
similar keen and eager glance automatically tying
up arteries while his head was turned in the act
of addressing his students. That youn£ man was
the great brain specialist who afterward became
Sir Victor Horsely and who gave his life to his country
while doing duty in Mesopotamia during the past
war.

While lying hors-de-combat here many Good
337

FILL1ERS: HIS VIVE DECADES OF ADVENTURE

Samaritans came to see me and brighten my
monotonous days. The urbane Montrealer, David
S. Walker, always busy to succor those fallen by
the way, and that admirable sportsman Col. George
R. Hooper would automobile me to lovely sylvan
spots round the picturesque old city.

One of my fellow patients, Mr. W. J. Leach, a
subaltern in the Royal Flying Corps, was a young
American who, impatient at the slowness of his
country to come into the show, had linked up with
the Canadian forces early in the war and had brought
down many of the enemy on Flanders fields, till he
was knocked out himself, receiving seven wounds,
and, by way of compensation, many medals and the
rank of Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. This
plucky youngster from Bayonne, a veteran of
twenty-two, was soon well enough to return to his
downtown office, like so many other heroes from the
U. S. A. who gave their time to the great cause of
humanity. With his boyish face still fresh in my
memory, taking me back to my early days when I
started on the career that has made it possible for
me to write these two volumes of my adventures, I
end this book. — ADIEU.

D Villiers, Frederic

400 Villiers

V35A3

1921

v.2

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