Читать книгу Lord Minto, A Memoir - John Buchan - Страница 9

Table of Contents

APPRENTICESHIP

The close of the 'seventies was for Britain an era of little wars. There was trouble brewing in South Africa, but the main anxiety lay on the north-west frontier of India, since the check to Russia at Constantinople had turned her thoughts to Central Asian expansion, and the uneasy politics of Afghanistan had begun to reflect her ambitions. The Second Afghan War began in November 1878, when Shere Ali, having received a Russian envoy at Kabul, had declined to receive a British. Sir Donald Stewart marched from Baluchistan through the Bolan Pass and occupied Kandahar, another force went through the Khyber to Jalalabad, and Sir Frederick Roberts moved from the Kurrum valley through the high passes, defeated the Amir at Peiwar Kotal, and occupied the Shutargardan Pass, which gave direct access to Kabul. Shere Ali fled northwards and presently died, and for six months it seemed hard to know how to bring the campaign to an end. A successor to Shere Ali must be found with whom Britain could treat, for it was idle to push British armies farther into a difficult and dangerous country with no strategic objective at the end of the advance.

While the war was thus stagnant on the frontier, Melgund set off from England to take his chance of seeing something of the campaign. He had no official position, or promise of one, but he had many friends at the front, and he trusted to the luck which had never deserted him on his expeditions. He arrived in Bombay in January 1879, and went on to Calcutta, to stay with the Lyttons at Government House. There he saw and admired the portrait of his great-grandfather, the first Earl of Minto, in the Council Room.

Though anxious to hurry on to the front, Melgund was delayed some days in Calcutta making the necessary preparations. "I am still here," he writes, "and have been enjoying myself very much. This is a very fine town, and Government House is quite magnificent. Altogether I am enchanted with what I have seen--everything beautiful, luxurious, and warm: every one is more than civil to me, and Bill Beresford, who is away steeplechasing somewhere, has left word that I am to ride his horses, and am also to have two which are already at Kohat. Last Sunday I went to Barrackpore with Colonel Baker, one of the Viceroy's military advisers, and a firstrate fellow. It is about twelve miles up the river from here, and is a country place of the Viceroy's. I think it is the prettiest place I ever saw anywhere. It is a large house in the middle of what might be a beautiful English park, with magnificent trees. The Staff have bungalows of their own which are dotted about in the park, and one breakfasts and lunches under an enormous banyan tree which is a small wood in itself."

Then he started for the Punjab to join General Roberts's column, seeing as much as he could of the sights on the way. The romance of the frontier caught his imagination as soon as he began to talk to frontier officers, and he was struck with a type of public servant very different from that which he had met at home. He sketched it for the benefit of Lady Minto, whom he suspected of being whiggishly inclined:--

"I assure you the stories one might tell of these frontier wars are without end, and the Englishmen we have on the frontier are a race to be very proud of. I believe there are dozens of men who have scarcely been heard of in England, but who have shown out here that they were first-rate leaders, first-rate soldiers, and excellent all round, and who have died like heroes one after another in these frontier fights. The churchyard here* and the church itself are both worth going to see as a history of frontier life. I counted in the church the names of about fifty officers who have died or been killed about here since the force was started, some thirty years ago. By the Frontier Force I mean the force which is separate from the rest of the army, and directly under the command of the Punjab Government. . . . Then, again, commissioners of districts must of necessity be rulers, and on the frontier at any rate the stronger they are the better. The goody-goody benevolent people could be of no use here except to get their own throats cut: the men who do rule are not of the English politician style, pasty-faced wretches who do nothing but talk; in fact, not at all the type of the young M.P. of the present day, but a hard-riding, steeplechasing, sporting lot of fellows. They are the sort of men that I hope we shall always have lots of, but they are not the type that a well-informed village meeting at home would choose to occupy the important positions they do."

* Kohat.

He went to Kohat, Peshawar, and Jalalabad, and formed the worst impressions of the playful homicidal habits of the border tribes. He was for a time with Sir Sam Browne's force, where he met Sir Louis Cavagnari, but he hankered after Roberts's column, which he believed was destined to advance to Kabul. This column he succeeded in joining in March. The staff comprised many congenial companions--Pretyman, Neville Chamberlain, George Villiers, Brabazon, and Padre Adams. The future still hung in the balance. He saw that the new scientific frontier, if it came into being, would have to be seriously held, and he doubted the ability of the British Government--for which at this time he professed small respect--to carry out such a policy.

"I do not think the people in England at all realize the state of this frontier, or the extreme danger of an insecure frontier line, that is, of one whose chief strength depends upon the goodwill of the Amir, or of the frontier tribes. Of course, have as many friends as you can, but be perfectly independent of them, and feel that the strength of your frontier does not rest on their goodwill alone. Neither do I think people understand the great danger of giving up an inch of ground. All retreat is looked upon as weakness by those frontier tribes, and directly you retire you will have them all about your ears. The only thing they respect is power: kindness I don't believe they care tuppence for. Unless you had been here you could not imagine the state of the country. One thinks very little of a few shots at night. I have seen a good deal myself. The other day I rode with one of the political officers almost fifteen miles down the road to Banu, most of which runs through the Waziri country, which does not belong to us. We found that fourteen camels had been looted out of a convoy of two hundred, and that only one had been recovered. We went through a very wild country, some of it simply a collection of conical hills. We met a native escort with a camel caravan armed to the teeth and carrying shields, the first I have seen carried. The people in this valley are very friendly, but I think the best definition of a friendly native is a man who only shoots you at night, whereas a hostile one shoots in the daytime as well."

When not employed in reconnoitring the country his time was passed in organizing sports, paper-chases, horse shows, and speculating on the probable news from Kabul. Melgund was keenly alive to beautiful scenery and his letters are full of vivid pictures. Nestling in a valley between Kurrum and Haleb Ketla, below the long range of the snow-covered Safed Koh, lies Shalozan, a village famed for the beauty of its women: Melgund describes the chenab trees, a ruined tomb, and the picturesque appearance of a troop of native cavalry, with their red puggarees, halting on the village green. Thirty years later, when Viceroy of India, he visited Peiwar Kotal, motoring sixty miles from Kohat over a specially prepared road to revive the memories of his campaigning days. From his camp at Parachinar he rode to Shalozan, the beauty of which, amid its desolate environment, had never faded from his memory. While riding through the village he met a tall bearded Pathan about whose appearance there was something familiar, and he observed to Mr. Merk, the Commissioner, that this man reminded him of the boy who had run messages for Sir Frederick Roberts in 1879, and who, as he ran, had a trick of brushing his ankles together till they bled. The man was stopped and questioned, his sandals were instantly flung off to disclose the old scars, and in wild excitement he prostrated himself at the feet of the great Lat Sahib who deigned to remember his unworthy errand boy.

In his long delightful letters to his mother, which for this year took the place of his journal, Melgund gives the gossip of the camp, vivid little sketches of places and personages, and much half-chaffing abuse of the follies of the stay-at-home politicians. "I long to encamp the British public in a place like Ali Kheyl for one night, with Gladstone, Chamberlain, Dilke, and a few others on outpost duty. I would join the Mongols for the night, and I think there would be some fun! I dare say it wouldn't do old Peter (his brother Arthur) any harm to do sentry-go for the public for an hour or two. I expect he's got a few 'humane' ideas in his head too!"

He expounds at length his views on the frontier question, which are interesting in the light of his later problems as Viceroy:--

"The more I see of this country, the more difficult the new frontier line appears to organize. I was always for a new frontier, and for occupying advanced posts at the other side of the passes leading into India, and I am still sure that this is right, though the difficulties in the way are far greater than I supposed. The fact is, we want to have a stronger frontier in case of a Russian invasion or demonstration against India, such as they certainly meant to make if we had fought them in Europe, and it is very short-sighted to say that they will not attack us for years. Neither do I think it should be allowed to stand over for future years, when we might be very hard pressed in Europe and unable to alter our frontier even if we wished it. It is nonsense shutting our eyes to the fact that it is Russia that one is afraid of, and justly so, though I think the day the Russian and English outposts touch the more chance there will be of a permanent peace. The scientific soldiers ought to be able to decide on the frontier line, and we ought to take it and have done with it, and not scream and howl every time Russia advances in Central Asia. With the old frontier we should have fought an invading army as they debouched from the passes, i.e., we should have been fighting inside our own doors, and on a powder magazine, which the slightest reverse would have set in a blaze; besides which we should have been fighting with the Indus behind us and a scarcity of bridges over which to retreat. One is bound to consider a retreat as on the cards, though when I said this to some one at dinner at Government House at Calcutta I was told that we here could never think of a retreat.

"If we are not to advance to strengthen our frontiers we could do so by retiring behind the Indus, so as not to massacre armies with the river behind us, simply keeping advanced posts to watch the mouths of the passes. This, I think, would be an immensely strong frontier, but it would be retiring, and goodness knows what the effect would be in India as to loss of prestige. I have no doubt that the right thing to do is to occupy places like Kandahar, Kurrum, and Jalalabad. You then have two lines of defence, and if beaten at the first you fall back upon the second--the southern mouths of the passes; but your first fight would be outside your own door instead of inside, which, in a country like this, must be of the greatest importance.

"There is, however, an immense difficulty regarding these new advance posts--their lines of communication, which must run through a country inhabited by wild, uncivilized races. Therefore, to make the advance posts really safe, we should have to be able thoroughly to depend on the tribes in no case molesting our communications. This is the great difficulty I see in the new frontier, and I am afraid the English public will not realize until too late its value, and will not be willing to supply the men and money that would be necessary to secure the roads to the advance posts. The thing will probably be done by halves; we shall occupy the places we want, and leave the country behind them altogether unreliable, and let the matter drop. Then some day the attack we have always been fearing and preaching about will come, we shall fight under frightful disadvantages, lose no end of men and money, and when we are utterly at our last gasp pull ourselves together and win, as we always have done."

The monotonous waiting came to an end in the latter part of May, when Yakub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, was recognized as Amir and concluded the treaty of Gandamak, which conceded the establishment of a British agent at Kabul and placed the foreign affairs of Afghanistan under the control of Britain. Melgund left the frontier and hastened home to his Border Mounted Rifles: he was anxious to be back in time for the summer inspection. His passion for active service, however, was wholly unsatisfied. He decided against going to the Zulu War, for he was weary of scratch campaigns. "A good European War," he wrote, "would be the thing, if there was a chance of our army existing over a fortnight." But his journey had not been fruitless, he had made many friendships, and had developed a profound admiration for Sir Frederick Roberts, from whom he learned much of the detailed business of war; and though he was for the moment inclined to take the high-handed Bismarckian view in foreign politics, he had learned invaluable lessons--the difficulties of the "man on the spot" and the need of sympathy and imagination in harmonizing his urgent needs with the preconceptions of the public at home. He loved to flutter the Whig dovecotes of his family by talking at random, but his matured opinions were full of wary good sense.

On his way home he spent a few days at Simla, and there an offer was made him which caused him acute perturbation. Cavagnari, the British envoy-designate to Kabul, asked him to accompany him, and the Viceroy pressed him to accept. The proposal was that he should go to Kabul, and then go on with Yakub Khan to the Uxus; from there he would carry a dummy dispatch from the Amir to the Russians, and somehow or other get to Samarkand. The notion fired his imagination: he liked and believed in Cavagnari, he wanted to see Kabul, and in journeying thence to Samarkand through the Russian outposts he would be undertaking not only a daring exploit but an important piece of public service. In the end he declined, principally because there was a chance of the Mission being shut up in Kabul for some time, and since he would have no official status he felt that it was too much in the nature of an escapade, and that duty called him home to his Volunteers. Cavagnari acquiesced in this view: probably he felt that the way was very dark before him and did not want to involve more lives than were necessary in a desperate venture, for he told Lady Roberts, "I feel I am going amongst the most treacherous people under the sun, but if anything happens to me it will make the course the Government ought to pursue very much easier, and I feel great satisfaction in that." "When I left him," Melgund records in his journal, "I said 'good-bye, and good luck to you,' and it came across my mind at the moment that he thanked me as if he thought there was need for the good luck."

When Melgund was back in Roxburghshire, busy with his Volunteers, there came the news that the treaty of Gandamak was waste paper, and that once more the fires of war blazed on the frontier. In September Cavagnari and his staff and escort were murdered in Kabul, and it was a solemn reflection for Melgund that he had come within an ace of sharing their fate. It is possible that, even had he gone, he might have escaped, for the man who carried the message from Yakub to Balkh got through, and that was to have been his job, though it is questionable whether a European in the same task would have succeeded. Reviewing the incident in his journal he writes: "The chief reason that I settled not to go with Cavagnari was that it appeared to me that I should be doing better by going home and looking after my Volunteer corps, which was a thing I had taken up and wanted to succeed, than by starting on a mission the success of which seemed doubtful. I thought that the corps might deteriorate, and that an expedition through Central Asia might be looked upon as flighty while the alternative was sticking to business. I also wanted to get to know more people in England, and to do some reading. I have had many doubts about it, but still think that even if I had succeeded in getting through I did better by giving it up." Twenty-seven years later, as Viceroy of India, he visited the Guides at Mardan, and saw the obelisk erected in memory of the Kabul victims on which his own name might so easily have been inscribed.

Lord Melgund in the Uniform of the Border Mounted Rifles, 1883.

He was very unsettled that autumn and winter, and his letters and journals contain little beyond speculations on frontier policy and the Afghanistan campaign. Sir Frederick Roberts sent him a postcard, written in the train near Loodiana, inviting him to rejoin his Kabul column. "Pretyman and I are now on our way back to Kurrum, accompanied by Baker, Brab, Hugh Gough, 'Polly' Carew, and a few more of the right sort." He could not go, and even if he could it is hard to see how he would have caught up with the active British commander. Roberts entered Kabul in October, and in December came the rising of the tribes, and he and his force were cut off from the world, till Sir Donald Stewart arrived from Kandahar. Next year came the settlement with Abdur Rahman; but in the summer the battle of Maiwand was lost by the British, and Roberts had to march in haste the three hundred miles from Kabul to Kandahar to take order with the pretender Ayub Khan. Not till September 1881 was Abdur Rahman able to assert his kingship and give his country peace, and meantime a new frontier policy had been adopted by Simla and Whitehall.

During the whole of 1880 Melgund was at home, and it is clear from his journal and his letters that he was restless. His thoughts were on the frontiers of India, his reading chiefly in Indian history, his correspondence mainly with soldiers. The care of his Border Rifles was not enough to fill his mind, and his eye was roaming the world in quest of active service. One piece of useful work he was able to perform early in the year.

There had been a good deal of trouble in both the Afghan and Zulu Wars with press correspondents, for the vicious system of employing serving soldiers for the purpose had not been abandoned, and there had been much partisanship shown, newspapers ranging themselves for or against particular generals. As a remedy for such abuses the military authorities framed a set of rules to regulate the work of the press, and these were strongly criticized in the January number of the Nineteenth Century by Mr. Archibald Forbes, the most distinguished living war correspondent. Melgund replied to him in the March number of the review in an article which was his first excursion in literature. He put the common sense of the matter very clearly and trenchantly. He sympathized with both sides, for he had been himself a war correspondent, and had been invited to write for the Times and Daily Telegraph while in Afghanistan. He believed that the journalist in a campaign was necessary, not only to the public at home but to the army in the field; but he saw that the delicate mission of war correspondents, unless it was to become a public danger, must be under certain reasonable restrictions. It may fairly be said that to-day his views would be accepted as they stand by both journalists and soldiers. In this, his first literary effort, Melgund revealed not only a judicial mind, but a real vigour of style:--

"The next war may not give us quite so much pleasant reading. We may miss a little of the seasoning of bygone days. We shall not suffer by it. About a year ago a British force was crossing one of our Indian rivers on its way to the front. With it was the usual representative of the press, and he had written his usual letter. He tells how crocodiles and palm trees people the water and adorn the banks, and hands the eloquent production to a prosaic English officer, who remarks that neither crocodiles nor palm trees are within many miles. Matter-of-fact man! The correspondent is describing India, and he replies-the best answer ever made, and the secret of much of the discussion, the essence of what our soldiers have long known to be true--'What does that matter? The British public must have its crocodile, and it must have its palm tree.'" The Nineteenth Century article brought him many congratulations--from Lord Chelmsford, who had suffered from an unfair press; from Admiral Sir Charles Elliot; and notably from his old Lincolnshire friend, the hunting parson, Mr. Southwell. "I suppose I may regard you as dead to the witcheries of women," added that mentor, "and that the rest of your mortal life is to be devoted to the interests of your country. 'Sporting with Amaryllis in the shade,' etc., has given place to the more laudable desire for fame. Now for Parliament. Suppress your thirst for adventure and excitement and go into the House. You'll soon be getting old--I mean too old to care about or indeed be capable of active life, and in Parliament as long as your head is clear it matters little if your legs are slow." But Melgund was at the moment very little in love with Parliament and politics. His journal of 1880 records, indeed, his pleasure at his brother Arthur's success in Roxburghshire, where he was returned by the narrow majority of ten; but his political comments are acrid and he had small regard for the Prime Minister. "Arthur arrived to-day, having been sailing about on the West Coast of Scotland with Gladstone! Oh dear! Oh dear!" Some months later he and that eminent man met at dinner with the Fitzwilliams. "He has a wild look in his eye, and his appearance would never inspire me with confidence," says the journal.

As for Amaryllis, it would seem that for the moment Mr. Southwell's guess was right. "Lots of pretty people, but don't care for balls," is a common entry. One name begins to appear occasionally--that of Mary Grey, whom he was constantly meeting. But though he hunted and visited about the land, and took his full share in social life, he was profoundly dissatisfied. His note on some famous party is only of a talk with Sir Garnet Wolseley, who "promised me a knife and fork with him in the next war. . . . He thinks we may have a blow-up in Europe any day, and he says he will take me with him to the German manoeuvres in September if our authorities will allow me to go." He is more interested in discussing Afghanistan with Lady Lawrence than in dancing with the reigning beauty: the kind of country house he likes is Crabbett, where he could inspect Wilfred Blunt's Arabs; when he sits up at night it is to read confidential papers on the Greek frontier lent him by Sir John Ardagh. He goes to the most brilliant ball of the season--"I am almost ashamed to say I never danced once, but met Knox, the gunner, looked on with him for some time, and then went down to supper with him instead of a lady, and fought the actions of Ali Musjid and Peiwar Kotal over again. I am sure we sat through I don't know how many dances, and drank I don't know how much champagne, and agreed we were both longing to be off somewhere, and came away together. He has seen more service perhaps than any young soldier: viz., Abyssinia, Ashanti, Afghanistan, and Zululand, and also seen much fighting with the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War. / do wish I were off somewhere!"

The cri du coeur of the last sentence is the index to his frame of mind, a frame of mind which made him curiously intolerant of all sedentary life at home. At the age of thirty-five he had a violent fit of that fever which commonly takes a man at an earlier stage, a desire for a rough life in wild places and an impatience of a cosseted civilization. His natural inclination was for the hard-riding, forthright type of man he had known in his Lincolnshire days, and his experience on the Indian frontier had taught him that the same qualities could be conjoined with excellent brains and used for high public duties. Hence he moved in London drawing-rooms like Marius among the ruins of Carthage: vehemently critical, tantalized by ambitions which seemed infinitely far from realization. Occasionally in the journal he permits himself an outburst which the reader must take as an undress expression of a mood and not as a considered verdict:--

"Dined with the Derbys: took in the daughter of the house, a very nice girl. A regular London society dinner: i.e., every one on their p's and q's. The politicals seemingly oppressed with their own importance; the Duke of . . . trying to wind a fox all the evening in the neighbourhood of the ceiling, at least I'll do him the credit to hope it was a fox--head up, stern down! Why is it that these sportsmen in London (upon my word the men are almost as bad as the women) cannot be natural? They are never their bona fide selves, if they possess such a thing. From the time you enter before dinner till the time you come away it is all manière. When you get with first-rate soldiers it is different. Sir Garnet Wolseley is natural the instant he speaks to you: the men on the turf are natural: men who have gone in for riding, or soldiering, or any manly amusement are natural: they talk to the point and are unaffected, but I'm damned if these London sportsmen are! And when you see young men reared in London society, when it has been their only world, when they haven't been knocked about and made to feel what's what, but have been traditionally brought up as lawgivers, what can you expect of them except that society manners should become their second nature, and that their politics in after life will, as a rule, be unpractical? At least their foreign ones are likely to be so, for as regards home politics they will be much steered by the common sense of the nation, which is very great, and has time to collect itself over any home question of importance. But in foreign politics or in military affairs, when we are required to act quickly and to show common sense at once, preserve me from the politicals! There is not one of them fit to take a horse to a second-class metropolitan meeting and look after him. He would do something silly if he mingled on an equality with his fellow-men! . . .

"Have been reading this evening the Life of Brigadier-General Nicholson. What a splendid fellow he was! Yet I believe India could produce many such men. It is our school for great administrators, and as such alone is worth millions to this country; but many of our home-staying, book-taught, theoretical politicians are incapable of realizing this. I don't suppose they would be able to appreciate a good frontier officer."

During the summer he thought he saw a chance of work abroad. He heard from Lord Lansdowne that Charles Gordon, afterwards the defender of Khartum and then private secretary to Lord Ripon, the Viceroy of India, had resigned, and he was advised to become a candidate for the post. Having been a supporter of Lord Lytton's frontier policy, he was in doubt whether he could work under a successor who was pledged to its reversal, but his Indian friends were anxious that he should apply, and he allowed his name to be put forward. A day or two later he learned that Mr. Henry Primrose of the Treasury had been chosen. The comment in the journal is: "Am sorry I did not get it in some ways; not the sort of work I should like, but still a first-rate appointment, and under a good Viceroy a very fine position. But I doubt this man, and do not expect anything great of him. In fact, I think as regards Afghanistan the first object for the Government at home will be to get out of anything that costs money, and probably Lord Eipon will work to orders." That autumn, too, he received an invitation from Colonel Chermside to go with him to Central Asia, and by way of Meshed and Herat to Kandahar. He put the seductive proposal behind him; he wanted service and not adventure. The close of the year saw the end of the Afghanistan operations. Roberts was welcomed home early in 1881, and Melgund was present when he was given the freedom of the City of London and at the banquet at the Mansion House. "It was a magnificent sight," he wrote. "At the close of the dinner the Loving Cup was passed round: an official told us to 'charge our glasses' as each toast was proposed, and claimed 'silence' in a voice of thunder for whoever was about to speak. Young Childers is reported to have said that he appeared to be educated for the last trump! Roberts's speech was the best I ever heard, though in his entire condemnation of Cardwell's system, which has really never been given a fair chance, I should not agree with him. Perhaps it is hardly fair to say he condemned it, as he spoke only of the shortservice system as in existence, which is no doubt very faulty; but I do not agree with him as an opponent to the theory of short service. He spoke without the slightest hesitation, and thoroughly from his heart, as if he felt he was doing a duty in speaking out: he has a very taking voice, and from being a little below par it may have been even more sympathetic than usual. He was very muc^ cheered. The speech has been received with rapture by nearly every soldier."

Melgund was hunting a good deal with different packs during the winter months, but the notes of runs in the journal are scanty, and the reflections on public affairs voluminous. For in January 1881 tragic news had come from South Africa, of Sir George Colley's repulse at Laing's Nek and the Ingogo River, and then of his death at Majuba Hill. Melgund had known Colley and believed in him, and the tidings of the disaster made him move heaven and earth to get out to South Africa. His chance came unexpectedly. The entry in the journal for Saturday, 5th March, is written on board the Balmoral Castle: "I have never had such a time of it as the last few days. I think it was last Monday I dined with Polly Carew at White's, when we suspected that Bobs would be ordered to the Transvaal, and next morning Polly came into my room before I was up with a telegram from the General saying he was appointed to the Transvaal and wished to see me. I saw him at the War Office, and he asked me to come out as his private secretary. Since that moment I have been hunted to distraction. What with 'duns' and preparations, life has been purgatory!"

He had an interesting voyage, visiting St. Helena on the way, and struggling to inform his mind by means of blue books on South African questions. "My impression," he wrote, "is that the Government at home will probably square things, though how they can do so with decency I cannot see." His journal records the fiasco.

"31st March.-We arrived at Capetown at about 8:30 on Monday evening: the Calabria with the 7th Hussars cheering us loudly as we steamed up the Bay, the men answering from our ship. A boat, however, soon came off from the town, and before she came alongside the people in her were shouting 'Peace.' We soon heard that Peace had been proclaimed, and that the General was to return home at once. Every one was disgusted. We got passages in the Trojan next morning. We seem to have made peace with a hostile force sitting down in our own territory of Natal, after having given us three lickings under poor Colley, besides other reverses. . . . The behaviour of the home Government is impossible to understand. We sailed yesterday afternoon, i.e., Wednesday 30th. As we stood on deck the crowd on the quay cheered the General loudly and groaned for Gladstone. One feels ashamed of one's country, or rather of the wretched Government at the head of it. I believe thoroughly in England all the same. . . .

"1st April.--April Fool's Day! We really ought to have arrived at Capetown to-day to make a proper ending of the farce the Government at home have staged!"

There was a proposal that Melgund should remain in South Africa and go to the Transvaal with the Military Commission as Sir Hercules Robinson's guest in order to prepare some kind of history of the whole proceedings. This he declined for good reasons, and likewise an offer of service in Basutoland. He was out of temper with the country and the policy, for he considered that Roberts had been badly treated, and that the conduct of the British Government was a mere sowing of dragons' teeth--a view on which, in the light of after events, disagreement is unfortunately impossible. He returned forthwith to England, very clear that he did right to come home, since if he stayed out on the chance of picking up odd jobs he "ran the risk of gaining the character of a loafer and adventurer." The reason is characteristic of the man; he did not love the role of eager amateur, and longed in everything for professional status.

The winter of 1881-82 was occupied with hunting, and, to judge from the journal, with anxious reflections and discussions on public affairs, in which he did not see eye to eye with Her Majesty's Ministers. Here are a few extracts:--

"9th January.--I used for a long time to keep a journal for every day of my life. After I got that fall at Liverpool in '76 I gave it up for a bit, as I was so knocked up I fancied it tried me writing it in the evening. I have been so much behind the scenes lately in the two last campaigns, Afghanistan and the Transvaal, that I have heard many things which I regret not having written down, and I have also been thrown very much with men, particularly soldiers, of whom I might have written much. I therefore mean in future to try and put down more of interest than I have hitherto done in my journals. Besides the usefulness of making notes of anything worth remembering, a journal gives practice in getting one into the habit of writing one's experiences quickly, and if one can write them in fairly respectable English, which I shall endeavour for the sake of practice to do, it will help one elsewhere."

"5th February.-Aston Clinton. Had a long conversation with Sir Garnet this evening on Egyptian affairs. We agreed that the Power who should have befriended us there is Turkey, and that we have lost her friendship, though Sir Garnet thinks that she may send a force to Egypt for the sake of asserting her suzerainty, which may be on the wane. I don't think so. We have snubbed Turkey too much to expect her to do our dirty work, and she is now friends with Bismarck. If I was a Turk I would be damned if I would send troops to Egypt to help Gladstone out of a hole.

"Sir Garnet very agreeable and talking thoroughly practical sense, which so few people do. I like Lady Wolseley very much too. She is more cautious than he is, but very taking and clever--the sort of cleverness which comes from knowledge of the world and other people. I will not call it 'cleverness' as I am beginning to hate clever people, they are so damnably silly--I mean unpractical. The more I see the more I look down upon the learning obtained from books alone. The ordinarily accepted clever men and women of the world have drawn most of their knowledge from reading. Goodness knows, I know well enough the help, even the necessity, of information only to be obtained from books. At the same time those whose character is formed by such means alone can bear no comparison to the man who is naturally first-rate, has no book learning, but has gained all his experience in the school of a world of many sets, societies, and adventures. Combine the book learning and the experience of the world and you get something very rare. Sir Garnet is the best example I have seen of such a man. The book-taught man or woman is enthusiastic, brilliant, unpractical, and perfectly sickening. Then again there is the entirely untaught, uneducated, clever, conversational, full-of-repartee creature of London society, generally recognized as 'so clever,' but with no experience except that of his own society world. Horrible people!"

Meantime the Egyptian problem was growing more confused, and there were the first mutterings of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Home Rule. But towards the end of March politics were for a moment driven out of his head, when Lord Manners won the Grand National on his own horse "Seaman" by a head from Mr. Besley's "Cyrus." It was the kind of thing to fire Melgund's imagination. Here was an amateur who had bought the horse on purpose to win the great race, who had ridden very little before, who was by no means fancied by the public, and who won by sheer grit and skill. Melgund's feelings were a little like those of Lord George Bentinck, when, after he had given up racing for the public service, he saw "Surplice," which had once been his, win the Derby.

"It was a very great performance, and he deserves all credit. I do not know Manners at all, and I have never seen the horse either. It does seem strange that some of the best men over a country, who have been riding all their lives, such as 'Doggy' Smith, E. P. Wilson, and Bob L'Anson, should never have won the Liverpool, and that Manners, who had no experience and made no reputation in first-class company, should come and win a fine race by a head. I would have given anything to have won it at one time, but it is plainer than ever that one might toil away all one's life and never win that particular race. Of the steeplechase riders I have seen I shall always put 'Pussy' Richardson first either amongst gentlemen or professionals; Bob L'Anson facile princeps amongst the latter. He is a really fine horseman which so few of the professionals are; at least don't understand riding over a country; they put their hands down and go from end to end, as in a hurdle race; but they have no idea of putting a horse properly at a fence, or of correcting him if he has got it out of his stride; and then they wonder horses fall! Perfect horsemen are scarce, and in riding, and particularly in steeplechase riding, the public are very often gulled into thinking certain riders good by their hardness and dash, which may probably give them a run of luck for a bit. Immense practice is necessary to put a fine horseman at the top of the tree in race riding, and when I talk of the top of the tree I don't mean the men who have won most races, but the men who combine horsemanship, good hands, good seat, knowledge of the right way to put a horse at a fence, with the necessary qualities of the jockey; first and foremost knowledge of pace, then dash and a cool head, and the power of seeing what every other horse in the race is doing. And when one is talking of these really first-rate riders I don't admit them as perfectly excellent unless they are also first-rate to hounds. 'Pussy' Richardson has all the qualities--as good to hounds as he was on a racecourse, and he was a finished artist on the flat against the best professionals, and the best steeplechase rider of his day. When one hears society talk of so and so, and so and so, and so and so as the best rider in England, what bosh it is! Probably they only know the one trade, viz., hunting, or the other trade, perhaps race riding. Amongst the best men to hounds you find young men who are riding the best horses that money can buy--how can they lay claim to the horsemanship of men who have passed through every stage of schooling young horses of every sort? Horsemanship is not learned in a day or in a few seasons' hunting. Hard riding is a different thing."

In April of this year Melgund was suddenly summoned to his parents at Bournemouth, and on 21st April his mother died. She was fifty-seven years old, but no shadow of middle age had fallen upon her spirit. To the end her letters had the gaiety and the eager interest of youth. Melgund had not altered since his boyish days when she had analysed his character and professed her complete trust in it, and no mother and son were ever in more frank and intimate accord. He made fun of her staunch Liberalism and her fidelity to the political traditions of her youth, and posed now and then as a ruthless Cromwellian in order to elicit her gentle expostulations. It is not easy to overestimate the influence which her gay wisdom and fortitude exercised over one who was still in process of finding himself. It provided a perpetual incentive to honourable ambition, and an undogmatic and unostentatious idealism. Such a man as Melgund was too robust to be dominated by mere emotion, and at the same time too deeply affectionate and generous to be ruled solely through his reason. His mother's combination of a keen critical mind with the happy glow of romance and the warmth of love made her influence supreme, and her personality when alive, and after death her memory, were the chief shaping forces in his life.

During the early summer of 1882 Irish affairs seemed to be marching to dire confusion, and in May came the tragic news of the murder in Phoenix Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary. Melgund at once wrote to Sir Garnet Wolseley offering himself for service in that country should the occasion arise. Talking with old Lord Strathnairn of this appalling tragedy, the latter said that he could soon put Ireland to rights: "it only wanted a little determination, and of course he would avoid unnecessary bloodshed!" At that time Melgund saw a good deal of this old warrior, who was renowned for his blunt speech and his many idiosyncrasies. Once, arriving for dinner, he found the table laid for sixteen, but they dined tete-a-tete, all the other invitations having somehow miscarried!

In July he celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday amid the stir of preparation for an Egyptian campaign. When war was declared Sir Garnet Wolseley was appointed to the command, and he applied for Melgund as private secretary, but there was some difficulty about employing an officer not on the active list. Wolseley therefore wrote to him officially regretting that he could not make the appointment, but at the bottom of the page there was a "P.T.O." and on the other side "Come along, Rolly." Privately he was advised to procure a couple of horses and present himself in Egypt. He left London on 4th August, travelling from Brindisi in the dispatch boat with Sir John Adye, Neville Lyttelton, and some of Sir Garnet's staff. On the 11th he was reconnoitring Arabi's position with Lord Methuen, and in the next few days he was feverishly scouring Alexandria for horses. Then Wolseley arrived, and on the 17th Melgund was gazetted as captain in the Mounted Infantry, a force the strength of which was 4 officers and 73 men. After some delay and much uncertainty they were sent to Ismailia, and landed on the 22nd August, proceeding to the cavalry lines. Of the action on the 24th an account may be transcribed from the journal:--

"29th August.--On Wednesday we received orders to parade at 4 a.m. Accordingly we fell in on Thursday morning in the dark. The Household Cavalry and some guns were to have come with us, but the guns were late and delayed the Cavalry, so we accordingly marched off alone: the Cavalry caught us up at daylight, but not the guns. About 5:30 we came across some Bedouins on foot who fired at us. The Mounted Infantry were ordered to attack them, which we did, driving them off and taking eight prisoners. We galloped a considerable distance after them. The country here was chiefly hard sand and very good going, but in some parts there was grazing ground, intersected by wet ditches. During part of our chase I galloped towards what I supposed to be a line of men about to fire, but on getting close found that they were a line of long-legged birds!

"After chasing the Bedouins and taking prisoners we thought the morning's work was over till we saw, rather to the left of the point to which we had pursued some skirmishers on a low ridge of hills. The enemy was now advancing in earnest. I saw little of what went on on our left, we being wholly on the right of our line. The action commenced with the Household Cavalry. The enemy advanced with large bodies of troops--infantry, and cavalry behind them, who remained on the high ground. I wondered at the time why our guns did not at once begin and play upon the enemy masses which offered such a rare mark for artillery. It turns out that the guns were not there: they had got stuck somewhere, and though they came up before long, we never got more than two guns in action. The first order given was about 6 a.m. for the Mounted Infantry to engage the enemy on our right flank. As it happened, the Corps only mustered forty-three men that morning, and we could only dismount half at a time. Throughout the morning we were always under fire, generally from our front, very often from our right flank, and sometimes from our right rear. We were required to draw out and keep in check the whole of the enemy's left flank with twenty dismounted men. In front of us the enemy was in considerable strength. I hear now that he had ten battalions of infantry on the ground, besides cavalry, and, I think, twelve guns, which were employed entirely against our left flank, where our two guns were.

"The enemy was constantly working round the rising ground and firing on our right flank, and at one time we were so far separated from the cavalry that we were in a fair way to be cut off. The cavalry gave us no support except the moral support of their presence in the rear of us. The enemy advanced in a long line of skirmishers dressed in white; they generally fired at about 1,200 or 1,000 yards, and never came within 700, as at that distance our fire began to tell, and they would not come on. Later the 84th Regiment and Marine Artillery came into action; then the guns; then a certain space without troops; then the cavalry; then ourselves. This was the largest number of troops we had in action. The Mounted Infantry had certainly a warm time under a nasty fire the whole morning. At about 11 a.m. Parr, who was in command, was shot through the right leg. I was standing close to him; we were both dismounted at the time and with our firing line. Piggott then took command. About an hour later I was hit in the hand. We had run very short of ammunition, and I had just been round the troop of the 60th to see what remained, and was dismounted, talking to Sergeant Riarden on the flank of the Corps, when a shot hit me a little below the wrist, in the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. It bled a good deal at first, but Sergeant Riarden tied it up tightly and more or less stopped it, and I went to the rear, where I found the 1st Life Guards, and Hamilton, their doctor, tied me up. I afterwards rode to Ismailia, and went to the Khedive's Palace there, which has been turned into a hospital.

"Sir Garnet, who was out on the morning the engagement started, is said to have ordered breakfast at 10 o'clock, and I cannot think that at the outside more than a reconnaissance was intended. As it was, we became committed with a very small force against a very large one."

Melgund was to see no more fighting, but was left to contemplete the badness of the medical arrangements and listen to a hundred contradictory rumours, till on 13th September came the news of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, followed the next day by the surrender of Arabi. On the 15th he was in Cairo hunting up what remained of the Mounted Infantry, and was much disquieted by the quarters he found them in.

"The infernal regions could hardly be worse! Mosquitoes! I never saw such mosquitoes! Stinks in abundance, and poor devils of loose horses which had been left here by the Egyptian Cavalry running about all night screaming! There have been all sorts of excitements: the railway station caught fire full of stored ammunition, and I shall never forget seeing Havelock Allan walk quietly towards the burning buildings to see if there was a possibility of removing the ammunition. There was a crowd of soldiers round the station, all standing back a long way from the flames, and no one apparently capable of taking the lead till he appeared on the scene. He is a very gallant fellow. He joined us during the fight at Magfar, borrowed a rifle from one of the Mounted Infantry and blazed away at the Egyptians, and amused me by shouting out, 'The Elliots will be proud of you to-day!' I assumed command of the Corps on 22nd September.

"The Khedive entered Cairo on Monday, 25th September; the troops lined the streets, the Mounted Infantry taking the Bel-el-Soug. On Saturday, the 30th, the 'march past' took place. Those who were looking on say it was a fine sight. The following Monday there was a grand function in the evening at the Palace given by the Khedive to all the officers of the force. Magnificent illuminations, native bands of different sorts, rope dancing, and a splendid supper, to which about a thousand must have sat down. Pope congratulated me on being mentioned in General Orders, of which I was quite ignorant."

In General Orders issued by Sir Garnet Wolseley at Cairo, October 1882, the following appeared:--

"The General Commanding-in-Chief wishes to take this opportunity of thanking Captain Lord Melgund and the officers and men of this Corps for the admirable services they have rendered during the campaign. On more than one occasion Sir Garnet Wolseley has had the pleasure of bringing to notice the gallantry of the Corps and of making special mention of its Commanding Officer, its officers, and its men."

In the Gazette of 17th November Melgund received the 4th Class of the Medjidie and promotion to the rank of honorary major. By the end of October he was back in England. In reading the careful summary in his journal of the campaign it is impossible not to be impressed with his grasp of the operations and his shrewd judgment of individual achievement. The officers whom he commended were without exception destined to justify his opinion in later and greater wars.

During the winter of 1882-83 Melgund kept horses at Aston Clinton, the Cyril Flowers' house, and hunted regularly with the Bicester, the Grafton, and Mr. Selby Lowndes. He saw Lord Wolseley often and corresponded with Sir Frederick Roberts in India, but his strenuous interest in public affairs was a little abated. For a new factor had entered his life. Seven years before, in the library at Minto, his mother had introduced him to the youngest daughter of General Charles Grey,* who had been private secretary both to the Prince Consort and to Queen Victoria. The two families had been friends and political allies for generations; some wit once called the Elliots "the Scots Greys," for in the days of political patronage the loaves and the fishes that were left by the one were snapped up by the other. Presently Mary Grey makes her appearance in Melgund's journal as a neighbour at dinner and a partner at tails. He had a host of women friends, for his chivalry and high spirits were extraordinarily attractive, but his mind seemed to be set on other things than marriage, and his men friends regarded him as the eternal adventurer who shakes his bridle reins and rides away. Something of the sort he believed himself, and was accustomed to scoff at domesticity and lay heavy odds in favour of consistent bachelordom. But that spring sealed his fate. Melgund and Mary Grey met during Whitsuntide at Panshanger, the Cowpers' place in Hertfordshire, a paradise of green lawns and blue-bell woods, and a week later the engagement was announced. Melgund was fortunate in many things, but his marriage was the crowning felicity of his life. He won a wife'who was to be a comrade and helpmate as perfect as ever fell to the lot of man.

* Second son of the second Earl Gray, who, as Prime Minister, introduced the Reform Bill of 1832.

The marriage took place on the 28th July at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and the honeymoon was spent at Lady Sarah Spencer's house at Berkhamstead, and at Minto. The bride's toother, in a letter to Queen Victoria has described it:--

"Mary was deeply touched by your Majesty's telegram, received just as we were starting for church. She really looked her best in white satin trimmed with dear Lady Minto's lace and veil. The service was beautifully performed by Canon Farrar. Six little bridesmaids--the eldest was seven--Sybil M'Donnell (Louisa's little girl), Albert's Victoria, Beatrix Herbert's child, Lady Clarendon's, Lady Zetland's, and Lady Grosvenor's pretty little girls; Albert's little Charlie, Victoria's boy, and Louisa's Dunluce, as pages. A large assemblage of mutual friends attended. Your Majesty's beautiful shawl and Princess Beatrice's brooch were much prized. . . . On occasions of this kind the loss of their dear father's blessing must be deeply felt, but I know he would have fully approved of their union. They have been attracted to one another for years. He is a thorough soldier, devoted to his profession, and full of merit."*

* This letter was found amongst Queen Victoria's papers and sent to Lady Minto in 1916 by the desire of King George V.

Of the many letters of congratulation which Melgund received, one may be quoted from Lord Wolseley which was characteristic of their friendship:--

"I am very glad to hear you are about to marry, for I think as an eldest son you ought to do so. I can therefore congratulate you with all my heart, and wish you every joy and blessing this world can afford. You may be quite certain that, if ever I again command troops in the field, I shall be very glad to have you with me. I wish you could take into the field with you five or six hundred mounted riflemen from the Volunteer Forces. In the event of war, you would be just the man to raise such a corps, and with your position and the prestige of your having been in the Army and wounded when in command of Mounted Infantry, I am sure you would be able to pick and choose from all the corps in the Volunteer service and the Yeomanry--the term of service to be for the war and two months, if necessary, after the declaration of peace. I wish you would think of this and work out the details, especially as to the course to be pursued to establish the corps. This is a ridiculous letter to write to a man just about to be married, but you began the subject of fighting first, as children say when they are quarrelling. Again I wish you every happiness, and wish it you with all my heart."