"THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY." Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., from HUMOROUS TALES FROM RUDYARD KIPLING, with 23 Illustrations by Reginald Cleaver. 10s. 6d. net. The Kipling Journal The Organ of the Kipling Society QUARTERLY No. 19 SEPTEMBER 1931 Contents. Frontispiece : From a Drawing by Reginald Cleaver. News and Notes ... ... 65 Tragedy of Love and Death ... 78 Mr. Kipling in France... ... 68 Kipling and India ... ... 79 In the Sale Room ... ... 69 Sussex Dialect Words... ... 86 Tale of a Snark......... 70 Letter Bag ......... 94 Kipling and America...... 72 Secretary's Page ...... 96 News and Notes. The new "Kiplings" for the autumn book trade to which we referred in our last issue turn out to be reprints, but they promise well, and each has some special features. Both are to be illustrated. Under the title Humorous Tales from Rudyard Kipling, will be gathered twenty-one stories selected from the author's books, interspersed by nine appropriate poems. An illustration by Mr. Reginald Cleaver, the well- known artist of Punch, to each story will be an attractive features of the book. The volume will comprise The Legend of Mirth—Moti Guj, Mutineer—The Rout of the White Hussars—The First Sailor—Judson and the Empire—Namgay Doola—My Sunday at Home—Pig—Alnaschar and the Oxen —The Bull that Thought—A Flight of Fact—Private Lea- royd's Story—The Finances of the Gods—The Cook—His Gift— The Press—-The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat—The Puzzler—The Puzzler—The Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney —Gallio's Song—Little Foxes—My Lord the Elephant— Brugglesmith—The Sending of Dana Da—The Fabulists—The Vortex—The Song of Seven Cities—The Necessitarian. The titles in italics will be recognised as poems. The price in cloth will be half a guinea net, or fifteen shillings net in leather. This book may be out by the time No. 19 is pub- lished. The other volume East of Suez is to contain twelve illustrations in colour with head and tail-pieces in line, by Mr. Donald Maxwell, who in Sea and Sussex and Songs of 66 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. the Sea has shown himself a sympathetic illustrator of Mr. Kipling's poems. The new book contains the following six poems: To the City of Bombay, A Song of the English, Christmas in India, For to Admire, Native Born and Song of the Cities. The publishers have decided to issue East of Suez at an extremely moderate price so as to bring an attrac- tive presentation volume within reach of a greatly extended range of book-buyers. It will be " not over 8s. 6d. net." Our illustration is from the first mentioned book, the publishers having placed a block at the disposal of the Society. X X X X X The public library of Toronto has been extended, and in the new building there is a Kipling Room, which will be devoted to the reading and interests of older boys and girls. X X X X X The Schneider Cup Race incidents earlier in the month has served to recall Mr. Kipling's "Hymn of the Triumphant Airman," which was published in the Morning Post on Sep- tember 6, 1929. It is part of the Hon. Editor's weekly task to pass in review a number of little known periodicals and to marvel at the many occasions when, and the out of the way places in which, Mr. Kipling's poetry and prose is introduced by way of quotation or comment. Thus there recently came to hand the house organ of a business concern containing a note on the poem. The writer called special attention to the first stanza which runs— Oh long had we paltered With bridle and girth Ere those horses were haltered That gave us the Earth. Here, either deliberately or instinctively, the poet has adopted the same metre as that of two well known poems which have to do with speed. These are Byron's lines beginning The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. and those of Robert Browning's, which run thus:— I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he, I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three. When recited as they should be, these verses give one a sense of speed which carries one away. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 67 During the past quarter it has been announced in several quarters that the Light that Failed is to be filmed during the coming winter. It is part of a plan organized by Mr. Robert T. Kane, the European production chief for the Paramount Film Corporation, who proposes to film in England stories by Rudyard Kipling, the late Arnold Bennett, Miss May Edgin- ton and others. Mr. Alexander Korda and Mr. H. D'Abbadie D'Arrast are to make pictures at Elstree and Mr. Kipling will collaborate. A party from the studios at Elstree will leave for Egypt in November to film exterior scenes in the Sudan, where the producers will have the co-operation of the War Office and the Sudan Government on details of historical authenticity. X X X X X Apropos of the story of the Capture of the Snark elsewhere in this issue, Mr. Greville E. Matheson, formerly the pub- licity director of the famous "Union Castle" line of steamers, has been contributing reminiscences to the Newspaper World. In a recent issue he told the story of the publication in 1922 of a selection of his verses under the name of Ships and Supermen. Sir William Noble (now Lord Kirkstone) wrote a Foreword, and the volume was dedicated to "My friend, Archibald Hurd." Greatly daring the author sent a copy of the book to Rudyard Kipling, not without some fear and trembling, for the first piece of verse was entitled "Very Much at Sea," and ran thus:— A twin-screw brig, with a trawler's rig, was the good ship 'Bolivar,' All spick and span from her donkey man to the bilge on the capstan bar, She was pulley-haul, with a ten-foot pawl, and a regular chanty crew, And right avast, at the mizzen-mast, the scarlet Bo'sun flew. We had hugged the shore for a year or more, till on one summer night, From out of the gloom the thwart-ship boom of the Deutschland loomed in sight, And inch by inch, as she dipped her winch, with her fulmar streaming high, Thro' the sleet and mist, with a for'ard list, she strove to pass us by. 68 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. One of our members sends an amusing story which illustrates the difficulties that confront the translator of R.K. idioms. It records that an Italian journalist undertook to give the readers of his paper some idea of the character of the British Soldier then fighting in South Africa. Unfortunately he- based his own conception of a British Tommy on a translation of "The Absent-minded Beggar," and he went on to point out that one whom a leading light of English literature described as Il Mendicanto Distratto, "The Distracted Mendicant" must be a pretty feeble fighter. Mr. Kipling in France. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, on July 2, was the guest of honour of the France Grande Bretagne Association at its annual banquet held at the Circle Interallié. M. le Marquis de Vogue presided, and among the many distinguished people invited to meet Mr. Kipling were Lord Tyrrell, the British Ambass- ador, a number of French statesmen, the Ministers of Canada and the Irish Free Slate, General Gouraud, and Sir Thomas Barclay. The Morning Post of July 3 had the longest and best report of Mr. Kipling's speech, from which we quote below:— "A few weeks ago I visited your wonderful Colonial Exhi- bition, and it recalled to me the time when as a boy of twelve I came to Paris with my father to the Exposition of '78. He was in charge of the fine arts exhibits from India, and the arrangement of them kept him very busy, for in those days expositions were not always complete even after they had been formally opened. So he presented me with a free pass to everything and told me to run away and play while he worked, I obeyed him—filially I obeyed him for five glorious weeks. "There stood in the Trocadero gardens the bronze head of your great Bartholdi's statue of Liberty enlightening the world. For a sou one could climb up into that vast and vacant cranium and look out through its empty eyeballs into the secure and gracious world of Paris beneath. I went there often, and one time the Guardian said to me, 'See here, you small Englishman—never forget that for once in your life you have looked through the very eyes of Liberty herself.' And I did not forget. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 69 "But I omitted to notice then—what I have often noticed since—that liberty has not eyes at the back of her head to guard against dangers that may overtake her It is bold to look forward. It is wise to look backward. Our two coun- tries can look back together for many years. They were the first to disentangle themselves from the confusion that fol- lowed the fall of Rome and to stand apart as civilising nations. During that process it was organically necessary for Eng- land to assimilate the French conquerors which you had sent over. They would not learn English. It was equally vital for France to eliminate the English invaders whom we had sent over to you. It is true that they had tried for 100 years to improve your tactics and strategy. You complained and with justice that they ruined your country. Now we have evolved the exclusively English-speaking tourist who annually invades your pleasant land but who does not ruin your country—in the same way." In the Sale Room. Not many items of special interest have passed through the auction rooms during the past quarter. Messrs. Sotheby's catalogue of books sold between July 28 and July 31 comprised the following lots, which realised the prices indicated. Echoes. By Two Writers [Rudyard Kipling and his Sister Beatrice], original wrappers, back-strip missing, very rare. 8vo (6 in. by 4½ in.). Lahore: The " Civil and Military Gazette " Press, n.d. [1884]. Of these Poems 24 are Parodies of mainly 19th Century Poets, e.g. Tennyson, Keats, Burns, Wordsworth, Browning, Swinburne, etc.; at the head of each Poem the name of the Author parodied has been written in pencil by Kipling. On p. 37, "The Sudder Bazar" is marked "fondly imagined to be original," and ten poems following are initialed R.K. or B.K., " Our lady of many dreams " on p. 49 is " supposed to be original." £280 Bungalow Ballads, First Separate Edition, original blue wrappers, uncut, unopened. 8vo. n.d. [?1885]. This is the first separate edition (apparently unrecorded) of Kipling's "Bungalow Ballads." The upper cover is lettered " Bungalow Ballads. By Rudyard Kipling " (reverse blank) ; on the first 70 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. page " Bungalow Ballads "; on the reverse " Reprinted from the Pioneer Mail." Text, pp. (3)-8. Lower cover blank. They appeared in the Pioneer Mail on August 23rd, 27th and 30th and September 6th, 1885, and in the Pioneer August 15,. 19, 22, 27, 31 and September 5th, 1885. Two of them " Divided Destinies " and " The Legend of the Lily " (with the title "The Mare's Nest") were reprinted in "Departmental Ditties and Other Verses," 1886. The titles of the six poems are as follows: (1) The Tale of Two Suits; (2) The Divided Destinies; (3) The Legend of the Lily; (4) A Tale of Yesterday's Ten Thousand Years; (5) Revenge—A Ballad of the Meeter; (6) The Legend of the Pill. This lot was catalogued as the property charitable object. £32' Typewritten Letter " Very sincerely yours Rudyard Kipling " in autograph, 1 p. 8vo, May 27, 23, to Mr. Brown, thanking him for a volume of Bunyan, and discussing the earlier editions of Tusser. £2 Letters of Marque, First Edition", original red and blue cloth, the binding is very slightly stained, otherwise a fine copy, the stamp on the end paper bears date 5 October '91. A. H. Wheeler & Co. Allahabad, 1891. £6 5s. A New and True Tale of a Snark. We are indebted to a South African member—Mr. H. G. Willmot, of Cape Town, for the following story. "In Decem- ber, 1904," he writes, "I returned to South Africa on the R.M.S. Armadale Castle. Mr. Kipling was a fellow passenger and a member, if not chairman, of the Sports Committee. His small son John accompanied him. On December 20 the vessel struck a large fish, which was subsequently believed to have been a record sized specimen of the "basking shark." The occurrence was the subject of much discussion in the South African press and later on, in some of the English newspapers. On December 28 a set of verses appeared in the Cape Times which were generally attributed to Mr. Kipling. At that time I shared in his belief, but after digging them out for the purposes of this letter and reading them again, I have some- doubts on the subject. Have you any means of verifying the authorship ? THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 71 Below are a few of the stanzas from The Capture of the Snark:— Will you listen awhile, without laughter or smile, While I tell you a tale of the sea ? It isn't a joke, I assure you, dear folk, For it recently happened to me. The weather was fine as we got near the Line, And the passengers found the time dull, So the skipper suggested that all who were rested Should fish for a snark o'er the hull. The whole ship was the bait; what a terrible fate, For the monster who swallowed it whole, But a snark is so large it could swallow a barge, And chuck in the bargee and pole. For an hour or more we caught fish by the score (That's a lie, but a fisherman may) But we soon all got tired till someone out-liared The Waltons of every day. By saying aloud, in the midst of the crowd, The man in the bow had just won, For a shark he has hooked, and then everyone looked, And declared he had captured the bun. We cannot spare space for the next few verses, but the hooking of the shark "was discussed fore and aft with great glee.'' And the way that shark grew; well, between you and me, All fishing lies hitherto told, Were as truth unadorned, which should never be scorned, Compared with these statements so bold. 72 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Kipling and America. Rear Admiral Chandler's Visit to London. IN our last number we referred to the visit of Rear Admiral L. H. Chandler, U.S.A. (Ret.), to London, and promised a resume of his address to the Members at the Rembrandt Rooms on June 9. Our visitor kindly left with us the draft of the paper from which he quoted and talked. It was intensely interesting, and very long, so much so that we decided that the way to handle the " copy " was to deal with the general aspects in one number, with the bibliographical notes at another time, and with Admiral Chandler's extremely interesting re- ierences to Kipling and the sea in a third. After a reference to the enormous circulation enjoyed by Mr. Kipling's books, the speaker suggested that with these figures in mind, the thought, the question, must come into the mind: " Why such enormous sales?" The answer to that was that Mr. Kipling, somewhere and somehow had something that appeals to every man, woman and child; to every art, pro- fession and occupation; and to every mood, every feeling, and every experience. If any person said: " I do not care for Mr. Kipling's work; it does not interest me or appeal to me," that simply meant that that person had not yet found his or her particular stories, poems, or other writings. Rest assured that there were stories or poems somewhere among Mr. Kipling's writings for everyone; something for every phase of knowledge, for every experience, and for every feeling and mood. Here- inafter we will let the lecturer continue in his own words. " A lady once told me that Mr. Kipling's great fault as a writer was that he had never done any really fine descriptive writing. Smiling inwardly, I put into her hand his descrip- tion of that " embodiment of all things pure, all things holy, and all things unhappy," the Taj Mahal, at Agra, as given in the first chapters of Letters of Marque. I followed that up with the letters in From Sea to Sea, descriptive of Japan and of its people and customs, and capped the climax by giving her that wonderful set of pictures in the travel letter collected in Letters of Travel under the title " Half-a-Dozen Pictures," and the other descriptive writings contained in that volume. There followed a complete recantation of an all too hasty opinion previously formed. The universal appeal of Mr. Kipling's THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 73 work was well expressed by a very hard-working and overtaxed physician, who one day said to me: '' When I come home at night, worried, harassed, and utterly exhausted, I take up my volume of Kipling's poems, and never yet have I failed to find there something to give me encouragement, peace of mind, and new strength with which to look forward to the labors and anxieties of the day that is to come." " I come next to a point upon which I wish to speak of Mr. Kipling's work more in detail; and here I find myself at a loss, for it is well nigh impossible to so classify or assort that work as to make it easy to speak of it in general terms. His writings are so universal in character, covering every possible subject, that it is hard to tell where to begin and how to pro- ceed. Therefore I am afraid that what I have to say will seem to lack arrangement and to be somewhat fragmentary in its nature; but as this is merely a " talk " between friends I hope that you will pardon the perhaps unsystematic form in which I may find it necessary to present the thoughts which I wish to lay before you. And I must also say that, for me at least, it is much more difficult to speak of the prose work than it is of the poems. " First I will turn to two questions, both of which are often asked me by many people. Number one is: "Why do you like Kipling's work so tremendously?" That is surely a ques- tion to answer! But fortunately one of your English poets has answered it for me; one Robert Pollok, who lived from 1799 to 1827, and who, among other things, wrote a long poem en- titled " The Course of Time," in which I have found a great deal to interest and amuse me. To me at least, Mr. Kipling is beyond doubt among the second class of writers whom Pollok describes at some length in his poem. The lines to which I refer are too extended to permit me to quote them in length, but I have here a copy of them which I lay before you. In them he first describes (and the description fits well to-day) how " the story-telling tribe, alone outran all calculations far," so that " dreadful, even to fancy, was their never ceasing birth " of books. These books, he says, " charm the greedy reader on till, done, he tries to recollect his thoughts, and nothing finds but dreariness," despite the temporary popularity of the class of work to which he refers. Passing from that class, he then speaks of the real writer, comparing him to Job, " the patient 74 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. man of Uz," whose work was not " light and momentary- labour," but " discipline and self-denial long, and purpose staunch," " and energy that inspiration seems, composed of many thoughts, possessing, each, innate and underived vitality." He closes his description of this higher class of work with the lines: " Books of this sort, or sacred or profane, Which virtue helped, were titled not in vain The medicine of the mind: who read them, read Wisdom, and was refreshed; and on his path Of pilgrimage with healthier step advanced." To me those lines fitly and justly describe Mr. Kipling's work, and answer the question as to why that work so movingly appeals to me. '' The second question is: " What is your favourite among Kipling's works?" That also is indeed a puzzling question to which I am never able to give a direct answer. My invariable reply is that my favourites are many, and that the particular poem or story that at any moment most appeals to me, depends upon my mood and feelings at the moment. One can hardly classify Mr. Kipling's poems sufficiently clearly to say that one particular set appeals to any particular mood, for they so merge one with another in the feeling expressed, that there can be no clear line of cleavage between them. One may think of what may be called the hymns or poems of reverence, and at once the mind turn to " Recessional " and " The Children's Song," both of which have now found place in the Hymnal of the Episcopal Church of the United States. And yet these are as much poems of patriotism as they are hymns. And with the strong religious trend we find also " Hymn Before Action," " Eddi's Service," " The Prayer of Miriam Cohen," and " The Rabbi's Song;" the last with its beautiful verse paraphrase of the fourteenth verse of the fourteenth chapter of the second Book of Samuel. (" For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him."). It is worthy of note, by the way, that Mr. Kipling uses that same Biblical verse with telling effect in his story " On the Gate." Probably each one of the poems named above might be listed under some other class, as well as under that of poems of reverence. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 75 " I turn now to some consideration of the very great accuracy as to facts inherent in Mr. Kipling's work; and in so doing will refer first to a certain article which appeared in the United States in a magazine entitled The Bookman, in October, 1912. This consisted of a few brief paragraphs under the title " Mr. Kipling's Blunders," in which the writer states that he had the (brilliant idea of preparing a series of interesting articles about " the blunders of the modern popular writers, their slips in syntax, their anachronisms, and all the other various ways in which literary genius is caught napping." He started on Kipling, and says that after five hours of arduous investigation he had found but three small errors, " an incorrect formation of a Greek plural, a misquotation from Hamlet, and an unimportant blunder in classical mythology." After that he gave up the idea, deciding that his thought was not as brilliant as he had at first deemed it. " I presume that there are errors in Mr. Kipling's work, as there doubtless must be in the work of every prolific writer; but certainly his are reduced to the very lowest possible degree, both as to number and as to importance, and the painstaking care which he gives to all his work is very evident. And it is my privilege to be able to tell you something about one matter which goes to prove the point. If you will read the story " Brother Square-Toes " and its accompanying poem " Phila- delphia," you will get a very fine and very accurate picture of our city of Philadelphia and of its people in the days when George Washington was President. Among other people you will read of one Tobias Hirte, a chemist, or, as we would call him, an apothecary, who had a shop in that city, and for whom the hero of the story, Pharoah Lee, worked for a time as an assistant. Now if you glance at that poem you will see that, should you go to Philadelphia to-day, you would find that: " Toby Hirte can't be seen at One Hundred and Eighteen North Second Street—no matter when you call." Indeed he cannot, and to prove that he could not, even were he still living and carrying on his business, I have here a copy of the notice of his removal. It was published in a newspaper and posted in his shop window in 1808, advising his customers that he had removed from that address, changing his place of business to another shop. I also here have a picture of the shop from which he removed as it looks to-day, and, as well, one of 76 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. that to which he removed, No. 124, North. Second Street, three doors North of his first place of business. A change in the system of numbering the houses in Philadelphia made in com- paratively recent days, has changed the numbers of the two houses to Nos. 204 and 210 respectively, but they are still on North Second Street. It is such evidence as this which em- boldens me to state that Mr. Kipling does not make statements of fact, even in regard to minor matters, without being sure of his ground. " The story of Toby Hirte gives us still further evidence on the point. You will notice from the story, and from his notice of removal, that one of Toby's staple drugs was his so-called " Seneca Oil," so named because he got it from the Seneca Indians who then lived in the country surrounding Philadelphia. Now it is a fact that, in the part of that area lying on the banks of a small stream known as French's Creek, there was a supply of petroleum in the ground, which, at one or two well known places, used to ooze to the surface and spread on the waters of the creek. The Seneca Indians used to spread their filthy blankets under the surface of the water at such spots until they became soaked with the mixture of oil and water, when they would hang them up and let the water drain off; after which they would squeeze the oil out of them, put it into such containers as they could find, and sell it to Toby Hirte. He in turn used to bottle it—whether with or without pre- vious purification the historian sayeth not—and sell it to his customers as his famous " Seneca Oil." So much is known beyond doubt. I have been told that Mr. Kipling was once asked why he did not refer to this pleasant custom in speaking of the " Seneca Oil " in his story, and that he replied that he had heard of the matter, but refrained from using the specific details because he could not prove them. All of which con- firms the previously expressed belief that Mr. Kipling is very careful as to the accuracy of whatever he writes. " Yet another instance of accuracy may be uncovered by a study of the story entitled " A Disturber of Traffic," which deals with the mental aberrations of an English keeper of a lighthouse in the waters at the eastern end of the Island of Flores, in the East Indies; that is, in and around Flores Strait and Lobetobi Strait, and the small sea connecting the two. In THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 77 this story Mr. Kipling's description of the scene is so care- fully drawn that it would be possible for a good navigator, even one who had never seen the place before, to take a ship through these straits without chart or other descriptions. This I believe to be a very remarkable bit of descriptive work, especially when it is seen that it is all condensed into a few brief lines. " To accuracy of fact Mr. Kipling adds a remarkably keen accuracy of observation, not only from his own point of view but from that of the other man as well. This I know from personal experience. It first came to my notice a good many years ago, because, in one of his prose works, Mr. Kipling painted a word picture of something which he could not have often seen himself, but which I had seen many times; and yet never really seen until he pointed it out to me. It made so vivid an impression upon me then, as an example of leading the blind to see, that I am going to read to you a few prose lines from Captains Courageous: A Story of the Grand Banks, which brought light to my previously unseeing eyes. They describe the sea, the fishing fleet, and the dories and fishermen of that fleet, as they appeared when seen from one of the dories. Here they are: A gentle breathing swell, three furlongs from trough to barrel, would quietly shoulder up a string of variously painted dories. They hung for an instant, a wonderful frieze against the sky-line, and their men pointed and hailed. Next moment the open mouths, waving arms, and bare chests disappeared, while on another swell came up an entirely new line of characters like paper figures in a toy theatre. " Now, while I have never been among the fishing fleet in that way and so have never seen that particular " line of char- acters like paper figures in a toy theatre," nevertheless I have many times been at sea in a small boat in a non-breaking, " gentle, breathing swell, three furlongs from trough to barrel," and I have seen many such pictures " shouldered up " and then dropped out of sight again, to be replaced for the moment by other figures and objects. But I have never really seen them until I read those lines; they had merely made an impression upon my eyesight without conveying anything in particular to 78 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. my mind. There and then, as I read the lines, my mental eyes were opened; and since then, in all such, surroundings, I have tried to see with my mind as well as with my eyes. This I owe to Mr. Kipling, and it has meant much to me. " Whatever the sights that I have seen, it is rare that I cannot find lines, especially in the poems, that help me to see. Never have I since seen " the blazing tropic night, when the wake's a welt of light that holds the hot sky tame," or " the orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire there- under/' or any other of the many beautiful sights of the sea, that the Kipling lines do not come hack to me and make each picture more beautiful and more vivid. To convince you that there can be but little seen of the sea that Mr. Kipling has not touched upon, I have compiled roughly, hastily, and no- doubt somewhat inaccurately, a list of about thirty prose writ- ings and about sixty poems, all of which are either about the sea, or the men and the things of the sea, or else which con- tain some more than merely passing mention of them, or some lines in Gerard to them that are worthy of note. THE TRAGEDY OF LOVE AND DEATH. Love and Death once ceased their strife At the Tavern of man's life; Called for wine and cast, alack! Each his quiver from his back. When the bout was o'er they found Mingled arrows strewed the ground; Hastily they gathered then Each the Loves and Lives of men. Death's dread armoury was stored With the shafts he most abhorred, While Love's quiver groaned beneath Venom-headed darts of Death. Thus it was they wrought our woe; Can Love see or does Death know, Loosing blindly as they fly, Old men love while young men die? It will be noticed that the above original version, which appeared in The Calcutta Review in 1886, contains three lines- fewer than will be found in 'The Explanation' in Barrack Room Ballads. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 79 Kipling and India. Being notes taken on the occasion of Professor L. F. Rushbrook Williams' Talk on May 7. IN coming to address the Kipling Society to-night, I feel In a measure, a fraud, for there is probably no one in this room. who is less competent than myself to give you a literary criti- cism of Mr. Kipling. I am myself, as I think everybody who knows India must be, an intense admirer of his work. Regarding India, perhaps I may be able to say something of interest, but so far as concerns Mr. Kipling's work in India, I am afraid I cannot say very much. Someone once remarked that anyone going to India should be equipped with three things, namely:—a fur coat; a sense of humour; and a set of Kipling's works, the last because Kipling has interpreted India to the world better than anyone else. But first may I ask you to consider with me in what degree India as portrayed by Mr. Kipling differs from the India in which we have at present to take some part. One of the ways in which we can do that is by considering the angle from which Mr. Kipling viewed it. One of the greatest characteristics of Kipling is the fact that he is a heaven-born journalist, and when you get a heaven-born journalist turned loose in India, you are likely to see a great deal of fun. I always think my- self that the most revealing thing that Kipling wrote was " The Press." It seems to me that, in that poem, Mr. Kipling has revealed not merely the strength of those ties which bind his heart strings to his early journalistic career in India, but also the outlook which was responsible for much of his writings for many years. Kipling has been the greatest interpreter of India the world has ever known. If he no longer keeps the position, I think we shall find the explanation along three lines of reason :— First, the world has changed, we have become a little softer and are afraid of frankness; next India herself has changed, and the picture Kipling drew needs modification; and in the third place, let us remember that Kipling displays in his Indian work—as throughout much of his other work—some strong likes and dislikes, no longer fashionable to-day. I cannot attempt any literary criticism on Kipling's work, even on his work in India. I am not competent to do that, 80 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. but I do beg you to imagine the opportunity that India pre- sented to him, coming as he did in 1883 as a young man straight from college. He found there such opportunity as a journalist with his ability and insight had never encountered in the world before, for about that time, India was an unknown country to the average Englishman. It may be argued that India is unknown still, but in the " eighties " there was a frankness which seems almost incredible to us now. After the Mutiny, public attention in Britain had been very little focussed on India. Once that event had happened, no one in this country knew much about what was going on there. It was Kipling, going back to India with his early associations in mind, who employed his marvellous gift of utilising the single ordinary word or short phrase to express vividly the exact mean- ing of things that would not otherwise be understood by the ordinary Englishman, and he used them as a literary historian, so that, within two years of his arrival in India, people began to be aware that a new star was rising in the literary firmament. We shall be able better to appreciate the work of Kipling if we try to see India as it appeared to him. He was brought into contact with the Punjab when it was in a much less settled state than the Punjab we know to-day, and with some of those men with whom his sympathies were most marked. He came into contact with men who were planning and carrying through wonderful schemes for its benefit, which have made the Punjab so marvellous. He would meet people coming in from short leaves with their stories of what had happened on these leaves. It is interest- ing to note in that connection that Kipling's early loves and characters in the Indian drama, are for the most part soldiers, and policemen, with engineers at a later period. Life in Simla seems to have convinced him that there was truth in a little rhyme which distinctly points to the little tin gods:— Remember the mess that is made Of the work that is done by the man in the sun By the man who sits in the shade. Probably Kipling's experience of the men in Lahore who were responsible for carrying the burdens of administration, tended THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 81 to confirm his rather cynical impression of the people who sat in Simla. That perhaps accounts for the strength as well as the limitations of Kipling's outlook on matters Indian, which can he discerned in his early works. The men in " Departmental Ditties," " Plain Tales from the Hills " and " Barrack Room Ballads " are separated by the gulf of his earlier atmosphere. In two of those hooks Kipling displayed extraordinary vigour and gift as a satiric rhymester, and " Plain Tales from the Hills " revealed him as one of the masters of the short story. When we examine Kipling's attitude towards life in these earlier works, we detect a strong aristocratic bias. His belief has always been in the born ruler of men, and also that born rulers of men ran in families, and those views made him a little contemptuous of the rather pinchbeck middle class of Simla. He suffered in Simla, and I suggest that he may have resented it and adopted this attitude because he, as a mere journalist, was outside the charmed circle. He showed an intense dislike of social snobbery. The kind of pictures he painted of the social life in India is shown in " Delilah." Then again those remarkable verses entitled " One Viceroy Resigns," are worth re-reading, for they contain a great deal of what seems to have been his ideas in those early days. You will find in those early and characteristic works of Kipling's, that he displays this complex as it were against Simla Society and, perhaps he would have given anything in the world if he could have taken an active part in the admini- stration. And when one looks at his attitude towards middle- class society, one feels that life got him on the raw; one notices a certain shade of petulance, possibly because his own defective sight precluded his taking the part he wished in public life. Later a new strain develops—a respect for the expert. It is apparent in " 007 " and " The Ship that found Herself." But there are many other shades which go to make the whole tapestry of Kipling's view of India. He believed definitely, having seen the kind of work British Administrators were doing there, that this work could not be done by anyone else, and he believed that it was to the advantage of India that this work should be done. I do not think it is too fantastic to see in many of his stories a deliberate attempt to arouse belief in England, and the value of the work which is being done by her sons in India. By way of illustration of the characteristic 82 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. features of these views, read again those delightful poems " The Overland Mail " and " The Sea and the Hills." This con- viction of the great work which Britain was doing in India comes out also in a number of the stories. One which occurred to my mind most readily when I was thinking this paper over was that wonderful series of short stories " Life's Handicap " and " The Day's Work." Stories like " The Head of the District " and " William the Conqueror," show Kipling's judgment of the Government of India, and afford plain evidence of his idea that no one but an Englishman could do that sort of work. In his " Letters of Marque " Kipling seems to resent the attitude of the ordinary inhabitant of India who refused to give sufficient deference to the Englishman, and showed in- dependence to British control. He was so thoroughly con- vinced that the British were doing in India magnificent work for which no substitute could be found. Certain aspects of Indian State life appealed enormously to Kipling, by reason of its romance. It comes out for example in " Wressley of the Foreign Office." Another example of Kipling's wonderful ability is to be found in " The Last Suttee," which shows his immense affec- tion for a certain class of people in India, his contempt for the narrow official circle in Simla, and his belief that India was not governed properly. Three other remarkable poems to which I would call attention in this respect, are " The Song of the Women," " The Masque of Plenty," and " What the People Said," and may I add, the last is in many respects as true to-day as when Kipling wrote it. The magnificent de- scription of the ordinary attitude of the common people to-day: and one think common among all the Hindoos, " What matter whether Ram or Rava, God or the Devil rule, provided I be- free to till my field." But in the matter of the life of the people in India, Kipling's greatest inspiration came when he wrote the incomparable " Kim." If one analyses Kipling's attitude towards the different classes of Indians with whom he came in contact, it will be noticed that he is fondest of the aristocrats, and the fighting men. He adores the peasant, but has no liking for the middle- class. There is only one story of Kipling's in which a middle- THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 83 class Indian is allowed to appear in a good light at all—Hari Babu, in " Kim," and he is used as a foil to the other char- acters. Another strain of Kipling's work in India is the intolerable sense of loneliness of the exile, which he brings out with great poignancy in " Christmas in India;" one of the most expressive things he has ever written. He expresses with such clarity the feeling which has come over every one of us at Christmas time. If we try to summarise the attitude Kipling displays in his work towards Indian affairs, we are struck by one remarkable thing. He sees the problems in India as administrative problems rather than as political problems. What concerned him was how India could best be governed. How two blades of grass could be made to grow where one had grown before. How three men's work could be performed by one man. That was the problem that concerned Kipling, and a great deal of his work was directed towards the solution of this kind of question. '' The Pride of his Youth " illustrates his sympathy for what may be called the wastage of the service. In " The Phantom Rickshaw," we have the character of the young bank clerk, and the harassing life of overwork, for which he blames the system, while the old strain of contempt for the amateur is apparent in " The Bank Fraud." The growth of the present reaction in the country against waste in general and British rule in particular, is due to the fact that modern means of communication have taken our sys- tems of administration too close to the door of the ordinary villages. The Indian is disconcerted because we have been able to bring the government to his very threshold. Much of Kipling's work is about soldiers, bridge builders, engineers, and others who keep the peace, and some of his prophesies about the future are well worth keeping in mind now. The delightful skit entitled " What Happened " is a thing which might be read with advantage to-day. Kipling's view on the whole matter is expressed by a stroke of genius in " The Ballad of East and West." His attitude towards India and Indians depends upon the individual and not upon races or castes. Perhaps those remarks of mine do not hang together, but I shall be amply repaid if I have put anyone on the track of finding out anything more of that great author. 84 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. DISCUSSION. Mr. G. C. Beresford thanked the lecturer, who, he said, had shown them that India was the greatest possible field for the display of Kipling's talents; yet it was curious that as a youth he did not very much want to go to India. He had no memories or stories of India, the land of his birth, which he left at 4 or 5 years old. It was to him no romantic land, or store house of literary material or copy, to be clutched and exploited. India had no lure for him and there was no plot or special scheme to start work in the East, by preference. In fact he would rather have stopped at home and made a literary career amongst the home meeting youths that "have ever homely wit" ; and revolve in the usual circles, cliques or sets. Mr. Williams, in his excellent lecture, has pictured Kipling as longing to take a hand in the game and resenting his exclu- sion by "The little tin gods on wheels" up at Simla. But Kipling much preferred to do the fault finding or the patting on the back; he did not really think he could do so much better than others. He liked to stick to his metier which is that of a "First Class Shouting Man." Mr. Beresford goes on to suggest that in figuring Kipling as doting on the aristocracy and the soldier and sailor of the ranks or the engineer type, and despising his own middle class, the lecturer was wrong, at any rate as regards the first named. Kipling had no adulation to lavish on the House of Lords caste. His aristocracy was the most capable and efficient of the upper middle class, and could supremely do their jobs; the best part of his own class As regards Indians Professor Williams analysis struck him as more correct. Kipling certainly had a favourable eye for the Rajput and Princely fighting castes and the masses, and turns his back on the whole of the native middle class, the baboo-log, finding neither virtue nor valour in them. However, when he arrived in India, he unexpectedly found the vigorous action, picturesque background and rich move- ment that his particular artistic temperament and talent re- quired ; and was fitted to depict; but his talents never urged him to take a personal part in the drama. Kipling could never have been a man of action, and the speaker felt sure he never really longed to usurp the Governmental, or (least of all) THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 85 Military functions, that he so plenteously criticised or celebrated with metaphorical drum and trumpet. His urge always was simply to depict or describe as a bystander. Mr. B. M. Bazley had found the lecture most informative, but he disagreed with one or two things. Kipling's attitude, to a certain extent, was out of date, because conditions had changed all over the world. Like most people, he had strong likes and dislikes among individuals, but that was better than horrible likes and dislikes between two nations. Mr. Bazley referred to some first hand information as to what is going on in India, which he had had from a missionary just come back from that country. His work would take him to different conditions from those to which Kipling wrote, but he- endorses all that Kipling said regarding the charm of India. Kipling admired the aristocracy of the men of character, and that was what drew most people to his work. Their author had a great admiration for the man who was prepared to give himself and to make sacrifices for the common good. That ideal was expressed in the Dedication in Stalky & Co. He was not quite sure that they were getting that type nowadays. Colonel Bailey said he had spent several years in India, and the lecture had keenly interested him. If one knew India well, there was no one like Kipling. Reading his works even now, the whole scenes came back in an extraordinary way, but Kipling's work made an appeal also to those who have never been to India. Talking about bazaar runners, very often one used to get news a long way ahead of the press. It is passed from mouth to mouth by runners in some mysterious way. How, he did not know, but it got through. Professor Williams replying, suggested that Kipling's ambi- tion to take an active part in the scenes he depicted had a psycho- logical reaction, and was due to some kind of a complex. One of the reasons why he could throw himself so well into the active lives of his characters was his own desire to express himself that way. They would find the same thing in many writers; they were most vivid where their description reflected an inhibi- tion; writing about it afforded them relief. Kipling might not have had any strong lure to India, but he was attracted by its capacity for romance. He was, perhaps, one of the most romantic of our present day writers, although 86 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. he expressed that romance in a matter of fact way. India provided plenty of material for the practice of such a talent, and the result was a series of clear cut romantic etchings. From the point of view of style, Kipling was essentially a great journalist. He saw vividly and describes vividly, sometimes with misleading clarity. A large proportion of what Kipling had written about India has changed with the times, though many of the things he described were as true now as when he wrote them, but leaving all aside, Kipling would remain the greatest interpreter of India. Sussex Dialect Words. Compiled by Mr. J. DeLancey Ferguson, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. A Glossary of Words and Phrases used in Kipling's Stories and Poems. Continued from No. 17. FARABOUT, adv.: a long way round. " I dunno as I'd go farabout to call you a liar." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 239. FAVOUR, vb.: to resemble. (SD). " The less she favoured any fashion o' pudden." Simple Simon, RF, 295. PINERY, n.: a refinery (for iron). (NED). " The valley was . . . full o' forges an' fineries." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 213. FISK, vb.: to run about. (NED as obsolete). " To fisk and flyte through fern and forest." The Old Men at Pevensey, PPH, 104. FLOG OUT, vb.: to tire; to weary out. (SD and NED). " I felt a bit flogged out, like." The Wish House, D & C, 115. FLYTE, vb.: to flit; to skip ? (The Scots word, the only one listed in NED, means to scold or engage in dispute). (See quotation under " fisk," above). THE KIPLING JOURNAL, 87 FOREIGNER, n.: an outsider. (SD and NED). " A foreigner from the next parish." An Habitation Enforced, AR, 45. FROWTEN, vb. : to frighten. (SD). " " You've frowtened 'em [the bees]." The Vortex, DC, 393. GAFFER, n.: master. (NED). " Even as the whale swallowed up Gaffer Jonah." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 208. GALLIWOPSE, n.: a gallias? (The NED, citing the word from Kingsley's Westward Ho!, Part II, Chapter 9, suggests that Kingsley's use of it may have been due to misunderstanding the meaning of " galliwasp," the name of a small West Indian lizard). " A Spanish galliwopse's oars creepin' up on ye." Simple Simon, RE, 294. GILL, or GHYLL, n.: a deep glen, or ravine. (NED). " Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill." A Three Part Song, IncV, 558. GOOD PIECE, n.: piece of food offered to the People of the Hills, or fairies. " I saw ye throw the Good Piece out-at doors." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 238. GOR-BELLIED, adj.: fat-bellied. (NED). " A great gor-bellied Spanisher . . . came rampin' at us." Simple Simon, RE, 299. GRUMMEL, vb.: to grumble. V You can hear 'em [the ditches] bubblin's an' grummelin.' '' Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 239. GUB, n.: a lump. (NED under gob). " Gubs of good oakum." Simple Simon, RE, 304. GULL, vb.: to sweep away by force of running water. (SD). " The brook had gulled out the bank a piece." Friendly Brook, DC, 63. HEAD-MARK, n.: characteristics of the head. (NED). " You can still tell 'em by headmark." An Habitation Enforced, AR, 40. 88 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. HEAT-SHAKE, n. : a puff or light gust of wind. u A heat-shake o' wind will come up." The Knife and the Naked Chalk, RF, 125. HEM, n. and adj.: very; a great deal; a general intensive or mild oath. '' You're a hem of a time makin' your mind." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 234. HIKE, vb.: to move with a swing or jerk. " Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook." Knights of the Joyous Venture, PPH, 61. HOB UP, vb.: to rear. (SD). " Children which they'd hobbed up for their lawful own." Friendly Brook, DC, 63. HOUSEN, n.: houses (archaic plural). (NED). " I hate housen in daylight." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 211. HOUSE-LEEKED, adj.: overgrown with houseleek— sempervivum tectorum. An Habitation Enforced, AR, 14. HOWE, vb.: to dig. (SD). (See quotation under hike, above). HUGGLE, vb.; to hunch up; to huddle. " A peevish greybeard huggled up in angle-edged drapery." The Wrong Thing, RF, 66. HURDLE, vb.: to enclose in hurdles. " His . . . head-piece all hurdled up in that iron collar." Friendly Brook, DC, 63. HURLY-BULLOO, n.: hullaballoo ; disturbance. (SD). " Then there just about was a hurly-bulloo." Ibid., 54. INTER-COMMON, adj.: mutual. " We sat on this bench sharing our sorrows inter-common." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 215. JUSTABOUT, adv.: certainly; extremely; altogether. (SD). " I left St. Barnabas's a jewel—justabout a jewel." Ibid., 224. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 89 HECKLE, vb.: to kick up; to buckle. " I've seen a scaffold-plank keckle." The Wrong Thing, RF, 63. KNOWLEDGEABLE, adj.: sensible; well educated. (NED). " You seem a knowledgeable man." LITHER, adj.: lithe; slim. (NED). " I counted the lither barrels of twenty serpentines." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 217. MASK, n.: complete covering (generally of mud or blood). (SD). " His back was a mask where he'd slipped in the muck." Friendly Brook, DC, 54. MIDDEST, n.: midst. (NED as obsolete). 'Twas right in the middest of a hot June night." Brookland Road, RF, 117. MIDDLING, adv.: rather; very; fairly (the exact sense de- pends on the context, and on the tone of voice). (NED). " I reckon you'll find her middlin' heavy." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 223. MORTAL, adv.: very; extremely. (NED). " You've been mortal kind to me." The Wish House, D & C, 102. MOWCH, vb: to loaf; to slouch along. " Jim comes mowchin' along with his toppin' axe." Friendly Brook, DC, 58. MUCK-GRUBBER, n.: a sordid miser. (SD). " I never heard Jim was much of a muck-grubber." Ibid., 52. MUCK ON, vb.: to put on hurriedly. (SD). " The Spanisher kept muckin' on more an' more canvas." Simple Simon, RE, 299. HUCK OUT, vb.: to clean thoroughly. (SD). " I was obligin' Jim that evenin' muckin' out his pig-pen." Friendly Brook, DC, 54. MUCKED UP, adj.: loaded down; confused. (SD). " A man forgets to remember when he's proper mucked up with work." Simple Simon, RF, 306. 90 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. NAUN, n.: nothing. (SD). " They didn't say naun to her." Friendly Brook, DC, 55. NEXT-ABOVE-FOOL, a.: a person who is only one remove- from being a complete fool. " A man who can only do one thing, he's but next-above- fool to the man that can't do nothing." The Wrong Thing, RF, 61. NIGROMANCING, vb.: conjuring; working black magic. " She was honest-innocent of any nigromancing." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 237. OAST-HOUSE, n.: circular building, usually of brick, in which hops are dried. (NED). " Marched off to roast potatoes at the oast-house." Ibid., 233. OLD-FASHIONED, adj.: odd; queer. " Our first twenty years or two she was odd-fashioned, no- bounds." Ibid., 237. ODD-GATES, adj.: queer. " Won'erful odd-gates place—Romney Marsh." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 237. OUTGATE, adj.: unusual. " My boy, he has her eves and her outgate senses." Ibid., 238. PAVISAND, vb.: to strut. " Forth she come pavisanding like a peacock." Simple Simon, RF, 303. PHARISEES, n.: fairies. (SD). " A passel o' no-sense talk . . . about Pharisees." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 238. PIECE, n.: a lunch, usually of bread and butter. (NED). " We was eatin' our pieces." Friendly Brook, DC, 59. PIG-POUND, n.: a stye. " They filed out of the garden by the snoring pig-pound."" A Doctor of Medicine, RF, 260. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 91 POACH, vb.: to tread the ground into holes, as cattle do in wet weather. (SD and NED). " The ground about was poached and stoached with sliding hoofmarks." Simple Simon, RF, 288. POKE-HOLE, n.: an out-of-the-way corner. '' We cleansed ... a hundred foul poke-holes." A Doctor of Medicine, RF, 276. POLT, vb.: to strike with a hard blow, driving blow. (SD and NED). " Hop-poles and odds-end bats, all poltin' down together." Friendly Brook, DC, 59. POMPION, n.: pumpkin; gourd. (NED). " picture of Jonah and the pompion that withered." The Wrong Thing, RF, 66. PORTURE, vb.: to sketch, or draft. (NED as obsolete). " I'll porture you a pretty, light piece of scroll-work." Ibid., 75. PUDDLE, vb.: to paddle; to splash about. (NED). " We couldn't puddle about there in the dark." Friendly Brook, DC, 59. PUTE, adj.: pure; clear; thorough-going. (NED, quoting this passage). " You and I chance to be pure pute asses!" Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 216. PUT-LOCK, n.: short horizontal timber of a scaffolding.. (NED). " I was at Torrigiano's feet on a pile of put-locks." The Wrong Thing, RF, 72. PUTTER, vb.: to toddle? " As soon, as he could walk, he'd putter forth with me." Cold Iron, RF, 13. RAKLE, vb.: to rattle. " Passels o' liddle swords an' shields raklin.' " Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 247. REMEDY, n.: redress. (NED). " Thy Normans would slay him without remedy." The Young Men at the Manor, PPH, 50. 92 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. REYNOLDS, n.: Master Reynard, the Fox. (SD). " Oh, Mus' Reynolds! If I knowed all was inside your head." The Winged Hats, PPH, 199. ROUNDEL, n.: a circle; anything round. (SD and NED). " The dark well of the old-fashioned roundel." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 223. SUGG, vb.: to tug violently or forcibly; to tear. (NED). 'Tis like a tooth. It must rage an' rugg till it tortures itself quiet on ye." The Wish House, D & C, 103. RUMMEL, vb.: to rumble. '' The great Tide-wave rummelled along the Wall." Dymchurch Flit, PPH, 245. SALLY, n.: willow. (SD and NED). " All they rubbishy alders an' sallies " Friendly Brook, DC, 57. SAY-SO, n.: assertion. (NED). " Do it lie in your mouth to contest my say-so?" Simple Simon, RF, 291. SCADDERING, adj.: scattering. " I heard something in a scadderin' word-o'-mouth way." Friendly Brook, DC, 52. SCRATT, vb.: to scratch. (NED). " The woman scratted his face." Cold Iron, RF, 15. SCRATTLE, n.: a feeble, skinny person. " I never reckoned the old scrattle 'ud risk her neck bone.'* Marklake Witches, RF, 100. SCUTCHEL UP, vb: to gather hurriedly? " I've brought you what I could scutchel up of odds and ends." Simple Simon, RF, 307. SEELY, adj.: silly, in its old sense of " simple." (NED). " Seely Sussex for everlastin'." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 223. SHAW, n.: a small hanging wood. (SD and NED). " The valley was as full o' forges. . . as a May shaw o' cuckoos." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 215. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 93 SHIRES, n.: Any part of England except Sussex, Kent, and Surrey. (SD and NED). " Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires."* Simple Simon, RF, 292. SHRUCK, vb.: to shriek. (SD). " Did you hear him shruck just now?" They, TD, 297. SINNIFICATION, n: significance. " If I was you, I'd take the sinnification o' the sign." Hal o' the Draft, PPH, 215. SLEEPER, n: dormouse. " Sleeper? A dormeuse do you say?" The Tree of Justice, RF, 318. SLEW, n.: a wet place. " Sinks, slews, and corners of unvisited filth." A Doctor of Medicine, RF, 276. SLIDDER, vb.: to slide; to slip. (NED). " Benedetto . . . sliddering up behind me." The Wrong Thing, RF, 73. SLOB, n.: (a) tidal mud. (NED). " We saw a man slouching along the slob." The Conversion of St. Wilfrid, RF, 234. (b) thick mud of any sort. (SD under slub). " He cleaned off some o' the slob wih a tussick o' grass." Friendly Brook, DC, 60. SLUBBER, vb.: to darken; to obscure. (NED). " All slubbered with sleep." The Old Men at Pevensey, PPH, 111. SOW, vb.: to be hoggishly idle. " He had to ... get breakfast . . . while she sowed it abed." Friendly Brook, DC, 51. SPANG, adv.: directly; clear (through). (NED as U.S. only). " We was all looking that she prod the fork spank through your breastes." The Wish House, D & C, 97. SPATTLE, adj.: spatter; mottling. " Like jeweled images among the spattle of gay-coloured leaves." Brother Square-Toes, RF, 178. (To be concluded). 94 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Letter Bag. In No. 14 there appeared a letter of mine, in which I quoted a quatrain of Kipling's. A friend of mine, Mr. Froom, of Iowa, U.S.A., has written to tell me he has recently discovered the actual lines that were written for " B-Ps " sea sketch. The lines were scribbled by R.K. on a match-box, and are as follows :— " This is the ocean bright and blue, That the "Armadale Castle " plowtered through; But if you turn it the other way, It's the lonely veldt on a cloudy day; That is if you hold it upside down, It's the gathering storm on the desert brown; And very seldom since art begun, Could you get two pictures by drawing one." The following appeared in:—"Sketches in Mafeking and East Africa," by Major General R. S. Baden-Powell, with a sketch entitled:—" An upsetting Sea." Mr. Froom goes on to tell me that R.K. evidently got a false idea of its intention by looking at the sketch the wrong way up. Perhaps you will be kind enough to publish this. Notice the change in the name of the steamer.—William G. B. Maitland, London. I have always thought that, when Kipling was writing " Captains Courageous," he must have enlisted expert aid in describing the record run made by Harvey Cheyne's parents when they raced across the Continent of America to join their son, believed drowned at sea. My theory is borne out by the story recounted by Messrs. R. H. Davis and R. B. Maurice in their book on the life of 0. Henry entitled "Caliph of Bagdad." These two authors were visiting Kipling at Burwash, and taxing him as to how he came to work out the details of this famous run, received from Kipling the reply: " I didn't work it out. I wrote to the railroad Companies concerned, explained the situation, and they worked out the run, showing how a special train could be despatched over the necessary routes in the shortest possible time, at the highest speeds.—No. 75 M.R. THE KIPLING JOURNAL. 95 In an English provincial town I picked up a letter from Sidney Low which gives us a hint of the difficulties which Kipling met in India, in combining working for a newspaper with writing as a profession. Low had offered Kipling an engagement to write exclusively for his paper, the date given being ' about ' 1892. The answer was in the form of 40 lines of rhyme, the vital stanza of which ran thus:— There is gold in the News they call Daily, There is pence in the sheets of Pall Mall, But I whistle in front of them gaily And softly consign them to ... well! If you, Sir, had suffered my anguish Alone, 'neath a tropical sun, You'd let every newspaper languish, Ere making a contract with one. This item I think is not without interest, and you may like '' to place it in perspective in the Files."—W. M. Carpenter, Evanston, U.S.A. Should any members still be in doubt as to the meaning Anglo-India (old style) attaches to " Kala-juggah," the way in which I was introduced to it many years ago, may be of interest. It was by means of the following tale:—Some soldiers were preparing a hall for a dance, and were observed by an Indian screening off corners with large palms and such like. The Indian enquired what these " Kala-juggahs " or dark corners were for. In doing so he used the Hindustani " Yeh kis ko warsti hai," meaning " For what purpose is this." The answer was " Kissy ko warsti."—G. F. Higgins, Rickmans- worth. Can any reader of the Kipling Journal give me the full names, titles, etc., of the persons mentioned in " Our Viceroy Resigns?" also any information as to the references?—C. G. Robinson, Paymaster, Lieutenant Commander R.A7., (No. 404), Torquay. I would like to venture to suggest to Admiral Chandler that the quotation in No. 15 on p. 93 " There are men both good and great," etc., etc., comes originally from Whyte- Melville's—" Place where the old horse died."—F. S. Kennedy Shaw, Teffont Magna, near Salisbury. 96 THE KIPLING JOURNAL. Secretary s Announcements (1) Meetings—Session 1931-32. It has been decided to arrange four Meetings only for the present, as follows:— 1st. 22 October, 1931. Thursday, 5 p.m. Hotel Rubens. Lecturer: Lt.-General Sir G. F. MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O. Subject: " Some more Kipling- origins." 2nd. 30 December, 1931. Wednesday, 8 p.m. Hotel Rembrandt. 3rd. 12 February, 1932. Friday, 4.30 p.m. (uncertain). 4th. 28 April, 1932. Thursday, 8 p.m. Hotel Rem- brandt. N.B.—The Rubens Rooms may not be available after 22nd October. It is hoped that as many members as possible will attend these meetings, and that they will bring guests with them (no charge), as this helps to increase our membership. December 30 is Mr. Rudyard Kipling's birthday, and it is hoped to arrange a particularly attractive programme that evening. These dates are subject to confirmation as usual by card. (2) Annual Conference and Luncheon, 1932. Provisionally fixed for Wednesday, June 15, 1932, at Hotel Rembrandt. (3) Mr. G. C. Beresford will lecture on " Rudyard Kipling," at the Fulham Central Library, 598, Fulham Road, S.W.6. (Buses 14 and 96, or Station, Parsons Green), at 8 p.m., on Thursday, 8 October, 1931. The Librarian is kindly reserving seats for members of this Society who care to attend. The Lecture is free. KIPLING SOCIETY ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO SEPTEMBER, 1931. Nos. 1058 to 1065. 1058 Harold E. Jowsey 1062 Jack R. Wright London London 1059 Reginald J. Sykes 1063t Dr. Edward Quintard London U.S.A. (New York) 1060 Lancelot Ussher 1064t William B. Stitt S. AFRICA U.S.A. (New York) 1061 Frank Christy 1065t Capt. E. D. A. Herbert Chelmsford Harrogate t Life Members.