R.M.S.   "Ripon,"   1871.

The Kipling Journal

The Organ of the Kipling Society

QUARTERLY                        No. 48                DECEMBER, 1938.

Contents :

Plate :    R.M.S. Ripon.                             The Sussex Edition     ..     ..      109

"H.M.S. Kipling"            ..     ..    105        Kipling and South Africa ..      112

News and Notes......106        Rudyard Kipling : The Apostle

of Work and Service        130

Branch Reports          ......     107        Letter Bag     ........143

Books and Reviews     ......     109        Secretary's Corner       ..     . .     147

PRESENTATION   TO   H.M.S.    " KIPLING "

Just as we go to Press we hear that the Lord Com-
missioners of the Admiralty have accepted the offer
of the Society to present a Plaque of Kipling in Bas-
relief to H.M.S. " KIPLING," which has just been
launched.

I have not the time before the Journal is in print
to get any estimate of the cost, but the Council on
the Society invite subscriptions from all members
who would like a chance of taking part in this
unique opportunity to place a permanent record of
the Society on the first ship of H.M. Navy to bear
the name of Rudyard Kipling.

Contributions should be sent at Members' earliest
convenience to me at our Offices at 45, Gower Street,
London, W.C.I.

C. H. ROBINSON,

(Hon.  Secretary)

106                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

News and Notes

THE aged liner shown in our plate is the " Ripon " of the P. & O.,
   on board which Kipling travelled from Bombay to Suez (the
Canal was not then open), on his way to England in 1871. For this
interesting picture our thanks are due to Mr. Maitland, our Hon.
Librarian.

X            X            X            X            X

As the greater number of our Members (even many resident in Great
Britain) cannot, for obvious reasons, attend the London Meetings, the
Council have decided to enlarge the Journal. Many splendid Papers
have been sent in by the Branches, two of which appear in this issue ;
"with increased space we hope to print many more, thus forging an even
firmer link between Members of the Society, though half a world lie
between them. The Society has also changed its London meeting
place ; some remarks on this will be found in the Discussion following
Mr. H. G. Willmot's Paper.

X            X            X            X            X

The first meeting of the 1938-39 Session was held at the Basil Street
Hotel, Knightsbridge, S.W.3, on Wednesday, 19th October, 1938, at
8.30 p.m. Mr. S. A. Courtauld, D.L., one of our Vice-Presidents and
Chairman of the Council, made a few explanatory remarks:—'The
Paper that is to be read to-night is not Mr. Bazley's own ; it was written
by Mr. Willmot of the Cape Town Branch ; Mr. Bazley is going to be
kind enough to read it. In regard to " Kipling and South Africa,"
which is the subject of the Paper, some of Kipling's poems and prose
works which deal with that Dominion will occur to us. Among his
stories is one called "The Captive "—I daresay many people here will
remember it. Some stories were written, mostly during the South
African War, and were published in newspapers ; one was "Folly Bridge' '
and another, '' The Way That He Took. '' There were also many poems ;
one clever little thing called " Boots," and the beautiful poem, " Bridge-
Guard in the Karroo." There is no need for me to introduce Mr. Baz-
ley, as he is about the best known man in the whole Society ; he must
have been in South Africa himself, and as you know he has a marvellous
gift of description and making his readers appreciate and understand the
different parts of the world he has visited.' Mr. B. M. Bazley (Hon.
Editor) said ;—' After Mr. Courtauld's very kind introduction I have
only to add that this is a Paper sent to us from the recently formed and

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                        107

flourishing Cape Town Branch. The Paper was delivered at the first
regular Meeting of the Branch by Mr. H. G. Willmot, a member of long
standing ; I am sure you will find the subject interesting and I do not
think it has been treated at any length before. Without further pre-
amble I shall read the Paper entitled " Kipling and South Africa.'"
Between the Paper and the Discussion the Members present enjoyed
recitations of " The Explorer " and "Lichtenberg" by Miss Joan
Sanderson, whose superb elocution and intelligent interpretation were
greatly appreciated and heartily applauded by the audience.

X              X              X             X             X

It has been suggested that a Masonic Lodge should be formed for
those of the Craft who are lovers of Kipling's work. The Hon. Editor
will be glad to learn the views of all those who are interested in the idea,
if they will communicate with him.

Branch Reports

Victoria, B.C., Canada. The Annual Picnic was held in August
when a good attendance of members and friends again visited Fairbridge
Farm School. The visitors found all the inmates of the school on the
river bank, assembled for the School Annual water sports. After
watching the sports and picnicking on the river bank the party assembled
in the dining hall, where the Principal of the School, Colonel H. F.
Logan, gave an informal and interesting talk on the origin of the school
by Kingsley Fairbridge—whom Colonel Logan had known intimately,
and the methods employed in the working of the school. Thanks to
Colonel Logan for his talk and for the hospitality of the School were
given by P. R. Leighton, former Vice-President of the Branch. The
cottages and school buildings were then inspected before returning to
Victoria.

The Society have acquired a room over the Royal Bank of Canada in
which to hold their meetings during the winter session. The season
opened with the September meeting when the President, A. E. G.
Cornwell, read Kipling's story, "The Tree of Justice," with comments
on the historical background of the tale. Miss B. M. Carlisle read "A
Ballad of Minepit Shaw " and " A Carol." There was a good attend-
ance, and two visitors became members of the Society.

M. Neal, (Publicity Secretary)

108                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

Melbourne Branch. Since the commencement of this Branch in
March 1938 meetings have been held every six weeks and have been very
well attended, each evening new members are added bringing numbers
up to fifty.

Interesting talks have been given by some of the members, the first
by Sir Julius Bruche, a Vice-president of the London Society. He told
of his experiences and acquaintance with " Stalky " and " M'Turk "
and of his tour with Mr. Brooking through Kipling's Sussex. Later on
Sir Julius will give a paper on " Some Kipling Origins."

Dr. Boyd-Graham, the Treasurer, gave a thought-provoking talk on
" Kipling's Child Characters " and was warmly congratulated for his
psychological analysis.    His paper has been borrowed by other circles.

The Rev. Aeneas Macdonald chose as his subject " Which volume of
Kipling would you choose if you could have only one?" giving as his
choice " Many Inventions." This aroused lively discussion, for not
one member agreed with him. Following this paper the Society took
"Many Inventions" for dissection. Six members each analysed a
story, ten minutes being allowed for this and keen discussion took place.
The book took up two meetings and this plan was voted such a success
that book analysis is being continued, "Rewards and Fairies" being
considered at present.

Kipling Questionnaires are set for each meeting and are looked
forward to by members : a small prize is always given for the highest
number answered.

It was with regret that the Society received in September the resigna-
tion, for reasons of health, of Mr. Donald Mackintosh the Honorary
Secretary. Gratitude from all was expressed at the last meeting for
the work he has done in the initial organising and for the number of
members he obtained by his own personality. Fortunately for
the Society he has consented to become its first Vice-President, and has
promised to help as much as possible.

The new Secretary is Mrs. Grace Broughton (formerly Assistant)
and the address of the Society is now 333, Colins Street, Melbourne, C.I.

A. S. Joske, M.D., J.P.
(President)

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         109

Books and Reviews

" Thy Servant a Dog," and other dog stories. (Macmillan, 7s. 6d.)
This very attractive book, similar in format to the Uniform Edition,
contains the three " Thy Servant a Dog "stories ; " A Sea Dog ;" the
two poems, "The Supplication of the Black Aberdeen" and " His
Apologies;" and " Teem." This is the first appearance of our Master's
final story in collected form, save for the Sussex: Edition, where it is not
easily available for ordinary readers. In every way this is a most charm-
ing production ; it makes an admirable gift book, and should be in
every collector's Kipling Library. Mr. G. L. Stampa's illustrations to
this series need no further praise in these columns; like the original
pictures of " Alice in Wonderland " we should miss them greatly if any
change were made.

A Rudyard Kipling Calendar, (G. Delgado, Ltd., 3s. 6d.)
This now hardy annual makes its welcome reappearance for the Festive
Season. It is in a new and very attractive form, with the portrait plaque
by Patrick Synge-Hutchinson on the front. The actual calendar has
been entirely recompiled by our Hon. Librarian, who is to be most
heartily congratulated on his very successful work. The Calendar can
be obtained from the Offices of the Society.

The Sussex Edition

Reviewed by W. G. B. Maitland

(Hon. Librarian)

AS members are no doubt aware several of the volumes  in the
Sussex Edition contain material which has hitherto   remained
uncollected—at any rate in Editions published in England.

Except for Macmillan's Edition de Luxe none of the following tales
has appeared in the other Macmillan editions :—Bitters Neat and
Haunted Subalterns from Plain Tales from the Hills ; Of Those Called,
The Track of a Lie, The Pit that they Digged and The Wreck of the
Visigoth (the last named has not been collected even in the Edition de
Luxe) from Wee Willie Winkie ; The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P.
and Mrs. Hauksbee Sits Out from Many Inventions ; though all these
stories were collected in various American editions.

A Diversity of Creatures brings us A Tour of Inspection, a delightful
story in the Pyecroft series never before collected on either side of the
Atlantic.

110                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

Letters of Travel includes the brilliantly written Brazilian Sketches
describing Kipling's visit to South America in 1927, which appeared in
the "Morning Post" and the American weekly paper, "Liberty."
The next volume, A Book of Words, adds six more speeches to those
previously collected.

The volume entitled The War and A Fleet in Being, besides including
several little sketches of the British and French Armies during the
Great War, hitherto available in booklet form only, contains The War
in the Mountains, a long series of newspaper articles describing a visit
the author paid to the Italian Front in 1917. There are also two sets
of Naval Articles ; one written in 1898 and published under the title
of A Fleet in Being and the other Sea Warfare giving some account of
the part the Royal Navy played in the War. The same volume brings
to the English reader a splendid little collection of war letters written
by wounded Indian soldiers convalescing in England which originally
appeared in the " Morning Post" in May 1917 ; Doubleday, Page
of New York gathered them together under the title of The Eyes of
Asia in the following year.

But by far the most interesting volumes are those entitled, Uncollected
Prose—-two in number. The first of these (vol : xxix) Abaft the
Funnel, familiar enough to American readers since it was published in
U.S.A. so far back as 1909, has never before been published in
England. It is divided into two parts : the first, under the above title
consists of twenty-nine stories and sketches with one set of verses, all
of which were originally written for the Indian newspapers from
1888-1890. The second part contains five tales one of which is in
dialogue. These five are, The Battle of Rupert Square, a really de-
lightful tale of a hansom-cab driver and a choleric fare. For One
Night Only which describes some curious happenings in a theatre ;
The Lamentable Comedy of Willow Wood which may be described as a
story in dialogue told by a man and woman both of whom had exper-
ienced an unfortunate love affair. On Dry Cow-Fishing as a Fine Art
is a humorous account of how an angler hooked a cow instead of a fish,
and The Last Relief tells how a Government Official in India suffering
from overwork and disappointment finally breaks under the strain and
commits suicide, and how some very odd circumstances attended his
death.

The second of these Uncollected Prose volumes (No. xxx) contains
twenty-five items ranging from My First Book to a series of Articles
about the South African War and concluding with Teem—a Treasure

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                      1ll

Hunter, the last story ever written by Kipling, which appeared in the
Strand Magazine for January 1936—the very month he passed from our
ken.

It is not possible in the space available to describe each item in this
volume. Many members will know the stories since most of them were
published at one time or another in magazines or newspapers. I
propose, therefore, to select a few which seem to me to call for special
attention.

The first of these are The Potted Princess and Collar-Wallah and
the Poison-Stick. Both appeared in the American magazine for
children, St. Nicholas Magazine, in 1893. The former is a fairy story
as it might be told to a child by an ayah, of the manner in which a
Prince determined whom his daughter should marry. The latter
described the cunning and general evilness of a monkey in India which
had once been kept in captivity for it wore a collar round its neck. The
tale goes on to describe how this monkey used to climb in through the
windows of the narrator's house to steal things.

We then come to the articles dealing with the second Boer War.
In 1900 there appeared in the " Daily Mail " and " Daily Express " a
series of stories and articles describing various aspects of the war. The
first of these is With Number Three, an account of the work of a Hospital
Train on which Kipling made several trips as it "jackalled behind the
line " conveying the wounded from the many battlefields to the base
hospitals.

Surgical and Medical describes one of these hospitals and the men who
lay there awaiting transhipment to England.

The story of Folly Bridge, which has been identified by those who
fought in the campaign, is centred round a railway bridge which the
retreating Boers had wrecked. It tells of a Railway Transport Officer
who, by his officious attitude, delayed the passage of a very important
person on his way to Bloemfontein.

The Outsider, is, perhaps, the best. It tells how a young and recently
commissioned officer, very conscious of his rank and filled with self-
importance, held up the work of repair to another wrecked railway
bridge and what befell him when an exceedingly irate Colonel of R.E.s.
discovers what he has done.

A Burgher of the Free State, too long for anything but a brief summary
describes at length the life of a Scottish emigrant in the Orange Free
State.

112                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

Other items of interest in this same volume of Uncollected Prose
include Railway Reform in Great Britain, a delightful satire on the L.B.
& S.C. Rly. told in the style of " The Arabian Nights." The Soul of a
Battalion, which is a plea, made by Kipling in 1917, for the provision of
Military Bands for the many Territorial Battalions then being formed.
Quo Fata Vocant, written originally in 1902 for the St. George's
Gazette, the regimental magazine of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers,
is a spirited account of that regiment's experiences in India and after-
wards in South Africa.

A Displaie of New Heraldrie, another item which has long lain dor-
mant in the files of the " Spectator," describes in Chaucerian English
the need for Battle Honours for all the regiments of the British Army
who fought in the many and varied campaigns throughout the World
War.

As mentioned above, the volume concludes with Teem-A Treasure-
Hunter.

Kipling and South Africa
By H. G. Willmott.

TO all South Africans who love Kipling it will be a lasting regret
that he did not write more of their country.    South Africa,
with all her modern developments, is still an essential part of the
Africa of old, mysterious, intriguing and full of paradoxes, and who
could so surely have interpreted her countless moods and manifestations
as Rudyard Kipling ?    Some few stories and a few more poems (from
some of which I shall quote) deal with our country and their sureness
of touch and uncanny understanding are just sufficient to whet our de-
sire for more.

Kipling's short autobiography " Something of Myself " tells us
that in 1891 he sailed for Cape Town " in a gigantic 3000 ton
liner called ' The Moor ' not knowing that I was in the hands of fate."
" Cape Town in 1891," he says ; " was a sleepy unkempt little place
where the stoeps of the older Dutch houses still jutted over the pave-
ments." (In this year of Grace 1938, some of us still have offices in
buildings whose stoeps " jut over the pavements ").

On the voyage out Kipling met a Navy Captain going to a new Com-
mand at Simonstown. They became life-long friends and the Captain
introduced him to Naval Society in the South Peninsula.   We can

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                      113

trace this naval association in one of his first South African stories.
Kipling went on to Australia returning to England via Ceylon, India
and the Suez Canal. Marriage, residence in America, and a return to
England followed and it was not until the end of 1897 that he came
again to South Africa.

Hear what he says :—

" There was trouble, too, in South Africa after the Jameson Raid

which promised, men wrote me, further trouble .... it was this

uneasiness of mine which led me to the Cape. . . . There we lived

in a boarding house at Wynberg .... the children throve and the

colour, light, and half oriental manners of the land bound chains

round our hearts for many years to come."

Here he met Cecil Rhodes for the first time and found him " as
inarticulate as a school boy of fifteen." Jameson and Rhodes, he
perceived " communicated by telepathy."

The Boer War of 1899/1902 was close at hand and Kipling took up
the cause dearest to his heart, that of the British " Tommy." What-
ever the literary merits or demerits of " The Absent-minded Beggar "
may be, it was, I think, the most highly rewarded poem and song in
the world, for it brought in, directly and indirectly, to the Soldiers'
Comforts Fund nearly a quarter of a million sterling. I fear that the
' superior people ' who sneered at "jingling rhymes " extracted little
comfort from this astounding fact !

Kipling became, as of right, during the war the most privileged of all
war correspondents. He admits that his position among the rank and
file was " unofficially above that of most Generals." With Gwynne
of Reuters, Landon of the London " Times " and Julian Ralph (" the
very best of Americans ") he took over the editorship of the " Bloem-
fontein Post ' ' at the request of Lord Roberts after the occupation of
the Free State Capital. From this vantage point ho followed with his
penetrating gaze the fluctuating fortunes of what was justly called " the
absent-minded war." In addition he travelled extensively over the
whole field of war, making as was his wont, friends in all walks of life
and storing his peculiarly retentive memory with crisp portraits of men,
animals, sights and scenery.

Rhodes had given him " The Woolsack " at Rosebank, part of the
Groote Schuur Estate, for his lifetime, and here he spent times of resting
from his self-imposed labours as " Tommy's " friend and chronicler.
Kipling and his family came out each year-end from 1900 to 1907 to
"This Paradise" as he terms it.    Rhodes, Jameson and Kipling

114                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

continued a friendship broken only by the deaths of the two former.

It will greatly interest all South Africans to know that when Rhodes
was planning his will with its great and unique design of Oxford Scholar-
ships he discussed the scheme in detail with Kipling and his wife.
Mrs. Kipling checked the practical details and Kipling clothed the ideas
in language. He writes, " My use to Rhodes was mainly as a purveyor
of words for he was largely inarticulate. . . . He would say ' What am I
trying to express ?    Say it !    Say it !'    So I would say it."

(If I may be pardoned for a personal note I would say that as one
not entirely ignorant of legal phraseology I had always admired the
language of Rhodes' Will, and had envied the legal mind that could
clothe the plan of a great bequest in words and phrases at once clear and
free. To learn from Kipling's Autobiography that he ' purveyed the
words ' was rather like the solution of a puzzling problem).

The subject of Kipling's friendship with men whose names were
household words in South Africa, Rhodes, Jameson and Milner,
would fill a paper, or perhaps a volume, in itself. We have among us
some who knew all four men and I hope that one or more of them may
one day tell us of these friendships. It may be mere coincidence that
Kipling's last visit to South Africa (at least, the last one recorded in his
autobiography) was at the end of 1907 when Jameson's ministry went
out of office. His letter to Jameson, on the individual who brought
about the downfall of the Government (quoted in Colvin's " Life of
Jameson ") is extremely apt and witty but is perhaps best omitted here.
I have rather dwelt on the times of Kipling's various visits to South
Africa because they enable us to identify events and people who inspired
his writings.

The first references to South Africa which I find are in "Barrack
Room Ballads " (1892) which was probably completed before his
first visit.

In this volume we find in " Fuzzy-Wuzzy" a tribute to Boer
marksmanship in the Wars of 1881 and 1884 (' the Boers knocked us
silly at a mile !') and in "The English Flag" is an allusion to the
retrocession of the Transvaal after the 1884 War,—the sting of which
smarted in the minds of English South Africans up to the time of the
last Boer War in 1899.

In "Many Inventions" (1892) we find very definite evidences
of the first visit. The tale "A Matter of Fact" begins with
three journalists leaving Cape Town in the steamer " Rathmines "
which, according to the author " was eliding her days in the Cape Town

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                      115

coolie trade." It is dangerous to impute even slight inaccuracy to
Kipling but there was never, as far as I know, any ' Cape Town coolie
trade,' though a very large number of Indian labourers were imported
through Durban to work the cane fields of Natal. The story deals with
the apparition of a sea monster thrown up from the depths by a subma-
rine earthquake. By a coincidence my only personal contact with Kip-
ling took place on a voyage out from England in 1904 when a sea monster
of another kind came into the picture. " That is another story"
which may be told in its proper place.

Two passages from "A Matter of Fact" have always seemed
to me to typify Kipling's genius for seeing into the minds of men whose
origins and outlook were entirely different from his own. When the
" Rathmines," having escaped the sea monster, reaches Southampton
the author accompanies Keller, the American journalist, to London and
records the impression of '' the green and awful orderliness of England "
upon a new comer. Standing in Westminster Abbey the same day
Keller " hears the wings of the dead centuries circling round his head."
When, a South African by birth, I visited England for the first time, saw
the green fields of Hampshire and Surrey, and, in the afternoon, stood
in the Abbey, the words I have quoted came back to my mind with a
force and vividness which I can never forget. No truer picture of the
soul of the Abbey has ever been painted.

" Judson and the Empire " in the same volume (Many Inventions)
is a delightful story of the adventure of a young Naval Officer in
charge of a gunboat sent on a special mission up a river on the East
Coast. Kipling's association with the Royal Navy at Simonstown in
1891 (to which I have referred) inspired the tale and his local colour,
including the Naval Club, the gateway of Admiralty House, and the
" Mungoose " herself, is characteristically accurate and picturesque.
The Navy atmosphere has the unmistakable tang of salty breezes and
the just admixture of discipline and cameraderie which the Senior
Service has made her own since the days of Francis Drake. The battle
up the river, which ends so happily for all concerned, is, after making
the proper allowances, the battle of Massi Kessi, in Portuguese East
Africa, in 1891. A detachment of the British South African Company's
Police (for this was in the early days of the occupation of Rhodesia)
under Captain (afterwards Sir Melville) Heymann completely defeated
a much larger Portuguese force which had attacked it, and captured the
guns, equipment and stores of the enemy. Although there was no
naval co-operation in the battle, for very solid geographical reasons,—

116                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

there can be no doubt that Heymann's very gallant feat captured
Kipling's imagination.

" The Seven Seas " was published in 1896 when South Africa
was beginning to loom large in world politics. The Jameson Raid
ended in the very first days of the year and checked Rhodes' plans of
Empire expansion. Jameson's trial and imprisonment followed and we
are told that " If " was written to cheer his stony path. I do not know
when it was first published : it appeared in book form in 1910 in
'' Rewards and Fairies.''

In the " Seven Seas " we find several very interesting references
to South Africa, shewing how truly and deeply, even in the early days,
Kipling had caught the spirit of the country. In " The Song of
the Cities" (part of " The Song of the English") our Mother
City is greeted

" Hail !   snatched  and  bartered  oft  from  hand  to  hand,
I dream my dream by rock and heath and pine,
Of Empire to the Northward : Ay ! one land
From Lion's Head to Line."

The dreamer was Cecil Rhodes and most of us know his favourite
seat just below the Memorial, whence he loved to gaze Northwards as
he dreamt his dreams. The rock heath and pine surround the seat
today.

" The Native Born," a song of the Empire, gives a toast :

" To the home of the floods and thunder,
To the pale dry healing blue,
To the lift of the great Cape Combers,
And the smell of the baked Karroo ;
To the growl of the sluicing stamp head,
To the reef and the water gold,
To the last and the largest Empire
To the map that is half unrolled ' '

In " The Lost Legion" are two references which would have
been immediately understood by all South Africans in the ' Nineties,'
"An I.D.B. race on the Pan" and "The smoke-reddened eyes of
Loben." The last name was familiarly applied to Lobengula the
Matabele King and the " Pan " is Du Toit's Pan at Kimberley closely
associated with the diamond mines and the nefarious activities of I.D.B's
(Illicit Diamond Buyers). The race is of course with the minions of the
law,   the  Mounted  Police.     In   " The   Song   of the   Banjo,"  the

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                        117

line " Johnny Bowlegs pack your kit and trek " contains an extremely
neat translation of part of an old Afrikaans song

' ' Vat   jou   goed   en   trek   Ferreira

Jannie met die hoepel been."

Kipling recurs to this old song in his last published volume '' Land
and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides" (1930) in which he gives the
Afrikaans words but his translation there, " lame leg," is not nearly
as good as his original rendering.

My last reference to "The Seven Seas" comes from "The
Flowers."

" Buy a tuft of royal Heath,

Buy a tuft of weed

White as sands of Muysenberg

Spun before the gale—

Buy my heath and lilies

And I'll tell you whence you hail !

Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie—

Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky—

Slow beneath the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain—

Take your flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again."
This word picture of the Mid-Peninsula in summer needs no words
of mine to commend it. Its appeal to those who live in Greater Cape
Town is instant and sure. I ventured at the beginning of this paper
to point out an apparent inaccuracy in a minor reference of Kipling's.
In the lines I have just read I would like to direct your attention to his
spelling " Muysenberg " as applied to the name of our widely known
seaside resort. While it is today spelt " Muizenberg (the mountain of
mice) I believe that Kipling's rendering is the really correct one from a
historical point of view. If I am right the name means " the Mountain
of Muys ' '—Muys being a stout hearted Dutch Sergeant in charge of a
little fort on the Lakeside corner of the range who seriously hampered
and held up the advance of the British forces after their landing in False
Bay 1795. Kipling's accuracy in the smallest details is again confirmed.
I wonder if he knew the story of Muys.

I began this paper by regretting that Kipling had not written more of
South Africa. I feel that this was almost ungrateful for if he had
written nothing else than the lines on Cape Town and the exquisite
description of Cape Flowers and Peninsula scenery which I have quoted,
South Africa would be eternally in his debt.
We come to " The Five Nations" published  in 1903 which has

118                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

one large Section "Service Songs" entirely devoted to South
Africa from " Tommy's " point of view, while several other poems,
nearly all related to the Boer War, deserve a place among Kipling's
finest verse. Kipling, was a great English patriot who never watered
down his views for political or diplomatic reasons. But all his intense
sympathy for the British soldiers and his faith in the justice of the cause
for which they fought, never led him to sing hymns of hate against the
foeman. His Boer war verses indeed reflect in a remarkable way, the
homely, but very genuine chivalry of the British soldier and his regard
for a brave enemy. Looking Lack to the troublous days of 1899/1902
one is astonished to see how Kipling, a comparative stranger to this
country, realized so clearly (what very few English South Africans
could grasp) that the only worthy end of the war was peace between the
two warring races, co-operation and not conquest. This is illustrated
in several of the poems from which I quote.

" General Joubert" (March),    1900 is a fine tribute  to   a   great
enemy written at a time when our arms had suffered severe reverses
and England was plunged in mourning.
" With those that bred, with those that loosed the strife,
He had no part whose hands were clear of gain ;
But subtle, strong, and stubborn, gave his life
For a lost cause and knew the gift was vain.
Later shall rise a people, sane and great,
Forged in strong fires, by equal war made one ;
Telling old battles over without hate—
Not least his name shall pass from sire to son."

The   " Chant-Pagan "   of the returned   English   volunteer   who
has tasted the waters of Africa and cannot settle down again, concludes —
" For I know of a sun an' a wind,
And some plains an' a mountain be'ind,
An' some graves by a barb-wire fence ;
An' a Dutchman I've fought 'oo might give
Me a job were I ever inclined
To look in an' off saddle an' live
Where there's neither a road nor a tree—
But only my Maker an' me,
And I think it will kill me or cure,
So I think I will go there an' see."

In " Half Ballad of Waterval " the soldier who has been a prisoner
of war soliloquizes, after escorting Boer prisoners on to a transport.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                        119

" I'd give the gold of twenty Rands

(If it were mine), to set 'em free,

For I 'ave learned at Waterval

The meanin' of captivity."

The regular soldier or " pukka Tommy "in " Piet " gives a de-
lightful account of his ups and downs with his opposite number and
expresses the true philosophy of his kind.

" I do not love my Empire's foes,

Nor call 'em angels, still,

What is the use of 'atin those

'Oom you are paid to kill.

So, barrin' all that foreign lot,

Which only joined for spite,

Myself, I'd just as soon as not

Respect the man I fight.

I've 'eard 'im cryin' from the ground

Like Abel's blood of old,

An' skirmished out to look an' found

The beggar nearly cold ;

I've waited on till 'e was dead

(Which  couldn't   'elp  'im  much)

But many grateful things 'e's said

To me for doing such."
and finally

" But seeing what both parties done

Before 'e owned defeat,

I aint more proud of 'avin' won,

Than I am pleased with Piet."

The same thoughts run throughout " The Settler" of which I give
a few lines.

" Here where my fresh turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
To the living and the dead.—
Here, in a large and sunlit land,
Where no wrong bites to the bone
I will lay my hand in my neighbour's hand,
And together we will atone
For the set folly and the red breach

120                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

And the black waste of it all,

Going and taking counsel each

Over the cattle kraal."

I wonder if those who are wont to refer to Kipling as the Militant
Imperialist and Apostle of Jingoism have ever studied his South African
War Poems.

" Dirge of Dead Sisters" is a noble and touching tribute to the
devoted work of the Army Nursing Sisters in the War. Every
line carries its conviction of deep sincerity and the poem is charged with
triumph of devotion and sacrifice over pain and terror. I can only
quote part :

" Who recalls the twilight and the rangèd tents in order
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air ?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter
And the faces of the sisters with the dust upon their hair.

X               X               X              X               X               X

Who recalls the midnight by the bridge's wrecked abutment
(Autumn rain that rattled like a Maxim on the tin) ?
And the lightning dazzled levels and the streaming, straining wagons,
And the faces of the Sisters as they bore the wounded in ?

X             X                X               X               X             X

Wherefore we they ransomed, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
Praise with love and worship many honourable women,
Those what gave their lives for us when we were like to die."

For a change of subject let us take that most wonderful description
of sunset in the veld, which, I make bold to say, has never been equalled
in all the volumes written on South African scenery.

" BRIDGE-GUARD IN THE KARROO "

'' Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till   the   aching   Oudtshoorn   ranges
Stand up  like the thrones of Kings.

Ramparts of slaughter and peril
Blazing, amazing—aglow
Twixt the sky-lines belting beryl
And the wine-dark flats below.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                        121

Royal the pageant closes,
Lit by the last of the sun—
Opal and ash-of-roses
Cinnamon, umber, and dun.

XXX

Voices of jackals calling
And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
From the flanks of the scarred ravine."

None, who know the Karroo, can read the poem, of which I have given
only a few verses, unmoved : it would stir the heart of a South African
wherever his lot lay.

One of the noblest of Kipling's South African Poems comes into this
period, on the burial of Cecil Rhodes in the Matoppos in April 1902—
"The Burial":—

'' When that great Kings return to clay,
Or Emperors in their pride,
Grief of a day shall fill a day,
Because its creature died

X              X              X             X

It is his will that he look forth
Across the world he won—
The granite of the ancient North—
Great spaces washed with sun.

X              X            X              X

There, till the vision he foresaw
Splendid and whole arise,
And unimagined Empires draw
To council neath his skies,

The immense and brooding Spirit still
Shall quicken and control.
Living he was the land, and dead,
His soul shall be her soul !"

These lines arrest and thrill even those who knew not South Africa
or Cecil Rhodes but to realise their full meaning, as far as that is possible
for us less-gifted individuals, it is needful to stand and meditate on the
burial place in the Matoppos—" the granite of the ancient North great
spaces washed with sun."   I have one more poem to quote from but I

122

THE KIPLING JOURNAL

think its proper place will be the end of this paper. I hope you will
agree with me that, in even the few brief extracts I have given, it is
clearly apparent that the gem of Kipling's genius has caught the spirit of
our country and its people and has reflected it from countless facets.

"Traffic's and Discoveries " saw the light in 1904 and has three
South African stories of the war time, and one of another period.
' ' The Captive ' ' a tale of an American inventor and artillerist caught
fighting on the Boer side, is a delightful and convincing character
study of the American, a British Officer and a Boer General. Laughton
B. Zigler, the American, and Captain Mankeltow of the Royal Artillery
come to light years later in another story, but in a different setting.
( '' The Edge of the Evening " ). I think Kipling realised that they were
too good a couple to be allowed to part company when Zigler went to
the Bermudas a prisoner of war, so he has brought them together again
in another hair breadth adventure, but this time on the same side.

" A Sahib's War." The story of a British officer serving in
India who is forbidden to go to the South African war, but takes sick
leave and eventually becomes a remount officer, is told by a Senior
Indian Native Officer who doffs his badges of rank and decorations to
follow his Sahib as a groom. This tale is a tragic one recalling certain
unhappy incidents of the war which we are glad to forget today,
though they seemed right and proper to be set down at the time.

" The Comprehension of Private Copper" is of a different type
relieved by the acute and unquenchable sense of humour of
Thomas Atkins. Some of us in South Africa who know the country, the
British soldier and the erstwhile foe, read these stories again and again
with a growing wonder at the genius of the man who saw so far into
other men's minds. I wish that Kipling could have visited South Africa
in recent years to have seen the growing fulfilment of his vision of a
future in which the old foes would become fast friends. We English
speaking South Africans have known for many years past that many of
our best and staunchest friends and supporters of the Empire are to
be found among the men who fought us in (to quote again)
" The fight of Two Kopjes
which lasted two years an' a half."

In " Mrs. Bathurst " we have a tale containing much local in-
terest and a mystery. It opens, as you know, at Glencairn Station
then a little used siding, on the Simonstown Railway. Some of us may
remember when it was called Elsie's Halt, after Elsie's Peak which
Kipling, accurate as ever, mentions in the tale.   He calls the siding

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         123

"Glengariff." Inspector Hooper was in real life Inspector Layton of the
Rhodesian and Cape Government Railways, a great friend of Kipling's
who presented him with several autographed copies of his books.
While Kipling and the Inspector refresh themselves in a brake-van,
the immortal Mr. Pyecroft and a Sergeant of Marines appear, with a
supply of English beer, unwittingly contributed, through a large-
hearted servantmaid, by a Kalk Bay householder.

(I may add for the information of those who do not live near a
Naval port, that vicarious hospitality of this kind is not unknown today).
After the proper introduction the story of Vickery and Mrs. Bathurst
unfolds itself and we are left to find the solution. It has yet to be found !
In the Kipling Journal for September 1937 there is a very interesting
contribution on the subject by Rear-Admiral Lloyd H. Chandler (a
distinguished retired officer of the United States Navy and a Vice
President of the Society) but it does not seem to offer a satisfying solu-
tion. Kipling himself tells us that after certain events the story slid
into his mind " smoothly and orderly," which is probably why he has
chosen to mystify our slower-moving mental equipment. Perhaps a
South African member may present us with the true solution one day.
In the volumes of Kipling's prose and verse published since 1904
I have found very little dealing with South Africa but when a complete
collection of his writings is available to us all we shall almost certainly
find other references. The Poem "Pro-Consul" in "The Years
Between " (1914) beginning,

" They that dig foundations deep
Fit for realms to rise upon
Little honour do they reap
Of their generation. ' '

was I believe published when Lord Milner returned from South Africa
about 1905 and was dedicated to him.

In " Land and Sea Tales " (1923) Kipling recalls the South
African war with a thrilling story " The Way that he Took " which
points a moral on the value of good scouting and another one on the
" absentmindedness " (to give it its kindest name) of some of those then
holding High Command in the British army. (This last characteristic,
as you will remember, is brought out very forcibly in " Stellenbosch "
in "The Five Nations")

It would be wrong also to omit mention of the "Just So Stories"
(1902) in which the Leopard, the Baboon, the Elephant's Child and the

124                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

Crocodile, all in their proper South African settings delight children
of all ages.

You will have realized long before I reached this point in my paper
that it is given to very few of us (and I am not one of them) to find words
in any way adequate to convey our appreciation of so great a Master of
thought and language as Rudyard Kipling. I ask my fellow members
to overlook the very obvious shortcomings of an effort of this kind and
to realise that I have at least given them, as often as possible, Kipling's
own words to illustrate what has most appealed to me in his writings.
I shall conclude by giving you some verses from the poem in which,
above all others, Kipling has caught and stored for us and for all future
generations the mystery the perversity and the witchery of our own
country.    The title is " South Africa."

" Lived a woman wonderful

(May the Lord amend her)

Neither simple, kind, nor true,

Yet her pagan beauty drew

Christian gentlemen a few

Hotly to attend her."

After recounting the wrongs and cruelties which the woman (South
Africa) inflicted on her lovers, both in peace and wartime, the lines go on

" They took ship and they took sail,
Raging from her borders,—
In a little, none the less,
They forget their sore duresse,
They forgave her waywardness
And returned for orders !

They esteemed her favour more
Than a Throne's foundation.
For the glory of her face
Bade farewell to breed and race—
Yea, and made their burial-place,
Altar of a Nation.

Wherefore being bought by blood,
And by blood restored
To the arms that nearly lost,
She, because of all she cost,

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                      125

Stands, a very woman, most
Perfect and adored.

On your feet, and let them know
This is why we love her !
For she is South Africa,
She is Our South Africa,
Is Our Own South Africa,
Africa all over !"

Discussion.

The Chairman. (Mr. S. A. Courtauld, D.L.) :

We have all head the Paper Mr. Bazley has read, and now we shall
be glad to hear members make some remarks about it. There is
plenty of opportunity for people to add little touches which will make it
even more interesting.

Mr. J. P. Collins (London Editor, " Civil   &   Military   Gazette,"
Lahore).

Mr. Bazley did the Paper true justice, and I should like to supple-
ment it with a few remarks instancing South Africa's debt to Kipling in
respect of its journalism. Cecil Rhodes, with a burning desire to lift
the land of his adoption to his own Imperial plane, had been disappoint-
ed with most of its editors until in 1900 he bethought him of applying to
Kipling. With his unerring faculty for discerning great ability, Kip-
ling recommended the late Maitland Park of the Allahabad " Pioneer,"
as well as Park's kinsman and colleague assistant, the late Ian Colvin.
So long as he continued his yearly visits to the Cape, Kipling used to
make " The Cape Times " his informal club, and many an hour of wit
and laughter he spent while sitting on a corner of Park's desk, going
over the affairs and issues of the day. In those five and twenty years,—
I speak with some authority as Park's London man throughout that
period—Kipling's name occurred in the paper many times, usually in
connection with topical speeches, reviews and quotations, but this was
a small matter compared with the way in which his broad Imperial
spirit permeated the policy of the paper from first to last.

There was an interesting story in connection with Kipling's recommen-
dation of Park to Rhodes. A member of the Medical Service in India
had invented a great operation and the first patient he performed it on
was one of the great rajahs of India.    The Rajah was so grateful that he

126                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

presented the surgeon with a lakh of rupees, but the Army regulations
forbade the acceptance of the gift. Kipling asked : " Where is the
incentive to a man of science if he may not accept from a patient who
can well afford it and is grateful, a gift which could easily be applied to
the furtherance of science ?" He advised the surgeon to give up his
job and go back to England; he did so and made a name and fortune.
Park fought that case and hit the Army regulations so hard that it nearly
wiped out that veto ; Kipling admired the way he fought in India.
There are many other points that might be brought out as instances of
Kipling's generous praise of what he admired whoever was the author.
Those reminiscences could be extended, but what I wanted to show
was that Kipling could never rest so long as he thought he saw a chance
of doing the Empire a service. When he found things wanted clearing
up after the war and the Cape starting forward on a new career, he put
his finger with unerring and infallible touch on the right man to carry
it through. Park and Kipling were close friends, and he became
godfather to Park's son who is still alive.

We are indebted to Mr. Willmot for an admirable Paper, and I am
sure he would bear out the fact that every land in the Empire in which
Kipling took an interest, became imbued with his dynamic spirit and
inspiration.    It will probably be of interest to this Society to know that
Mr. George Wilson, one of Park's colleagues who has succeeded him in
the editorship of " The Cape Times," was one of the founders of the
Cape Town Branch of the Kipling Society.
Miss Florence Macdonald.

I have received a letter from Melbourne which I thought might be of
some interest. It was written by the Secretary of the Melbourne Branch
of the Kipling Society, after reading in the last number of the magazine
my memories of my cousin.    I will just give you a few extracts—

" Words fail me to say what a real pleasure it gave me to follow you
in your delightful four pages of memories. Though so far away I
felt in the very atmosphere of it all, just as I did when I visited the
homes of Shakespeare, Burns and Scott, years ago. They were
indeed four glorious pages for Kiplingites, but only too few. Thinking
my own humble efforts at poetry may interest you as it did many who
have seen it privately, enclosed is a copy. ... I must say what led
me to attempt such a delicate subject. ... I read p.6. in the " Book
of Words " by Rudyard Kipling, and from that moment I became
afflicted with the necessary words. I consider p.6. one of the finest
pages in English prose, like many other gems by the same pen.    In

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         127

my little country school 20 miles from Melbourne, they hang a copy
of my verses and recite them annually for my prize—a Kipling book,
verses on dogs, which I hand to the winner personally, after giving
them some Kipling reminiscences and showing a Kipling letter from
his own pen. I am the lucky possessor of half a dozen, all showing
clearly the man of uncanny power with his pen. Recently we had a
Kipling meeting in Melbourne, inviting those holding Kipling letters
to exhibit them, and only one of a few lines, turned up, so I am cur-
ious if there are many in Australia. As I am 72 years, it is time that I
made up my mind what to do with them after I pass on. One Pro-
fessor suggested that I give them to the high school at Essendon,
Melbourne, but that does not appeal—they would soon be lost.
I rather think they are for the National Gallery, Melbourne."

I think the poem is rather interesting because the author is trying to
keep Kipling's memory green among the young people of Melbourne.
(Poem read)

I leave it with you as to whether it is poetry or not, it was sent to me
and I thought it might be interesting to members.    (Applause).

Mr. Brooking.

It is a very interesting thing to have a Paper from one of the members
of our far-flung branches ; this is a unique occasion and I hope it will
occur again. Doubtless there are plenty among us who could write
papers, but it is particularly interesting from a Kipling point of view
to have papers sent to us from the Dominions ; he probably took more
interest in them than in the people of our own countryside. We have
evidence of that in the amount of literature referring to South Africa,
and there is a similar amount of literature in regard to the other dominions
as we all know.

I would like to suggest that we send Mr. Willmot a cablegram saying
how much his Paper was appreciated by us. It would be nice if the
Secretary could send him half a dozen of the invitation cards as a little
memento of the occasion, perhaps the Report in the Journal would not
put the matter so clearly.

We are all very pleased with the Paper, and particularly with the
amount of verse quoted. In a number of instances we have a consider-
able amount of statements about Kipling, but very little of his unique
verse quoted. In this Paper we have had quite the best of his South
African verses quoted, so that we met them face to face, and I am sure
we thank Mr. Bazley very much indeed for his excellent delivery of the

128                         THE KIPLING JOURNAL

extracts.    It is not often we have the services of two such splendid
elocutionists as we have heard to-night.
A Member.

I noticed Mr. Willmot's Paper referred to " Fuzzy-Wuzzy !" My
own recollection was that he was recalling the Sudan Campaign and
Wolsey, and this did not relate to the Boers.

" Number Three" (Hospital Train) is very little known ; Kipling
travelled in the train with the ' Sister ' mentioned.
Mr. Bazley.

I might explain ' Fuzzy ' was of course about the Sudan, but Kipling
mentions one incident in that ' ' The Boers knocked us silly as a mile."
That is Mr. Willmot's reference, not to the poem itself.
Mr. Brooking.

Mr. Nash is here from Vienna ; he was enrolled in the year 1927 as
one of the first 100 members. It is the first time he has been able to
come here. I am sure we all appreciate such old members and wish
they could visit us more frequently.    (Applause)

(The Chairman invited Mr. Nash to speak, but he explained that he
was not feeling at all well).
Sir Christopher Robinson.

First of all, what do you think of this room ? (Chorus of approval).
Well, it costs about five times as much as the other, so I hope you will
bring as many friends as possible to the meetings to help make up the
difference.

You remember the bust of Kipling which we subscribed for ; that
has been accepted by the National Gallery and it has an appropriate
notice. Several of us were praying that the National Gallery would
not accept the bust, because we wanted to accept it for ourselves. I
wrote to Lord Bathurst, one of the largest subscribers, and said we were
much honoured by the nation accepting this gift, but at the same time
it was breaking our hearts, and he wrote back and said " I will give you
another."    (Applause).

It has been suggested that we should before the end of this season
have a French evening ; we have a great many French members, and
we thought of writing to Monsieur André Maurois asking him to come,
he speaks excellent English, do you think it is a good idea ? (Applause).
He may not be able to fit in with our programme, I would suggest that
whenever he is coming over, if he would fix a date to suit us, I am sure
you would agree that we might circulate our members and have a French
evening.   (Applause).

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         129

A Member.

Whoever suggested the idea of having a Paper from an overseas
member should be complimented and congratulated on the idea.
It is a thing that could be extended indefinitely. We have many overseas
members and if we could get the Secretary to suggest it to members,
they might be induced to send papers after the reception of this one to-
night. We shall have new ideas of their thoughts of our Master ;
it would be most interesting to hear how South Africa is receiving to-
day the thoughts put forward a generation ago. We have heard from
our friend how those thoughts have developed and that we have friends
where previously we had enemies.
Sir Christopher Robinson.

We have had quite a number of papers recently sent in by the branches
not only the Cape Town but the Melbourne Branch holds frequent
meetings, and we have received some most excellent papers. The
difficulty is to know quite what to do with them. I hoped to suggest to
the Council the spending of a little money in enlarging the Journal and
putting those papers in the Journal, because if we spend too much money
on the London meetings it is only for the benefit of the members who
are able to attend and is a form of activity in which the overseas and
country members cannot participate. If members feel they would like
them read or printed in the Journal, I have at least six in the Office now.
Would members say whether they would rather have them in the
Journal ? (This is being done.—Hon. Editor)
Mr. Harold Jowsey.

I should like to refer to one overseas member who is trying to found a
Branch in a place where there are only about ninety people ; they do
appreciate very much the articles printed in the Journal.
The Chairman.

Speaking for myself, I really have no remarks to offer except perhaps
one thing. I was very pleased indeed that Miss Sanderson was good
enough to recite that delightful poem " Lichtenberg." I wonder if is
has ever struck anybody else as a psychological fact about the last two
lines, that smells are stronger than sounds and sights to bring the old
times back. Kipling was the poet who realised the truth of that, at any
rate nobody else has ever put it into poetry. Only this morning I was
sticking down an envelope and licking it with my tongue, when the smell
of the gum took me right back in my own business years ago when I had
a good deal to do with the technical processes in connection with fabrics,
my mind went back fifty years.   You may go into a newly-decorated

130                         THE KIPLING JOURNAL

room and the smell of the new paint takes you right back to when you
were a child, ages ago, when some room was redecorated. It is a very
curious truism which very few people observe, and Kipling was the only
poet to introduce it into verse in that way ; those little touches in his
works are very delightful. I should like again to thank Mr. Bazley for
reading this Paper so well and Miss Sanderson for her excellent recita-
tions.
Mr. Harbord.

In reference to the Chairman's remarks, I collected the references in
one volume of Kipling's works to smells, and there were twenty or thirty
in one volume—they were distinct passages about smells of one sort or
another.

Rudyard Kipling :  The Apostle of Work and Service

By A. E. G. Cornwell
(President and Founder of the Victoria, B.C. Branch)

1FEEL as though an excuse is necessary for venturing to talk of such
a great man and his work, as Rudyard Kipling.    The subject is
one that should be dealt with by  a far more able pen than mine.
I can plead only, my love for the man and his works.    In this I am not
by any means alone.    Men from the humble, as from the great walks of
life, have alike paid their homage to this writer of the everyday, work-a-
day world.    This is very aptly shown by the two following instances.
The first is an extract from a letter written by Sir J. Kenneth D.
McKenzie, Bart., F.R.G.S., in which he says :—

'I   learned  to  Kiple  as  a  lad,
And loved to as a stripling,
As I grew up I kipled so

That now I can't cease Kipling.'

The second is this. There is a story called "Private Meyrick,
Company Idiot." Meyrick had been hauled before the Company
Commander for being late on parade. As an excuse he pleaded that he
'' was reading Kipling and had not noticed the time. '' The officer had a
short talk with Meyrick and elicited the statement " that Kipling gets
hold of me, making me feel that I want to do big things." In these
words of Meyrick's I find my justification in attempting something
big ; and if my imperfect little talk should be the cause of anyone here

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                       131

digging deeper into the works of this Master-Writer, and encouraged
thereby "to do big things " (and quite often the big things consist of
the little things of everyday life), I shall be more than repaid ; and they,
I am sure, will get very much pleasure for themselves.

In speaking of Kipling, it would be impossible to deal with his works
as a whole in the course of one short Paper. With the world as an open
book before him, he has culled strange and strong stories from it.
Ships and sailors ; soldiers in barracks and battles ; tales of love and
passion ; children ; horses ; dogs ; jungle animals ; engines of land,
sea, and air ; he has written of them all with his brilliant mastery of our
beautiful language, making them all talk with such a deep understanding
that the reader knows and loves them all. It would occupy many even-
ings to merely touch the fringe of his amazing range of writing ; from
the pitiful tale of a coster-girl being smashed to death in a London slum
by her brutal husband, to a tiny Hindu child making little gardens from
withered flowers and bits of broken, coloured glass in the hot sands of
India. Beautiful pictures of lovely English countryside, which grip
the exile by the throat ; to the horror of a naked, faceless Hindu leper
biting a white man, turning him into a crazed beast of the field, mad with
a ghastly hydrophobia.

Tender stories of unhappy little children, to tales of life in the ut-
most raw from the ends of the wide earth. Touching each with a sure
and steady hand ; and through nearly every tale in prose or verse,
preaching a powerful sermon. To quote his own words, seeing
"naught common" under the roughest phase of life, but using it,
like a keen and polished instrument, as an urge to better things. Loving
his country and countrymen, with a proud and passionate love, yet
flaying them with whips of scorpions, like a prophet of old, when he
thinks they are not living up to the sturdy traditions passed on by
their rough forefathers ; poet, writer, patriot, seer, philosopher, prophet
and teacher ; for many years he has seemed to me a close friend ; full
of understanding, bringing comfort and strength in the dark hours.

In the old days, when under the roughest conditions of living, cut
off from all the better things of life as you know them here in Victoria,
every inducement to slip, no incentive to play the game, Kipling's
writings held me steady as no other influence has ever done, making me
remember the race from which I sprang and to govern myself according-
ly. I would say to you parents here, that when the time comes and you
wish your boys to go out and take their part " as men in a world of men,"
encourage them to read and study this Master's works.   You will help

132                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

them to quit themselves like men by so doing ; and you will do honour to
one of the greatest of Englishmen. As one writer has put it, you will
" delight in his shrewd philosophy in prose and verse, which wipes away
disappointments ; and inspires, strengthens and girds you up to do
battle and win in the coming day's work."

His universal appeal is shown by what he was to me, here in the camps
of Western Canada, and by the following beautiful tribute paid to him
by Captain A. H. Laursen, a Danish sailor on the wild shores of far-
away Jutland.    The verses appeared in our Journal :

' Brother, the night was dark,

Threatening black the sky ;
Seeking his way to the rock of faith,

A lonely wanderer went by.'

Sir Michael W. S. Bruce, in his recently published book, " Sails and
Saddles " (a vivid record of amazing adventures in odd corners of the
world), has many fine references to Kipling and his writings, telling how
in many a tight place, when everything seemed hopeless, he turned
to Kipling for help and comfort as another man would " turn to his
Bible." He speaks of the "joy and humour and wisdom" of the
Kipling stories. Telling of a trip into utterly wild country at the back
of the Amazon River where white foot had rarely been set, he says of his
companion, whom he calls "X." " X," with Kipling, kept my mind
from wandering down the back stairs of viciousness ; they kept me
alive to beauty and good works." And later : " Kipling is the safety
valve of the Britisher in freakish places."

Miss E. Maberley, of Dulce Dominion Hospital, Neutral Bay,
Australia, writing to the Editor of " The Kipling Journal," says :—¦
" As for R. K's works, he himself has not the faintest idea of the help he
has been to thousands .... he speaks God's messages in language so
many can understand .... some one once asked me why I was so
fond of Kipling's works, and I said, ' Because they are so clean, and
make us see the best side of life'.'' I feel sure all readers will agree with
me, that the work of a writer who can draw such sincere and unaffected
tributes as these, from people in such very different walks of life, is well
worthy of careful consideration from those of us who have to spend our
lives in " the daily round, the common task." You see, one touch of
Kipling makes the whole world kin !

Now I should like to speak of Kipling as the Apostle of Work and
Service.    This feature of his writings has always had a great fascination

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                        133

for me. Work and Service ! The Spirit of Kipling ! The Spirit
of England ! which for a thousand years has placed our race in the fore-
front of the world's activities. The spirit which has never shone with a
clearer light than during the last fateful fifteen years ; and in the days
to come when historians record the doings of these great days, our
England will stand out as a rock of steadfastness and courage, outshining
even her spacious days of old, holding aloft a beacon for her sons and
daughters to follow, and to do great deeds through the ages to come.
Not in the hope of immediate, worldly reward ; but because it is your
work, and it is up to you to do it—the best you can—with loyalty and
service to those around you.

And yet it is difficult to place one's finger on any particular story, or
phrase, where Kipling deliberately extols work ; but the thought of
good work is like a thread running through all his writings. In his
book, " Writers of Today," Mr. Palmer, the literary critic, says " that
Mr. Kipling's success and influence is due to his having been more
keenly interested in the work of the world than some of his contempor-
aries;" and he mentions a number of Kipling's stories as being " songs
in praise of good work." That is how Kipling has ever appeared to me,
as the singer of good work. Much of it wild and rough, but good never -
the-less ; and we all know there is a lot of rough work to be done before
the finished product is put before the public. Behind the most brilliant
presentation on the stage there is the work of the property men, and
scene shifters and the hard labour of the rehearsals.

In passing, I might say that I believe it was Kipling who suggested
the name for the Journal we know as " The World's Work." And it is
in the volume called '' The Day's Work '' that some of the finest of his
own stories are comprised. His whole life story and his writings are
permeated with the same thought. One can catch it in many places ;
but space forbids more than a few quotations to give point to this idea.
It is plainly to be found in two of his early poems which also display
his range of subjects, dealing as they do with such widely separated
tasks.

Listen to him in " The Overland Mail," a poem dealing with the post,
carried by foot service, in the hills of India.    I will quote one verse only :

' Is the torrent in spate ?    He must ford it, or swim.

Has the rain wrecked the road ?    He must climb by the cliff.
Does the tempest cry halt ?    What are tempests to him ?

The service admits not a " but " or an " if,"

134                         THE KIPLING JOURNAL

While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail,

In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail.'
Listen to him again, in " The Galley Slave."

I can't give you the whole poem, only a verse to show how the pride of
doing his work well had entered into the very soul of even the galley
slave ; who at length was given his freedom :

' It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more—
Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar.
But to-day I leave the galley.    Shall I curse her service then ?
God be thanked !    What e'er comes after, I have lived and toiled
with Men!'

Let us consider " M'Andrew's Hymn." There is a profound ser-
mon contained here ; many a worse has been delivered from the pulpit.
Listen to the dour, old Scots engineer exulting in his engines, moralizing
and philosophizing. How well he brings before us old Scotsmen as
we've met them. Telling of his wild younger days, when nothing could
hold or bind him ; steeped in debauchery in all the ports of all the world ;
then " getting religion ' ' and becoming the stern, old Calvinist, glorying
in his " duty " and his  " wark " :

' Obsairve !    Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard,
Think not I dare to justify myself before The Lord,
But—average fifteen hunder souls souls safe-borne fra' port to port—
I am o' service to my kind.    Ye wadna blame the thought ?'

Then he goes on to talk of his beloved engines ; and here Kipling
pays a fine tribute to another great poet. I hope there are some Scots
friends here to note it:

' Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam !
To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime
Whaurto—uplifted like the Just—the tail-rods mark the time.
The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an'

heaves,

An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves :
Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides,
Till—hear that note ?—the rod's return whings glimmerin' through

the guides.

They're all awa ! True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes
Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamoes.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                       135

Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed,
To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' speed.
Fra' skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed.
An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made ;
While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says
" Not unto us the praise, or man—not unto us the praise!"
Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson—theirs an' mine :
"Law, Order, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!"

Then again, there is that fine story in verse, " The ' Mary Gloster','"
telling of the self-made, shrewd, somewhat crude, old English ship-
owner, Sir Anthony Gloster, dying. He is as typical of one class of his
countrymen, as McAndrew is of his class ; and both are typical of the
men who have helped to make Britain what she is. They were friends,
too. It is worth reading both these poems to see the friendship which
existed between these two men. The story tells of Sir Anthony's
first ship, " The 'Mary Gloster'," named after his young wife, and on
which they both sailed when just married. The poem is one in which
is clearly shown Kipling's gift of seeing " nought common " beneath
the surface of things. I like to think of this determined old man, dying
giving his son (whom he roundly curses for being so effeminate)
instructions to carry out plans made long before with McAndrew, for
them to take his body ten thousand miles to sea and bury it at the exact
spot where he, himself, had buried his dearly loved young wife many
years before ; and to scuttle the " Mary Gloster" right there, over
them both. The verses are not couched in drawing-room language ;
but we remember that the work was not done in drawing-rooms. One
of my friends loves this poem on account of what he calls ' ' its strong
meat."

It surely is a very human story, and must be read in its entirety to be
appreciated ; but a few lines will here suffice to show that it was good
work, well done, that brought success to old Sir Anthony.

Master at two-and-twenty, and married at twenty-three—

Ten thousand men on the pay-roll, and forty freighters at sea !

Fifty years between 'em, and every year of it fight,

And now I'm Sir Anthony Gloster, dying, a baronite :

For I lunched with his Royal 'Ighness—what was it the papers had ?

" Not least of our merchant-princes."    Dickie, that's me, your dad !

I didn't begin with askings.   I took up my job and I stuck ;

I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck.

136                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

" The Ballad of the ' Bolivar' " is another song of the sea, in which :

" Seven men from all the world back to town again,
Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain :
Seven men from out of Hell."

tell the story of their fierce fight against wind and wave, in words so vivid
that one can hear the furious storm and feel, oneself, every ache of the
men " mad with work and weariness," but there again comes the note
of triumph in having done their work well—

' Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar,
In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar.
Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we
Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!'

In an entirely different strain is " The Dead King," the fine tribute
Kipling paid to Edward the Seventh ; in which there are many beautiful
lines :

' As he received so he gave—nothing grudged, naught denying,

Not even the last gasp of his breath when he strove for us, dying.

For our sakes, without question, he put from him all that he cher-
ished.

Simply as any that serve him he served and he perished.

All that Kings covet was his, and he flung it aside for us.

Simply as any that die in his service he died for us!'

Thus we see, from the highest to the lowest in the land—the spirit
of England :    They took their jobs and they stuck.

To take another aspect : It would be hard to find better advice to
offer a boy just starting out on his first job, than that contained in a verse
from a short poem called " Mary's Son."

' If you stop to consider the work you have done
And to boast what your labour is worth, dear,

Angels may come for you, Willie, my son,
But you'll never be wanted on Earth, dear !'

We hear again of " Mary's Sons " in another poem, entitled, " The
Sons of Martha :"

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages : it is their care that the switches
lock.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                      137

It is their care that the wheels run truly : it is their care to embark and

entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.'

X                   X                   X                   X                   X

' They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before

the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their job when

they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert

they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be

long in the land.'

We turn from these verses to another poem in a similar strain—" A
School Song,"—that splendid tribute to the Masters at the United
Services College at Westward Ho ! where Kipling evidently first learnt,
and quickly appreciated, the fact that a man's daily work must be done
with the best that is in him ; and it is this principle which so strongly
tinges all his writings. It is almost criminal to mutilate these poems by
quoting part of them ; but space permits only enough to make their
meaning clear :

' "Let us now praise famous men"—

Men of little showing—
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,

Broad   and   deep   continueth,
Greater than their knowing!'

X                  X                  X                  X

' And we all praise famous men—

Ancients of the College ;
For they taught us common sense—
Tried to teach us common sense,
Truth and God's Own Common Sense,

Which is more than knowledge!'

X                    X                    X                    X

'This we learned from famous men.

Knowing not its uses,
When they  showed,  in  daily work,
Man must finish off his work—
Right  or  wrong,   his   daily  work—

And without excuses.'

x            x            x          x

138                      THE KIPLING JOURNAL

'Wherefore praise we famous men

From whose bays we borrow—
They that put aside To-day—
All the joys of their To-day—
And with toil of their To-day

Bought for us To-morrow!'

Two of my own particular favourites have to do with Sir Francis
Drake, one of my especial heroes. In both these poems, again, it is
the thought behind the words that make the verses striking. One is
called, " With Drake in the Tropics," and gives us a picture of Sir
Francis as the wise, thoughtful leader, comforting and encouraging his
half-frightened and wholly superstitious men, as they sail into the imag-
ined terrors of the unknown. The other poem, "Frankie's Trade,"
shows that it was not mere luck, or turn of chance, that enabled Drake to
become the great captain of the first English venture round the world.
He had served many years of gruelling labour learning his trade along
the shores of the North Sea.

In the poem, Cape Horn asks the Atlantic what manner of man this
was, who invaded their age-old seclusion so boldly ; and where had he
learned his business ? The Atlantic replied that he, himself, had been
handled in the same arrogant way by this masterful mariner, and referred
Cape Horn to the North Sea for information :

' The North Sea answered :—" He's my man,
For he came to me when he began—
Frankie Drake in an open coaster.

(All round the Sands !)

' I caught him young and I used him sore,
So you never shall startle Frankie more,
Without capsizing Earth and her waters.
(All round the Sands !)

' I did not favour him at all.
I made him pull and I made him haul—,
And stand his trick with the common sailors.
(All round the Sands !)

' I froze him stiff and I forged him blind,
And kicked him home with his road to find

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                       139

By what he could see in a three-day snow-storm.
(All round the Sands !)'

If you wish to know more of this poem and the doings of Drake,
obtain the volume " Rewards and Fairies," and turn to a story called
'' Simple Simon." You will be well repaid by the refreshment of read-
ing a beautiful story ; and learning something of the great man whose
dauntless spirit, more than three hundred years later, animated and in-
spired our own splendid men of twenty years ago, and made the
smashing of the submarine menace and the action at Zeebrugge possible.
Again, it is the spirit of England, interpreted by that master writer,
Kipling, shining through it all.

There are a number of other poems in which this thought predomin-
ates ; but there are two to which I feel I must refer. They are so typical
and exemplify in such a marked degree Kipling's originality of thought
and expression. They are, " The Secret of the Machines," and "If."
The first is the supreme song of triumph of modern machinery ; still re-
iterating the lesson that man must do his work properly, or he suffers :

' But remember, please, the Law by which we live ;

We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive ;

If you make a slip in handling us you die !'

You are all so familiar with Kipling's famous " If," that comment
from me is superfluous. In this poem the great writer epitomizes all
his teaching and, apparently, his whole philosophy of life.

The great statesman, Balfour, once said that his whole policy upon a
certain matter could be expressed on half a sheet of notepaper. Without
the least suggestion of irreverence, I think I may say that, if we were to
take the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, the Sermon on
The Mount in the New Testament, and Kipling's "If," we should have
all the foundation necessary on which to build our everyday religion ;
and if we lived up to the principles these contain, we need have no fear
of " whate'er comes after." It does not take half a sheet of notepaper
to expound that theology. Please forgive me, but I cannot pass this
point without quoting two verses from another poem, which deals with
the reception in Valhalla of a Man :

' He scarce had need to doff his pride or slough the dross of Earth—
E'en as he trod that day to God so walked he from his birth,—
In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth.

140                         THE KIPLING JOURNAL

' So cup to lip in fellowship they gave him welcome high

And made him place at the banquet board—the Strong Men ranged

thereby,
Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die.'

When I first contemplated this article on Kipling, I thought of basing
my remarks on his short stories, for to me, they are more wonderful
(if that is possible) than his poems. But so great is our subject that
Kipling's prose stories have not even been touched upon ; and there is
only time to refer to them very briefly. There are the stories in " Sold-
iers Three," some of them not pretty, perhaps, but, as Kipling says in
his dedication to them :

" Lo, I have wrought in common clay
Rude figures of a rough-hewn race."

If at times the roughness appears uppermost, all through the adven-
tures of these three comrades runs the pride of doing their work well.
As you read the intimate life stories of these three soldiers you forget
their rough exterior. One of these stories, told by Learoyd, the big
Yorkshireman, as to why he joined the army, I never tire of. It is
called, "On Greenhow Hill." It is a tale of Yorkshire, and one in
which is clearly revealed Kipling's deep understanding and broad
man sympathy.

There are splendid tales of men in all parts of the world, men un-
noticed, doing their bit in weaving the web of Empire; not much reward
other than the satisfaction of doing their work well, often neglected,
often against desperate odds, often wrecking their health ; but always
forcing " heart and nerve and sinew" to serve their turn, when all else
was gone.    Doing their work, and sometimes dying in the doing of it.

Entirely different are the " parable " tales, all of them teaching the
same lesson as M'Andrew's engines : ' 'Law, Order, Duty and Restraint,
Obedience, Discipline." There is " No. 007," the perfect story of a
new locomotive, and what it had to learn. " The Ship that Found
Herself " relates the first voyage of a new ship in which there was
nothing but fret and friction among the parts ; until the wise steam
showed them that it was only by team-work, and by all pulling together,
that they could hope for peace, and become a worthy ship. " The
walking Delegate" is a story of shrewd, sensible horses, some of whom
had stood on their hindlegs for their imagined rights ; but had found
that they had to come down to earth, and that the quickest and surest
way to happiness and fair treatment was to obey orders and do their work.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         141

There is that most wonderful tale of a polo game, "The Maltese Cat,"
in which the ponies do the talking, and in which the wisdom of all the
ages is summed up in the cryptic remark of the wise little pony : '' Don't
talk, play the game."

" The Mother Hive " is one of the most fascinating of them all, in
which, through slack work at the gate, the wax-moth got in and so
demoralized all things that one day the Bee Master came and purified
the hive by flame and fire. There is much deep meaning in this story
and leaders of communities and countries might well ponder over it.
Perhaps the Great War was only the Great Bee Master teaching the
Hive a lesson. There is another story which must be mentioned, or
I should feel a traitor to it. It is called, " William the Conqueror,"
The conqueror in this case is a girl, and a very fine one at that. It is a
tale of famine in India, and most powerfully illustrates Kipling's poem,
" The White Man's Burden."    You remember the words :

' Take up the White Man's burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—
Go   bind   your   sons   to   exile

To serve your captives' need ;
To wait in heavy harness,

On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half-devil and half-child.'

XXX

' Take up the White Man's burden—

The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine

And bid the sickness cease ;
And when your gaol is nearest,

The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly

Bring all your hope to nought.'

You will also find a charming, little love story in this tale, which is
one of the finest and best.

Speaking of William the Conqueror, Kipling has a short poem dealing
with the actual man and the work he did for England. It is called
" The Anvil," and contains a lesson which might well be taken to heart
by some of our present-day leaders :

142                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

' England's on the anvil—hear the hammers ring—

Clanging from the Severn to the Tyne !
Never was a blacksmith like our Norman King—

England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into line !

' England's on the anvil !    Heavy are the blows !

(But the work will be a marvel when it's done)
Little bits of Kingdoms cannot stand against their foes.

England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into one !

' There shall be one people—it shall serve one Lord—

(Neither Priest nor Baron shall escape !)
It shall have one speech and law, soul and strength and sword.

England's being hammered, hammered, hammered into shape!'

My comment on this would be—" Little bits of Dominions cannot
stand alone."

All these short stories, and many others, teach equally great lessons;
and all are equally marvellous in the " magic of the necessary word."

Many men have sung of England in splendid words ; Kipling is
behind none of them in his love for her ; but with his keen insight he
sees, behind all the beauty and the glory which are now hers, the long
centuries of hard work which have made her a leader among the nations ;'
and " Home " always to the exiles scattered around the seven seas.

In "The Glory of the Garden " he tells us, in plain homely English,
that only by each and everyone of England's sons and daughters doing
the work that lies under their hands faithfully and well, shall that glory
endure and not pass away.    We will take just two verses :

' There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick,

There's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick,

But it can find some needful job that's crying to be done,

For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

X                         X                         X                         X

' Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders ;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.'

The persistence of this prevailing idea through all Kipling's work, is
well expressed in another poem called, " The King's Job," which tells
of one of our Tudor monarchs ;

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         143

' Once on a time was a King anxious to understand
What was the wisest thing a man could do for his land.'

It goes on to tell us what the King did to discover this, and then we
come to the essential of the message :

' The wisest thing, we suppose, that a man can do for his land
Is the work that lies under his nose, with the tools that lie under his
hand.'

So we come to the magical words of that glorious poem, " A Song of
the English."    Listen to the music and the message :

' Keep ye the Law—be swift in all obedience—

Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.

Make ye sure to each his own

That he reap where he hath sown ;

By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord !'
And then the sombre majesty of the words of pride and love in
" England's Answer :"

' Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you,
After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few.
Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways,
Baulking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise.
Stand to your work and be wise—certain of sword and pen,
Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men !

Letter Bag

John Lockwood and Johnny Grundy

I read Mr. Frank Foster's attractive little paper with much interest,
but though he is quite right in his surmise that " Kipling wrote this
little poem ''—I can assure him it was written 68 years ago by my
father. I am absolutely certain of this, for it was chanted and pictured
to amuse my brother and me in Bombay in 1871.

To this day I vividly remember the large sepia drawing of—" The
Carver came and her image made ''—a delightful mediaeval carver in
doublet and flat cap—embellishing the Well in the Market Place by a
bas-relief of the Grey Mare. Among the watching children a boy with
long straight hair held the hand of a pinafored little sister, dragging the
toy cart that was my most cherished possession in those days.

The Parson in the final picture—portly in Geneva gown—held forth
from an open-air pulpit, near a church tower, where a weatherworn

144                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

niche sheltered a statue of St. Anthony cherishing his pig. The
little boy and girl were hurrying away, but he had an audience of solid
burghers and their wives.

The first picture, which sets forth the death of the Grey Mare,
was only shown to Ruddy—for it provoked my ready tears, and I cannot
therefore recall it. I cannot understand how my brother could remember
the jingle, but forget who wrote it ; especially as I have a vague idea
that it was published under his name in a volume of verse for children
published long ago for some American charity.    A case, perhaps, of—

" what  he  thought   'e  might  require,
'E went an' took—-the same as me !"

I know, however, that the Coalsack sometimes appeared in the sky of
his memory, for, while he was still quite young, he asked me if he had
written the verse that heads " On Greenhow Hill "—-

" To love's low voice she lent a careless ear," etc. " No—of course
not—Mother did." " Bother, likewise blow ! I thought it was me."
And when it came to sorting out the verses in " Echoes'' he claimed
several of mine.

Alice M. Fleming

Your correspondent, Captain Cameron, is perfectly right. " Naulak-
ha " implies that the necklace was worth nine lakhs of rupees. When
the book first appeared, the title was wrongly spelt " Naulahka."
The most fervent admirer of Kipling must admit that he was not strong
on the spelling of Indian words. But, what matter ?—when he could
write what he did write ?

Lt.-Colonel A. A. Irvine

With reference to the discussion on " Mrs. Bathurst," it is curious
that no one seems to have mentioned what appears a strange slip by
Kipling in this story. It is this. Vickery is first mentioned by name in
the story, by Hooper. " I'd like to hear a little more of your Mr. Vickery "
he says. Now, previously Pyecroft had only referred to him as " A
warrant 'oo's name begins with a V., isn't it ?" Now, how can Hooper
have known the name Vickery ? He had found a corpse with M. V.
tattooed on it ; how did he know that the V. stood for Vickery ? And
why did not Pyecroft or Pritchard notice that Hooper knew his name and
enquire how he did ? Is it just carelessness on the part of Kipling ?
If so, it is unlike him.    Or does it mean that Vickery's description was

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                         145

circulated by name, and that Hooper saw it ? It has always seemed to
me an interesting subject for those who like Kipling problems. Per-
haps Mr. Capel Hall would care to suggest a solution. I take it that
it is really the answer to the question asked twice in the story :—" Did
they circulate his description ?" The answer is, " Yes;" and Hooper
saw it.

A. P. Wavell {Lt.-General)

I have just been reading the account of Mr. Hall's lecture and the
discussion thereon in the Journal, and it seems to me that all pre-
sent missed the point of '' They '' and made difficulties where none
exist. In the first place I would depreciate all references to Kipling's
being psychic, or believing in spiritualism or second sight, in con-
nection with the stories that bring in the supernatural. He may have
been, or believed in, all these things, but they are irrelevant here. These
stories are not accounts of actual happenings drawn up for the Society
of Psychical Research, nor are they expositions of a consistent theory of a
spirit world : they are just stories, things for our delight, which we shall
spoil if we ask of them that which they do not contain. " They " is a
glorification of motherhood : that is made crystal clear in the prefatory
poem. The children are not satisfied with a Heaven that does not
contain a mother and so are allowed to "go home." They are allowed
to go to the Blind Woman, drawn by her unsatisfied maternal craving
and because she cannot see their faces, for " one ne\er sees a dead per-
son's face in a dream." Kipling never sees the faces of the children
either, but only catches glimpses of their frocks in the distance, and never
suspects that they are other than ordinary live children till his own dead
daughter comes and " the little brushing kiss fell in the centre of my palm
—as a gift on which the fingers were, once, expected to close," then he
understands and resolves never to come again. Other parents besides
Kipling were able to meet their dead children in the Blind Woman's
house and grounds, but why this was allowed is not explained and it
would be futile to ask. It is enough that the Master Artist put it into
one of the greatest works of art that our language contains. Do not
desecrate it by trying to draw a moral or construct a theory out of it.

As for " Mrs. Bathurst," again I am sure that we are going too far in
imagining that Vickery is meant as a study of a man suffering from loss
of memory, or that he had anything the matter with him beyond a
consuming passion for Mrs. Bathurst, and a bad conscience.   Any

146                        THE KIPLING JOURNAL

difficulties about his period of service or the date of his intrigue are not
significant. Kipling was often careless in unimportant matters of that
sort. Incidentally, Mr. Hall's speculations about Vickery show a
curious ignorance of the Service and the relations of officers and men.
The Navy does not admit broken officers to its ranks, nor would it
promote them to positions of responsibility if it did. Commanding
Officers did not trouble themselves about the social position of their
subordinates when they wanted an interview, at anyrate in those days :
all that mattered was the importance of what they had to say. But the real
" hero " of the story is the cinematograph, which was then so new
that it had to be described, lest all readers should not have seen it.
With our constant glimpses of all sorts of people on the Pathé Gazette,
it is hard for us now to realize what would have been the thrill in those
early days of seeing someone that one knew on the screen. I suggest
that Kipling was studying the effect of such an apparition of someone
loved and wronged, and in an entirely unexpected place ; and he makes
it result in driving that spectator so near to the edge of madness, that
his captain took the extreme measure of conniving at his desertion.
The theory that the second tramp was Mrs. Bathurst herself makes
Hooper into a veritable monster of discretion. If the second corpse was
that of a woman, why did he refrain from saying so ? How could he
resist the temptation ? Why should he ? To spare Pritchard's
feelings ? It seems hardly believable. Nevertheless the theory is
supported by the non-production of the teeth, which we are obviously
meant to believe that he had in his pocket. And, again, the only chance
of Mrs. Bathurst's finding Vickery was for him to stick to his ship.
She might well be able to discover where he was through her friends in
the Navy, and so follow him to the Cape. But, once he had left his ship
he was lost to her.

B. S. Browne, Lt.-Col.

THE KIPLING JOURNAL                       147

Secretary's Corner

We are always ready to do what we can in the shape of carrying out little
commissions in London for our overseas members—as indeed was announced
in the last issue of the Journal. There is, however, one service which your
harassed Honorary Secretary must most apologetically—but none the less
firmly—decline to perform. And that is the collection of autographs for our
members. This demand comes chiefly from our younger members, but with
the best will in the world, I really cannot chase Cinema Stars out to Uxbridge or
pursue Cabinet Ministers into the sanctity of Westminster to get their auto-
graphs. Similarly, it means considerable trouble and expense to get autographs
of all the members of our Council—who do not live all together—and even the
autograph of our President, who lives in Italy and who travels about a lot,
cannot be got without considerable trouble. The only autograph I can offer
by return of post is my own, which is, I assure our younger members, very
effective except upon a cheque.

As the Journal goes to Press, an H.M.S. Kipling is about to be launched.
We are hoping to make a collection to present the ship with—possibly—a
plaque of Kipling. Negotiations are, as I write, well under weigh and it may
be that before the final printing of the Journal, I may be able to supplement this
brief note with fuller particulars.

The Council have decided not to reprint those numbers of the Journal which
are out of print or nearly so. They feel that the probable sales of these back
numbers would not justify the expense and that, after all, rare numbers of the
Journal should have a value of their own like other rare publications and people
wanting them should try and obtain a copy by advertising in current issues
of the Journal or elsewhere.

Two more plays are now available to members under the scheme published in
Journal No. 47 whereby one can purchase any two seats in the theatre for the
price of one :—

" The Shoemaker's Holiday " at the Playhouse.

" They Fly by Twilight " at the Aldwych.

Some members avoid domestic and servant worries by living in hotels and
consequently travel about a lot from one place to another. Such members would-
help us considerably if they would allow us to register their Bank as their per-
manent address. This would mean a delay of only one post in the receipt of
letters from the Society. Every time a member changes his or her address, it
means that three new cards have to be made out and one stencil for our address-
ing machine ! In another Society which I look after, we have a member com-
pared with whom the Wandering Jew is a limpet stuck on a rock. I tremble to
think what our auditors will say when they see what we have spent in new sten-
cils alone in endeavouring to keep pace with her wanderings !

Whilst I am on the subject of office worries, will members please excuse me if
I mention once more what a help Bankers Orders are to us ? It avoids the
necessity of sending out reminders as well as abolishing for members the trouble
of sending cheques and postal orders. Those members who could see their way
to pay their subscriptions by Bankers Order will earn our deep gratitude and
forms can always be obtained from this office on receipt of a post card asking for

We offer our apologies to members who have not been able to secure copies
of the 1938 Christmas card. Hitherto we have always had ample stocks, but
this year, although we ordered the same number as usual, we ran out of stock
no less than three times and it is now too late to place a further order owing to
the Christmas rush at the manufacturers.

148

THE KIPLING JOURNAL

This constitutes a record for the Society's Christmas card, and it is a great
pleasure  to the Council to get such unmistakable evidence that it has
appreciated.

The 1939 Christmas card has already been designed, and we can assure
members that, if anything, it is even better than this year's. But we would
ask members, and particularly Branches, to place their orders next year as
early as possible and thus avoid disappointment.

C. H. R.

FOR SALE.    Unique opportunity.    Complete range of Journals from No. 1
to 47 inclusive, £7 4s. 0d. net.    Apply Hon. Secretary.

NEW   MEMBERS SINCE   OCTOBER   ISSUE  OF
THE   JOURNAL

1575    Mrs. Phillips

A. 82    Mrs. Bruce Mackenzie

A. 83    Mrs. Purdy

1576    J. M. Silvester, Esq

London
Auckland
Auckland

Nairobi

V. 33    Mrs. W. C. Mann

Victoria   B.C.
V. 34    Mrs. F. Lee

Victoria   B.C.
1577    Robert F.  Kipling, Esq.

Liverpool
C. 37    Miss A. A. Fries

Maitland, Cape
MEL. 41    Miss Fowler

Melbourne
MEL. 42    Mrs. Charlton

Melbourne
MEL. 43    J. O'Day, Esq.

Melbourne
MEL. 44    M. Walsh, Esq.

Melbourne
MEL. 45    Rev. A. Adeney

Sale

MEL. 46    A. Michaelis, Esq., M.L.A.

Melbourne
MEL. 47    Sir Stanley Argyle, K.B.E.

Melbourne
MEL. 48    Miss Tuxen

Melbourne
MEL.    49    Miss    L.     South

Geelong

MEL,   50    Miss   Gurr        Geelong
Congratulations   to   Melbourne !
C.  38    Capetown University Library.
C. 39    Miss Joy Buchanan

Capetown

1578    Miss Joyce Barber

Woking

1579    Viscount    Goschen,    G.C.S.I.,
G.C.I.E.

London
C. 40    Miss Edith Braham

Capetown

1580    Ashley Campbell, Esq.

St. Leonards

1581    Major A. C. Shortt.

London

1582    Godfrey Barclay, Esq.

London