1 14 TALES OF A NOMAD. 



it appears to me that improvements in small arms, 

 artillery, and machine guns have led us to dangerously 

 underestimate the value of the hand-to-hand weapon as 

 a factor in warfare. Experience in South Africa and 

 the Soudan will have been wasted unless it has incul- 

 cated one great lesson, viz., that a brave enemy armed 

 with cold steel and the impetuous courage that is fostered 

 by having to rely on that alone, can compel the best 

 troops to go into formation to resist their onrush, and 

 that had the Zulus or Arabs only had the sense not to 

 rush at our formations, but to surround them and pour 

 in a concentric musketry fire we should have met with 

 terrible disasters. 



The excessive penetration and flatness of trajectory 

 of modern weapons would be a positive disadvantage 

 if a brave enemy well armed with hand-to-hand weapons 

 managed to get in amongst us. Say, for instance, that 

 a quarter of an hour before daybreak a division of the 

 enemy, thus armed, managed to interpose themselves 

 between two bodies of our own troops. All they would 

 have to do would be to lie down and let us exterminate 

 ourselves by a cross fire. History repeats itself, and the 

 sword and spear are not dead. 



McLeod brought the Amaswazi up from Swazi- 

 land no light task, for an Amaswazi army has no 

 commissariat. They rely upon Providence and the 

 enemy for provisions. Until they meet the enemy they 

 are always hungry, and like hungry men are always more 

 or less unmanageable. If you do not believe it, ask 

 the wives of hungry men. Under McLeod's leadership 

 they marched through Leydenburg without sacking 

 the town, a thing which reflects high credit upon their 

 commander. 



