CHAPTER IV 



ON THE MARCH 



SIR JOHN OGLANDER, writing of the manners and 

 customs of the Isle of Wight in the days of Charles I., 

 quaintly remarks that persons out of " owre island " 

 who undertook a journey to London always made their 

 wills first, " as reckoning noe trooble like to travel." 

 Many people still take the same view as was then held 

 by the islanders. But the trouble of a separate jour- 

 ney is nothing as compared with the march of organised 

 bodies who have to provide their own commissariat 

 and transport. That is where Western nations usu- 

 ally break down, though in the East the business is 

 better understood. Xerxes could never have marched 

 and fed his million men through Thrace to Greece if 

 half of them had not belonged to the " caravanning " 

 races. Animals on the march often manage these 

 things better than men do. Generally speaking, they 

 go worst if driven, better if ridden, when man becomes 

 a part of the animal, and best when left to themselves. 

 Compare, for instance, sheep driven along a road with 

 the same animals changing pastures voluntarily on 

 the hill, or horses in a drove with others ridden in a 

 march of cavalry, or a troop of colts galloping in 

 the breeder's paddock. The marches of the larger 



