Peshawur and the Khyber Pass 71 



Arithmetic on the frontier is a one-sided affair ; as 

 Rudyard Kipling says, there is not only the chance 

 of being "potted" at at any moment from behind 

 a rock during 



A scrimmage in a border station 

 A canter down some dark defile 



Ten thousand pounds of education 

 Drops to a ten-rupee jesail 



The crammer's boast, the squadron's pride, 



Shot like a rabbit in a ride! 



but dysentery and enteric combine to pile up heavy 

 odds against Tommy : few at home realised how many 

 that summer, in the Bara Valley, at Ali Musjid, and in 

 other camps on the frontier, might have said, 



We've the fever here in camp it's worse than forty fights ; 

 We're dying in the wilderness the same as Israelites ; 

 It's before us and behind us, and we cannot get away, 

 And the doctor's just reported five more deaths to-day. 



While we were finishing lunch a conjuror a real 

 juggler appeared, one of the camp-followers, and 

 squatting down on the ground, wearing nothing except 

 a loin-cloth and his turban, with therefore no possibility 

 of concealment, began his tricks. He picked a small 

 twig off one of the stunted bushes which was withering 

 under the sun near us, ran his fingers down it, stripping 

 off the leaves small leaves like those of a sensitive 

 plant and then proceeded to shower them down among 

 us, but not alone ! with 'the leaves came great live 

 scorpions ; not little things like Italian scorpions, but 



