6 PINK AND SCARLET 



brook with a scramble, rose the opposite hill, and 

 delivered the order before either of the other 

 messengers hove in sight. I then turned about 

 and went back the same way. 



"When I rode up to the General to report the 

 order delivered he seemed very pleased, and, among 

 other things, said — 



" ' Do English officers always take orders in that 

 way ? ' 



" I could not help replying — ' Yes, sir, they 

 always go the nearest way with them.' " 



It was nothino^ but the " education of the huntingr- 

 field " that enabled our countryman to score thus, 

 and there is no need to comment further on the 

 incident, unless it be to say that "the nearest way" 

 means, of course, the nearest possible way. It 

 would not be the nearest way to try and go straight, 

 and then get pounded half-way (or fall and let 

 your horse go), at an impossible fence. But there 

 is no need to say this to a hunting man. 



Again, how much of our influence over natives 

 do we owe to this same fact, that so many of us 

 are so at home on a horse ? Again an instance, 

 which memory recalls, gives an illustration. 



Time — the summer of 1885 ; scene — the camp, 

 near Tani on the Nile, of a party of friendly Arabs 

 and natives, "Scallywags," in fact, got together by 

 two British officers for the purpose of scouting and 

 obtaining information. Enter a party of officers 

 who have ridden over from the neighbouring British 

 summer camp. To entertain them the " Scally- 



