LAND AND W A i E R 
January 6, 1916. 
An obsequious undertaker to make everything as easy and 
cheerful as possible. Now we see Death as India knows 
liim to bo, a bloodj'-jawed maniac snapping at any one 
within reach, careless of age or sex, and never attempting 
to conceal or to ease the honid wounds which he leaves 
behind him. 
In' the Preface quoted above reference is made to 
" my friend the late Robert Hanna Wick." The story 
in which he figures is called " Only a Subaltern " and at 
its head stands this extract from the Bengal Army Regu- 
lations :— " Not only to enforce by command but to encourage 
bv example the energetic discharge of dutv and the steady 
endurance of the difficulties and privations inseparable 
from Militarv Service." We know now how great and 
noble is the company of Bobby Wicks who in their life- 
time were only subalterns, they who knew no fear either 
of the disease that walketh at noon-tide or of the flying 
bullet or bursting shell. It is the same honest workman 
who gave us this pathetic picture of a subaltern which 
as everyone is only too well aware to-day. is absolutely 
true to life, who also drew the "Soldiers Three." The 
first time the famous Three were introduced was " in the. 
I'mballa Refreshment Room while we were waiting for an 
lip train. I supplied the beer. The tale was cheap at ;i 
gallon and a half." And the story ends in this fashion ; 
" Young man, what's t' notebook for ? " said Learoyd. 
" Let be," said Afulvaney ; " this time next month we're 
in the ^herapis. 'Tis immortial. lame the gentleman's goin' 
to give us. But kape it dhark till we're out av the range av 
me little frind Bobs Bahadur." 
Antl I have obeyed Mulvancy's order. 
This first experiment was too successful to end here. 
No more was heard of the Sherapis and the Three have 
passed into " immortial fame." though their glory will 
ever be greater among those who realise that they stand 
less for the rank and file of the British Army than for the 
rank and file of that unenlisted Grand Army who, not- 
withstanding faults and failings, despite excesses and 
distresses, and in the face of errors and perplexities, have 
linked Hindustan to the British Empire and given new 
values to the old Anglo-Saxon ideals of courage, tenacity, 
truth and justice. The author never made any pretence 
that the Three were those creatures of flesh and blood 
which many of his critics assume them to be just to puU 
them to pieces. This is how he wrote of them in his 
Dedication to the original volume : 
Lo, I have wrought in common clay 
Rude figures of a rough hewn race. 
Since pearls strew not the market place 
In this my town of banishment, 
Where with the shifting dust I play 
And eat the bread of discontent. 
Yet is there life in that I make 
O thou who knowest. turn and see — 
As thou hast power over me 
So have I power over these, 
Because I wrought them for thy sake, 
And breathe in them my agonies. 
What some of these agonies may have been, we may 
learn from " The Madness of Private Ortheris " : " I'm 
sick for London again ; sick for the soimds of 'er an ' the 
sights of 'er and the stinks of 'er ; orange-peel an<l 
hasphalte and gas coming in over Vaux'all Bridge." 
Were this not sufficient evidence of the pains of exile which 
gat hold of Kipling as they have got hold of soniany of 
his fellow-countrymen, are there not the poems "Christmas 
in India " (that originally appeared m print over the 
nom de plume of " A Dyspeptic") and " In Spring Time," 
— " Give me back one" day in England for it's Spring 
in England now." 
It is a strange commentary on the ways of critics — 
even Mr. Hopkins misses it— that scarcely one of them 
pays heed to this cry, which is the very voice of Anglo- 
India, wrung from the heart of her by the bitterness of 
failure and death, in the weariness and torment of " a 
toil that knows no breaking." " He jests at scars that 
never felt a wound," and this wound of home sickness is 
mere phantasy to those who have not suffered it. But 
it is the true, minted stamp of honest workmanship in the 
eyes of all who have lived the life. 
Do you remember how " With the Main Guard " 
ends— that night of terrible heat in the Lahore Fort, 
when Learoyd came near to dying of apoplexy, and 
Mulvaney kept him going with his talk ? One cannot 
forbear recalling it now when the pitiless day again breaks 
for the splendid writer of the story and for so many other 
over-burdened souls, whom he has ever honestly and to 
the full height of his genius striven to strengthen, hearten 
and console : 
'■ Oh, Terence ! " I said, dropping into Mulvaney's 
speech when we were alone. " It's you that have the 
Tongue ! " 
He looked at me wearily ; his eyes were sunk in his 
liead and his face was drawn and white. " Eyah ! " said he. 
" I've blandandhered thim through the night somehow, 
but can thim that helps others help themselves ? Answer me 
that, Sorr ! " 
And over the bastion ol J*ort .^mara broke the pitiless 
dav. 
" With Our Indiuns at Marseilles." By Magsia Bibikoff. (Smith, 
Elder and Co.; 5s. net. 
The enthusiasm of this young Russian artist, a pupil of 
Detaille, led her to view e%erything an couleur de rose, and her 
written impressions of the Indian camps at Marseilles may be 
gatiiered from her anticipation of an interview with Maharajah 
Sher Singh. " 1 am going to see tlie Ix-ing wiio thrilled in\- 
childish imagination," she writes, " and appeared in my earliest 
dream> amid the flash of jewels that scintillated with every 
colour. With sucii expectations, it is little wonder that she 
founl in the Indian contingents much to admire. Tlie book 
is an appreciation, not a criticism, and even when the Indians 
threw away the food on which her shadow had fallen she 
accepted the fact without comment. 
Her sketches are gossamer things, confessedly the work 
of five or ten minutes each, and bearing the mark of impres- 
sionism, not of detailed work. Text and sketches together give 
a good idea of the Marseilles camps, and though the book is 
exceeclingly slight it will assist in giving an idea of what the 
Marseilles camps were really like. The brief introduction by 
-Maurice Barres marks, not only his appreciation of the 
artist's work, but also of the Indians in France. 
" The Furniture Collector.' 
Jenkins.) 
By Edward W. Gregory. (Herbert 
Mr. Edward W. 
Gregory ts a writer on 
domestic architecture, 
decoration and furni- 
ture, very favourably 
known both here and in 
the United States. He 
has. a most pleasant 
style, is singularly well- 
informed, and without 
ever posing as infallible, 
lias come to be accepted 
with good reason as a 
reliable authority on 
these subjects. 
This volume is an 
introduction to the 
study of English styles 
of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, 
and contains illustra- 
tions of typical pieces 
of furniture from public 
and private collections. 
It includes no doubt 
some information which 
is already known to 
professional collectors, but to amateurs, whose name is 
legion, the book will be a sheer dehght, for it holds so 
many little bits of side knowledge, and sheds new light on 
trophies of the sales-rooms or heirlooms handed down for 
generations, which are the special pride of many homes. 
There is an interesting account of the furnishing of a 
house of a prosperous farmer or yeoman in the time of Mary 
Tudor. .\n inventory of the " best chamber " in Eliza- 
beth's reign is given. A chaj>ter all to itself is devoted to 
the old Windsor chair and well it deserves it. Chippendale, 
Heppelwhite, Sheraton have also their own chapters, and 
some very practical advice is given on the vexed question of 
" Buying and Selling." Mr. Gregoiy has laid all furniture 
collectors vmder a big debt of gratitude ; this volume will be 
one of standard reference for the periods to which it refers. 
RARE TYPE OF WINDSOR 
CHAIR. 
Dr. .Maria Montessori's International Training Course, 
announced for January 15th, has been postponed to Fehrttary 
i^tk owing to the stidden death of the Dottoressa's father. 
Chevalier Alexandre Montessori. It will last three months. 
