IX.
We journeyed on in single file;
The march proceeded mile on mile
Monotonous and lonely,
We saw (if I remember right)
The friendly features of a white
On two occasions only.
The first was when our expedition
Came suddenly on a commission,
Appointed to determine
Whether the thirteenth parallel
Ran right across a certain well,
Or touched a closely neighbouring tree;
And whether elephants should be
Exterminated all as “game,”
Or, what is not at all the same,
Destroyed as common vermin.
To this commission had been sent
Great bigwigs from the Continent,
And on the English side
Men of such ancient pedigree
As filled the soul of Blood with glee;
He started up and cried:—
“I’ll go to them at once, and make
These young adventurous spirits take
A proof of my desire
To use in this concern of ours
Their unsuspected business powers.
The bearers of historic names
Shall rise to something higher
Than haggling over frontier claims,
And they shall find their last estate
Enshrined in my directorate.”
In twenty minutes he returned,
His face with righteous anger burned,
And when we asked him what he’d done,
He answered, “They reject us,
I couldn’t get a single one,
To come on the prospectus.
Their leader (though he was a Lord)
Stoutly refused to join the board,
And made a silly foreign speech
Which sounded like No Bless Ableech.
I’m used to many kinds of men,
And bore it very well; but, when
It came to being twitted
On my historic Sporting Shirt,
I own I felt a trifle hurt;
I took my leave and quitted.”
There is another side to this;
With no desire to prejudice
The version of our leader,
I think I ought to drop a hint
Of what I shall be bound to print,
In justice to the reader.
I followed, keeping out of sight;
And took in this ingenious way
A sketch that throws a certain light
On why the master went away.
No doubt he felt a trifle hurt,
It even may be true to say
They twitted him upon his shirt.
But isn’t it a trifle thick
To talk of twitting with a stick?
Well, let it pass. He acted well.
This species of official swell,
Especially the peer,
Who stoops to a delimitation
With any European nation
Is doomed to disappear.
Blood said, “They pass into the night.”
And men like Blood are always right.
The Second shows the full effect
Of ministerial neglect;
Sin, walking out alone in quest
Of Boa-constrictors that infest
The Lagos Hinterland,
Got separated from the rest,
And ran against a band
Of native soldiers led by three—
A Frenchman, an official Prussian,
And what we took to be a Russian—
The very coalition
Who threaten England’s power at sea,
And, but for men like Blood and me,
Would drive her navies from the sea,
And hurl her to perdition.
But did my comrade think to flee?
To use his very words—Not he!
He turned with a contemptuous laugh.
Observe him in the photograph.
But still these bureaucrats pursued,
Until they reached the Captain’s tent.
They grew astonishingly rude;
The Russian simply insolent,
Announcing that he had been sent
Upon a holy mission,
To call for the disarmament
Of all our expedition.
He said “the miseries of war
Had touched his master to the core”;
It was extremely vexing
To hear him add, “he couldn’t stand
This passion for absorbing land;
He hoped we weren’t annexing.”
The German asked with some brutality
To have our names and nationality.
I had an inspiration,
In words methodical and slow
I gave him this decisive blow:
“I haven’t got a nation.”
Perhaps the dodge was rather low,
And yet I wasn’t wrong to
Escape the consequences so;
For, on my soul, I did not know
What nation to belong to.
The German gave a searching look,
And marked me in his little book:—
“The features are a trifle Dutch—
Perhaps he is a Fenian;
He may be a Maltese, but much
More probably Armenian.”
Blood gave us each a trifling sum
To say that he was deaf and dumb,
And backed the affirmation
By gestures so extremely rum,
They marked him on the writing pad:
“Not only deaf and dumb, but mad.”
It saved the situation.
“If such a man as that” (said they)
“Is Leader, they can go their way.”