A remarkable feature of this bleak and grim mountain pass is a lovely rock-garden, which was created by the late rector, Rev. Pierre Chanoux, who was not only the beloved pastor of his people, but an enthusiastic botanist, and who collected plants from the Himalayas and the Pyrenees as well as from the Alps. "Chanousia," for so this garden is called, is kept up by the Order of St Maurice, and provides by itself a quite sufficient attraction to lovers of flowers to induce them to make a pilgrimage to the Little St Bernard-a quite easy journey now by the new motor road for those who cannot face the climb up the steep path that the peasants of Séez still use, as they bring their cattle to graze on the high Savoy slopes. The flowers are only to be seen for about three months in the summer, as the snow begins to cover them for their winter sleep as early as September. Whether for its exceeding beauty, or for the interest attaching to its old traditions, or as providing opportunities for studying a self-contained community of mountaineers, there are few districts in the Alps which offer greater attractions to a quiet visitor than the district of Séez in the Tarentaise. And the mountain road into Italy through the pass leads into one of the fairest parts of Piedmont, to the foot of Mont Blanc at Courmayeur, and to Aosta with its memories of the ancient Roman occupation. J. H. BERNARD. FROM THE OUTPOSTS. THE MARKSMAN. PRIVATE FADALMULLA sat on a rock and reflectively picked at a jigger in his little toe. Close by, a few kids, nominally under the control of two diminutive and undraped infants, gambolled and butted each other in a languid manner. A venerable savage, with a yard of tattered and dirty americani round his loins, had completed the lengthy process of choosing a really comfortable boulder for a pillow, and was composing himself for his diurnal nap under an adjacent thorn-bush. The Manyatta, a rambling collection of dome-shaped huts surrounded by a straggling zeriba, seemed to have settled down for the day. The camels and goats had been milked and driven off to graze. Such of the ladies as had not set out with their water-pots in the direction of the wells had betaken themselves to their domestic tasks and gossip. A few elmoran1 sat idly in the shade of the huts, while the majority had disappeared towards some unknown rendezvous of laziness and meat-eating in the bush. In fact, the only living creatures that were really taking an active interest in life were the flies, some thousands of which buzzed round Fadal mulla's head, or settled on the features of the recumbent and undisturbed old gentleman by his side. On the whole, Fadalmulla was contented. It gave him some satisfaction to think that most of his companions-in-arms would have been drilling at daybreak, and would at that moment probably be engaged in some tedious fatigue. Had Fadalmulla been of their number, he would probably even now be standing, like a block of carved ebony, in front of the orderly-room table, receiving with outward calm, but no little inward discomfort, the pointed remarks of his Company Commander anent the uncleanness of his rifle on parade that morning. However, Allah in his goodness had ordained that he should be sent on guard to an outlying manyatta, and as his corporal happened to be also his son-in-law (for Fadalmulla was something of veteran), his lot seemed for the moment to have fallen in a pleasant place. Moreover, the plump little wife of old Leboteng yonder had thrown him not a few saucy glances as she moved among the camels with her bowl at milking-time that morning. So Fadalmulla, stripped 1 Warrior. to his khaki shorts, with his fat black body shining like a hippo in the sunlight, was on the whole contented. Still, at the back of his mind, that musketry affair still rankled. Once, when he was escorting a mail safari, Fadalmulla had shot a bustard quite eighty paces distant. Round the camp fires at night, and during the dragging noontide hours in the hot boma, he had not been sparing with repetitions of the tale of his prowess, nor had the distance of the bustard and the quickness and accuracy of the shot lost anything in the telling. So when, thanks to the bewitching of his bullets by some evil shaitan, his Bwana at the end of the musketry course had announced him to be a third-class shot, he had been the butt of a good many rude scoffs. Of course Fadalmulla knew that he was not really a thirdclass shot, for no third-class shot could possibly have killed a bustard which, if it wasn't actually flying at the moment, was certainly just getting ready to fly. However, he had not been able to tell his Bwana about the bustard, for there was an unaccountable prejudice against people using their ammunition for shooting bustards, so Fadalmulla had been obliged to remain a target for the taunts of the ill-mannered. This train of thought was only partially disturbed by the sight of three elmoran, who came running in an excited still manner towards the manyatta. What feather-pated fools those elmoran were ! Look at that one in front, hopping up and down now in front of the corporal, like a great marabout stork, shouting "Woh! woh ! woh!" like one afflicted of Allah. But while Fadalmulla's slow-moving brain was pondering contemptuously on the antics of the newcomers, his disciplined body acted on the instant in response to its years of training, and no sooner had the shrill toots of the corporal's whistle carried the alarm to his ear than he was hobbling as fast as his bad toe would permit in the direction of his rifle and bandolier, and in hardly more time than it takes to write he and his five companions were grouped round their N.C.O., stolidly receiving that worthy's instructions. The story brought by the elmoran was short, nor was there anything in it very novel to its hearers. Soon after daybreak Turkana raiders, "like the blades of grass in number," had swooped down on a neighbouring manyatta and "eaten it up.' They (the elmoran) had performed deeds of unparalleled valour, but the Turkana were too many, and were even now driving off the stock, while the ground was strewn with the disembowelled corpses of the women and children. Would the askaris come quickly and discomfort the dreaded "long-spears" with their rifles? The corporal had heard the day endurable. However, no sooner had he become comfortably comatose than he was again aroused by alarums and excursions. This time the disturbers of the peace were four terrified little maidens, who came scampering at a great pace through the bush, incoherently screaming their tidings as they ran. story before. The Turkana which alone makes a long hot were always "like the blades of grass in number "; the elmoran had always performed prodigies; and, nine times out of ten, at the end of a long hot double through the bush, he had found nothing but a manyatta seething with panic, because, forsooth, some laiyuni1 had seen what he thought was a Turkana scout on a distant hillside. However, his duty was plain, and his orders came without hesitation. Two elmoran were sent racing through the bush to the boma, to repeat the tale to the Bwana. He himself, with five men, set off hot-foot, though sceptical, toward the scene of the rumoured affray; and Fadalmulla, thanks to the jigger in his toe, was left behind in the manyatta to prepare a bowl of refreshing uji 2 against the coming again of the combatant party. With in five minutes of the elmoran's arrival all was in train, and Fadalmulla, serene amidst the panic-stricken buzzing of the now thoroughly awakened manyatta, had calmly started upon his culinary labours. The making of uji, like everything else in this world, doubtless requires more skill than the uninitiated would imagine, but for all that it can hardly be said to call for great mental exertion; so it so it was not long before Fadalmulla's brain had once more assumed the pleasant lethargy 1 Immature boy. Fadalmulla remembered that he now held the responsible position of O.C. troops in the manyatta, so, rising reluctantly to his feet, he elbowed his way into the cluster of excited villagers who were crowding round the newcomers, and whose staccato lamentations bore witness to the badness of the tidings. It seemed that the story of the raid was not a false one. Not only had the neighbouring manyatta been attacked, but a large band of Turkana warriors, flushed with their easy triumph, were even now approaching through the bush. The little girls, who had been watching the young camels grazing from the vantage-point of a high rock, had heard their distant war-song and had caught sight of them as they crossed a rocky ridge not a mile away. Now in the warfare of raids and counter-raids there is one invariable rule-when attacked, run away. You may concentrate in the bush for a counterattack, or you may content yourself with harrassing the 2 A sort of gruel. withdrawal of the raiders, and trust to a counter-raid to avenge your dead and recoup yourself for your looted stock, but the first move is to run. And run the manyatta did! Mothers snatched up their babies; potbellied little urchins, shepherded by lanky elder sisters, rolled eyes of uncomprehending terror as they trundled off as fast as their little legs would carry them. Old men hobbled away at a painful amble, while here and there an aged crone dragged herself frantically through the bush, whimpering in desperation for a helping hand, the withered skin of her shoulder-blades already twitching in anticipation of the inevitable spear-thrust. The elmoran of the village had already taken to the bush at the first alarm; but had they not done so, they would most certainly and shamelessly have led the sauve qui peut. Only Fadalmulla stood quite stolidly over his uji pot, his eyes perhaps a trifle brighter than before, but his black face showing no signs of any particular military ardour, and quite surely none of fear. And then a thing happened which shows that a woman's heart is always much the same, be the skin which covers it black or white. Back through the bush, with her little black baby strapped between her shoulders, came the plump little wife of old Leboteng. No word she spoke, but her gesture as she seized Fadalmulla's elbow and pointed to the bush spoke as plainly as any words. From the van of the flight, whither her sturdy young legs had quickly carried her, she had turned back, risking thereby a far more evil fate than the swift spear-thrust which would send the grandmothers of the tribe to their last rest, to urge this obstinate great man creature into safety. Fadalmulla understood, and pitied her. Yes, pitied her for her stupidity. After all, she was only a poor ignorant creature, and could hardly be expected to understand. He, an askari of G Company, run away from a lot of miserable shouting shenzis! And what about the uji? What would the corporal say when he got back and found it all spilt, and very likely the cooking-pot with its bottom smashed in by the butt-end of a spear? Why, he would probably be brought up before the Bwana and have to pay for a new one, and anyhow the other men of the company would pull his leg about it for months. Still, the poor creature meant well, and he would see that she was all right. So there was no roughness in the gesture with which Fadalmulla took ber arm and led her trembling to the shelter of a big rock a few yards from the entrance of the manyatta. Signing to her to lie down, he 1 Savages. |