although at peace for the moment, were paved with explosives. Dost Mahomed, who had put down rebellion with the strong hand, and recently conquered Candahar, although the ally and pensioner of England, was no friend at heart to the infidels. He held Cabul firmly with his troops and tribesmen, as his strong garrison in Candahar was commanded by the heir-apparent. But everywhere was sullen discontent: among his most dangerous foes were the men of his own family; the Persians were besieging Herat, and there was fighting in Balkh beyond the northern ranges. Everywhere on the march from the Indus to Candahar, the mission was met with tumultuous demonstrations of hostility. When it entered the city, with but a few of the faithful Guides, and escorted by doubtful Afghans, it might well have anticipated the fate of Cavagnari. The dull months dragged painfully on in an atmosphere of unfriendly suspicion. The heir - apparent was civil but mistrustful; the Englishmen could never ride beyond the walls without armed attendants, who were really on guard. Surrounded by spies, they were prisoners at large. But it was when news of the Mutiny reached Cabul that their troubles began. Everywhere they saw sour looks and savage faces. The citizens, already reduced by famine and pestilence to the extremity of misery, were fired by fanatical preachers. The heir was still tolerably friendly; but only one of his Afghan regiments could be depended on. Even the Amir

vacillated from time to time; under pressure of the mullahs, proposals were mooted in his privy council of proclaiming a religious war and sweeping down through the passes on the Punjab. There were but two considerations which, as Lumsden felt, held him to his alliance with us-the regular payment of his pension, and his belief in the English power. His faith in both was sorely shaken, when the back-flow of the first English successes was brought to a check, and the defence of Delhi was prolonged. Edwardes corresponded regularly with Lumsden, though occasionally the letters were delayed through anxious days and weeks. It is a strong thing to say, but perhaps no men hung more anxiously on the slow course of operations than our envoys isolated in Candahar. The fate of the mission and the attitude of the Afghan Amir depended upon that hazardous assault which was urged on the hesitating Commander-in-Chief by the soldiers who had come to his help from the Punjab. The Lumsdens may have thought lightly of their own lives, but they cared much for the success of their mission. With the fall of Delhi the tension relaxed.

And there is another side to these pregnant letters from Edwardes, and it is strangely pathetic from the personal point of view. Edwardes was in the thick of the danger and excitement; he could afford to write humorously of the most serious incidents, though his tone is sad enough when he has to record the fall of their friends.

Lumsden read the letters with his hands crossed, condemned to an inaction which was gnawing at his heart. We can conceive the feelings with which he heard of the feats of the Guides, of the noble deaths of his old comrades, and all the time he was tantalised by idle hopes of the arrival of letters of recall. Reinforcements Reinforcements poured in; the mutineers were routed everywhere, and the lingering hope that he might be in time for the crisis of the struggle had at last to be resigned. Still he was living the life of monotonous dulness, tempered by constant anxieties and incessant alarms. In the fury of baulked fanaticism, it might be his ignominious end to be butchered by a mob of Afghan rioters. The great struggle had been decided at last, when he received a friendly and stinging letter from Ed

wardes. It is dated from Peshawar, the 23rd January: "The Guides are coming in here in a few days, and I have a dinner-party of forty-eight in honour of the officers! No slight undertaking at the close of an exhausting crisis. The tales are endless. It is like the return of the Crusaders." Probably Lumsden was as free from envy as any man, but again, we say, fancy his feelings!

At length the long-expected order for withdrawal came. The Candahar mission had done excellent work: Lumsden's personal influence with the Amir and his profound knowledge of native character had been invaluable. But such service was not of a sort to excite enthu

siasm in the din of a deadly life-battle and the blare of triumphant jubilation. It was recognised, but not recompensed; and when promotions and decorations were being deservedly scattered broadcast, he received no mark of military honour. He went back to his Guides, and there was a warm welcome and an affecting meeting, for he missed many a well-known figure from the ranks. The opportunity for high distinction had gone by, but the border warfare went forward as before. In the Waziri expedition of 1860 there was a thrilling episode, when swarms of the Waziris surprised the pickets and rushed the camp:—

"You may fancy how sudden the attack was when I mention that I was sleeping with all my clothes on, and before I could put on my sword, picket of a Havildar, a Naick, and the Waziris were in camp. Out of a eight Sepoys of my corps, both the

non-commissioned officers and six men were killed, and the other two left for dead at their post. We killed the chief of the men and most of his

bravest men who followed him into camp, and have, I think, taught these gentlemen a lesson they will understand, and that is, that even in the best of circumstances, they have not a chance against disciplined troops."

That closes Lumsden's connection with the North-Western marches, and afterwards anything in this military romance or romantic memoir is something like bathos. In 1862 he was transferred to the command of the Hyderabad Contingent. Announcing it to his father, he says, in a passage already referred to: "I can only hold the appointment for five years; but as that glorious fellow Neville Chamberlain is as hard as nails,

and may possibly be still at the head of the Punjab Frontier Force when I am dead and gone, it is no use, however much I may regret leaving this frontier, where I have spent the best part of my life, to wait for his shoes." His sojourn in the Deccan was quiet by comparison. He found congenial friends in Sir George Yule, the Resident, and in the great Minister, Sir Salar Jung, who was full of anecdote of the old lawless days when the land was ravaged by Rohilla and Pindari. He could indulge his predilections for sport, and was sorely mauled by a leopard. He found the Contingent in a satisfactory state: the men were well mounted, recruited from warlike races, and in many of the troopers he might recognise Pathan acquaintances. The one flaw was that the native officers were over head and ears in debt to the usurers. He gave another proof of his administrative gifts and force of character when in resigning he could curtly record: "Found the Contingent in debt and left it clear."

He came home in 1869, after assisting, by special invitation from Lord Mayo, at that grand Umballa Durbar for which Lord Roberts made the elaborate arrangements, as we learn from his 'Recollections.' Lumsden came home "on leave" because he had no prospect of immediate employment, but he fully intended and hoped to go back. He was never given the opportunity. He had come home while still in the full vigour of his powers of mind and body; martial ambition was not dead but only sleeping, and it is impossible to

read without indignant sympathy a touching paragraph in his brother's narrative :—

Time was now passing by, and hope deferred of seeing further employment in the East had its result on Sir Harry, who used to say in the humblest manner, 'I cannot complain, for I have had my share of luck, but kings apparently have arisen in the East who know not Joseph.'"

Sir Peter adds:

"Thus the soldier, to whose bearing on many critical emergencies the highest testimony had been borne, and of whom a Governor-General of India had recorded, 'A better or braver soldier never drew the sword,' retired, having received no mark of military honour beyond the medals on his breast.

His decorations were granted for political services in employment he never sought for, and which his duty to the State alone induced him to accept."

Some would have called him a disappointed man, yet it may be doubted whether his end was not as enviable as his career had been distinguished. He had the inestimable blessing of a contented spirit. He had won honour enough, as he knew, to satisfy the most insatiate; and he died, as he had wished to die, in the old familiar scenes, beloved by his neighbours and adored by his dependents. We cannot end our notice of the Life without a word of complaint against the authors. Sir Peter Lumsden says little or nothing of himself, though we find "The Lumsdens" constantly coupled in the despatches, diaries, and letters, in which Mr Elmslie also is frequently mentioned, and always in honourable terms. Self-suppression may be carried to excess,

ONCE more the unexpected has happened, and the Americans have found that their "plundering raid," as the Germans, virtuous for others if not overscrupulous for themselves, have described the late war of liberation, has brought them serious trouble, just where none might have been considered as antecedently probable. They have vanquished Spain easily. Porto Rico has welcomed them. Cuba promises to settle down quietly as their obedient pupil, which is perhaps a proof that its previous unrest was at least partly their work. But in the remote Philippines they have a war on hand, and it is one which they will hardly end either quickly or without serious sacrifices. Moreover, it has brought them into relations with other Powers such as no American would have thought desirable—or if he did he would have shrunk from stating his opinion-five years ago. It is a very strange war, carried on in a little known country, in conditions which are obscure, and for an end which it is very difficult to foresee. As usually happens in this writing age SO soon as anything is stirring, books begin to accumulate, be the scene of the events ever so remote. There has always been an intelligent witness everywhere, and he speaks when he thinks the world will listen. We may mention four, three English and one Spanish, and from them it is possible to form, if not

an estimate of what will happen, at least some idea as to what has taken place and why. They are of different degrees of value. Major Younghusband's, 'The Philippines and Round About,' is, to be exact, the swift work of a globe-trotter, an open-eyed and alert globe-trotter, but yet of one who, by the nature of things, pays a passing visit, looks at the outside, and goes away. Mr Forman's 'Philippine Islands' was already a "standard authority"; but his second edition has been enriched by details of the Tagalo Rebellion, which is the real cause of the loss of the islands by Spain. Mr Worcester's very readable volume is a record of the prolonged journeys of a naturalist, who has an eye for men as well as beasts, who knows the languages, and has that interest in, and understanding of, political matters which is rarely quite wanting in any American. Yet for the immediate purpose the most interesting of the four is the account of 'The Campaign in the Philippines in 1897,' by the Spanish Colonel Don Federico de Monteverde, who served through it on the staff of General Lachambre, second in command to General Polavieja, and leader of the division on which the bulk of the work fell.

The style of Don F. Monteverde is not ours. He is sadly addicted to what he calls brief reflections, which are in fact

examples of the Castilian vice of twaddle. He rises to lyric heights of praise when speaking of his commander - in chief General Polavieja, and his immediate superior General Lachambre. Perhaps these passages do something to explain the publication of this large, well-printed, and copiously illustrated volume. Polavieja is now a conspicuous political leader in Spain, and Lachambre is his supporter. The Marquesa de Polavieja is understood to be wealthy, and has therefore the means of letting the world know how brilliantly her husband vindicated Spanish authority in 1897. The deduction which the reader is at liberty to draw is too obvious to need naming. Again, Colonel Monteverde writes of his enemy, the Filipino rebels, with a fury of hate which overflows in abusive epithets. It rejoices him to tell how the keen bayonet of the Spanish soldiers smote down the "vile faces," alevosas caras, and the worthless bodies, ruines cuerpos, of the rebels. In common justice, we must remember that the Filipinos were guilty of excesses towards Spanish women, and children, and priests, very similar to those which threw our countrymen in India into paroxysms of rage in 1857. Mr Forman, who is not the enemy of the natives, tells one abominable story of outrage which goes far to explain the savage anger of the Spaniards. Still, allowance must be made for the Colonel's partisanship and partialities. When, however, it is made, much remains. Colonel Monteverde is plainly a

soldier who has studied his profession, who knows Moltke and Frederick, can quote the maxims of great captains, and look critically into "the causes of success and defeat." Apart from this scientific soldiering, he gives a view of the Spanish side of the struggle during one period, a careful account of the Filipino organisation and method of fighting, and of the country. From that, and in the absence of good reports from Manila, we can form a picture of what kind of war it is the Americans have on hand. Mr Forman and Mr Worcester help to supply the background, or general conditions. Of these Colonel Monteverde says just enough to show that he would be an untrustworthy witness.

No words need be wasted in proving that the corrupt administration of Spanish officials had much to do with the rebellion. The administration of Spain is corrupt everywhere, at home and abroad. Mr Forman tells how one governor, who has since gained a reputation for cruelty in another colony (he might as well have named General Weyler at once), pilfered so largely that he at last found it hard to transmit his money home in secret. So he sent an officer to Hong Kong with 35,000 dollars of his booty, to buy a draft on Europe. The agent disappeared with the money. If the accidents of life bring the two men together, the meeting might be curious. This may, or may not, be exactly true, but it is probable, and it gives the whole farce tragedy of