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leet, who despised fashions and the "best set," and all that. Loosely to call himself a Radical belonged to the same order of consequences, and was about as important-a natural result of training and environment, a very transitory result too. When he came into the world and made friends of practical men, and looked about for himself, his Radicalism was put away earlier than the soft hat, in fact. I cannot believe that he was ever a Radical in the "Manchester School" sense, and I am certain that he ceased to be one in any received sense. He was not a mere Conservative: "vested interests" were not to him the holiest of human facts. I think he had faith in Toryism as a constructive policy, and therefore was a bit of a Socialist as well. For it is, or ought to be, a commonplace that Toryism, as distinct from mere Conservatism, and Socialism, as distinct from ignorant sham Communism, have much in common. Here is a quotation in point. In his "In Search of a Famine," p. 255 of his volume, he wrote: "I do not wish to alarm anybody by anarchistic opinions; but I think a landlord who draws rent from the land and makes it no return, in the shape of residence and intelligent supervision of his tenants, is little better than a robber." That sentence is consistent with intelligent Socialism and intelligent Toryism alike. There is nothing in the attitude it discloses to favour Little Englandism and peace at any price. Indeed the assertion that Steevens had either

of these strange creeds is ludicrously untrue. Belief in the Imperial destiny of England was both a conviction and an enthusiasm with him, and the more he saw of the working of English soldiers and rulers the stronger the belief grew.

That he could have expressed such a belief without really holding it is a suggestion utterly opposed to the essentials of his character. For honesty was in the very make of him. Even the harmless light hypocrisies of social life were irksome to him, and to the end, when the world had greatly overcome his natural shyness or the shyness begotten of much study and a narrow environment and he was in congenial company the best of companions, -to the end a disliked presence would drive him into his shell.

Since his character has been mentioned, it may be added that the salient, obvious points of it were a native reasonableness and kindness and a native dignity which neither took nor allowed a liberty. Below that was a strength of purpose and will which made his character even more remarkable (as Mr Henley says) than his intelligence. That strength enabled him easily to throw off any hampering shackles that may remain from a donnish training, carried him through physical trials, in the Sudan for example, before which his sound but not over strong physique must (that strength apart) have failed, and won him the personal respect, as his kindness and straightforward

ness won him the liking, of types of Englishmen whose training had been poles apart from his-of officers and Tommies. He himself was still changing, and changing rapidly, from the type of student and literary young man, stimulated and aided (if one may say it) by a most favourable influence in his home. Knowledge of men and how to meet them, love and knowledge of the country and beasts and farming, the tastes of a sportsman, all this he was gaining rapidly, and beyond intellect and achievement bade fair to be as fine a type of an allround Englishman as you would look to meet. How far and precisely in what direction he would have gone with it all, it is useless now to speculate.

But far and in a worthy direction it must have been,

luck or no luck. He had been lucky, no doubt, and arrived at his obvious distinction far earlier than might have been the case. His luck was exceptionally good, but it was not unique, and it did not make him. Other young men, at critical periods of their lives, have fallen in with sane and experienced and inspiring friends; other young men have seen the world and the working of armies as early in their lives as he. He was made by his character and his intellect; and it would have been bad luck indeed which could have repressed for long their natural results. There was but one sure blow which fate could deal him, and that blow was dealt him in Ladysmith. The old platitude about the love of the gods cannot comfort us here. It was a cruel chance, and there is no consolation for it.

PRIMITIVE

THE Mai Darat, or the Upland People, is one of the tribes inhabiting the highlands of the Malay Peninsula. At the edge of the plains some of them own a sort of allegiance to the Malays, with whom they do business; but as you penetrate farther and higher, they are found to be more and more wild, until in their secluded strongholds they are totally unapproachable.

Across the railway from the club verandah we see the mountains, the Cleft Mountain rising to a peak 6000 feet above us, Kerban 2000 feet higher, with many others showing a zigzag outline against the sky. In early morning as the day rises over them they are a mere screen of blue, unsubstantial and without perspective. As the sun warms them they appear to solidify, and by afternoon have developed great shaggy sides with rolling convexities and hollows. It is then you may see on some distant slope a speck, a brown blur, which at night becomes a spark of fire. The Mai Daràt are not amenable to the regulations of the Forest Department, and burn clearings for their hill crops where fancy leads them, often as good fortune or unwonted providence on their part has given them a handful of seed padi or maize to sow. These primeval gardeners are not those wildest people I spoke of just now: they have entered into the heritage of

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SOCIALISTS.

Adam, and are not altogether inaccessible to their fellow-men. Separated from us by twenty miles and twenty thousand years, their old-world beacons answer back the flare of our gas-lamps. We look across the gulf at each other without comprehension, but the desire for fuller understanding is all on our side.

I am acquainted with an Italian gentleman who has accepted a contract under Government to keep up a bridlepath. One day it may be widened into a road: perhaps a railway may hereafter replace its devious course. Meanwhile it penetrates an uninhabited and unknown country. Here Signor Virgil, as I shall call him, has won intimacy with the wild people by means which will become apparent in the course of my story, which is that of a week I spent among them, an uninspired Dante under his guidance.

As often as business brings him from the jungle into the township, the signor occupies a Chinese house in the native quarter. It was there I went to call on him. The streetdoor opened on a barn-like room, empty except for half-adozen swathes of rattan piled in a corner, in apparent charge of which a small fluffy black bear scrabbled about on the brick floor. Safely past him and up a break-neck flight of stairs, I found myself in what looked like an overflow annexe

There

of the British Museum. were knives and bludgeons and weapons of all sorts, from every part of the Malayan Archipelago, arranged round the walls. Tables, chairs, and floor were strewn with lumps of different kinds of gum and gutta - percha; there were butterflies in cases, and beetles and stuffed birds: there were specimens of ebony as well as of many other sorts of timber, both cut and polished, and with leaf and bark. There were in fact samples of every kind of thing that a man who lived by trade in the jungle might hope to make money out of.

In the middle of it all sat the signor in singlet and Chinese trousers playing upon a flute. When you first behold the signor you can think of nothing but his mop of golden curls; the humour of his broad mouth and the kindliness of his dark eyes are revealed later. "Oh, I have a chance!" he declared courteously as I came up; by which he meant, my visit was an unexpected pleasure. He is indeed no linguist: the more surprising his influence over his mountain friends. He extends his friendship to all who take an interest in them, and before I left he had cheerfully promised that I should accompany him on his return to their country. A few days later we started at early morning, with the sun rising and shining into the dewdrops and gossamers, our baggage in rickishas, ourselves in a horse-gharry. We passed the racecourse, cemetery, and club, and said good-bye to the station for a week.

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As we proceeded along our nine-mile drive, the road became more and more lumpy, as unfrequented roads of granite do. Then lines of grass appeared between the ruts: little farther, and it was altogether overgrown. The cloudcapped mountain had at the beginning of the drive made, with its many ranges, a blue background to the verdant scenery of the plain, but now it was quite eclipsed by the swelling hills at its base as we drove in among them; and when the road ended suddenly and the six-foot unmetalled bridle-path began, we were already at the hem of the untrodden forest. Here we saw the first of the little people, whom at this point Signor Virgil desired me no longer to call Sakai, as is our custom, that being the name for them we have borrowed from the Malays. The word means slave, and hurts their feelings. They call themselves by many names, but Mai Daràt, folk of the Upper Country, as often as not. At the hut of a Malay and his wife, whose solitary dwelling marks the termination of the cart-road, were gathered a dozen or more of them come to sell rice-a proceeding which, to my unenlightened mind, seemed highly satisfactory: it appeared to me to be trade and the beginning of wisdom. But when I expressed this opinion in broken English, Malay, and French of Stratfordatte-Bowe, which in combination formed the vehicle of our interchange of ideas, the signor would have none of it-called the transaction le vol, tout court.

Its essence, according to him, was as follows: the Malays make an advance of tobacco, betel-nut, lime, and salt, also enough rice for a banquet, and to leave something over for planting. And SO this unsophisticated community becomes their debtor, and the Malays acquire a lien on the crop when it ripens. The extent of their indebtedness is a matter far beyond the mental capacity of the hill people: they see the Malay write it down in a book, and go on their way with light hearts: nor do they give the matter another thought, until the time comes to bring in their harvest and obtain a further advance. It is easy to see which party is likely to make the better bargain. I imagined, however, that should the burden prove intolerable it could be resolved by flight: the hill people had only to change their habitation and be off light as air. But my guide assured me that this was a misconception of their character, which is, according to him, most sincere and guileless. "O Madonna, no! Padi belong the Malay. I pay-a him! O sure!" That is how he anticipated they would reply to so disturbing a proposal. But blessed and wonderful is the balance of things. This particular Malay and his wife were reported to be blind gamblers, so you may be sure that the padi reaped in unrighteousness brought them no good, but between Fantan and Shap-chu-yat quickly disappeared within the gently smiling jaws of an alien from the Flowery Kingdom.

While we waited at the ninth mile for the coolies to rearrange and handle our baggage, frequent parties of the Mai Daràt kept coming in with jungle produce to barter, and departing. Some brought dozens of the fruit of the petài tree, like enormous bean-pods, which is very welcome among the Malays as an appetiser to their rice. Others brought the red onionshaped roots of the kolubi to the Malay emporium. They marched in with a fine free tread, leaning somewhat forward, stepping rather high, with their eyes on the ground three yards ahead of them, in single file. They would walk so along the widest and flattest causeway in the world: it is the habit which the treading their shoulder-narrow tracks in the forests, all bestrewn with stumbling-blocks, has bred in their bones. The men were almost naked; the women's clothing consisted of a petticoat reaching from hip to knee, and a wide cloth hung with a knot at the right shoulder across the breast and back, so arranged that in the fold behind she could carry her baby or other wares. Even among these "tamer" Sakai-I translate here and throughout the arrogant expression of the Malays, by which they mean a greater degree of subserviency to their influence—even among these the upper garment seems worn for use, or perhaps fashion, rather than as demanded by modesty; for I observed that some dispensed with it altogether without making themselves conspicuous,

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