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rising place, which led to a low crest, and beyond the crest we knew the hill-side went down in a hollow slope to the Aba el Lissan valley, somewhat below the spring. All our four hundred camel-men were collected here, on our side of the ridge, holding together in a close mass, just out of sight of the enemy. We rode to their head, and asked the Shimt what it was, and where the horsemen had gone. He pointed over the ridge to the next valley above us, and said: "With Auda there," and as he spoke there were yells and shots in a sudden torrent from beyond the crest, and we kicked our camels furiously to the edge to see. There were our fifty horsemen coming down the last ridge into the main valley like a thunderbolt, at full gallop, shooting from the saddle. As we watched them we saw two or three go down, but the rest tore forward at a marvellous speed, and the Turkish infantry, which had been huddled together under the cliff, making ready to cut their way desperately northward toward Maan in the first dusk, began to sway in and out, and finally broke before their rush.

Nasir screamed at me "Come on" with his bloody mouth, and we all plunged our camels madly over the slope, and down toward the head of the fleeing enemy. The slope was not too steep for a camel gallop, but steep enough to make their pace terrific, and their course uncontrollable, at least for me. Indeed, I had great difficulty in sitting my plunging animal at all. The Arabs extended to right and left, when the ground widened, and began to shoot from the saddle into the Turkish brown as we charged. The Turks had been too bound up in terror of Auda's fiery charge on their rear, to see us as we came over the eastward slope, so we also took them by surprise, and in the flank. Anyway a charge of runaway camels going nearly thirty miles an hour would sweep away everything living in its track.

A POOR AIM, AND ITS RESULT

MINE was a Sherari racing camel, Naama.

I had bought her for a great price in Nebk the month before, and she stretched herself out, and hurled herself downhill with such might that we soon outdistanced all the others. The Turks fired a few shots, but mostly they only shrieked and tried to run; and the bullets they did send at us were not very harmful, since it takes a heavy weight of metal to bring a charging camel down in a heap. I had

got amongst the first of them, and was shooting (with a pistol, of course, for only an expertrider can use a rifle at the gallop,) when suddenly my camel tripped and went down emptily on its face. I was torn completely from the saddle, and went sailing grandly through the air for a considerable distance, landing with a crash that seemed to beat all the life and feeling out of me. I just lay there passively, waiting for the Turks to kill me, continuing the verse of a half-forgotten poem whose rhythm, something, perhaps the long stride of the camel, had brought back to my mind as we leaped down the hillside:

For Lord I was free of all Thy flowers, but I chose the world's sad roses

And that is why my feet are torn and mine eyes are dim with sweat,

But at Thy terrible Judgment seat when this my I am ready to reap whereof I sowed, and pay my tired life closes righteous debt.

And at the same time another part of my mind thought what a poor squashed thing I would look, when that following cataract of live men and camels had poured over me.

However, after a long time I finished my poem, and no Turks came to me, and no camel trod on me; a curtain seemed taken away from my ears and there was a great noise in front. So I sat up and saw the battle over, and our men driving together and cutting down the last broken remnants of the enemy. Behind me was my camel's body, which had lain there like a rock, and divided the charge into two streams past me; and in the back of its skull was the heavy bullet of the fifth shot I had fired! Ahmed brought me Obeyd, my spare camel, and then Nasir came up leading the Turkish commander, whom he had rescued, wounded, from Mohammed el Dheilan's wrath. The silly man had refused to surrender, and was trying to restore the day for his side with a baby pistol.

The Howeitat were very fierce, for the slaughter of their women the day before had been a new and horrible side of war, suddenly revealed to them. In all the history of the desert there are only two instances of intentional harm to a woman, and every Arab is brought up to execrate the authors of those outrages in passionate songs. However, there were about one hundred and sixty prisoners, many wounded; and about three hundred

dead and dying were scattered over the open valley beside the road. A few of the enemy got away, notably some mounted men, and their Motalga guides. Mohammed el Dheilan, Mohammed el Dheilan, chased them for three miles into Mreigha hurling insults at them as he rode, that they might know him and keep out of his way. Among them was Dhaif Allah, who had done us the good turn about the well at Jefer.

HOW THE KORAN KEEPS OFF BULLETS

AUDA

UDA came swinging up to us on foot, his eyes dancing with joy, and the words bubbling incoherently from his mouth. . "Work, work, where are words? Work, bulletsy abu Tayi," and he held up his shattered field glasses, his pierced revolver holster, and his leather sword-scabbard, cut to ribbons. He had been right through a volley, which had killed his mare under him, but the six bullets through his equipment had left him scatheless. He told me later in confidence, that he had bought a miniature Koran for one hundred and twenty pounds, thirteen years before, and had not since been wounded. It was one of the little Glasgow reproductions, costing eighteen pence in England, but the other Arabs are too afraid of Auda to laugh at his superstition (unworthy in a grown Bedouin) or to explain the bad bargain that he made.

I made haste to question the prisoners about themselves and their movements, and what more there was in Maan, since their prompt appearance at Fuweila made me fear that the garrison had perhaps been heavily reinforced. But the shock had been too great for them, and they could only gape at me or gabble unintelligibly. Man after man whom I questioned could not speak a sane word. They wept and embraced my knees, swearing that they were Moslems and my brothers; and that was all the sense left in them. Finally I got angry, and took one of them aside, and was rough to him, shocking him by new pain into a half-understanding, in which he replied to simple questions well enough, and very reassuringly. I learnt that their battalion was the only reinforcement, and merely a reserve battalion; and that the troops left in Maan would not be enough to defend the perimeter.

This meant we could take it, and the Howeitat clamored to be led there at once. The dream of unlimited booty lured them, though what we had taken here, was a rich prize.

However, Nasir, and later Auda, helped me restrain them. We could take Maan, but we had no support, no base nearer than Wijh three hundred miles away, no communications, no money.

Meanwhile our Arabs had plundered all there was to be found on the Turks, in their train, or at their camp, and then soon after moonrise Auda came to us and said that we must make a move. This annoyed Nasir and myself.

However, Auda insisted on it. Partly, it was superstition again (he feared the newly dead all around); partly, he thought that the Turks might return in force from some quarter, or other clans of the Howeitat might surprise us lying here broken and asleep. Some of them were his blood enemies; others might be coming in to help our battle, and in the darkness think we were the Turks, and fire upon us blindly. So we roused ourselves, and kicked the unfortunate wounded prisoners into life. These had to march, for the most part. Some twenty of our camels were dead or dying from our charge, and of spares we only had the old baggage camels that had carried the dynamite. They hardly mounted ourselves, and many of our animals were too weak to carry a double burden. Those that could be were loaded with an Arab and a Turk; but some of the Turkish wounded were too hurt to hold themselves on the pillion behind the saddle. In the end, we had to leave about twenty of them behind on the grass beside the spring, where at least they would not die of thirst, though there was little hope of life or rescue for them.

Nasir set himself to find blankets for the abandoned men, who were half naked, and I went off down the valley to where the fight had been, to see if the dead had any clothes they could spare for them.

The dead lay naked under the moon, Turks are much whiter-skinned than the Arabs among whom I had been living, and these were mere boys. Close around them lapped the dark wormwood, now heavy with dew and sparkling like sea spray. Wearied in mind and body, I felt that I would rather be of this quiet company than with the shouting, restless mob farther up the valley, boasting of their speed and strength, and quarrelling over the plunder. For, however this campaign might go with its unforeseen toils and pains, death must be the last chapter in the history of every man of us.

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WILL THE BONDS YOU ARE BUYING BE PAID OFF TOO SOON?

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Frontispiece

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541

543

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MAJ.-GEN. JAS. G. HARBORD ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS TURNBULL 548

SYDNEY GREENBIE 555

Policies and Possible Developments of the Oriental Empire AMERICA'S EFFORT TO PREVENT THE EUROPEAN WAR (Illustrated) BURTON J. HENDRICK 560

The Second Chapter from "The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page" ARTHUR MEIGHEN, PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA (Illustrated) JOHN A. Cooper The Policies and Personality of the Canadian Leader

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FEDERAL TAXATION

577

DAVID F. HOUSTON 586

National Money Raising and How It Affects the Individual

THE ROMANCE OF STEEL

How Iron and Its Products Affect Modern Life

ALL IN A LIFE-TIME (Illustrated)

III. The Social Side of Constantinople

A STRANGE PYGMY PEOPLE (Illustrated)
A Newly Found Tribe in South America

ADVENTURES IN ARABIA'S DELIVERANCE

IV. The Turkish Army Passes

- FLOYD W. PARSONS 590

HENRY MORGENTHAU 595

GEORGE P. BUSCH 6c8

- COL. THOMAS E. LAWRENCE 617

THE TOWNS, THE HOPE OF RUSSIAN DELIVERANCE
IV. How the Bolsheviki will Probably Fall

A FRIENDSHIP OF A HUNDRED YEARS

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The Reasons for the Good Relations Between Two Great Nations

Copyright, 1921, in the United States, Newfoundland, and Great Britain, by Doubleday, Page & Co. All rights reserved
TERMS: $4.00 a year; single copies 35 cents

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THE

WORLD'S WORK

OCTOBER, 1921

VOLUME XLII

M

THE MARCH OF EVENTS

R. HARDING wisely takes a few days off, now and then, to go camping and try to forget that he is President of the United States. On these occasions, as private citizen in his shirt-sleeves in the woods, he doubtless sometimes looks with detachment upon the other self he left behind in Washington and tries to appraise himself as President. If, in such a mood, he were to write such a letter as the following and address it to the White House, it would be read by many of his fellow citizens as a reflection of their own feelings:

MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

I have followed your career for the last seven months with sympathy, and often with approval. You took the Presidency at a very trying moment, and my neighbors and I have been willing to forego criticism until you should have time to make good. Even the Democrats hereabouts have said nothing unkind. They are like the rest of us: very anxious to get things out of the way that are disturbing business such things as the tariff (do we really need to rattle those bones again?) and the new tax laws.

You can do a lot to help these things alongmore than you seem to realize. You have been a little too modest about your powers and duties as a leader. Several times you have overcome your scruples and pulled Congress up and told it to go do what it ought to do-kill off the Bonus Bill, for example (you will have

NUMBER 6

to do that again, by the way: that snake is scotched but not dead yet). Every time you have done this, every time you have really led Congress, you have done a good job. And you have represented us; we want you to lead. Congress needs it. Congress needs it. Mr. Lodge is the leader of the Senate, but he doesn't lead. The House has no leaders. You must do that job.

You have some first-rate qualifications. Your amiable disposition is a help. So is that newly discovered trace of iron in your spine. Your experience with the political mind is an asset. Then you have good advisers whom we trust. We believe in Mr. Hoover: he has an engineer's passion for facts and sound design behind his Quaker enthusiasm for good works. Mr. Hughes is as good an attorney for good causes as any in the country. Mr. Mellon's advice on finance, if you will make Congress take it, is wholesome medicine for our economic ills.

But good advisers can't make final decisions. You have got to do that. All the rest of the Government is first mates, pilots, petty officers, and crew. You are the captain. You went into the Presidency with the idea that you were elected to act as a check on Congress. You were mistaken. We expected you to lay out the course, and that Congress should be our check on you, whenever we thought you were headed wrong. A debating society can't run a ship. You pick the route and leave it to us to organize a mutiny if we don't like it. Above all, let us get under way!

Faithfully yours,

W. G. H.

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