Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (957 page)

They might invent. They might lay waste their cities and retire inland, for they can subsist entirely on their own produce. Meantime, in a war waged the only way it could be waged by an unscrupulous Power, their coast cities and their dock-yards would be ashes. They could construct their navy inland if they liked, but you could never bring a ship down to the water-ways, as they stand now.

They could not, with an ordinary water patrol, despatch one regiment of men six miles across the seas. There would be about five million excessively angry, armed men pent up within American limits. These men would require ships to get themselves afloat. The country has no such ships, and until the ships were built New York need not be allowed a single-wheeled carriage within her limits.

Behold now the glorious condition of this Republic which has no fear. There is ransom and loot past the counting of man on her seaboard alone — plunder that would enrich a nation — and she has neither a navy nor half a dozen first-class ports to guard the whole. No man catches a snake by the tail, because the creature will sting; but you can build a fire around a snake that will make it squirm.

The country is supposed to be building a navy now. When the ships are completed her alliance will be worth having — if the alliance of any republic can be relied upon. For the next three years she can be hurt, and badly hurt. Pity it is that she is of our own blood, looking at the matter from a Pindarris point of view. Dog cannot eat dog.

These sinful reflections were prompted by the sight of the beautifully unprotected condition of Buffalo — a city that could be made to pay up five million dollars without feeling it. There are her companies of infantry in a sort of port there. A gun-boat brought over in pieces from Niagara could get the money and get away before she could be caught, while an unarmored gun-boat guarding Toronto could ravage the towns on the lakes. When one hears so much of the nation that can whip the earth, it is, to say the least of it, surprising to find her so temptingly spankable.

The average American citizen seems to have a notion that any Power engaged in strife with the Star Spangled Banner will disembark men from flat-bottomed boats on a convenient beach for the purpose of being shot down by local militia. In his own simple phraseology: — ”Not by a darned sight. No, sir.”

Ransom at long range will be about the size of it — cash or crash.

Let us revisit calmer scenes.

In the heart of Buffalo there stands a magnificent building which the population do innocently style a music-hall. Everybody comes here of evenings to sit around little tables and listen to a first-class orchestra. The place is something like the Gaiety Theatre at Simla, enlarged twenty times. The “Light Brigade” of Buffalo occupy the boxes and the stage, “as it was at Simla in the days of old,” and the others sit in the parquet. Here I went with a friend — poor or boor is the man who cannot pick up a friend for a season in America — and here was shown the really smart folk of the city. I grieve to say I laughed, because when an American wishes to be correct he sets himself to imitate the Englishman. This he does vilely, and earns not only the contempt of his brethren, but the amused scorn of the Briton.

I saw one man who was pointed out to me as being the glass of fashion hereabouts. He was aggressively English in his get-up. From eye-glass to trouser-hem the illusion was perfect, but — he wore with evening-dress buttoned boots with brown cloth tops! Not till I wandered about this land did I understand why the comic papers belabor the Anglomaniac.

Certain young men of the more idiotic sort launch into dog-carts and raiment of English cut, and here in Buffalo they play polo at four in the afternoon. I saw three youths come down to the polo-ground faultlessly attired for the game and mounted on their best ponies. Expecting a game, I lingered; but I was mistaken. These three shining ones with the very new yellow hide boots and the red silk sashes had assembled themselves for the purpose of knocking the ball about. They smote with great solemnity up and down the grounds, while the little boys looked on. When they trotted, which was not seldom, they rose and sunk in their stirrups with a conscientiousness that cried out “Riding-school!” from afar.

Other young men in the park were riding after the English manner, in neatly cut riding-trousers and light saddles. Fate in derision had made each youth bedizen his animal with a checkered enamelled leather brow-band visible half a mile away — a black-and-white checkered brow-band! They can’t do it, any more than an Englishman, by taking cold, can add that indescribable nasal twang to his orchestra.

The other sight of the evening was a horror. The little tragedy played itself out at a neighboring table where two very young men and two very young women were sitting. It did not strike me till far into the evening that the pimply young reprobates were making the girls drunk. They gave them red wine and then white, and the voices rose slightly with the maidens’ cheek flushes. I watched, wishing to stay, and the youths drank till their speech thickened and their eye-balls grew watery. It was sickening to see, because I knew what was going to happen. My friend eyed the group, and said: — ”Maybe they’re children of respectable people. I hardly think, though, they’d be allowed out without any better escort than these boys. And yet the place is a place where every one comes, as you see. They may be Little Immoralities — in which case they wouldn’t be so hopelessly overcome with two glasses of wine. They may be — ”

Whatever they were they got indubitably drunk — there in that lovely hall, surrounded by the best of Buffalo society. One could do nothing except invoke the judgment of Heaven on the two boys, themselves half sick with liquor. At the close of the performance the quieter maiden laughed vacantly and protested she couldn’t keep her feet. The four linked arms, and staggering, flickered out into the street — drunk, gentlemen and ladies, as Davy’s swine, drunk as lords! They disappeared down a side avenue, but I could hear their laughter long after they were out of sight.

And they were all four children of sixteen and seventeen. Then, recanting previous opinions, I became a prohibitionist. Better it is that a man should go without his beer in public places, and content himself with swearing at the narrow-mindedness of the majority; better it is to poison the inside with very vile temperance drinks, and to buy lager furtively at back-doors, than to bring temptation to the lips of young fools such as the four I had seen. I understand now why the preachers rage against drink. I have said: “There is no harm in it, taken moderately;” and yet my own demand for beer helped directly to send those two girls reeling down the dark street to — God alone knows what end.

If liquor is worth drinking, it is worth taking a little trouble to come at — such trouble as a man will undergo to compass his own desires. It is not good that we should let it lie before the eyes of children, and I have been a fool in writing to the contrary. Very sorry for myself, I sought a hotel, and found in the hall a reporter who wished to know what I thought of the country. Him I lured into conversation about his own profession, and from him gained much that confirmed me in my views of the grinding tyranny of that thing which they call the Press here. Thus: — I — But you talk about interviewing people whether they like it or not. Have you no bounds beyond which even your indecent curiosity must not go?

HE — I haven’t struck ‘em yet. What do you think of interviewing a widow two hours after her husband’s death, to get her version of his life?

I — I think that is the work of a ghoul. Must the people have no privacy?

HE — There is no domestic privacy in America. If there was, what the deuce would the papers do? See here. Some time ago I had an assignment to write up the floral tributes when a prominent citizen had died.

I — Translate, please; I do not understand your pagan rites and ceremonies.

HE — I was ordered by the office to describe the flowers, and wreaths, and so on, that had been sent to a dead man’s funeral. Well, I went to the house. There was no one there to stop me, so I yanked the tinkler — pulled the bell — and drifted into the room where the corpse lay all among the roses and smilax. I whipped out my note-book and pawed around among the floral tributes, turn-ing up the tickets on the wreaths and seeing who had sent them. In the middle of this I heard some one saying: “Please, oh, please!” behind me, and there stood the daughter of the house, just bathed in tears — I — You unmitigated brute!

HE — Pretty much what I felt myself. “I’m very sorry, miss,” I said, “to intrude on the privacy of your grief. Trust me, I shall make it as little painful as possible.”

I — But by what conceivable right did you outrage — HE — Hold your horses. I’m telling you. Well, she didn’t want me in the house at all, and between her sobs fairly waved me away. I had half the tributes described, though, and the balance I did partly on the steps when the stiff ‘un came out, and partly in the church. The preacher gave the sermon. That wasn’t my assignment. I skipped about among the floral tributes while he was talking. I could have made no excuse if I had gone back to the office and said that a pretty girl’s sobs had stopped me obeying orders. I had to do it. What do you think of it all?

I (slowly) — Do you want to know?

HE (with his note-book ready) — Of course. How do you regard it?

I — It makes me regard your interesting nation with the same shuddering curiosity that I should bestow on a Pappan cannibal chewing the scalp off his mother’s skull. Does that convey any idea to your mind? It makes me regard the whole pack of you as heathens — real heathens — not the sort you send missions to — creatures of another flesh and blood. You ought to have been shot, not dead, but through the stomach, for your share in the scandalous business, and the thing you call your newspaper ought to have been sacked by the mob, and the managing proprietor hanged.

HE — From which, I suppose you have nothing of that kind in your country?

Oh! “Pioneer,” venerable “Pioneer,” and you not less honest press of India, who are occasionally dull but never blackguardly, what could I say? A mere “No,” shouted never so loudly, would not have met the needs of the case. I said no word.

The reporter went away, and I took a train for Niagara Falls, which are twenty-two miles distant from this bad town, where girls get drunk of nights and reporters trample on corpses in the drawing-rooms of the brave and the free!

LETTERS OF TRAVEL: 1892-1913

This travel collection of letters includes pieces that were printed in various newspapers.  The Letters entitled ‘FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY’ were published originally in
The Times
, those entitled ‘LETTERS TO THE FAMILY’ in
The Morning Post
and those entitled ‘EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS’ were  printed in
Nash’s Magazine
.

CONTENTS

FROM TIDEWAY TO TIDEWAY 1892-95

IN SIGHT OF MONADNOCK

ACROSS A CONTINENT

THE EDGE OF THE EAST

OUR OVERSEAS MEN

SOME EARTHQUAKES

HALF-A-DOZEN PICTURES

‘CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS’

ON ONE SIDE ONLY

LEAVES FROM A WINTER NOTE-BOOK

LETTERS TO THE FAMILY 1908

THE ROAD TO QUEBEC

A PEOPLE AT HOME

CITIES AND SPACES

NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY

LABOUR

THE FORTUNATE TOWNS

MOUNTAINS AND THE PACIFIC

A CONCLUSION

EGYPT OF THE MAGICIANS 1913

I

SEA TRAVEL

II

A RETURN TO THE EAST

III

A SERPENT OF OLD NILE

IV

UP THE RIVER

V

DEAD KINGS

VI

THE FACE OF THE DESERT

VII