prepared that some of his workmen | latter came forward beaming, and made were already under notice to quit. He as if he would almost have shaken had no doubt that his agent's failure hands with his employer. "I am would cripple him for years, even if it did no more. He had not even the comforting knowledge that he was not himself to blame for his misfortunes. "I am a fool," he was always thinking, “an ungrateful fool. I've chucked away my luck." The worm had turned with a vengeance; and than this turning nothing can possibly make a bully feel more mean or more foolish. One morning Mrs. Neri, much against her wish, was obliged to make a short journey; and seeing the carriage at the door, Neri, more from habit than intention, got in and took his seat beside his wife, telling her she could put him down at the Works. Hardly had the carriage started before he remembered; but it was too late to get out now, though he murmured something about "going by the fields." As they approached the drive-gate, he began to turn away his head. No, he could not turn it away; he must look, though with a pretence of not looking. But what was it he saw? He rubbed his eyes and looked again. The brick had returned ! 66 happy to tell you, sir," he said, following his master with beaming face into his private room, "that the scare about Corbet and Skinner turns out to be immensely exaggerated. There was a little trouble, but, as you will see by this letter" (placing one on Neri's desk), "they seem already to have quite recovered." The manager stopped speaking, and glanced at Neri, expecting to see him throw his hat into the air, or show his delight in some other way, but the face of the manufacturer expressed but little surprise. "I thought it 'ud all come right," he said coolly, and rather to his manager's disgust, who muttered under his breath, "Then I wish to goodness you'd behaved as if you thought so." However, affectation of that sort was in so great a man excusable if not unavoidable. In after days Neri's reputation gained greatly by the report of the cool way in which he received the information that the ruin he had accepted was averted: "A cool hand, that Mr. Neri; nerves like iron; never don't turn a hair for nothing." As 66 Stop!" he called out to the groom As Neri walked home (for the last who was as much surprised as his time, as he hoped), across the fields, master, thinking, "The durned old his heart felt quite soft. "I've had a brick again; some fool's brought un narrow shave," he said to himself, back, same as took it away, I s'pose."" but I'll mind my temper better in "Thank the Lord!" ejaculated Neri future. By gum! it would almost have fervently, as after a brief pause the served me right, but I'm let off for this carriage drove on. "Give us a kiss, old time;" and he laughed, rubbing his woman," he went on, and taking his huge hands together in his glee. portly better half in his arms, he kissed he entered his own grounds he was her loudly then and there. Things'll aware of his daughter, who seemed, come round all right, ducky," he whis- however, to wish to avoid him. "Poor pered. "Don't you fret no more. I'm Caddie," he thought; "no wonder she as jolly as a sand-boy." The groom's don't want to meet such a bear as I've first words when he got home were: been lately ;" and he actually, for once "If the gov'nor ain't cracked, I'll eat in his life, felt ashamed to have been him. A-kissin' the missus down yon- so completely engrossed with his own der by the gate, as if he hadn't never troubles. Caddie might have been seen her afore! And blamed if the aware of his self-reproaches, for she old brick ain't turned up again." approached shyly and, to her father's surprise, with a smile on her lips. "She's trying to carry it off so as not to worry me," he thought, rebuking himself again for his selfishness. When When Neri arrived rather late at the Works, with a weight lifted off his heart, his joyful looks were once more reflected on the manager's face. The she got nearer he felt inclined to think | in the place of the higher emotion, to she had heard the good news which he which the transport that swept over his He prayeth best who loveth best moved, and by what brought back at this crisis of his fortunes. It is not certain that he did not believe the brick had taken itself away; and it is extremely fortunate for the self-respect of superstitious people that their nature does not lead them to consider their superstitions too curiously. But before we laugh at Neri, we should remember that an unreasoning faith, which refuses to hear any evidence or argument against its favorite doctrine, was until recently considered a desirable quality. Even now there are those who can see very little difference between unbelief and inquiry. lost." And Neri rejoiced. "What a goose I am," he thought, as he passed his rough hand across his eyes. "It's and from these great and small things a droll thing, my dear," he said, "but there was no reason, that Neri could I've just been and made the same vow. see, why his brick should be excluded. We'll see who can keep it best," and It was characteristic of the man that he he looked down bashfully at his enor- never inquired, and indeed would have mous boot, the foot inside which had been shocked at the idea of inquiring, scarcely yet recovered from its injuries. by what agency his talisman was reThat evening there was truer happiness at the Dovecote than for many days, if ever before. When Mrs. Neri's heart had been made glad with the knowledge of the relief which had come to her husband, it somehow did not seem strange that he should stroll down the drive towards the gate. He walked as if on air, and with what different feelings from those of the other day! He had brought it all on himself, he knew; he had deserved all his trouble and anxiety, and he had been mercifully forgiven! If only he could somehow show that he was not ungrateful; "Not such a brute as it thinks me," he put it to himself. It was almost dark as he approached the spot where the outline of the brick was just visible, crouching, like a vast toad, in its old position by the border; but, by the light of the match which he lost no time in striking, he could see that the malicious and evil expression had passed away, and was replaced by a smile of sarcastic good humor. Carefully lifting the two fragments from the ground he raised them to his lips, and imprinted on them a more fervent kiss than he had ever bestowed on human being. Neri had never, as we have said, been religious. Superstition had stood Neri is a great man now, and this episode occurred years ago. Those who pass his house will still, we trust, see the brick in its old position; and should they in their ignorance feel some surprise at its inappropriateness, Neri will be quite content to let them wonder. From Blackwood's Magazine. OUR LAST WAR WITH THE MAHSUDS. THE Durand Mission of November, 1893, proclaimed urbi et orbi the reconciliation of viceroy and ameer of the governments of India and Afghanistan, It was a mission of peace and good- | northern India- and their name is retribution. No more costly "little wars," and still costlier preparations to resist invasion by Russia in the construction of vast fortified positions, strategic roads and railways, upon our north-west frontier; nothing now but will, which brought honors and rewards legion - were depressed. No more to all its members - including that im- Black Mountain promenades, Orakzai portant functionary, their cook. It expeditions, Samana annexations, and saved Lord Lansdowne's administra- Manipur disasters, and consequential tion from the allegation that his foreign policy had been a failure, and that his costly frontier wars and expeditions had produced no results except the further impoverishment of an already impoverished empire. In the general jubilation which en- to practise a rigid economy in every sued upon the renewal of friendly rela-branch of the administration, and to tions with the ameer of Afghanistan mark time in the works begun or nearly and the settlement of the outstanding completed at Attock, Rawalpindi, and boundary disputes between his king- Quetta. Even the expensive and timedom and India, it was too hastily as-honored system of biennial or triennial sumed that the era of frontier wars was reliefs was to be superseded by one now over. It was believed that Lord which rooted the soldier to one spot for Lansdowne's successor - the nominee long years. And so the new era of reof the pacific Gladstonian government, trenchment and unostentatious internal which abhorred the blood-guiltiness of progress began, and for a time it these purposeless expeditions-would seemed as if the wishes of the Gladhave no occasion to test the efficacy stonian Cabinet would be fulfilled. of the military machine which Lord Roberts's enlightened persistence had raised to a pitch of human perfection unknown in the annals of England or India. But there is a vast difference between the fixation of a boundary on paper and its delimitation in the field. The astute ameer, when he finally conceded to us the boundary line which we had so long claimed, and agreed that a joint commission should forthwith mark it out by pillars, knew that the erection and maintenance of this Great Wall of India would cost us millions. He foresaw, too, that the process of taking effective possession of the country between India's actual and newly defined political frontier would be a work of slow assimilation, which discontinued. Naturally the sectional would give Lord Roberts's spiendid headmen of the hill tribes were ready weapon full occupation for many years to take our rupees, and to promise to to come, and well-nigh exhaust the use their influence with their fellowstruggling finances of our Indian de- clansmen. But but that influence pendencies. was often small, because rude, indeThe mission successfully concluded, pendent peoples are only amenable the honors distributed, the chief actors to the stick, and their headmen had dispersed, the reins of government were no sticks. Then, as to exasperating taken up by a new viceroy, Lord Elgin, practices, the viceroy was new, and supported by new pillars of the State in his foreign secretary was new, aud his Council, all men of peace who hated both had multitudinous duties to perwars and annexations. The Jingoes of form, and both failed to see that the True, they had to demarcate India's new political frontier, and must do so quickly, else the mood of the inconstant ameer might change, or his death give place to chaos. Well, the work would be done quietly, being preceded by patient negotiation with the tribes, each section of the frontier being marked out by a civil commissioner, escorted by a small force for police purposes and no more. However, for the fulfilment of the programme, two preliminary conditions were necessary, and both were wanting. The co-operation or acquiescence of the hill tribes concerned had to be secured, and the old exasperating practices of the forward school had to be British ægis has no inherent power in | occupies the southern half of that area. wild tracts except when it is visible in the shape of troops ready to kill, burn, and destroy, if a hostile shot is fired. Their central stronghold is a mountain mass called Pir Ghal (meaning hoary chief), with an elevation of eleven It has been well said that our fron-thousand eight hundred and fifty feet. tier wars, including the one now hap- By the 1893 agreement with the ameer, pily over, and the other still in progress, the whole tract was acknowledged to arose from the practice of sending be within our political frontier, with "two men and a boy" to trail their the exception of a finely wooded and coats among savages. In such cases comparatively valuable district called the civis Britannicus sum was expected Birmall, which his Highness decided to be their protection, but wild moun- to be within the limits of his kingdom. taineers do not understand Latin. Had The fighting strength of the Mahsuds not a British subaltern and ten sepoys that is, the manhood of the tribe, or been sent to Chitral, there would have all males above fifteen years of age — been no Chitral Relief Expedition, and is computed to be about ten thousand. India would have been saved the loss Of that number, perhaps three thouof a million sterling or more. Had not sand possess antiquated matchlocks and Mr. Kelly, a public works overseer, two hundred to three hundred rifles of with a couple of mounted orderlies, sorts, including eighty to one hundred been sent fooling about the Gumal breech-loaders. The arms of the rest Pass, they would not have been shot, are only swords and knives. Their and the hurly-burly of the rush of various clans acknowledge a loose five hundred Mahsud Ghâzis through obedience to their sectional maliks or the boundary commissioner's camp in leaders. Tribal organization there is the Wana plains might not have oc- none. They live in caves and holes, curred, and the truculent Mahsuds and occasionally stone huts. In their might still have boasted that they had whole country there are only three never been conquered. villages those of Razmak, Makin, The Mahsuds have always been a and Kaniguram — in all of which are thorn in the flesh to us. Of all the a few stores kept by dependants. wild highlanders inhabiting the moun- Some of the tribesmen cultivate tains immediately beyond the strip of patches here and there in the alluvial Trans-Indus plains which is part and soil near the torrent-beds, but collecparcel of British India, they are the tively the Mahsuds are shepherds and rudest, poorest, and most ignorant. petty traders, exchanging fir-poles, The latter two qualities account for dwarf-palm matting, skins, ghi (claritheir extreme fanaticism. They be- fied butter), and sheep and goats, for long to a great tribe called Wazirs, grain and piece-goods obtained in Britwhich is split up into two divisions ish territory. Major Macaulay, who the Darwesh Wazirs to the north, and was deputy commissioner of Dera Isthe Mahsud Wazirs to the south. Be-mail Khan in the seventies, bribed tween the two there is chronic feud, some of the more civilized Mahsuds for their highlands are barren and their into growing potatoes, and for several mouths many; hence the hungrier and years Mahsud early potatoes were much hardier Mahsuds try to swallow up appreciated in the frontier messes. In the weaker Darweshes. The Mahsud the winter their young men crowd country consists of a block of sterile down into the plains in search of work. mountains, stony torrent-beds, and still They make good navvies, and will be stonier uplands lying immediately west useful when the railway is extended of the British districts of Bannu and Trans-Indus to Bannu or Tânk. They Dera Ismail Khan. The whole area of are a lean, wiry, keen-visaged people, Mahsud-land is about half that of with a peculiarly wolfish, hunted exWales. The Mahsud tribe or division, pression, due probably to poor feeding with which we are here concerned, and the sharpness of the struggle for like those of a timid shikâri with a tiger whom he has wounded but funks, and yet wishes to kill or capture. Up to 1860 they harried, without let or hindrance from us, the camel caravans of migrations to and from India through the Gumal Pass. In that year, these Mahsuds - bold from long impunity, and impelled to looting from hungerattempted to sack our frontier town of Tânk. The raiders were easily re existence, from which no section of the | Wazirs. Our relations with them have tribe is exempt. The Mahsud is a been from the first until December last veritable Ishmaelite - his hand is against every man and every man's hand is against him. Though collectively thieves and robbers by hereditary calling, with the Gumal Pass just south of them as a happy hunting- the Powindahs during their annual ground throughout the winter, they have some virtues which civilized man frequently wants. They are individually brave and fearless of death, and they are very particular about the honor of their women. A faithless wife has her nose cut off, and some- pulsed. A punitive force entered their times her lips split as well; the adul- hills to chastise them; but our standing terer, if he can be caught, is either camp was surprised at Palosin, much in killed or has a foot or leg lopped off. the same way as occurred the other day Our officers, by the way, in the late in the Wana plain, as we shall see presexpedition were struck by the number ently. After that our troops marched of maimed men they saw in Mahsud-in compact masses through the Mahsud land. On inquiry they found that the legless ones were only local Don Juans, who had been tried and convicted for loving "not wisely but too well." Public opinion approves of mutilation as a deterrent, but sometimes permits an affair, if the lady concerned was not yet married, to be arranged, the injured father, brother, or fiancé accepting so many sheep or goats as full satisfaction to his wounded honor. I well remember, about twenty-five years ago, when interested in hill customs, receiving at the same time in my bungalow at Bannu five women, all of whom had recently lost their noses, and two of them had also had their lips slashed. They had come in to have their mutilations repaired. Nose-making is quite an art in Bannu. The operator cuts loose an oblong piece of skin from the forehead and twists it round over what remains of the bone of the nose, keeping the nostril passages open with quills; or he takes the skin for the new nose from each cheek, the two pieces of skin overlapping or meeting about the bridge of the nose. Eventually a fairly good snub-nose is formed, and nothing but a cicatrix is visible on forehead or cheeks. However, this is not a paper on Waziri surgery or social customs, but on our last war with the Mahsud hills and glens, did an infinitesimal amount of damage, and finally withdrew. We retired, satisfied with the moral victory of having "lifted their purdah," as the phrase goes-i.e., quartered their country with our columns. But the real victory lay with the highlanders. They had killed and wounded about four hundred of our men, and had refused to submit. For the next twenty years we contented ourselves with what is called "blockading" them, by which is meant that we captured and imprisoned any Mahsuds we could catch in British territory. The only difference which the blockade made to them was, that they bartered their products with us through friendlies instead of directly. All this time our bill against them was mounting up, until at last in 1881, we launched another expedition against them; but again we failed to give them punishment, and as they complied with our very easy terms, our troops retired into British territory, after an almost bloodless campaign. The following years witnessed a new departure upon our north-west frontier. The old "close border" system was superseded by a vigorous forward policy all up and down the six hundred miles of frontier. The Gumal Pass was opened; outposts were established in |