Chastening of Herbert Spencer 221
race, on the other the outraged sensibilities of warlike, ignorant tribes, it is obvious that a big crop of V.C.'s and D. S. O.'s must be the result.
It is just a little pathetic, this thought that in the world of printed history, each such quarrel, with its attending tragedies, is reported as "an unwarranted attack upon British territory," or again "a marauding expedition boldly projecting itself over our frontier." We shall never know how cruelly exasperating it must be to the disinherited—this seizure, on paper, of unmarked lands to-day, the outcry of injured sovereignty to-morrow, the hastening of the "punitive column" the third day, fresh seizure of unmarked lands the fourth day, and so on ad infinitum.
The algebraic sum of all the soliciting forces has been in the direction of advance—west, north, east —ever advance. Baluchistan has been conquered and held ; Afghanistan has been marauded piteously in two campaigns emblazoned with death, heroism, and decorations, but the bold and crafty Afghans could not be subjected ; the Chitral and the empty Pamirs have been sentinelled ; the uncouth Baltis have been punished and controlled ; pacific Ladak remains an outpost of empire, though in a Maharajah's name ; Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan have been forced to obey orders from Calcutta, and now, because a Bhuriat from far-away Lake Baikal has taken photographs in Lhasa and seduced the Dalai Lama into the courtesy of gift-making to the Czar, to ! Tibet is visited with the hot breath of war—and a thousand skeletons testify to the prowess of the white man ; to the glory of Christ and to the
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