critics to faint; the Thibetan force must do as much climbing as would satisfy the average Alpine performer; and all the soldiers carry their lives in their hands.  What is a little war?  Is any war little to a man who loses his life in it?  I imagine that when a wounded fighter comes to face his last hour he regards the particular war in which he is engaged as quite the most momentous affair in the world so far as he is concerned.  To me the whole spectacle of the little wars is most grave, both as regards the nation and as regards the individual Britons who must suffer and fall.  Our destiny is heavy upon us; we must “dree our weirde,” for we have begun walking on the road of conquest, and we must go forward or die.  The man who has the wolf by the ears cannot let go his hold; we cannot slacken our grip on anything that once we have clutched.  But it is terrible to see how we are bleeding at the extremities.  I cannot give the figures detailing our losses in little wars during the past forty years, but they are far worse than we incurred in the world-shaking fight of Waterloo.  Incessantly the drip, drip of national blood-shedding goes on, and no end seems to be gained, save the grim consciousness that we must suffer and never flinch.  The graves of our best and dearest—­our hardy loved ones—­are scattered over the ends of the earth, and the little wars are answerable for all.  England, in her blundering, half-articulate fashion, answers, “Yes, they had to die; their mother asked for their blood, and they gave it.”  So then from scores of punctures the life-blood of the mother of nations drops, and each new bloodshed leads to yet further bloodshed, until the deadly series looks endless.  We sent Burnes to Cabul, and we betrayed him in the most dastardly way by the mouth of a Minister.  England, the great mother, was not answerable for that most unholy of crimes; it was the talking men, the glib Parliament cowards.  Burnes was cut to pieces and an army lost.  Crime brings forth crime, and thus we had to butcher more Afghans.  Every inch of India has been bought in the same way; one war wins territory which must be secured by another war, and thus the inexorable game is played on.  In Africa we have fared in the same way, and thus from many veins the red stream is drained, and yet the proud heart of the mother continues to beat strongly.  It is so hard for men to die; it is as hard for the Zulu and the Afghan and the Ghoorka as it is for the civilized man, and that is why I wish it were Britain’s fortune to be allowed to cease from the shedding of blood.  If the corpses of the barbarians whom we have destroyed within the past ten years could only be laid out in any open space and shown to our populace, there would be a shudder of horror felt through the country; yet, while the sweet bells chime to us about peace and goodwill, we go on sending myriads of men out of life, and the nation pays no more heed to that steady ruthless killing than it does to the slaughter of oxen.  Alas!