[p.268] Barbarous as these movements may appear to the Cavalry Martinet of the “good old school,” yet to something of the kind will the tactics of that arm of the service, I humbly opine, return, when the perfect use of the rifle, the revolver, and field artillery shall have made the present necessarily slow system fatal.  Also, if we adopt the common sense opinion of a modern writer,[FN#5] and determine that “individual prowess, skill in single combats, good horsemanship, and sharp swords render cavalry formidable,” these semi-barbarians are wiser in their generation than the civilised, who never practise arms (properly so called), whose riding-drill never made a good rider, whose horses are over-weighted, and whose swords are worthless.  They have yet another point of superiority over us; they cultivate the individuality of the soldier, whilst we strive to make him a mere automaton.  In the days of European chivalry, battles were a system of well-fought duels.  This was succeeded by the age of discipline, when, to use the language of Rabelais, “men seemed rather a consort of organ-pipes, or mutual concord of the wheels of a clock, than an infantry and cavalry, or army of soldiers.”  Our aim should now be to combine the merits of both systems; to make men individually

[p.269] excellent in the use of weapons, and still train them to act naturally and habitually in concert.  The French have given a model to Europe in the Chasseurs de Vincennes,-a body capable of most perfect combination, yet never more truly excellent than when each man is fighting alone.  We, I suppose, shall imitate them at some future time.[FN#6]

A distant dropping of fire-arms ushered in the evening of our first melancholy day at Bir Abbas.  This, said my companions, was a sign that the troops and the hill-men were fighting.  They communicated the intelligence, as if it ought to be an effectual check upon my impatience to proceed; it acted, however, in the contrary way.  I supposed that the Badawin, after battling out the night, would be less warlike the next day; the others, however, by no means agreed in opinion with me.  At Yambu’ the whole party had boasted loudly that the people of Al-Madinah could keep their Badawin in order, and had twitted the boy Mohammed with their superiority in this respect to his townsmen, the Meccans.  But now that a trial was impending, I saw none of the fearlessness so conspicuous when peril was only possible.  The change was charitably to be explained by the presence of their valuables; the “Sahharahs,” like conscience, making cowards of them all.  But the young Meccan, who, having sent on his box by sea from Yambu’

[p.270] to Jeddah, felt merry, like the empty traveller, would not lose the opportunity to pay off old scores.  He taunted the Madinites till they stamped and raved with fury.  At last, fearing some violence, and feeling answerable for the boy’s safety to his family, I seized him by the nape of his neck and the upper posterior portion of his nether garments, and drove him before me into the tent.