Indignation Had
Stimulated His Activity To An Extraordinary Degree.
In a climate usually
fatal to Europeans he discharged the work of five officers.
Careless of
his methods, he bought slaves himself, drilled them, and with the soldiers
thus formed pounced on the caravans of the hunters. Traversing the country
on a fleet dromedary - on which in a single year he is said to have covered
3,840 miles - he scattered justice and freedom among the astonished natives.
He fed the infirm, protected the weak, executed the wicked. To some he gave
actual help, to many freedom, to all new hopes and aspirations. Nor were
the tribes ungrateful. The fiercest savages and cannibals respected the
life of the strange white man. The women blessed him. He could ride unarmed
and alone where a brigade of soldiers dared not venture. But he was, as he
knew himself, the herald of the storm. Oppressed yet ferocious races had
learned that they had rights; the misery of the Soudanese was lessened, but
their knowledge had increased. The whole population was unsettled, and the
wheels of change began slowly to revolve; nor did they stop until they
had accomplished an enormous revolution.
The part played by the second force is more obscure. Few facts are so
encouraging to the student of human development as the desire, which most
men and all communities manifest at all times, to associate with their
actions at least the appearance of moral right. However distorted may be
their conceptions of virtue, however feeble their efforts to attain even
to their own ideals, it is a pleasing feature and a hopeful augury that
they should wish to be justified. No community embarks on a great
enterprise without fortifying itself with the belief that from some
points of view its motives are lofty and disinterested. It is an
involuntary tribute, the humble tribute of imperfect beings, to the
eternal temples of Truth and Beauty. The sufferings of a people or a
class may be intolerable, but before they will take up arms and risk
their lives some unselfish and impersonal spirit must animate them.
In countries where there is education and mental activity or refinement,
this high motive is found in the pride of glorious traditions or in
a keen sympathy with surrounding misery. Ignorance deprives savage
nations of such incentives. Yet in the marvellous economy of nature this
very ignorance is a source of greater strength. It affords them the
mighty stimulus of fanaticism. The French Communists might plead that
they upheld the rights of man. The desert tribes proclaimed that they
fought for the glory of God. But although the force of fanatical passion
is far greater than that exerted by any philosophical belief, its
sanction is just the same. It gives men something which they think is
sublime to fight for, and this serves them as an excuse for wars which
it is desirable to begin for totally different reasons. Fanaticism is
not a cause of war. It is the means which helps savage peoples to fight.
It is the spirit which enables them to combine - the great common object
before which all personal or tribal disputes become insignificant.
What the horn is to the rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp,
the Mohammedan faith was to the Arabs of the Soudan - a faculty
of offence or defence.
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