Arithmetic on the Frontier

A great and glorious thing it is / To learn, for seven years or so, / The Lord knows what of that and this, / Ere reckoned fit to face the foe - / The flying bullet down the Pass, / That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."

Three hundred pounds per annum spent / On making brain and body meeter / For all the murderous intent / Comprised in "villainous saltpetre". / And after?- Ask the Yusufzaies / What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station- / A canter down some dark defile / Two thousand pounds of education / Drops to a ten-rupee jezail. / The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride, / Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

No proposition Euclid wrote / No formulae the text-books know, / Will turn the bullet from your coat, / Or ward the tulwar's downward blow. / Strike hard who cares - shoot straight who can / The odds are on the cheaper man.

One sword-knot stolen from the camp / Will pay for all the school expenses / Of any Kurrum Valley scamp / Who knows no word of moods and tenses, / But, being blessed with perfect sight, / Picks off our messmates left and right.

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem. / The troopships bring us one by one, / At vast expense of time and steam, / To slay Afridis where they run. / The "captives of our bow and spear" / Are cheap, alas! as we are dear.