Punch (54.1868)

May 9, 18G8.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

199

A LIVELY LOOK-OUT.

“ Why, Smith, you Look Depressed ! ”

“So I AM !—UTTERLY WRETCHED !”

“Ah ! You want a little Cheerful Society!—Look here ! I’ll come
and Spend the Evening with you ! ”

RODERICK VICH MURCHISON !

Hail to the Chief in Johanna romances

Belief from the first who had pluck to decline !

Long may such guesses as those he advances
At Burlington House be confirmed ’neath the Line !
Baker confess them true,

Burton knock under, too,

Galton and Peth’rick, Grant, Osborne, & Co.,

Own them mistaken men,

Shout till they’re hoarse again,

“ Roderick vich Murchison—ho—ieroe J ”

His was no fancv as not worth account in
Brains scientific aside to be laid :

Though Moussa’s lie loomed as large as a mountain.

To declare he saw through it he wasn’t afraid.

’Gainst F.G.S.’s shock
Sole he stood, like a rock,

All the louder cried “ Yes,” all the more they said “No.”
Burton and Baker then
Echo his praise again,

“ Roderick vich Murchison, ho ! ieroe !”

Proudly we talk over Livingstone’s doings.
Slave-hunters and fevers and tsetse defied,

Taganyika, Nyassa, and Nile’s central flowings,

Traced, mastered, and mapped, with the tribes at their
side !

Though Afric tamed to trade,

Freed from slave-dealers’ raid,

May be a dream of Utopian glow,

Livingstone’s dreams, ye ken,

Like him, turn up again !

“ Roderick vich Murchison, ho ! ieroe ! ”

Shout, fellows,* shout, for the pride of the Highlands—
Murchison’s come of a high Gaelic line,

Old as Silurian slates in these islands,

That bed, on which he may be proud to recline !

But a still brighter gem,

Twill be for him and them,

Livingstone here in the autumn to show,

While swells and learned men.

Make the rooms ring again,

“ Roderick vich Murchison, ho ! ieroe !”

* Of the Geographical Society, of course.

THE ABYSSINIAN DIFFICULTY.

(iConcerning certain “Know-nothings.”)

During the present expedition to Abyssinia, I, as one of Mr. Punch's
Educational Committee, have been much interested in listening to the
i ^various opinions freely expressed on all hands as to the merits and
demerits of our naval and military organisation.

One young gentleman held forth on the blunders committed by our
chiefs : an elderly person, connected prospectively with the Librarian’s
department of the New Courts of Law, gravely deplored the prevalence
of red-tapeism at Head-quarters ; another individual, who brought the
authority of a prematurely bald head to bear on the question, asserted
that all the Abyssinian travellers up to the present time had been
wrong in their explorations, and that, in fact, no one knew anything at
all about the country. The aunt of a cornet who had served in the
Crimea (of course the cornet, not the aunt), and who, therefore (the
aunt, not the cornet, this time), ought to know, expressed much con-
tempt for the mule arrangements; and a lady of uncertain age, who
had, it was commonly whispered, been engaged, years ago, to an
Austrian Colonel (who was conquered at Baden-Baden, and obliged to
beat a retreat from that dissipated camp), wished that our troops were
managed after the Continental fashion, when they would be always
ready for actioD, whereupon a fierce-looking gentleman, with military
whiskers joining his moustache, as if they all came off together if pulled
over the ear, stretched his legs before the fire, frowned on the circle,
and smacking his lips, as much as to say, “ Here’s something nice for
you in the way of a clincher,” observed, “They ought to have sent a
Hying column into the country.”

There was a deep silence. Everyone evidently was regretting the
omission, and, from the expression on their faces, individually taking
the blame upon himself or herself for such an evident neglect. Sud-
denly inspired, I asked, submissively,

“What is a flying column ? ”

Everyone looked at me, then at the military man, who frowned
harder than ever.

“A flying column?” he returned, raising his eyebrows, as much as
to say, “ What! don’t you know that ? ”

A smile of pity for my ignorance was on all lips.

Rendered desperate, I repeated the question, “ Yes, a flying column ;
what is a flying column ? ”

All eyes waited upon (lie military whiskers, who, having got himself
into the hole, unassisted might now get himself out again. His repu-
tation was at this moment as nicely poised as a rocking-stone.

“A flying column,” he commenced slowly, and, upon my word, I
felt for him—“ a flying column is a column which—or I should say ”—
here he brightened up. “ But. first, do you know what a column is ? ”

Now, here was a dilemma. If I said “ Yes,” then he’d ask me for the
information. If I said “ No,” then he’d say that it was no use explain-
ing a flying column to a man who didn’t understand the meaning of
an ordinary Column that didn’t fly. Bat the ladies came to the rescue ;
under cover of my assumed ignorance, they ventured to inquire the
nature of a column and of a flying column. Whiskers was in for it,
and being in for it, it was at least a quarter of an hour before he got
out of it, and then he only saved himself by flight under cover of an
appointment at the Horse Guards.

When he had gone I asked the young man, who had been finding so
much fault with our military and naval organisation, to describe the
system and plan of our Army to me. I asked him, How many foot regi-
ments are there ? How many regiments of Guards ? How many Line ?
How many Cavalry ? What are the regulations as t o age of entrance ?

His answer was that a Captain in the Line ranked as a Lieutenant
and something else in the Guards : that there was a Guards’ Club in
Piccadilly : that a fellow he knew was often on guard at the Bank, and
that everything in a general way was grossly mismanaged somehow,
but he hadn’t tame to go into details. To the prematurely bald person
who had set down all Abyssinian travellers as hitherto totally wrong
regarding that country, 1 put one simple question, “ Where is Abys-