The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-05-13
Arab Courage.

Never has a more striking exhibition
of dauntless physical courage been
given to the world than when, at Abu
Klea, and in the Sunday attack on Gen
eral McNeil's forces, the Arab fanatics
rushed in torrents on the death blazing
from the English squares. Spears
against breech-loaders and Gatling
guns, the wild fghting-fury of the des-
ert against the drill and discipline of
modern military science, medieval ia
naticism against nineteenth century
civilization! "The Arabs" says an
Englishman, remain among the BRAY
est of mankind, facing battle in which,
if wounded, they must die of torture
or starvation, with a fierce delight not
wholly applicable by a revival in them
of the faith which the Indian Mussul-
man also holds, but does not die for"
A writer in The Spectator, recognizing
this high-pitched personal valor of the
Arab, points out that it throws a flood
of light on the conquests of the Arabian
Khalifs and the failures of the crusad-
ing armies TO turn Palestine into Euro
pean province. 1t is no longer neces-
sary to say that the defeat of Roman
armies by Arabs fewer in number and
with little discipline was due either to
the fact that the former were effete, or
to the fanaticism of the latter. The
Arab was good fighter in A. d. 634 g,
as he is now in A. d. 1885. In that
first-named year the 10000 regulars
and 49, 900 auxiliaries of the Emperor
Heraclius, under the command of his
brother, Theodore, were almost annihi-
1ataI NV Il ho1iJ1c IN 0O0 he T., n n
fatal chasm of Yacusa were engulfed,
we are told, 100000 men. So fierce
were the Arabs that even the women
Joined their husbands and brothers in
the field, exactly as they are said to
have done in Osman Dignas army.
The Roman officers, unable to bear the
sight of the slaughter, sat down, drew
their togas around them, and, hiding
their faces in shame and despair,
awaited thus their fate. Commenting
on this, The Spectator says: Without
entering into the difficult question
whether the Roman soldier had degen-
Grated at ala question on which the
evidence is most conflicting-it may be
taken as certain that the Englishman
of to-day is better man, and as nearly
certain that, but for the Gardeners and
the rihes-that is, but for the terrible
armor that is forged for us by science
the Arab, with his superior numbers
would wipe him out on the shores OF
the Red Sea as completely as Khalid's
tribesmen did the Roman" The simple
truth is that the Arab of the desert,
whether of the pure blood of Ishmael
or of that blood crossed with the negro
was then, and is now, by nature, one
of the warrior-races, the superior OF
the Roman, even when Roman bat
talions were stiffened with bar.
barians, and the equal, as he showed
subsequently in the Crusades and in
Spain, of any northerner whatever
Saxon, or Frank, or Teuton, or Wis.
igoth-a man who can fight on wher
beaten, and die hard even when left
alone. When he first came out of the
desert, he dared face the Roman; five
hundred years later he faced the mail
clad soldiers of Europe, and he is facing
English soldiers to-day, and always il
the same manner, with the most reck
less personal valor and a contempt TO
death which scarcely any European
possess. Our soldiers call him brut,
because, when wounded, he court
death by slashing at his captors; but i
Tommy Atkins knew he must die il
agOny-there are no doctors or ambu
lances with Osman Digna-and be
lieved that if he could only get kille'
he would 90 straight to heaven, h
would in all probability do precisel,
the same thing .-Christion Union.