The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-03-21
THE 10Y OF PERIL.


No one can doubt the joy that attends
peril who has seen the men of certain
negroid races prance into battle. or, still
| more significant, into the dangers of
another's battle. Could authority, bias
| phemy, or even the sjambok keep the
! Zulu and Basuto scouts who accOmpa-
MED British columns in South Africa
out of the zone of fire? How they
| laughed and bounded, or if on horse
back galloped, shrielking with pleasure,
where the Mauser bullets Kissed and
hummed gambling with death, I'M
asked, not wanted, big black childish
| nuisances often, noble in nothing but
the nobility of physical courage, but in
| that with all the blood of all the How
ards of heroism. Their dead Kings,
Chaka and Dingiswayo, knew how to
oganize a Bantu holiday when they
| used to bid their impis charge and stab
each other for nothing but pure sport.
| Where, to an induna and his spearmen,
| was. the pleasure in women or maize
| beer compared to the fierce embrace of
danger, the drunkenness of the drink of
deadly combat?
Men may pass the whole of their lives
without either being themselves or see
| ing a fellow man in danger. Yet who
| in his dreams has not sported with
jeopardy, making a mock of it, and
| awakening with the same strange exal-
| tation as fills the encounterer of liv-
| ing peril, perhaps with the same fire in
| the eyes? And what phantoms of dam
tl,1 all NKrl1n cfn
| ings of imminent deadly breaches, what
wrecks and CONGREGATIONS, what rae
| ings through the black night on horse
| back in pursuit of robbers, or being
| robber, away from certain visionary
| horsemen, soldiers or constables, who
| thunder after! What fun they all are!
| But there are hazards which, real or
| spectral, are no fun at all, even to he
roes, which glaze the eye instead of fir
| ing it, and turn the bold bombardier to
little whipp'd dog" These are the
lonely, helpless perils, the falling from
dizzy cliffs, the being swept away on
| irresistible torrents, and one horror
that once overlook a man doomed to
| torture before death, that of having a
| foot damned in the points, with an eX-
press train due, and no one nigh to
| help. l once saw a brave man fright
ened by something such as these; he
was snipe shooting, and had walked
| into one of those bottomless boys which
| culver all over their acres at the mere
| tap of the foot like the breasts of a
| laughing girl. We got him out when
he had sunk to his chest, but the mo-
rass did not shudder more than he.
But when he died on Spion Kop he died
| like the fearless soldier he was; the
great rock on which he fell was as like
ly to fly from its firm base.
There is not pleasure in all peril,
then, and the exceptions give a clue to
| the rule. There is delight only in the
| danger wherein something or some one
| is overcome, wherein there is an enemy
over whom to triumph, or fellow NOR
| tai to save or benefit. The man top
| ping over the verge Of the cliff, or
struggling in mid torrent, has nothing
in view but his solitary death-there is
nothing in the bitterness of death so ag-
onizing as its uselessness. Only give
me prize, says the human soul, and
I condemn my hanitation to any end;
will make it climb the swimming cliff,
or plunge into the racing waters, or
rush through the flames; it shall take
| the same risks calmly as the creature
it would rescue did with a yell of tor
| ror; only give me a prize, honor, or a
| life, or the chance Of honor of a life, in
exchange for death or the chance of
| death. How small the prize of honor
| for which men have made faces a.
death; a lions skin, a mountain top!
Yet the Selous of humanity standing
| face to face with the great yellow saw
age of the desert, and the Whympers
hanging over eternity on a ''cornice, -
have drunk the cup of joy to the lees,