230 THE DOWNFALL OF THE DERVISHES been simply appalling. The ordinary metaphors of “rain” and “hail” are scarcely adequate to describe the awful effect of modern rifles and machine guns when their fire is steady and concentrated. It is rather a wall of lead than a rain, which, as it advances, sweeps everything instantly from its track. There must bea limit to human endurance, one would think, even in the excitement of battle, and the time may well come when human art will prove superior to human courage and discipline, and civilised troops will refuse to expose themselves to what may have become practically the certainty of death or wounds, or, at anyrate, of enormous — risk. The educational and social forces at work in modern life certainly do not tend to foster the old-fashioned virtue of unquestioning obedience, or the consolations to be derived from religious faith. Yet it is precisely these two things which alone have often enabled a leader to count with confidence upon a response to his call when he summons his followers to almost certain destruction—the surrender of life and all that life holds dear.

On 4th September, at 9.15 a.m., four gunboats conveyed the Sirdar and_ various