My Adventures as a Spy
MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY BY LIEUT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, K.C.B. _Illustrated by the Author's Own Sketches_ LONDON C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1915 * * * * *
literature, has led them astray from those (so called) "Semitic"
studies, which are the more requisite for us as they teach us to
deal successfully with a race more powerful than any pagans--the
Moslem. Apparently England is ever forgetting that she is at
present the greatest Mohammedan empire in the world. Of late
years she has systematically neglected Arabism and, indeed,
actively discouraged it in examinations for the Indian Civil
Service, where it is incomparably more valuable than Greek and
Latin. Hence, when suddenly compelled to assume the reins of
government in Moslem lands, as Afghanistan in times past and
Egypt at present, she fails after a fashion which scandalises her
few (very few) friends; and her crass ignorance concerning the
Oriental peoples which should most interest her, exposes her to
the contempt of Europe as well as of the Eastern world. When the
regrettable raids of 1883-84, culminating in the miserable
affairs of Tokar, Teb and Tamasi, were made upon the gallant
Sudani negroids, the Bisharin outlying Sawakin, who were battling
for the holy cause of liberty and religion and for escape from
Turkish task-masters and Egyptian tax-gatherers, not an English
official in camp, after the death of the gallant and lamented
Major Morice, was capable of speaking Arabic. Now Moslems are not
to be ruled by raw youths who should be at school and college
instead of holding positions of trust and emolument. He who would
deal with them successfully must be, firstly, honest and truthful
and, secondly, familiar with and favourably inclined to their
manners and customs if not to their law and religion. We may,
MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY BY LIEUT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, K.C.B. _Illustrated by the Author's Own Sketches_ LONDON C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1915 * * * * *