Some Islands and Islanders

Many millions of years ago, God made some islands—slim little islands, and he hid in them wonders and many beauties, tender and terrible as a human heart can be. Some of the islands were set in the Southern Seas, away at the world's edge; while the others nestled in the North, sheltering near the broad lands of a continent.

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Only the Gods of the Brown People know what happened in these islands as the great years moved by:—how a nation rose in the north and lived and battled and became mighty; and how the tribes wandered to the south and dwelt there in happiness, but never became a nation.

White people knocked at the gates of the north, but few or none were permitted to enter, for the brown people there were wary and hated and suspected the ways of the west. But to the south they came first in their tens, then in their hundreds, then in their thousands. In vain the valiant defence, the eager-hearted fighting of the brown folk there! The white people vanquished them, and now they are withering away like the russet leaves of Autumn, while their conquerors flourish like the green bay-tree.

Now in less than a century the Southern Isles are sown with townships, intersected with railways, hills have been levelled, swamps drained, viaducts built, roads formed, land reclaimed from the sea, and green forests burnt that sheep may roam the grass. Of the people who have effected all this—some died to prepare the way for those who followed, many suffered hardships, many gave their strong, good years for others. They builded with their hands; they planned with all the wisdom of their minds, and they gave to their descendants a land of beauty and pleasantness—a land of sweet living where there are less injustices and fewer burdens than older lands bear. And because these Southern Isles are pleasant ones, the islanders are growing drowsy in their well being; they give little thought to to-morrow's weather, nor watch the cloud that gathers in the North.

In the Northern Isles there was an awakening among the brown people. They had hitherto stayed ever home lovers, passionate patriots, and they had multiplied exceedingly in their land of blossoms and snow. They wished for wider power, but they waited with their inscrutuble patience until the time was ripe, and they will, if need be, wait yet again. They watched, they studied the ways of the white folk; they took to themselves all that they thought good; they rejected what was useless or unprofitable, be it religion or invention. They startled the world in one war, and took unto themselves a goodly page 57 little territory in their neighbour-continent. Yet still they are seeking for a country whither to send the many who are cramped in the little homeland; still are they seeking to extend their cunning trade; still are they seeking to strike the blow that will acknowledge them a leading nation of the world. So they work, and watch and wait.

The Southern Isles are very beautiful—so the brown people hear in the north. Therefore they visit them— merely for beauty's sake. The impassive-looking little folk roam about as much as they can, peering here, there and everywhere, seeking beauty in camps, near forts and in the speeches of Cabinet ministers. They are very friendly people—the brown folk—so they let the southern people have their brittle matches, their flimsy dolls and a thousand varieties of bric-à;-brac at very low prices. They are very scientific, the brown folk, so they try to find out by means of floating bottles how the currents flow round the Southern Isles, and the people there are pleased to tell them all particulars.

And when the Great War is over, what will the brown folk do? They have grappled to their soul with hoops of steel one nation of the north; they have earned a lesser, but still a great gratitude from another, and that other is the Motherland of the Southern Isles. Only to send ships, only to trade—that is all the brown people want! "Dixerunt." But an inch can become a yard, though it's long in the growing. But the brown people are patient and they are cunning, while in the southern isles there is little guile.

Nons verrons ce que vous verrons!