author - "Winston S. Churchill"

s been burnt, assail the camp of the SecondBrigade by night. It is a drawn game. They are astounded that the troopsdo not take it in good part.

They, when they fight among themselves, bear little malice, and thecombatants not infrequently make friends over the corpses of theircomrades or suspend operations for a festival or a horse race. At theend of the contest cordial relations are at once re-established. And yetso full of contradictions is their character, that all this is withoutprejudice to what has been written of their family vendettas and privateblood feuds. Their system of ethics, which regards treachery andviolence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour sostrange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind.I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were tounderstand their mental impulses--if he knew, when it was their honourto stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when theywere bound to protect and when