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to Bannu, mortally wounded, to be tended by Pennell with every care that surgery could devise, but he was beyond all human aid.

From him, however, I learned much about Pennell. He was working at Bannu entirely at his own expense. He was one of the most distinguished medical students of his year, a gold medallist of London University in science, in surgery, in medicine, and he had come to Bannu, accompanied by his mother, an old lady of great learning and character. He was her only child, and she had accompanied him to India when he first came out. Elderly English ladies in that country are "like angelvisits, few and far between," and the few that are in the country usually live in some pleasant pleasant hill station. Mrs Pennell, I believe, never left the Frontier once from the time she arrived there with her son till her death, a period of some sixteen years. His attention and devotion to her was one of the many remarkable traits in his character.

The courage of the man, too, was beginning to attract attention in a country where physical bravery is no uncommon virtue. To give one instance, I was told that he had gone alone and unarmed into a mountain village at night to rescue one of his adherents. This lad had become a Christian, to the wrath of his relatives; but as the man was of full age they could not legally remove him from the doctor's influence, though they tried "peaceful persuasion" to the fullest ex

tent in their power. Unsuccessful in this, they managed to force him one afternoon to come out with them, and hurried him off to their mountain home some miles away. The doctor came in late in the evening to find the lad had disappeared. Knowing that if he once allowed him to go, the result would be either death or recantation, the doctor started at once on his bicycle in the direction of the lad's home, in the hope that he might overtake the party, and, if possible, recall the young man. But night came on, and the doctor had to leave his bicycle and take

to devious mountain tracks. Long after midnight he reached the village; it was a hot, moonlight night, and he could see three sheeted forms asleep near one of the houses, in the open air. He gently wakened the centre sleeper, who turned out to be the lad he was seeking, and the two quietly returned to Bannu. But if he had awakened the wrong man, or if either of the others, who were sleeping the sleep of the weary, had been disturbed, Pennell's life would not have been worth a minute's purchase, and he knew it.

I had often to go to Bannu after this on duty, and I saw the doctor frequently. I accepted his invitation to see the hospital. One must not imagine a splendid palace, such as many of our European hospitals are, with spotless wards, polished floors, snowy sheets, and admirable nurses. The buildings were simply rows of plain - built mud-walled

houses, with a verandah along one side, and flat roofs, the whole rather better than native dwellings, but with no greater degree of interior luxury than native string-beds and cotton quilts. On these were lying many poor people in various stages of disease, and from many places. There were Sikhs and Hindus, but the majority were Pathans. With one of the latter, who seemed convalescent and inclined to be conversational, I had some talk in Pushto. After the usual compliments, I asked him where he came from. "From Ghazni" (about 200 miles off). "That is a long way. Was not the journey very trying?" "Certainly it was, but it was well worth it."

"Would it not have been easier for you to Kabul?"

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"Yes, an easier journey; but it would have been of little use. There is a Farangi hakim [European physician] in Kabul, but he is busy, and it is not always possible to be attended by him. So the advice of my friends was to come here, and I did. Now I am well, the doctor here is kind and skilful."

"I suppose you will tell that to your friends?"

"Oh, yes, but they know it already; the doctor's fame is well known."

Far into the interior of Afghanistan it had thus come to be known that at Bannu there was a Farangi hakim, who was not only a man of skill, but "a man of the Book," who healed men "in the name of Allah,

most merciful and compassionate" (words at the beginning of every Moslem book).

Pennell himself took these hill men very much as he found them, and often humorous stories were told of the conversations they had together. One cannot doubt that, coming in contact with many wounded men in hospital, he must have been the recipient of some atrocious confidences, and some of the stories he told were flavoured with some grim jest. As a sample of these, he told how one day a man came with a gun-shot wound, which he was very anxious to get cured as soon as possible, so that he might settle accounts with the perpetrator, who was his own uncle. "I suppose," said the doctor, "that we shall soon have the uncle here, then?" "No fear," was the reply; "I am a better shot than he is!"

To try and convince such men as these of their moral obliquity seemed impossible, so although the doctor did his best not only to heal them, but also to show them the beauty of the Gospel, his chief hope for the future and his great pleasure lay with the boys.

His school at first was 8 very small affair, but by the time I came into touch with him it had flourished so far that it was just being established on the public school boarding system, and a block of dormitories and class-rooms had then been completed. Close to this building was a fine swimming tank, over

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which there was a big tree, on which were erected diving platforms at various heights. Every morning, even in the sharp cold winter, the boys all had to swim, the doctor himself often leading them; and if any lad shirked it, he was thrown in, clothes and all. The elder boys had quite imbibed the spirit of public school esprit de corps, and were of the greatest value in enforcing a code of good form and honour. They all adored the doctor, and his greatest pleasure in life was in his association with them, playing football and cricket with the utmost keen

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loved boys made an extraordinary tour over a large part of Northern India, living entirely on the hospitality of the natives, and preaching and healing, like the early apostles.

In 1908 he came home after sixteen years strenuous work. But he seems to have taken very little rest, for the greater part of his time was spent in going about England and advocating the cause of medical missions. I met him, for the last time, on one of these occasions, at the Queen's Hall in London. Two other men had spoken before him, one from the swamps of Bengal and the other from the ancient land of Mesopotamia, each telling pathetic tales of suffering humanity and inadequate resources to meet it. Then came Pennell. He strode to the front of the platform and made the hall ring with the Arabic "Kalima" or Moslem creed, in perfect imitation of the sonorous mullahs in many a mountain mosque. I do not know what else he said, for the wild chant was like the "call from the wild," making one forget London with its tame civilisation, and bringing back with ineffable force the free frontier life with its danger and fascination.

I had left India, so did not see Pennell again. But I heard of him frequently. The Government had awarded to him the medal of the Kaisar-i-Hind,— first the silver medal in 1903, and then in 1910 the gold medal. This medal is given, without reference to creed, sex, or position, to those who have

done most for the people of the spite of Dr Pennell's skill the country.

His work, too, extended in various directions. He opened first a dispensary, and subsequently a church, at a little out-of-the-way spot in the Salt Range, called Kharak. Later on at Thal, farthest outpost within our border at the entrance to the Kurram Valley and some twenty miles across the mountains from Bannu, he opened another centre of work. He had married a lady who, herself a medical graduate, was thoroughly in sympathy with his aims.

His popularity, too, with the people grew with succeeding years. On one occasion when he was seriously ill, prayers for his recovery were offered alike in Hindu temples and Mohammedan mosques, a token of esteem which, as far as I know, he shared in India only with Queen Victoria and King Edward.

The end came suddenly. One of the patients in his hospital, who was in a filthy state, had left a string bedstead in a condition which necessitated the removal of most of its texture. Dr Barnett, a young English assistant of Dr Pennell, in cutting this away scratched his hand. Bloodpoisoning intervened, and in

younger man passed away. The older doctor, too, must have unconsciously been affected, for he grew suddenly ill. All that medical skill could do was done, but symptoms developed with fatal rapidity, and the end came within a very few days.

Then the last scenes of all, amid the sorrow of the whole community.

His work, however finished in one sense and well done, is in another sense only begun. It is not for me to speak of his work as a missionary, that must be left to those who are qualified to judge. But as an important part of our hold, as Englishmen, on the rule of the great Indian Empire depends on the character, not only of the official class, but of all our countrymen, it may be said that Pennell accomplished a magnificent and what to some would seem utterly impossible task of overwhelming importance. He upheld the character of the ruling race for courage and impartiality, and yet he was able to win the hearts of a fierce and turbulent people by sympathy and unselfishness of the most sublime description. The value of such men in the pacification of the Indian frontier is beyond all calculation.

THE RETURN TO NATURE.

AN ISLAND COMEDY.

BY IAN HAY.

Miss Etherington sat up suddenly, to realise that she had mistaken her whereabouts. It was a dream reversed. Instead of tumbling out of fairyland to wake up in bed, she had tumbled out of bed to wake up in fairyland.

She was sitting upon 8 sunny shore-a concave arc of shelving yellow sand, with blue and white wavelets lazily rolling up and down the declivity. One of these broke gently over her bare feet for the third time.

MISS PHYLLIS ETHERINGTON, feet and deluged her to the conscious of a sudden chilli- knees. ness in her toes, crossly drew those extremities into a less adventurous position and endeavoured to recompose herself to slumber. But she was aware, even in the semi-stupor in which she lay, of a certain element of disturbance in her surroundings. Her pillow felt extremely hard, and the sun appeared to be streaming through her cabin skylight with unusual ferocity. Had she overslept herself, she wondered. How about breakfast? She must have lain long. Had she been called? Certainly she was beginning to feel thoroughly restless. Something rigid and unyielding was pressing against her ribs. A book, perhaps she was in the habit of reading late in bed and dropping off to sleep, the volume under perusal usually being retrieved somewhere in the neighbourhood of the hotwater bottle in the morning. Should she make an effort now, or the sluggard's inevitable alternative-give herself just five minutes longer?

The question was settled for her. Her toes were once again sending up signals for help, and their appeal was backed ten seconds later by a sudden splash of water, which broke over the sleeper's

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Woman-like, she took a lightning inventory of her costume and gave a little gasp of dismay. Her toilet presented the appearance of having been begun in haste and not finished at all. Her long hair, dank but luxurious, flowed down to her waist. A saxe-blue serge skirt fluttered round her bare ankles. Her most

adequate article of attire was a cork life- belt, fastened round her quilted dressing-gown. She was stiff and aching in every limb.

She remembered all now. The yacht-the tropical hurricane the grinding crash in the dead of night-the trampling of feet overhead and the hoarse shouting of men-the heeling decks and flapping ropes - &

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