" GUNGA DIN."
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sra,—When the writer of the article on "Asiatic Courage" in the Spectator of June 30th spoke of Mr. Kipling's " Gunga Din" as " a nearly impossible name," he probably meant that the name was impossible as applied to the valiant water-. carrier whom the poet describes. Has Mr. Crooke ever met with a regimental or other Bhishti,m2issuck on thigh, who was not a Mahommedan, and has he ever met with a Mahommedan who was called Ganga-Din, "Slave of the Ganges " ? In Mr. Archibald Constable's excellent edition of " Bernier's Travels " there is on p. 206 a picture of a water-carrier, recognisable at the first glance as a Mussulman, and intended to illustrate Bernier's statement that "even the menials and carriers of water belonging to that nation" (the Pathans,—all Ma hom. medans) "are high-spirited and warlike " ; but the reader is informed at the foot of the plate that this is the figure of Mr. Kipling's " Gunga Din," and some lines from the poem are added. To some old Indians the misplaced name is a blemish in that most admirable composition which they could wish away. The writer of the article says that the Arab " has never in modern times fought with Europeans in Asia." The most formidable part of the Mahratta forces with which we had to contend in the first quarter of the present century were the Arab mercenaries in the pay of the Peshwa and the Bhonsla. And after the occupation of Aden in 1839 we were several times attacked by the tribes in the neighbourhood of
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