We do not quite like the news from Wuzeeristan. Things
are too smooth. Sir W. Lockhart has penetrated to the seats of the Mahsud clans, who have refused to fight him, but have in no way submitted. Though they were defeated, as a corre- spondent points out, by Sir Neville Chamberlain, they have recovered confidence, as shown by their raids, and their dis- appearance before anybody has been killed is very unlike the ways of the hills and of the daredevils who inhabit them. Are they perhaps trying to get behind General Lockhart, and attack him as he returns? The three British columns are separated, the cold is terrible, and there is evidently much sickness (probably pneumonia), or such a large train of ambu- lances, with a regiment to guard it, would not have been sent back to the frontier. It is quite possible, of course, that the clans are, as reported, shirking battle owing to internal dis- sensions, but in the Himalayas an enemy who runs before he is shot at is always to be distrusted. He is not running away from nervousness.
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