of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive
additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder
and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the
Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British
squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In
each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The
forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood
and war is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of
peace is usually the better armed.

The extraordinary credulity of the people is hardly conceivable. Had the
Mad Mullah called on them to follow him to attack Malakand and Chakdara
they would have refused. Instead he worked miracles. He sat at his
house, and all who came to visit him, brought him a small offering of
food or money, in return for which he gave them a little rice. As his
stores were continually replenished, he might claim to have fed
thousands. He asserted that he was invisible at night. Looking into his
room, they saw no one. At these things they marvelled. Finally he
declared he would destroy the infidel. He wanted no help. No one should
share the honours. The heavens would open and an army would descend. The
more he protested he did not want them, the more exceedingly they came.
Incidentally he mentioned that they would be invulnerable; other agents
added arguments. I was shown a captured scroll, upon which the tomb of
the Ghazi--he who has killed an infidel--is depicted in heaven, no fewer
than seven degrees above the Caaba itself. Even after the fighting--when
the tribesmen reeled back from the terrible army they had assailed,
leaving a quarter of their number on the field--the faith of the
survivors was unshaken. Only those who had doubted had perished, said
the Mullah, and displayed a bruise which was, he informed them, the sole
effect of a twelve-pound shrapnel shell on his sacred person.