The emerald course was a course indeed, Between that crowd of men. And every steed became a steed. “Say when, old boy, say when!” The flag is lowered, they’re off! They come! Like clouds on a roaring sky. Jim Whiffler swirls his whip away And the tall grey horse goes by. His face is like a newspaper That many men take in; The colours of his sleeve are mixed Like cocktails made with gin. Now Strop falls back, they’re neck and neck, Now Davis, Whiffler, ride; Jim Whiffler with his brainless face Is spun and swirled aside. Jim Whiffler’s lost! but as he fails He screams into the din, The mare has still more heart to lose Than you have heart to win. And Whiffler sits high in the saddle, A broken-hearted jockey; And our Jim Whiffler, robbed of fame, Singed by the bookmakers with blame, Cries out, “I’ll change my trade and name And take to playing hockey.” _The Indian Ocean: during the Monsoon_ It’s not at all like the Indian Ocean of which Kipling sings, “so soft, so something, so blooming blue.” It is grey; there’s a swell, and it’s muggy. But at night you can see the Southern Cross, and that’s an excitement. How did Dante know there was such a thing as the Southern Cross? He certainly did know it, because when he emerged from hell, somewhere near the South Pole, he says he looked at the polar sky and saw four stars which had never been seen before save by the first people--whoever they were (the inhabitants of Paradise?)-- “All’ altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai fuor che alla prima gente.” I dare say, and I believe some commentators do say, that his meaning was allegorical, and that by the four stars he meant Woman’s Suffrage, or the battle of Waterloo. I take leave to differ. I’m sure he meant the Southern Cross. Perhaps it is in Herodotus, whose geography, long suspected of being fantastic, is proved to be more and more accurate. For instance, Herodotus said the source of the Nile was in the Silver Mountain. This was pooh-poohed for centuries, until the discovery of Mount Ruwenzori proved that Herodotus was perfectly right. Dante was a great traveller, and the greatest pen impressionist who ever wrote. He describes a landscape in a line so that it stays with you forever. He uses the smallest possible number of words, hardly any adjectives, and the picture leaps up before you, immortal and unforgettable. Who can do this among the moderns? Keats could sometimes. Tennyson gives you English landscape. If you read “In Memoriam” you have lived a year in the English country and seen the march of the English seasons. Crabbe can do it. Who reads Crabbe? Nobody. And yet he is a wonderful poet, as realistic as Tolstoy and Arnold Bennett, as poignant as Gorky. Byron called him the best painter of nature. (And Byron was a good judge.) He can give you a landscape in a line. For instance:--