GURKHA'S LAST SLEEP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 273, 28 April 1915, Page 7

GURKHA'S LAST SLEEP.

Touching homage to Gurkha devotion is paid by a British officer, who writes the following from the front:— The other day I was riding out to do a reconnaixaiice when I met a sight which will remain in my mind for many a long day. It was just a plain heaise, with a tiny coffin on it, followed by about 20 Gurkhas. A Gurkha had died in hospital of his wounds. The greet big Union Jack was much too big, so its folds were lovingly tucked round the coffin—so symbolical of a mother's arms folded round the son who had defended her honor. He had given all he had to give, not money or riches, but just that life which God had given him for his own disadiantiigo. What is more, if one stops to think of the little hut tucked far away in the Hiinalayu.s, the. little children, and his wife —whit a sacrifice! It made me just tremble with emotion, and when one thinks that perhaps natives do not come to our men's standard, and one is inclined to carp at them, one dishonors those natives who have died, and are dyi'if? every tlay, for the Sirkar's rights and honor. They took the little man's body and buried it in the Christian churchyard, according to their own rites, the cure making no objection. Thus, side by side, French, English, Belgian, Gurkha, Mohammedan, Sikh and Dogra go to their everlasting rest.