THE GUIDES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9092, 19 May 1908, Page 3

THE GUIDES.

It is appropriate that a history of the Guides —the Queen's Own Corps of Guides, to be precise—should appear while there is trouble on the Indian frontier, for no other regiment has seen so much fighting there as this famous corps. Indeed, no other regiment in the Britisn and Indian armies has seen so much lighting anywhere as the curpj d'elitd of the Indian army has in the sixty years of its existence. There has scarcely been an expedition in the Border country during that time in which the Guides have not served with credit. The Guides owe their existence to Sir Henry Lawrence, the hero of Lucknow, who shucked martinets by declaring that to get the bast work out of troops, -and to enable them to undertake great exertions, it was neceasaiy that the soldier should be loosely, comfortably, and suitably clad, for in tho3e days soldiers worked in the Indian sun clad in tight scalet tunics, high stocks, tight trousers, Wellington boots, and shakoos. Sir Henry not only put the Guides into khaki, but taught them to act and fight with individual intelligence. The corps was raised ac Peshawar, and recruited from the fighting free lances of t!ia Border. "Last night ye struck at a Eu.-der thief, to-night 'tis a man -uf the Guides"—Che line in Kipling's "Ballad of East and West," tells no more than the truth. Colnntl Younghusband, who writes the history of the Guides, tells of one Dilawur Khan, an Afghan, who raided far and wide till a price of 2,000 rupees was placed on his head. Limsdenand his Guides hunted f r him in vain. Suddenly Lumsden thought Dilawur would be just the man for the Guide 3, and sent him an * invitation to come and talk the matter over, and a safe conduct. Dilawur came, but declined the offer with a laugh. "Mind, I'll catch you some dijV Dilawur," Lumsden shout.d after him, "and then I'll hang you, assure as my name's Lumsden!" Six weeks later Dilawur returned and offered to enlist on condition that he was spared the indignity of learning the goose-step. Lumsden told him that all had logo through this, from the white officers down to the native privates, so Dilawur waived his con- - dition and enlisted, and for some weeks one of the notable sights of the district was the dreaded Dilawur, the terror of the Bordsr, being drilled by a sergeant of the Guides. The one time robber reached the highest rank open to him in the cjrps, and years afterwards laid down nislife on a dangerous mission to Ghitral. His dying words to the little band were:-"Should any of you reach India alive, go to the Commissioner of Peshawar and say, 'Dilawur Khan of the Guides ia dead,' and'say also that he died faithful to his salt, and happy to give up his life in the service of trie Great Queen." This is but one case of many which illustrate the unswerving loyalty of these Border soldiers.