Blackwood Tales from the Outposts

by Bethel

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1933

Reviews

[Prakruti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tales from the Border is a collection of stories from the Blackwood Magazine, one of the most prominent in Europe (it survived from 1817 to 1980). This particular set includes stories, part fiction and part truth from the border of the then British India (which included Pakistan) and Afghanistan. It is written in an English of old, with long sentences, with dry humour sometimes difficult to grasp and features, unsurprisingly, the glorification of the British in India and a humiliating portrayal of the rest of the sub-continent as savage, as simpletons, as dumb and in a daring yet discomforting analogy of the Indian to the Mule (acerbically titled ‘On Our Friend the Mule’).

It says, “ To speak kindly of the mule to a circle of those that know him not is too often to find one’s remarks received with a frank incredulity that is hard to be distinguished from rudeness,,,born under a cloud for, alas! He is illegitimate, a fact of which he is profoundly aware – it is under a cloud that a mule is deemed to live.”

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[Lee Belbin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of tales from the outposts of the British Empire. Readable. I read the 1933 edition