Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/259

Rh We've painted The Islands vermilion,

We've pearled on half-shares in the Bay,

We've shouted on seven-ounce nuggets,

We've starved on a Kanaka's pay.

We've laughed at the world as we found it,—

Its women and cities and men—

From Say Yid Burgash in a tantrum

To the smoke-reddened eyes of Loben,

Dear boys!

We've a little account with Loben.

We opened the Chinaman's oil-well,

But the dynamite didn't agree,

And the people got up and fan-kwaied us,

And we ran from Ichang to the sea.

Yes, somehow and somewhere and always

We were first when the trouble began,

From a lottery-row in Manila

To an I. D. B. race on the Pan,

Dear boys!

With the Mounted Police on the Pan.

We preach in advance of the Army,

We skirmish ahead of the Church,

With never a gunboat to help us

When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.