outdoor life he
grew up into a strong, well-built fellow, with a physique that was to
stand the test of many hard days to come.

His father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps and become a
soldier. He used his influence to place him in the Royal Military
Academy, at Woolwich. Herbert entered there as a cadet, in his
nineteenth year.

Two years later, while still a cadet, we find him getting his foretaste
of actual warfare. It was the summer of 1870. War had been declared
by France against Prussia--the short but terrible war so skilfully
engineered by Bismarck. Herbert Kitchener had gone to spend a summer
vacation with his father, at Dinan in the north of France, and promptly
got imbued with the war fever. He enlisted in a battalion, in the
Second Army of the Loire, commanded by General Chanzy. This army, like
other well-intentioned but poorly organized troops of the French, was
driven steadily back by the superior German forces, until the enemy
bombarded and captured Paris.

It is interesting to note that Kitchener's first and last military
service was on behalf of the French against their hereditary
enemies--and that history came dangerously near to repeating itself in
the German drive of 1914 against Paris. That it did not do so, was due
in no small measure to the grim veteran who was now Secretary of War,
and to his wonderful army of volunteers, dubbed "Kitchener's Mob."

Whether or not Kitchener did any actual close-up fighting in these
early days we do not know. One novel experience, however, is placed to
his credit. He made an ascent in an observation balloon, with two
French officers. In those days, the big bags were risky and unknown
quantities, and an ascent was something to talk about.

The ill-starred war over, young Kitchener returned to Woolwich, and his
school duties as though nothing special had happened.

"Why did you go off and join the French army?" he was asked by the
commandant.

"Please, sir," came the straightforward answer, "I understood that I
should not be wanted for some time, and I could not be idle. I thought
I might learn something."

He had indeed--if nothing more than the power of a thoroughly prepared
enemy against an unready land.

The next stage in Kitchener's career was picturesque but full of
hardship. It was in connection with an exploring expedition to the
Holy Land.

In 1865, a society called the Palestine Exploration Fund had been
founded, its obje