Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 6 June 1888.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4 pp. 68–9).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Notes: RK treats the ignorant Englishman, especially the MP, not only in ‘The Burden of Nineveh’ but in the verses on ‘Pagett, M.P.’ (Departmental Ditties) in ‘The Englightenments of Pagett, M.P.’, written in collaboration with his father (In Black and White, Outward Bound edn), and, indirectly, in ‘One View of the Question’ (Many Inventions).

The lines quoted from Rossetti's Burden of Nineveh at the head of the story are from the first edition of that poem, 1856, and are not to be found in later editions.

‘The Burden of Nineveh’ has been reprinted in ‘Turnovers’, ii, 1888, in the Martindell–Ballard pamphlets, in the Kipling Journal, July 1940 (in part only), and in Harbord, iv, 2062–4.

It was the Patient East, but not quite as Arnold has painted her. She was thinking, it is true, but there was no dignity in her attire. In the first place, they had given her a beautiful British check-pattern shawl to hide the shoulders that had driven mad Alexander and one or two other gentlemen with armies and aspirations. In the second, they had put a mortar-board atilt on her dark hair, but through some little error it was hind-side before, and the deep part was scratching her nose. There was a bundle of Educational Primers at her feet, and the Tiger, which she used to hold in a golden leash, was sitting on his hind legs snapping at flies. Altogether, the Patient East did not look her best.

“It's curious,” she thought; and she pinched the beautiful British check-pattern shawl. “It's very curious!” She squinted at the peak of the mortar-board. “I suppose they mean well.”

And the British M.P. came that way, with his head full of plans for the regeneration of all the Earth, and cuttings from the newspapers in his pockets. “And how are we to-day?” said the M.P., walking round the Patient East to see that the shawl hung straight.