Pleasing letters.--Visit to Candy.--Snake and Flying Fox.--Buddha's
shrine.--The Malaya.--Naval digression.--Indian
trader.--Elephanta.--Sea snakes.--Chained to a tombstone.--Berlin's
escape.--Lord Chetwynd.--Lecture in the Red Sea.--Marseilles.
It was on Friday, February 11th, that we drew away from the Fremantle
wharf, and started forth upon our long, lonely trek for Colombo--a huge
stretch of sea, in which it is unusual to see a single sail. As night
fell I saw the last twinkling lights of Australia fade away upon our
starboard quarter. Well, my job is done. I have nothing to add, nor have
I said anything which I would wish withdrawn. My furrow gapes across two
young Continents. I feel, deep in my soul, that the seed will fall in
due season, and that the reaping will follow the seed. Only the work
concerns ourselves--the results lie with those whose instruments we are.
Of the many kindly letters which bade us farewell, and which assured us
that our work was not in vain, none was more eloquent and thoughtful
than that of Mr. Thomas Ryan, a member of the Federal Legislature. "Long
after you leave us your message will linger. This great truth, which we
had long thought of as the plaything of the charlatan and crank, into
this you breathed the breath of life, and, as of old, we were forced to
say, 'We shall think of this again. We shall examine it more fully.'
Give us time--for the present only this, we are sure that this thing was
not done in a corner. Let me say in the few moments I am able to snatch
from an over-crowded life, that we realise throughout the land how deep
and far-reaching were the things of which you spoke to us. We want time,
and even more time, to make them part of ourselves. We are glad you have
come and raised our thoughts from the market-place to the altar."
Bishop Leadbeater, of Sydney, one of the most venerable and picturesque
figures whom I met in my travels, wrote, "Now that you are leaving our
shores, let me express my conviction that your visit has done great good
in stirring up the thought of the people, and, I hope, in convincing
many of them of the reality of the other life." Among very many other
letters there was none I valued more than one from the Rev. Jasper
Calder, of Auckland. "Rest assured, Sir Arthur, the plough has gone
deep, and the daylight will now reach the soil that has so long been in
the darkness of ignorance. I somehow feel as if this is the beginning of
new things for us all."
It is a long and weary stretch from Australia to Ceylon, but it was
saved from absolute monotony by the weather, which was unusually
boisterous for so genial a region. Two days before crossing the line we
ran into a north-western monsoon, a rather rare experience, so that the
doldrums became quite a lively place. Even our high decks were wet with
spindrift and the edge of an occasional comber, and some of the cabins
were washed out. A smaller ship would have been taking heavy seas. In
all that great stretch of ocean we never saw a sail or a fish, and very
few birds. The loneliness of the surface of the sea is surely a very
strange fact in nature. One would imagine, if the sea is really so
populous as we imagine, that the surface, which is the only fixed point
in very deep water, would be the gathering ground and trysting place for
all life. Save for the flying fish, there was not a trace in all those
thousands of miles.
I suppose that on such a voyage one should rest and do nothing, but how
difficult it is to do nothing, and can it be restful to do what is
difficult? To me it is almost impossible. I was helped through a weary
time by many charming companions on board, particularly the Rev. Henry
Howard, reputed to be the best preacher in Australia. Some of his
sermons which I read are, indeed, splendid, depending for their effect
upon real thought and knowledge, without any theological emotion. He is
ignorant of psychic philosophy, though, like so many men who profess
themselves hostile to Spiritualism, he is full of good stories which
conclusively prove the very thing he denies. However, he has reached
full spirituality, which is more important than Spiritualism, and he
must be a great influence for good wherever he goes. The rest he will
learn later, either upon this side, or the other.
At Colombo I was interested to receive a _Westminster Gazette_, which
contained an article by their special commissioner upon the Yorkshire
fairies. Some correspondent has given the full name of the people
concerned, with their address, which means that their little village
will be crammed with chars-a-banc, and the peace of their life ruined.
It was a rotten thing to do. For the rest, the _Westminster_ inquiries
seem to have confirmed Gardner and me in every particular, and brought
out the further fact that the girls had never before taken a photo in
their life. One of them had, it seems, been for a short time in the
employ of a photographer, but as she was only a child, and her duties
consisted in running on errands, the fact would hardly qualify her, as
_Truth_ suggests, for making faked negatives which could deceive the
greatest experts in London. There may be some loophole in the direction
of thought forms, but otherwise the case is as complete as possible.
We have just returned from a dream journey to Candy. The old capital is
in the very centre of the island, and seventy-two miles from Colombo,
but, finding that we had one clear night, we all crammed ourselves (my
wife, the children and self) into a motor car, and made for it, while
Major Wood and Jakeman did the same by train. It was a wonderful
experience, a hundred and forty miles of the most lovely coloured
cinema reel that God ever released. I carry away the confused but
beautiful impression of a good broad red-tinted road, winding amid all
shades of green, from the dark foliage of overhanging trees, to the
light stretches of the half-grown rice fields. Tea groves, rubber
plantations, banana gardens, and everywhere the coconut palms, with
their graceful, drooping fronds. Along this great road streamed the
people, and their houses lined the way, so that it was seldom that one
was out of sight of human life. They were of all types and colours, from
the light brown of the real Singalese to the negroid black of the
Tamils, but all shared the love of bright tints, and we were delighted
by the succession of mauves, purples, crimsons, ambers and greens. Water
buffaloes, with the resigned and half-comic air of the London landlady
who has seen better days, looked up at us from their mudholes, and
jackal-like dogs lay thick on the path, hardly moving to let our motor
pass. Once, my lord the elephant came round a corner, with his soft,
easy-going stride, and surveyed us with inscrutable little eyes. It was
the unchanged East, even as it had always been, save for the neat little
police stations and their smart occupants, who represented the gentle,
but very efficient, British Raj. It may have been the merit of that Raj,
or it may have been the inherent virtue of the people, but in all that
journey we were never conscious of an unhappy or of a wicked face. They
were very sensitive, speaking faces, too, and it was not hard to read
the thoughts within.
As we approached Candy, our road ran through the wonderful Botanical
Gardens, unmatched for beauty in the world, though I still give
Melbourne pride of place for charm. As we sped down one avenue an
elderly keeper in front of us raised his gun and fired into the thick
foliage of a high tree. An instant later something fell heavily to the
ground. A swarm of crows had risen, so that we had imagined it was one
of these, but when we stopped the car a boy came running up with the
victim, which was a great bat, or flying fox, with a two-foot span of
leathery wing. It had the appealing face of a mouse, and two black,
round eyes, as bright as polished shoe buttons. It was wounded, so the
boy struck it hard upon the ground, and held it up once more, the dark
eyes glazed, and the graceful head bubbling blood from either nostril.
"Horrible! horrible!" cried poor Denis, and we all echoed it in our
hearts. This intrusion of tragedy into that paradise of a garden
reminded us of the shadows of life. There is something very intimately
moving in the evil fate of the animals. I have seen a man's hand blown
off in warfare, and have not been conscious of the same haunting horror
which the pains of animals have caused me.
And here I may give another incident from our Candy excursion. The boys
are wild over snakes, and I, since I sat in the front of the motor, was
implored to keep a look-out. We were passing through a village, where a
large lump of concrete, or stone, was lying by the road. A stick, about
five feet long, was resting against it. As we flew past, I saw, to my
amazement, the top of the stick bend back a little. I shouted to the
driver, and we first halted, and then ran back to the spot. Sure enough,
it was a long, yellow snake, basking in this peculiar position. The
village was alarmed, and peasants came running, while the boys, wildly
excited, tumbled out of the motor. "Kill it!" they cried. "No, no!"
cried the chauffeur. "There is the voice of the Buddhist," I thought, so
I cried, "No! no!" also. The snake, meanwhile, squirmed over the stone,
and we saw it lashing about among the bushes. Perhaps we were wrong to
spare it, for I fear it was full of venom. However, the villagers
remained round the spot, and they had sticks, so perhaps the story was
not ended.
Candy, the old capital, is indeed a dream city, and we spent a long,
wonderful evening beside the lovely lake, where the lazy tortoises
paddled about, and the fireflies gleamed upon the margin. We visited
also the old Buddhist temple, where, as in all those places, the
atmosphere is ruined by the perpetual demand for small coins. The few
mosques which I have visited were not desecrated in this fashion, and it
seems to be an unenviable peculiarity of the Buddhists, whose
yellow-robed shaven priests have a keen eye for money. Beside the
temple, but in ruins, lay the old palace of the native kings.
I wish we could have seen the temple under better conditions, for it is
really the chief shrine of the most numerous religion upon earth,
serving the Buddhist as the Kaaba serves the Moslem, or St. Peter's the
Catholic. It is strange how the mind of man drags high things down to
its own wretched level, the priests in each creed being the chief
culprits. Buddha under his boh tree was a beautiful example of sweet,
unselfish benevolence and spirituality. And the upshot, after two
thousand years, is that his followers come to adore a horse's tooth
(proclaimed to be Buddha's, and three inches long), at Candy, and to
crawl up Adam's Peak, in order to worship at a hole in the ground which
is supposed to be his yard-long footstep. It is not more senseless than
some Christian observances, but that does not make it less deplorable.
I was very anxious to visit one of the buried cities further inland, and
especially to see the ancient Boh tree, which must surely be the doyen
of the whole vegetable kingdom, since it is undoubtedly a slip taken
from Buddha's original Boh tree, transplanted into Ceylon about two
hundred years before Christ. Its history is certain and unbroken. Now, I
understand, it is a very doddering old trunk, with withered limbs which
are supported by crutches, but may yet hang on for some centuries to
come. On the whole, we employed our time very well, but Ceylon will
always remain to each of us as an earthly paradise, and I could imagine
no greater pleasure than to have a clear month to wander over its
beauties. Monsieur Clemenceau was clearly of the same opinion, for he
was doing it very thoroughly whilst we were there.
From Colombo to Bombay was a dream of blue skies and blue seas. Half
way up the Malabar coast, we saw the old Portuguese settlement of Goa,
glimmering white on a distant hillside. Even more interesting to us was
a squat battleship making its way up the coast. As we came abreast of it
we recognised the _Malaya_, one of that famous little squadron of Evan
Thomas', which staved off the annihilation of Beatty's cruisers upon
that day of doom on the Jutland coast. We gazed upon it with the
reverence that it deserved. We had, in my opinion, a mighty close shave
upon that occasion. If Jellicoe had gambled with the British fleet he
might have won a shattering victory, but surely he was wise to play
safety with such tremendous interests at stake. There is an account of
the action, given by a German officer, at the end of Freeman's book
"With the _Hercules_ to Kiel," which shows clearly that the enemy
desired Jellicoe to close with them, as giving them their only chance
for that torpedo barrage which they had thoroughly practised, and on
which they relied to cripple a number of our vessels. In every form of
foresight and preparation, the brains seem to have been with them--but
that was not the fault of the fighting seamen. Surely an amateur could
have foreseen that, in a night action, a star shell is better than a
searchlight, that a dropping shell at a high trajectory is far more
likely to hit the deck than the side, and that the powder magazine
should be cut off from the turret, as, otherwise, a shell crushing the
one will explode the other. This last error in construction seems to
have been the cause of half our losses, and the _Lion_ herself would
have been a victim, but for the self-sacrifice of brave Major Harvey of
the Marines. All's well that ends well, but it was stout hearts, and not
clear heads, which pulled us through.
It is all very well to say let bygones be bygones, but we have no
guarantee that the old faults are corrected, and certainly no one has
been censured. It looks as if the younger officers had no means of
bringing their views before those in authority, while the seniors were
so occupied with actual administration that they had no time for
thinking outside their routine. Take the really monstrous fact that, at
the outset of a war of torpedoes and mines, when ships might be expected
to sink like kettles with a hole in them, no least provision had been
made for saving the crew! Boats were discarded before action, nothing
wooden or inflammable was permitted, and the consideration that
life-saving apparatus might be non-inflammable does not seem to have
presented itself. When I wrote to the Press, pointing this out with all
the emphasis of which I was capable--I was ready to face the charge of
hysteria in such a cause--I was gravely rebuked by a leading naval
authority, and cautioned not to meddle with mysteries of which I knew
nothing. None the less, within a week there was a rush order for
swimming collars of india rubber. _Post hoc non propter_, perhaps, but
at least it verified the view of the layman. That was in the days when
not one harbour had been boomed and netted, though surely a shark in a
bathing pool would be innocuous compared to a submarine in an anchorage.
The swimmers could get out, but the ships could not.
But all this comes of seeing the white _Malaya_, steaming slowly upon
deep blue summer seas, with the olive-green coast of Malabar on the
horizon behind her.
I had an interesting conversation on psychic matters with Lady Dyer,
whose husband was killed in the war. It has been urged that it is
singular and unnatural that our friends from the other side so seldom
allude to the former occasions on which they have manifested. There is,
I think, force in the objection. Lady Dyer had an excellent case to the
contrary--and, indeed, they are not rare when one makes inquiry. She was
most anxious to clear up some point which was left open between her
husband and herself, and for this purpose consulted three mediums in
London, Mr. Vout Peters, Mrs. Brittain, and another. In each case she
had some success. Finally, she consulted Mrs. Leonard, and her husband,
speaking through Feda, under control, began a long conversation by
saying, "I have already spoken to you through three mediums, two women
and a man." Lady Dyer had not given her name upon any occasion, so there
was no question of passing on information. I may add that the intimate
point at issue was entirely cleared up by the husband, who rejoiced
greatly that he had the chance to do so.
Bombay is not an interesting place for the casual visitor, and was in a
state of uproar and decoration on account of the visit of the Duke of
Connaught. My wife and I did a little shopping, which gave us a glimpse
of the patient pertinacity of the Oriental. The sum being 150 rupees, I
asked the Indian's leave to pay by cheque, as money was running low. He
consented. When we reached the ship by steam-launch, we found that he,
in some strange way, had got there already, and was squatting with the
goods outside our cabin door. He looked askance at Lloyd's Bank, of
which he had never heard, but none the less he took the cheque under
protest. Next evening he was back at our cabin door, squatting as
before, with a sweat-stained cheque in his hand which, he declared, that
he was unable to cash. This time I paid in English pound notes, but he
looked upon them with considerable suspicion. As our ship was lying a
good three miles from the shore, the poor chap had certainly earned his
money, for his goods, in the first instance, were both good and cheap.
We have seen the Island of Elephanta, and may the curse of Ernulphus,
which comprises all other curses, be upon that old Portuguese Governor
who desecrated it, and turned his guns upon the wonderful stone
carvings. It reminds me of Abou Simbel in Nubia, and the whole place has
an Egyptian flavour. In a vast hollow in the hill, a series of very
elaborate bas reliefs have been carved, showing Brahma, Vishnu and Siva,
the old Hindoo trinity, with all those strange satellites, the bulls,
the kites, the dwarfs, the elephant-headed giants with which Hindoo
mythology has so grotesquely endowed them. Surely a visitor from some
wiser planet, examining our traces, would judge that the human race,
though sane in all else, was mad the moment that it touched religion,
whether he judged it by such examples as these, or by the wearisome
iteration of expressionless Buddhas, the sacred crocodiles and
hawk-headed gods of Egypt, the monstrosities of Central America, or the
lambs and doves which adorn our own churches. It is only in the
Mohammedan faith that such an observer would find nothing which could
offend, since all mortal symbolism is there forbidden. And yet if these
strange conceptions did indeed help these poor people through their
journey of life--and even now they come from far with their
offerings--then we should morally be as the Portuguese governor, if we
were to say or do that which might leave them prostrate and mutilated in
their minds. It was a pleasant break to our long voyage, and we were
grateful to our commander, who made everything easy for us. He takes the
humane view that a passenger is not merely an article of cargo, to be
conveyed from port to port, but that his recreation should, in reason,
be considered as well.
Elephanta was a little bit of the old India, but the men who conveyed us
there from the launch to the shore in their ancient dhows were of a far
greater antiquity. These were Kolis, small, dark men, who held the
country before the original Aryan invasion, and may still be plying
their boats when India has become Turanian or Slavonic, or whatever its
next avatar may be. They seem to have the art of commerce well
developed, for they held us up cleverly until they had extracted a rupee
each, counting us over and over with great care and assiduity.
At Bombay we took over 200 more travellers.
We had expected that the new-comers, who were mostly Anglo-Indians whose
leave had been long overdue, would show signs of strain and climate, but
we were agreeably surprised to find that they were a remarkably healthy
and alert set of people. This may be due to the fact that it is now the
end of the cold weather. Our new companions included many native
gentlemen, one of whom, the Rajah of Kapurthala, brought with him his
Spanish wife, a regal-looking lady, whose position must be a difficult
one. Hearne and Murrell, the cricketers, old playmates and friends, were
also among the new-comers. All of them seemed perturbed as to the unrest
in India, though some were inclined to think that the worst was past,
and that the situation was well in hand. When we think how splendidly
India helped us in the war, it would indeed be sad if a serious rift
came between us now. One thing I am very sure of, that if Great Britain
should ever be forced to separate from India, it is India, and not
Britain, which will be the chief sufferer.
We passed over hundreds of miles of absolute calm in the Indian Ocean.
There is a wonderful passage in Frank Bullen's "Sea Idylls," in which
he describes how, after a long-continued tropical calm, all manner of
noxious scum and vague evil shapes come flickering to the surface.
Coleridge has done the same idea, for all time, in "The Ancient
Mariner," when "the very sea did rot." In our case we saw nothing so
dramatic, but the ship passed through one area where there was a great
number of what appeared to be sea-snakes, creatures of various hues,
from two to ten feet long, festooned or slowly writhing some feet below
the surface. I cannot recollect seeing anything of the kind in any
museum. These, and a couple of Arab dhows, furnished our only break in a
thousand miles. Certainly, as an entertainment the ocean needs cutting.
In the extreme south, like a cloud upon the water, we caught a glimpse
of the Island of Socotra, one of the least visited places upon earth,
though so near to the main line of commerce. What a base for submarines,
should it fall into wrong hands! It has a comic-opera Sultan of its own,
with 15,000 subjects, and a subsidy from the British Government of 200
dollars a year, which has been increased lately to 360, presumably on
account of the higher cost of living. It is a curious fact that, though
it is a great place of hill and plain, seventy miles by eighteen, there
is only one wild animal known, namely the civet cat. A traveller, Mr.
Jacob, who examined the place, put forward the theory that one of
Alexander the Great's ships was wrecked there, the crew remaining, for
he found certain Greek vestiges, but what they were I have been unable
to find out.
As we approached Aden, we met the _China_ on her way out. Her
misadventure some years ago at the Island of Perim, has become one of
the legends of the sea. In those days, the discipline aboard P. & O.
ships was less firm than at present, and on the occasion of the birthday
of one of the leading passengers, the officers of the ship had been
invited to the festivity. The result was that, in the middle of dinner,
the ship crashed, no great distance from the lighthouse, and, it is
said, though this is probably an exaggeration, that the revellers were
able to get ashore over the bows without wetting their dress shoes. No
harm was done, save that one unlucky rock projected, like a huge spike,
through the ship's bottom, and it cost the company a good half-million
before they were able to get her afloat and in service once more.
However, there she was, doing her fifteen knots, and looking so saucy
and new that no one would credit such an unsavoury incident in her past.
Early in February I gave a lantern lecture upon psychic phenomena to
passengers of both classes. The Red Sea has become quite a favourite
stamping ground of mine, but it was much more tolerable now than on that
terrible night in August when I discharged arguments and perspiration to
a sweltering audience. On this occasion it was a wonderful gathering, a
microcosm of the world, with an English peer, an Indian Maharajah, many
native gentlemen, whites of every type from four great countries, and a
fringe of stewards, stewardesses, and nondescripts of all sorts,
including the ship's barber, who is one of the most active men on the
ship in an intellectual sense. All went well, and if they were not
convinced they were deeply interested, which is the first stage.
Somewhere there are great forces which are going to carry on this work,
and I never address an audience without the feeling that among them
there may be some latent Paul or Luther whom my words may call into
activity.
I heard an anecdote yesterday which is worth recording. We have a
boatswain who is a fine, burly specimen of a British seaman. In one of
his short holidays while in mufti, in Norfolk, he had an argument with a
Norfolk farmer, a stranger to him, who wound up the discussion by
saying: "My lad, what you need is a little travel to broaden your mind."
The boatswain does his 70,000 miles a year. It reminded me of the doctor
who advised his patient to take a brisk walk every morning before
breakfast, and then found out that he was talking to the village
postman.
A gentleman connected with the cinema trade told me a curious story
within his own experience. Last year a psychic cinema story was shown in
Australia, and to advertise it a man was hired who would consent to be
chained to a tombstone all night. This was done in Melbourne and Sydney
without the person concerned suffering in any way. It was very different
in Launceston. The man was found to be nearly mad from terror in the
morning, though he was a stout fellow of the dock labourer type. His
story was that in the middle of the night he had heard to his horror the
sound of dripping water approaching him. On looking up he saw an
evil-looking shape with water streaming from him, who stood before him
and abused him a long time, frightening him almost to death. The man was
so shaken that the cinema company had to send him for a voyage. Of
course, it was an unfair test for any one's nerves, and imagination may
have played its part, but it is noticeable that a neighbouring grave
contained a man who had been drowned in the Esk many years before. In
any case, it makes a true and interesting story, whatever the
explanation.
I have said that there was an English peer on board. This was Lord
Chetwynd, a man who did much towards winning the war. Now that the storm
is over the public knows nothing, and apparently cares little, about the
men who brought the ship of State through in safety. Some day we shall
get a more exact sense of proportion, but it is all out of focus at
present. Lord Chetwynd, in the year 1915, discovered by his own personal
experiments how to make an explosive far more effective than the one we
were using, which was very unreliable. This he effected by a particular
combination and treatment of T.N.T. and ammonia nitrate. Having
convinced the authorities by actual demonstration, he was given a free
hand, which he used to such effect that within a year he was furnishing
the main shell supply of the army. His own installation was at
Chilwell, near Nottingham, and it turned out 19,000,000 shells, while
six other establishments were erected elsewhere on the same system.
Within his own works Lord Chetwynd was so complete an autocrat that it
was generally believed that he shot three spies with his own hand.
Thinking the rumour a useful one, he encouraged it by creating three
dummy graves, which may, perhaps, be visited to this day by pious
pro-Germans. It should be added that Lord Chetwynd's explosive was not
only stronger, but cheaper, than that in previous use, so that his
labours saved the country some millions of pounds.
It was at Chilwell that the huge bombs were filled which were destined
for Berlin. There were 100 of them to be carried in twenty-five Handley
Page machines. Each bomb was capable of excavating 350 tons at the spot
where it fell, and in a trial trip one which was dropped in the central
courtyard of a large square building left not a stone standing around
it. Berlin was saved by a miracle, which she hardly deserved after the
irresponsible glee with which she had hailed the devilish work of her
own Zeppelins. The original hundred bombs sent to be charged had the
tails removed before being sent, and when they were returned it was
found to be such a job finding the right tail for the right bomb, the
permutations being endless, that it was quicker and easier to charge
another hundred bombs with tails attached. This and other fortuitous
matters consumed several weeks. Finally, the bombs were ready and were
actually on the machines in England, whence the start was to be made,
when the Armistice was declared. Possibly a knowledge of this increased
the extreme haste of the German delegates. Personally, I am glad it was
so, for we have enough cause for hatred in the world without adding the
death of 10,000 German civilians. There is some weight, however, in the
contention of those who complain that Germans have devastated Belgium
and France, but have never been allowed to experience in their own
persons what the horrors of war really are. Still, if Christianity and
religion are to be more than mere words, we must be content that Berlin
was not laid in ruins at a time when the issue of the war was already
decided.
Here we are at Suez once again. It would take Loti or Robert Hichens to
describe the wonderful shades peculiar to the outskirts of Egypt. Deep
blue sea turns to dark green, which in turn becomes the very purest,
clearest emerald as it shallows into a snow-white frill of foam. Thence
extends the golden desert with deep honey-coloured shadows, stretching
away until it slopes upwards into melon-tinted hills, dry and bare and
wrinkled. At one point a few white dwellings with a group of acacias
mark the spot which they call Moses Well. They say that a Jew can pick
up a living in any country, but when one surveys these terrible wastes
one can only imagine that the climate has greatly changed since a whole
nomad people were able to cross them.
In the Mediterranean we had a snap of real cold which laid many of us
out, myself included. I recall the Lancastrian who complained that he
had swallowed a dog fight. The level of our lives had been disturbed for
an instant by a feud between the children and one of the passengers who
had, probably quite justly, given one of them a box on the ear. In
return, they had fixed an abusive document in his cabin which they had
ended by the words, "With our warmest despisings," all signing their
names to it. The passenger was sportsman enough to show this document
around, or we should not have known of its existence. Strange little
souls with their vivid hopes and fears, a parody of our own. I gave baby
a daily task and had ordered her to do a map of Australia. I found her
weeping in the evening. "I did the map," she cried, between her sobs,
"but they all said it was a pig!" She was shaken to the soul at the
slight upon her handiwork.
It was indeed wonderful to find ourselves at Marseilles once more, and,
after the usual unpleasant _douane_ formalities, which are greatly
ameliorated in France as compared to our own free trade country, to be
at temporary rest at the Hotel du Louvre.
A great funeral, that of Frederic Chevillon and his brother, was
occupying the attention of the town. Both were public officials and both
were killed in the war, their bodies being now exhumed for local honour.
A great crowd filed past with many banners, due decorum being observed
save that some of the mourners were smoking cigarettes, which "was not
handsome," as Mr. Pepys would observe. There was no sign of any
religious symbol anywhere. It was a Sunday and yet the people in the
procession seemed very badly dressed and generally down-at-heel and
slovenly. I think we should have done the thing better in England. The
simplicity of the flag-wrapped coffins was however dignified and
pleasing. The inscriptions, too, were full of simple patriotism.
I never take a stroll through a French town without appreciating the
gulf which lies between us and them. They have the old Roman
civilisation, with its ripe mellow traits, which have never touched the
Anglo-Saxon, who, on the other hand, has his raw Northern virtues which
make life angular but effective. I watched a scene to-day inconceivable
under our rule. Four very smart officers, captains or majors, were
seated outside a cafe. The place was crowded, but there was room for
four more at this table on the sidewalk, so presently that number of
negro privates came along and occupied the vacant seats. The officers
smiled most good humouredly, and remarks were exchanged between the two
parties, which ended in the high falsetto laugh of a negro. These black
troops seemed perfectly self-respecting, and I never saw a drunken man,
soldier or civilian, during two days.
I have received English letters which announce that I am to repeat my
Australian lectures at the Queen's Hall, from April 11th onwards. I
seem to be returning with shotted guns and going straight into action.
They say that the most dangerous course is to switch suddenly off when
you have been working hard. I am little likely to suffer from that.