of miscellaneous conveyances, drawn by all sorts of animals. Away we
went at a splitting pace, knocking up the hot dust and knocking down
whole regiments of pigs and children, up one hill and down another,
as best our animals could carry us. At last there was a halt. I
peeped out of my carriage, and found that we were before a gaily
decorated and flower-festooned bungalow, of humble build—the house
of the conjugal cook. Up drove all the bullock hackeries, and the
gigs, and the carts, but no one offered to alight. Suddenly a host of
people rushed out of the little house in the greatest possible haste.
They brought out a long strip of white cloth, and at once placed it
between the bride’s carriage and the house, for her to walk upon.
Still there was no move made from any of the carriages, and I began to
feel rather warm. At length a native came forward from the verandah,
gun in hand, I supposed to give the signal to alight. The man held
it at arm’s length, turned away his head—as though admiring some of
our carriages—and “snap” went the flint; but in vain. Fresh priming
was placed in the pan, the warrior once more admired our carriages,
and again the “snap” was impotent. Somebody volunteered a pin for the
touch-hole, another suggested more powder to the charge, whilst a
third brought out a lighted stick. The pin and the extra charge were
duly acted upon. The weapon was grasped, the carriages were admired
more ardently than before, the firestick was applied to the priming,
and an explosion of undoubted reality followed. The warrior was
stretched on his back. Half the hackery bullocks started and plunged
out of their trappings, while the other half bolted. To add to the
dire confusion, my villainous steed began to back very rapidly towards
a steep bank, on the edge of which stood a quiet, old-fashioned pony,
in a gig with two spruce natives seated in it. Before they could move
away, my horse had backed into the pony chaise, and the last I saw of
them at that time was an indistinct and rather mixed view of the two
white-robed youths and the old-fashioned pony and chaise performing
various somersaults into the grass-swamp at the base of the bank.
Glad to escape from the contemplation of my misdeeds, I followed
the bridal party into the little house. Slowly alighting from her
vehicle, the lady was received by a host of busy relations, some
of whom commenced salaaming to her; some scattered showers of
curiously-cut fragments of coloured and gilt paper over her and her
better half—probably intended to represent the seeds of their future
chequered happiness and troubles; and then, by way of inducing the
said seed to germinate, somebody sprinkled over the couple a copious
down-pouring of rose-water. The little front verandah of the dwelling
was completely hidden beneath a mass of decorations of flowers,
fruits, and leaves, giving it at first sight the appearance of a cross
between a fairy-bower and a Covent Garden fruit-stall. The living,
dark stream poured into the fairy bower, and rather threatened the
floral arrangements outside; the door-way was quickly jammed up
with the cook’s nearest and dearest relatives of both sexes; while
the second cousins and half-uncles and aunts blocked up the little
trap-door of a window with their grizzly, grinning visages. The room
we were in was not many feet square—calculated to hold, perhaps, a
dozen persons in ordinary comfort; but, on this occasion, compelled
to welcome within its festive mud-walls at least forty. A small oval
table was in the centre, a dozen or so of curiously-shaped chairs
were ranged about the sides, in the largest of which the bride was
seated. The poor creature was evidently but ill at ease—so stiff and
heavily-laden with ornaments. The bridegroom was invisible, and I
felt bound to wait upon the lady in his absence. The little darkened
cell was becoming fearfully hot; indistinct ideas of the Black Hole
of Calcutta rose to my heated imagination. A feverish feeling crept
over me, not a little enhanced by the Oriental odours from things and
persons about me. The breeze, when it did manage to squeeze itself
in, brought with it the sickly perfume of the myriads of flowers and
leaves outside. Upon the whole, the half hour or so which elapsed
between our arrival and the repast, was a period of intense misery
to me, and vast enjoyment to the cook’s family circle. There was
nothing to while away the hot minutes. I had to look alternately at
the bride, the company, and the ceiling; the company stared at myself
and the lady; while she, in her turn, looked at the floor hard enough
to penetrate through the bricks to the foundation below. In the first
instance I had foolishly pictured the breakfast, or whatever the
meal was to be, set forth upon some grassy spot in the rear of the
premises, under the pleasant shade of palms and mangoe trees.
But the vulgar crowd must be kept off by walls; and the little oval
table in the centre was to receive the privileged few, and to shut
out the unprivileged many. Dishes reeking hot, and soup-tureens in
a state of vapour, were passed into the room, over the heads of the
mob; for there was no forcing a way through them. A long pause, and
then some more steaming dishes, and then another pause, and some
rice-plates; and at last, struggling and battling amidst the army of
relations, the bridegroom made his appearance—very hot and very shiny,
evidently reeking from the kitchen. He had slipped on his blue cloth,
many-buttoned coat, and smiled at his wife and the assembled company
as though he would have us believe he was quite cool and comfortable.
It devolved upon me to hand, or rather drag the bride to one end of
the table; opposite to whom sat her culinary lord and master, as
dignified and important as though his monthly income had been ten
guineas instead of ten rix-dollars. I seated myself next to the lady
of the hut, and resigned myself to my fate; escape was out of the
question. Nothing short of fire, or the falling in of the roof, could
have saved me. Our rickety chairs were rendered firm and secure as
the best London-made mahogany-seats by the continuous, unrelenting
pressure of the dense mob behind and around us. The little room seemed
built of faces; you might have danced a polka or a waltz on the heads
of the company with perfect security. As for the window-trap, I could
see nothing but bright, shining eyes through it.
The covers were removed, as covers are intended to be; but, instead of
curiously-arranged and many-coloured dishes of pure and unadulterated
Sinhalese cookery, as I had, in the early part of the day, fondly
hoped, there appeared upon them a few overdone, dried up joints
_a l’Anglaise_; a skinny, consumptive baked shoulder of mutton; a
hard-looking boiled leg of a goat; a shrivelled spare-rib of beef;
a turkey that might have died of jungle-fever; and a wooden kind of
dry, lean ham, with sundry vegetables, made up this sad and melancholy
show. All my gastronomic hopes, so long cherished amidst that heated
assemblage, vanished with the dish-covers, and left me a miserable
and dejected being. Ten minutes previously, I had felt the pangs of
wholesome hunger, and was prepared to do my utmost; at that moment I
only felt empty and sick. Could I have reached the many-buttoned cook,
I might have been tempted to have done him some bodily harm; but I
could not move. The host had the wretch of a turkey before him. Well
up to the knife-and-fork exercise, he whipped off from the breast of
the skinny bird two slices of the finest meat—the only really decent
cuts about it—and then, pushing the dish on to his next neighbour,
begged him to help himself. Of course, I had to attend to the hostess.
I gave her a slice of the sinewy, lean ham before me, with two legs
of a native fowl, and began to think of an attempt upon the boiled
mutton for myself; but there was no peace for me yet. The bride had
never before used a knife and fork, and, in her desperate attempts to
insert the latter into one of the fowl’s legs, sent it with a bound
into my waistcoat, accompanied by a shower of gravy, and a drizzling
rain of melted butter and garlic. Feeling more resigned to my fate, I
proceeded to cut up her ham and chicken, and then fancied the task was
done; but not so. Her dress was so tight, the ornaments so encompassed
her as with a suit of armour, that all her attempts to reach her mouth
with her fork were abortive. To bend her arm was evidently impossible.
Once she managed to get a piece of ham as high as her chin; but it
cost her violent fractures in several parts of her dress; so that I
became alarmed for what might possibly happen, and begged her not
to think of doing it again, offering to feed her myself. Feverish,
thirsty, and weary as I felt at that table, I could scarcely suppress
a smile when I found myself, spoon in hand, administering portions
of food to the newly-made wife. Never having had, at that period
of my existence, any experience in feeding babies, or other living
creatures, I felt at first much embarrassed, somewhat as a man might
feel who, only accustomed to shave himself, tries, for the first time
in his life, to remove the beard of some friend in a public assembly.
Fortunately for me, the lady was blessed with a rather capacious
mouth; and, as I raised, tremblingly and in doubt, a pyramid of fowl,
ham, and onions, upon the bowl of the Brittania-metal spoon, my
patient distended her jaws in a friendly and hopeful manner.
During my spoon performances I was much startled at hearing, close to
our door, the loud report of several guns fired in quick succession.
I imagined at first that the military had been called out to disperse
the mob, but as nobody gave signs of any alarm or uneasiness, that
could not have been the case; so I settled in my mind that the friends
of the family were shooting some game for the evening’s supper. All
that I partook of at that bridal party was a small portion of very
lean, dry beef, and some badly boiled potatoes, washed down by a
draught of hard, sour beer. I essayed some of the pastry, for it had
a bright and cheerful look, and was evidently very light. I took a
mouthful of some description of sugared puff, light to the feel, and
pleasant to look at, but in reality a most heartless deception—a
sickly piece of deceit: it was evidently a composition of bean-flour,
brown sugar, stale eggs, and cocoanut oil—the latter, although burning
very brilliantly in lamps, and serviceable as a dressing to the hair,
not being quite equal to Lucca oil when fried or baked. To swallow
such an abomination was impossible, and, watching my opportunity, I
contrived at length to convey my savoury mouthful beneath the table.
This vile pastry was succeeded by a plentiful crop of fruit of all
kinds, from pine-apples to dates. Hecatombs of oranges, pyramids of
plantains, shoals of sour-sops, mounds of mangoes, to say nothing
of alligator pears, rhambatams, custard apples, guavas, jamboes,
and other fruit, as varied in name and taste as in hue and form,
graced that hitherto graceless board. I had marked for immediate
incorporation a brace of custard apples, and a glowing, corpulent
alligator-pear, and was even on the point of securing them before
attending to my dark neighbour, when a loud shout, followed by a
confused hubbub, was heard outside in front. There was a cracking
of whips and a rattling of carriage-wheels, and altogether a huge
commotion in the street, which at once put an end to our dessert, and
attracted attention from the inside to the exterior of the house. My
spirits revived from zero to summer-heat, and thence up to blood-heat,
when I learnt that the arrivals were a batch of “Europe gentlemen,”
friends of the cook’s master, who had come just to have a passing peep
at the bride and the fun. Their approach was made known by sundry
explanations in the English language, and a noise as of scuffling at
the door. How our new friends were to get in was a mystery to me, nor
did the host appear to have any very distinct ideas upon the subject.
He rose from his seat, and, with his mouth full of juicy pine apple,
ordered a way to be cleared for the “great masters;” but he might as
well have requested his auditory to become suddenly invisible, or
to pass out through the key-hole. There was no such thing as giving
way. A few of the first cousins grinned, and one or two maternal
uncles coughed audibly, while the eyes of the distant relations at
the window were glistening more intensely, and in greater numbers
than ever. The stock of British patience, as I rather expected, was
quickly exhausted, and in a minute or two I perceived near the door
some white faces that were familiar to me at a certain regimental
mess-table. Uncles and brothers-in-law were rapidly at a discount,
and there appeared every prospect of mere connexions by marriage
becoming relations by blood. Some giant of a native ventured upon the
hazardous speculation of collaring an officer who was squeezing past
him, and received a friendly and admonitory tap in return, which at
once put him _hors de combat_. The cook, enraged at the rudeness of
his countryman, dealt a shower of knocks amongst his family circle;
the visitors stormed the approaches, and at last carried the covered
way; Singalese gentry struggled and pushed, and tried in vain to
repel the invaders; the fair sex screamed, and tried to escape; the
_mêlée_ became general and furious. I gave my whole attention to the
bride, who kept her seat in the utmost alarm; her husband was the
centre of attraction to the combatants, and in the midst of a sort
of “forlorn hope” of the native forces, the heavily loaded table was
forced from its centre of gravity. Staggering and groaning beneath the
united pressure from fruit and fighting, the wooden fabric reeled and
tottered, and at last went toppling over, amidst a thunder-storm of
vegetable productions. It was in vain I pulled at the unhappy bride to
save her—she was a doomed woman, and was swept away with the fruity
flood. When I sought her amidst the wreck and confusion, I could only
discover heaps of damaged oranges, sour-sops, and custard-apples, her
white satin shoes, the Chinese fan, and the four silver meat-skewers.
By dint of sundry excavations, the lady was fairly dug out of the
ruins and carried off by her female friends; the room was cleared of
the rebellious Singalese, and a resolution carried unanimously that
the meeting be adjourned to the compound or garden at the back. Under
the pleasant shade of a tope of beautiful palms, we sat and partook
of the remains of the feast. The relations, once more restored to
good humour, amused themselves in their own fashion, preparing for the
dancing, and festivity, and illuminations that were to take place in
the evening. We sat there until some time after sunset, and when I had
seen the great cocoa-nut shells, with their flaring wicks, lighted up,
and the tom-toms begin to assemble, I deemed it prudent to retire and
seek a wholesome meal at the hotel.
[Illustration]
VI.
_THE TREE OF LIFE._
To dwellers in Ceylon, the cocoanut palm calls up a wide range of
ideas. It associates itself with nearly every want and convenience of
native life. It might tempt a Singalese villager to assert that if he
were placed upon the earth with nothing else whatever to minister to
his necessities than the cocoa-nut tree, he could pass his existence
in happiness and contentment.
When he has felled one of those trees after it has ceased bearing
(say in its seventieth year), with its trunk he builds his hut and
his bullock-stall, which he thatches with its leaves. His bolts and
bars are slips of the bark, by which he also suspends the small shelf
which holds his stock of home-made utensils and vessels. He fences his
little plot of chillies, tobacco, and fine grain with the leaf-stalks.
The infant is swung to sleep in a rude net of coir-string made from
the husk of the fruit; its meal of rice and scraped cocoanut is boiled
over a fire of cocoanut shells and husks, and is eaten off a dish
formed of the plaited green leaves of the trees, with a spoon cut out
of the nut-shell. When he goes a-fishing by torchlight his net is of
cocoanut fibre; the torch, or chule is a bundle of dried cocoanut
leaves and flower-stalks; the little canoe is the trunk of the
cocoa-palm tree, hollowed by his own hands. He carries home his net
and string of fish on a yoke, or pingo, formed of a cocoanut stalk.
When he is thirsty, he drinks of the fresh juice of the young nut;
when he is hungry, he eats its soft kernel. If he have a mind to be
merry, he sips a glass of arrack, distilled from the fermented juice,
and he flavours his curry with vinegar made from this toddy. Should he
be sick, his body will be rubbed with cocoanut oil; he sweetens his
coffee with jaggery, or cocoanut sugar, and softens it with cocoanut
milk; it is sipped by the light of a lamp constructed from a cocoanut
shell, and fed by cocoanut oil. His doors, his windows, his shelves,
his chairs, the water-gutter under the eaves, are all made from the
wood of the tree. His spoons, his forks, his basins, his mugs, his
salt-cellars, his jars, his child’s money-box, are all constructed
from the shell of the nut. Over his couch when first born, and over
his grave when buried, a bunch of cocoanut blossoms is hung, to charm
away evil spirits.
This palm is assiduously cultivated in Ceylon, in topes or
plantations; and it was long believed that the rude native system of
culture was the best, but experience has shown the fallacy of this
opinion. Hence, the Singalese continue to find the manual labour, but
the Englishman provides skill and implements.
There is a good road to within a couple of miles of the plantation
I am about to describe, so that the visitor has little difficulty
in performing this much of the journey. The remaining two miles lie
through a sandy track of very flat and rather uninteresting country.
Here and there, amidst a maze of paddy fields, areca nut topes,
and patches of low, thorny jungle, are dotted little white-walled
huts. They are much cleaner than any such near the towns of Ceylon;
attached to each is a small slip of ground, rudely fenced, and half
cultivated, with a few sweet potatoes, some chillies, and a little
tobacco and fine grain. It was mid-day when I started on foot to
this estate. The sun was blazing above in unclouded glory. Under the
shade of a bread-fruit tree, the owner of the first hut I got to was
dozing and chewing betel-nut, evidently tasting, in anticipation, the
bliss of Buddha’s paradise. The wife was pounding up something for
curry; the children were by her side—the boys smoking tiny cheroots,
the girls twisting mats. It was fortunate for me that the sandy path
was over-shadowed by jungle trees, or my progress would have been
impossible. Not a breath of air was stirring amidst that dense mass
of vegetation; not a twig or a leaf could be persuaded to move; the
long and graceful paddy stalks glittered and sparkled in their watery
resting places, as though they were made of the purest burnished
gold. The buffaloes had taken to their noon-day watering places.
The birds were evidently done up, and were nowhere to be seen; the
beetles crawled feebly over the cooler shrubs, but they could not get
up a single hum or a buzz amongst them all; even the busy little ants
perspired, and dropped their lilliputian loads. Well, the dry ditch
and thorny fence that form the boundary and protection of the estate
were at last reached, and the little gate and watch-hut were passed.
The watcher, or lascoryn, was a Malay, moustachioed and fierce, for
the natives of the country can rarely be depended on as protectors
of property against their fellow-villagers. A narrow belt of jungle
trees and shrubs had been left quite round the plantation, to assist
in keeping out cattle and wild animals, which are frequently very
destructive to a young cocoanut estate, in spite of armed watchers,
ditches, and fences. Passing through this little belt, I found, on
entering, an entirely new scene. Before and around me waved gracefully
the long shining leaves of three hundred acres of cocoanut palms,
each acre containing, on an average, eighty trees. It was indeed
a beautiful and interesting sight. Two-thirds of these trees were
yielding ample crops, though only in their tenth year; in two years
more they will generally be in full bearing. Unlike the rudely-planted
native garden, this estate had been most carefully laid down; the
young plants had all been placed out at regular intervals and in
perfectly straight lines, so that, looking over the estate in either
direction, the long avenues presented one unbroken figure, at once
pleasing to the eye and easy of access. But if these interminable
masses of palms appeared a lovely picture when regarded at some little
distance, how much was their beauty heightened on a nearer inspection!
Walking close under the shadow of their long and ribbon-like leaves,
I could see how thickly they were studded with golden-green fruit in
every stage of growth. The sight was absolutely marvellous. Were such
trees, so laden, painted by an artist, his production would, in all
probability, be pronounced unnatural. They appeared more like some
fairy creations, got up for my special amusement, resembling nearly
those gorgeous trees which, in my youth, I delighted to read about in
the “Arabian Nights,” growing in subterranean gardens, and yielding
precious stones. They hung in grape-like clusters around the crest
of the tree; the large, golden, ripe nuts below, smaller and greener
fruit just above them, followed by scores of others in all stages,
from the blossom-bud to the half-grown. It was impossible to catch
a glimpse of the stem, so thickly did the fruit hang on all sides.
I made an attempt to count them—“thirty—fifty—eighty—one hundred”—I
could go no further; those little fellows near the top, peeping up
like so many tiny dolls’ heads, defied my most careful numeration;
but I feel confident there must have been quite two hundred nuts on
that one palm. Above the clusters of rich fruit were two feather-like
flowers, white as snow, and smooth and glossy as polished ivory; they
had just burst from their sheaths, and a more delicate, lovely picture
could scarcely be imagined.
A cocoanut tree in a native Singalese tope will sometimes yield fifty
nuts in twelve months; but the average of them seldom give more than
twenty-five in the year. It is therefore very evident that European
skill may be employed beneficially on this cultivation, as well as on
any other.
I was at first rather startled at perceiving a tall, half-naked
Singalese away in the distance, with a gun at least half as long
again as himself, long black hair over his shoulders, and bunches of
something hanging at his girdle. He was watching some game amongst
the trees; at last he fired, ran, picked up something, and stuck it
in his girdle. What could it be?—parrot, pigeon, or jungle-fowl? It
was only a poor little squirrel; and there were at least two scores
of these pretty creatures hanging at the waist of the mighty hunter!
Fortunately, he could speak a little English, and I was not long in
learning the cause of this slaughter. It appeared that in addition
to their pretty bushy tails, glossy coats, and playful gambols, the
squirrels have very sharp and active teeth, and an uncommon relish for
the sweet, tender buds of the cocoanut flower, which they nip off and
destroy by scores, and of course lessen by so much the future crop of
fruit. Handfuls of the buds lay half-eaten around each tree, and I no
longer felt astonished at this species of sporting. The ground had
evidently been well cleared from jungle plants, not one of such was
to be seen in all this track; a stout and healthy-looking grass was
springing up along the avenues; whilst at intervals patches of Indian
corn, sweet potatoes, guinea-grass, and other products—intended for
cattle-fodder during dry weather when the wild grasses fail—gave tints
of varied luxuriance to the scene.