Transcriber’s Note:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
For more transcriber’s notes, please go to the end of this book.
UNADDRESSED LETTERS
_By the same Author_
MALAY SKETCHES
Second Edition
Cr. 8vo, 6s.
UNADDRESSED
LETTERS
EDITED BY
_FRANK ATHELSTANE
SWETTENHAM, K.C.M.G._
[Illustration]
JOHN LANE
THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON AND NEW YORK
MDCCCXCVIII
_All rights reserved_
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
PREFACE
“I had a friend who loved me;” but he has gone, and the “great gulf”
is between us.
After his death I received a packet of manuscript with these few
words:--
“What I have written may appeal to you because of our friendship, and
because, when you come to read them, you will seek to grasp, in these
apparent confidences, an inner meaning that to the end will elude you.
If you think others, not the many but the few, might find here any
answer to their unuttered questionings, any fellowship of sympathy in
those experiences which are the milestones of our lives, then use the
letters as you will, but without my name. I shall have gone, and the
knowledge of my name would make no one either wiser or happier.”
In the packet I found these letters. I cannot tell whether there is any
special order in which they should be read--there was nothing to guide
me on that point. I do not know whether they are to real or imaginary
people, whether they were ever sent or only written as an amusement,
a relief to feeling, or with a purpose--the one to which they are now
put, for instance. One thing is certain, namely, that, however taken,
they are not all indited to the same person; of that there seems to be
convincing internal evidence.
The writer was, by trade, a diplomatist; by inclination, a sportsman
with literary and artistic tastes; by force of circumstances he was a
student of many characters, and in some sense a cynic. He was also a
traveller--not a great traveller, but he knew a good deal of Europe, a
little of America, much of India and the further East. He spent some
time in this neighbourhood, and was much interested in the country and
its people. There is an Eastern atmosphere about many of the letters,
and he made no secret of the fact that he was fascinated by the glamour
of the lands of sunshine. He died very suddenly by misadventure, and,
even to me, his packet of letters came rather as a revelation.
Before determining to publish the letters, I showed them to a friend on
whose opinion I knew the writer had set store. He said, “The critic
will declare there is too much scenery, too much sentiment. Very likely
he will be right for those whose lives are passed in the streets of
London, and the letters will not interest so many readers as would
stories of blood and murder. Yet leave them. Love is in the atmosphere
day and night, and the scenery is in true proportion to our lives here,
where, after all, sunsets are commoner than murders.” Therefore I have
left them as they came to me, only using my discretion to omit some of
the letters altogether.
F. A. S.
_February 12, 1898._
“_Thus fare you well right hertely beloved
frende ... and love me as you have ever
done, for I love you better than ever I dyd._”
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE HILL OF SOLITUDE 1
II. OF WORSHIP 6
III. WEST AND EAST 13
IV. A CLEVER MONGOOSE 21
V. A BLUE DAY 33
VI. OF LOVE, IN FICTION 42
VII. THE JINGLING COIN 48
VIII. A STRANGE SUNSET 61
IX. OF LETTER-WRITING 68
X. AT A FUNERAL 72
XI. OF CHANGE AND DECAY 82
XII. DAUGHTERS AND DESPOTISM 96
XIII. HER FIANCÉ 107
XIV. BY THE SEA 115
XV. AN ILLUMINATION 123
XVI. OF DEATH, IN FICTION 129
XVII. A HAND AT ÉCARTÉ 138
XVIII. THE GENTLE ART OF VEERING WITH THE WIND 145
XIX. A REJOINDER 153
XX. OF IMPORTUNITY 159
XXI. OF COINCIDENCES 168
XXII. OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM 175
XXIII. A MERE LIE 182
XXIV. TIGERS AND CROCODILES 191
XXV. A ROSE AND A MOTH 203
XXVI. A LOVE-PHILTRE 209
XXVII. MOONSTRUCK 220
XXVIII. THE “DEVI” 229
XXIX. THE DEATH-CHAIN 242
XXX. SCANDAL AND BANGLES 252
XXXI. THE REPREHENSIBLE HABIT OF MAKING COMPARISONS 259
XXXII. A CHALLENGE 265
XXXIII. IN EXILE 270
XXXIV. OF LOVE--NOT IN FICTION 284
XXXV. OF OBSESSION 295
XXXVI. OF PARADISE LOST 303
XXXVII. “TO MARY, IN HEAVEN” 307
UNADDRESSED LETTERS
I
THE HILL OF SOLITUDE
An hour ago I climbed the narrow, winding path that circles the Hill of
Solitude, and as I gained the summit and sat upon that narrow bench,
facing the west, I may have fallen into a trance, for there appeared to
me an ever-changing vision of unearthly beauty.
The sun was sinking into the sea, directly in a line with the wide
estuary that marks a distant river’s mouth. It was setting in a blaze
of molten gold, while all above and to the northward, the background of
sky glowed with that extraordinary, clear pale-blue blent with green,
that makes one of the most striking features of the sunsets seen from
this hill. The clouds were fewer to-night, the background wider and
clearer, the colour more intense, more transparent, as though the
earnest gazer might even discern some greater glory, beyond and through
the shining crystal of those heavenly windows.
The calm surface of the sea beneath mirrored the lights above, till sea
and sky vied with each other in a perfection of delicate translucent
sheen. Northwards a few grey-gold clouds lay against this wondrous
background, but in the south they were banked in heavy masses, far down
the sky to the limits of vision.
Out of a deep forest-clad valley, immediately behind the hill, a
freshening breeze was driving volumes of white mist across the northern
spur; driving it, at racing speed, in whirling, tangled wisps, across
the water-holes that cluster around the foot of the great range;
driving it over the wide plain, out towards the glittering coast-line.
But in a moment, as though by magic, the thick banks of cloud in the
south were barred with broad shafts of brilliant _rose dorée_; the
spaces of clear sky, which, an instant before, were pale silver-blue,
became pale green, momentarily deepening in intensity of tone. Close
around the setting sun the gold was turning to flame, and, as the
glory of magnificent colouring spread over all the south, the clouds
took every rainbow hue, as though charged with a galaxy of living,
palpitating radiance, grand yet fateful, a God-painted picture of
battle and blazing cities, of routed hosts and desperate pursuit.
Overhead, and filling the arc from zenith to the outer edge of
sun-coloured cloud, the sky was a deep sapphire, half covered by soft,
rounded clouds of deeper sapphire still, only their edges tinged with
gleams of dull gold.
Another sweep of the magic wand, and, as the patches of pale aquamarine
deepened into emerald, the heavier clouds became heliotrope, and a
thick heliotrope haze floated gently across the wide plain, seawards.
The fires of crimson light blazed brighter in the gathering gloom of
rising mist and lowering cloud, but the sea shone with ever-increasing
clearness in the rapidly narrowing space of yet unhidden view.
For a moment the mist disappeared, as suddenly as it came; the sapphire
clouds took a deeper hue, heliotrope turned to purple, the crimson
lights were softer but richer in colour, streaked with narrow bands of
gold, and dark arrowlike shafts shot from the bow of Night.
Standing there, it was as though one were vouchsafed, for a moment,
a vision of the Heavenly City which enshrines the glory of God.
One caught one’s breath and shivered, as at the sound of violins
quivering under inspired fingers, or the voices of boys singing in a
cathedral choir.
All this while a solitary, ragged-edged cloud-kite hung, almost
motionless, in middle distance, over the glittering waters of the river
mouth. This cloud gathered blackness and motion, spread itself out,
like a dark thick veil, and, as the mist, now grey and cold, closed in,
the last sparks of the dying sunset were extinguished in the distant
sea.
And then I was stumbling down the path in the darkness, my eyes blinded
by the glory of the vision; and as I groped through the gloom, and
heard the wail of the night-wind rushing from those far-away mountains,
across this lonely peak, I began to wonder whether I had not been
dreaming dreams conjured up by the sadly-sweet associations of the
place.
The darkness deepened, and, as I reached the dividing saddle and began
to mount the opposite hill, I heard the faint jingle of a dangling coin
striking metal, and I said to myself that such associations, acting
on the physical weariness resulting from days of intolerable strain,
followed by nights of worse regret, were enough to account for far
stranger journeys in the land which lies beyond the Gates of Ivory and
Horn.
II
OF WORSHIP
“This life--good as it can be--is horribly difficult and complicated.
I feel as though I were walking in the dark, just stumbling along and
groping my way--there seems to be no light to guide me--you are so far
away, and there is ever that wall between us,--no higher than before,
but quite as impenetrable--I wonder,--I wonder,--I wonder what the
future will bring to you,--to me.”
“I think of you up there, among the soft white clouds, watching the sun
setting into the sea, while the great blue hills are melting through
twilight into night. Oh! there’s nothing like that beauty here,--in
the West,--and I am sick for the East and all her hot, passionate
loveliness; all her colour and light; all her breadth and grandeur; for
her magnificent storms and life,--life on a big scale. Here everything
is so small, so petty, so trivial. I want,--I want,--I want,--that’s
how I feel; I am lovesick and heartsick and sick for the sun. Well,
this life is nearly done, and in the next I shall at least be
worshipped.”
That is well, and if you are worshipped you should not say “at least.”
What more can you want? Especially since, having all other things and
lacking worship, you would have nothing. They were not meant for this
application, but these old Monkish lines are worth remembering:--
“_Qui Christum nescit, nil scit, si cætera noscit.
Qui Christum noscit, sat scit, si cætera nescit._”
I hardly like to suggest it, but are you afraid of the “worship,” of
its quality, or its lasting properties? Or, assured on these points, do
you think worship alone will prove unsatisfying? I wonder.
It is an attractive subject, and women disagree as to how it should
be treated. The fact is, that they are seldom able to generalise;
they do not take any great interest in generalities, and the answer
to an impersonal question must have a personal application before it
can be given. And not that alone, for where, as in this case, and,
indeed, all those of greatest human interest, another person, a
special person, is concerned, then the answer depends largely on that
other person as well. You can, perhaps, in your own mind, think of
some one or more from whom you would rather have a little worship,
than become an object of lifelong adoration to many others who have
seemed anxious to offer it. And that is not because their all was
less than the little of those with a larger capacity for the worship
of human beings, nor even because their appreciation of your personal
worth is in any degree limited, or smaller by comparison with that of
others. Probably it is exactly the reverse. But I will ask you, of your
sweetness and light, to give me knowledge. Would you rather have the
absolute, unsought worship of a man, or would you win, perchance even
from his unwillingness, a devotion that, if it was not thrown at you,
was probably, when gained, not likely to burn itself out in a blaze of
ardent protestations? You will, of course, say that it depends on the
attitude assumed by the man, and I reply that it does not, because the
same man would never be found ready to render his service in either
of these--well--disguises, if you will. It would be in one or in the
other. Therefore my question will admit of the personal application,
and you can go through your acquaintances, admirers, friends (I dare
not say the other word), and tell me whether you would be most attracted
by the man who fell at your feet and worshipped, giving of his ample
store without effort and without stint, or by the man who, if he were
a woman, would be called _difficile_. This problem will give you
no trouble if, as I said before, you can work it out as a personal
equation, and it is therefore only necessary that you should have
amongst your friends two men of the required types.
In return for your anticipated answer, I will give you this. There are
many men who pay their court to women, if not all in one breath, or
at one sitting, at least the phase is limited by a definite period.
That period is usually shorter or longer in the inverse ratio of the
violence of the attack. The operations result in a decisive action,
where the man is either worsted or victorious. If he gains his end, and
persuades the lady to take him for whatever he is worth, the ordinary
type of Englishman will very often consider that his obligation towards
her as an idolater, a lover,--whatever name you call the part by,--is
over when the curtain comes down on the procession to the altar or
to the office of the Registrar, or, at any rate, when the honeymoon
has set and the duty-moon rises to wax and wane for evermore. That is
the man to avoid; and if the womanly instinct, which is so useful and
so little understanded of men (until they learn to fear its unerring
accuracy), is only called upon in time, it will not mislead its owner.
You know all this, you will say; very likely, but it is extraordinary
how many thousands of women, especially English women, there are who
are now eating out their hearts, because they neglected either to ask
this question of their instincts or disregarded the answer. Probably
it is very seldom asked; for a girl is hardly likely to suppose that,
after feeding her on love for a few weeks, or months, the man will
starve her of the one thing needful, until death does at last part
them. He says he has not time for love-making, and he acts as though
he had not the inclination either, though probably, somewhere in his
system he keeps the forces that once stirred him to expressions of
affection that now seem as needless as it would be to ask his servants
for permission to eat the dinner which he has paid for, and which he
can take or neglect, praise or find fault with, at his own will and
pleasure.
That is a very long homily, but it has grown out of the point of the
pen, possibly because I am sitting here alone, “up in the soft white
clouds,” as you say, or rather in the softer moonlight; and some of the
littlenesses of life loom large, but not over-large, considering their
bearing on the lifelong happiness, or misery, of men and women.
Yes, I am sitting exactly where you imagined. It was on that sofa
that you used to lie in the evenings, when you were too feeble to sit
up, and I read to you out of a book of knowledge. But that was years
and years ago, and now you wonder. Well, I too wonder, and--there, it
has just struck 1 A.M.--I will wonder no more, but look out at the
surpassing loveliness of this white night, and then--rest.
It is so strange, I have come back to tell you. The soft white clouds
are actually there--motionless--they cover everything, sea and plain
and valley, everything but the loftiest ridges of this mountain. The
moon rides high, turning to silver the tops of the great billowy
clouds, while it shines full on this house and garden, casting deep
shadows from the fern-trees across the gravel, and, from the eaves and
pillars of the house, across the verandah. The air is perfectly still
now, though, some hours ago, it was blowing a gale and the wind wailed
as though mourning its own lost soul.
It seemed then, as it tore round the corner of the house, to be
crying, “I come from the rice swamps which have no dividing banks,
from the waters which contain no fish, where the apes cry by night
and the baboons drink as they hang from the boughs; a place where the
_chinchîli_ resorts to bathe, and where man’s food is the _kĕmahang_
fern.” Some day I will tell you more about that place.
And the spirits of the storm that have passed and left this death-like
stillness, where are they now? They went seaward, westward, to
you-ward, but they will never reach you, and you will not hear their
message.
III
WEST AND EAST
One night, in the early months of this year, I sat at dinner next to a
comparatively young married woman, of the type that is superlatively
blonde in colour and somewhat over-ample in figure. She was
indifferently dressed, not very well informed, but apparently anxious,
by dint of much questioning, to improve her knowledge where possible.
She was, I believe, a journalist.
Some one must have told her that I had been in the East, and she,
like most stay-at-home people, evidently thought that those who go
beyond the shores of England can only be interested in, or have an
acquaintance with, the foreign country wherein they have sojourned.
Therefore the lady fired at me a volley of questions, about the
manners and habits of the Malay people, whom she always referred to as
“savages.” I ventured to say that she must have a mistaken, or at any
rate incomplete, knowledge of the race to speak of Malays as savages,
but she assured me that people who were black, and not Christians,
could only be as she described them. I declined to accept that
definition, and added that Malays are not black. I fancy she did not
believe me; but she said it did not matter, as they were not white and
wore no clothes. I am afraid I began to be almost irritated, for the
long waits between the courses deprived me of all shelter from the rain
of questions and inconsequent remarks.
At last, I said, “It may surprise you to hear that these savages would
think, if they saw you now, that you are very insufficiently clad;”
and I added, to try and take the edge off a speech that I felt was
inexcusably rude, “they consider the ordinary costume of white _men_ so
immodest as to be almost indecent.” “Indeed,” said the lady, who only
seemed to hear the last statement, “I have often thought so too, but I
am surprised that savages, for I must call them savages, should mind
about such things.” It was hopeless, and I asked how soon the great
American people might be expected to send a force to occupy London.
I have just been reminded of this conversation. A few days ago, I wrote
to a friend of mine, a Malay Sultan, whom I have not seen for some
months, a letter inquiring how he was, and saying I hoped soon to be
able to visit him. Now comes his answer; and you, who are in sympathy
with the East, will be able to appreciate the missive of this truculent
savage.
In the cover there were three enclosures: a formal letter of extreme
politeness, written by a scribe, the Arabic characters formed as
precisely and clearly as though they had been printed. Secondly, a
letter written in my friend’s own hand, also in the Arabic character,
but the handwriting is very difficult to decipher. And thirdly there
is another paper, headed “Hidden Secrets,” written also in the
Sultan’s own hand. The following is a translation of the beginning
of the second letter. At the top of the first page is written, “Our
friendship is sealed in the inmost recesses of my heart.” Then this:
“I send this letter to my honoured and renowned friend” (here follow
my name, designation, and some conventional compliments). The letter
then continues: “You, my dear friend, are never out of my thoughts, and
they are always wishing you well. I hear that you are coming to see me,
and for that reason my heart is exceeding glad, as though the moon had
fallen into my lap, or I had been given a cluster of flowers grown in
the garden called _Bĕnjerâna Sri_, wide-opening under the influence of
the sun’s warm rays. May God the Most Mighty hasten our meeting, so
that I may assuage the thirst of longing in the happy realisation of
my affectionate and changeless regard. At the moment of writing, by
God’s grace, and thanks to your prayers, I and my family are in good
health, and this district is in the enjoyment of peace; but the river
is in flood, and has risen so high that I fear for the safety of the
bridge.”
There is more, but what I have quoted is enough to show you the style.
When the savage has turned from his savagery he will write “Dear sir,”
and “Yours truly”; his correspondence will be type-written, in English,
and the flaxen-haired lady will remark with approval that the writer is
a business man and a Christian, and hardly black at all.
Whilst the Malays are still in my mind, it may interest you to know
that they have a somewhat original form of verse in four-line stanzas,
each stanza usually complete in itself, the second and fourth lines
rhyming. The last two lines convey the sense, while the first two are
only introduced to get the rhythm, and often mean nothing at all. Here
are some specimens which may give you an idea of these _pantun_, as
they are called, though in translating them I have made no attempt to
give the necessary “jingle.”
“A climbing bean will gain the roof;
The red _hibiscus_ has no scent.
All eyes can see a house on fire;
No smoke the burning heart betrays.
Hark! the flutter of the death’s-head moth;
It flies behind the headman’s house.
Before the Almighty created Adam,
Our destinies were already united.
This is the twenty-first night of the moon,
The night when women die in child-birth.
I am but as a captive song-bird,
A captive bird in the hand of the fowler.
If you must travel far up river,
Search for me in every village;
If you must die, while I yet linger,
Wait for me at the Gate of Heaven.”
One of the fascinations of letter-writing is that one can wander at
will from one subject to another, as the butterflies flutter from
flower to flower; but I suppose there is nearly always something
that suggests to the writer the sequence of thought, though it might
be difficult to explain exactly what that something is. I think the
reference in the above stanzas to Adam and the Gate of Heaven,--or
Paradise,--have suggested to me the snake,
“And even in Paradise devise the snake,”
which reminds me that, last night, I said to the ancient and worthy
person to whom is entrusted the care of this house--
“Leave the drawing-room doors open while I am at dinner: the room gets
overheated.”
Then he, “I not like leave open the doors, because plenty snakes.”
“Snakes: where?”
“Outside, plenty snakes, leave doors open come inside.”
“What sort of snakes?”
“Long snakes” (stretching out his arm to show the length), “short
snakes” (measuring off about a foot with the other hand).
“Have you seen them?”
“Yes, plenty.”
This is cheerful news, and I inquire: “Where?”
“In bedrooms.”
“When?”
“Sometimes daytime, sometimes night-time.”
An even pleasanter prospect,--but I am still full of unbelief.
“Have you seen them yourself?”
“Yes, I kill.”
“But when and how was it?”
“One time master not here, lady staying here; daytime I kill one long
snake, here, this room--night-time lady call me, I kill one short snake
in bedroom.”
“Which bedroom?”
“Master’s bedroom.”
That is not exactly reassuring, especially when you like to leave
your doors and windows open, and sleep in the dark. I thank him, and
he goes away, having entirely destroyed my peace of mind. The wicked
old man! I wish I could have seen his face as he went out. Now I go
delicately, both “daytime” and “night-time,” above all at night-time,
and I am haunted by the dread of the “plenty long snake, plenty short
snake.” In one’s bedroom too, it is a gruesome idea. If I had gone on
questioning him, I dare say he would have told me he killed a “plenty
long snake” inside the bed, trying to warm itself under the bed-clothes
in this absurdly cold place. I always thought this a paradise, but
without the snake. Alas! how easily one’s cherished beliefs are
destroyed.
It is past midnight; the moon is full, and looking down, resplendent
in all her majesty, bathes everything in a silver radiance. I love to
go and stand in it; but the verandahs are full of ferns, roses and
honeysuckle twine round the pillars, the shadows are as dark as the
lights are bright, and everywhere there is excellent cover for the
“long snake” and the “short snake.” Perhaps bed is the safest place
after all, and to-morrow--well, to-morrow I can send for a mongoose.
IV
A CLEVER MONGOOSE
In my last letter I told you how the ancient who guards this Eden had
complained of the prevalence of snakes, and I, with an experience
which Adam does not appear to have possessed, determined to send for a
mongoose to deal with the matter. Well, I saw nothing of the serpent,
did not even dream about him, and forgot all about the mongoose. It is
the thought of what I last wrote to you that reminds me of an excellent
story, and a curious trick which I once witnessed, both having to do
with the mongoose.
First the story. A boy of twenty got into a train one day, and found,
already seated in the carriage, a man of middle age, who had beside
him, on the floor, a closed basket. The train started, and by-and-by
the boy, feeling dull, looked at his companion, and, to break the ice,
said--
“Is that your basket, sir?”
To which the stranger, who did not at all relish the idea of being
dragged into a conversation with a strange youth, replied, “Yes, it
is,” slightly stammering as he said it.
A pause,--then the boy, “I beg your pardon, but is there some beast in
it?”
The man, annoyed, “Ye--es, there’s a m--mongoose in it.”
The boy had no idea what a mongoose was, but he had the curiosity of
youth and was unabashed, so he said, “May I ask what the mongoose is
for?”
The man, decidedly irritated, and wishing to silence his companion,
“G--got a f--friend that sees snakes, t--taking the m--mongoose to
catch ’em.”
The boy concluded the stranger was mad, and wishing to pacify him,
said--
“Yes, but the snakes are not really there, are they?”
The man, “No, n--neither is the m--mongoose.”
Now as to my experience. Some years ago I was in Calcutta, and, walking
in the street one day, I was accosted by a man carrying a bag and
leading a mongoose by a string. He said, “I Madras man, master want
to see plenty trick, I very good conjurer,” and he produced a sheaf of
more or less grimy credentials, in which it was stated, by a number of
reputable people, that he was a conjurer of unusual skill. When I had
looked at some of the papers, he said, “I come master’s house, do
trick, this very clever mongoose, I bring him show master.”
I was quite willing, so I gave him my address and told him to come
whenever he liked.
Some days later the conjurer was announced, and there happened to be in
my rooms at the time a German dealer in Japanese curios, who had seen
rather more than usual during a sixteen years’ residence in Japan and
the Farthest East. He was an extremely amusing old person, and glad of
the opportunity of seeing the conjurer, who was duly admitted to our
presence with his bag of properties. The very clever mongoose came in
last, at the end of his string.
The conjurer certainly justified his reputation, and performed some
extremely clever tricks, while the mongoose sat by with a _blasé_
expression, taking very little interest in the proceedings. When the
conjurer had come to the end of his programme, or thought he had
done enough, he offered to sell the secret of any trick I liked to
buy, and, taking him at his word, I was shown several tricks, the
extreme simplicity of the deceit, when once you knew it, being rather
aggravating.
In the interest of watching the performance and the subsequent
explanations, I had forgotten the mongoose, and the conjurer was
already pushing his paraphernalia into the sack, when I said, “But the
mongoose, the clever mongoose, where is his trick?”
The conjurer sat down again, pulled the mongoose towards him, and tied
the end of his string to a chair leg, giving the little beast plenty
of rope on which to play. Then the man pushed round in front of him
an earthenware _chatty_ or water-vessel, which had hitherto stood on
the floor, a piece of dirty cloth being tied over its mouth. Next the
conjurer thrust his hand into the sack, and pulled out one of the
trumpet-mouthed pipes on which Indians play weird and discordant airs.
Now I want you to remember that this was my room, that the man’s
stock-in-trade was contained in the sack which he had pushed on one
side, that the pieces in the game were the mongoose, the _chatty_ (or
what it contained), and the pipe, while the lynx-eyed curio-dealer and
I sat as close as we pleased to see fair play. I am obliged to tell
you that; of what happened I attempt no explanation, I only relate
exactly what I saw.
The stage being arranged as I have described, the conjurer drew the
_chatty_ towards him, and said, “Got here one very good snake, catch
him in field this morning;” at the same time he untied the cloth, and
with a jerk threw on the floor an exceedingly lively snake, about three
feet long. From the look of it, I should say it was not venomous. The
conjurer had thrown the snake close to the mongoose, who jumped out of
its way with surprising agility, while the conjurer kept driving it
towards the little beast. Neither snake nor mongoose seemed to relish
the situation, and to force the game the conjurer seized the snake by
the tail, and, swinging it thereby, tried, two or three times, to hit
the mongoose with it. This seemed to rouse both beast and reptile, and
the mongoose, making a lightning-like movement, seized the snake by the
head, shook it for a second or two, dragging it over the matting, and
then dropped it on the floor. The instant the snake showed fight the
conjurer had let it go, and the mongoose did the rest.
Where the snake had been dragged, the floor was smeared with blood,
and now the creature lay, giving a few spasmodic twitches of its body,
and then was still. The conjurer pulled it towards him, held it up by
the tail, and said laconically, “Snake dead.” The mongoose meanwhile
sat quietly licking its paw as though nothing particular had happened.
As the man held it up I looked very carefully at the snake; one eye was
bulging out, by reason of a bite just over it; the head and neck were
covered with blood, and as far as my judgment went, the thing was dead
as Herod. The conjurer dropped the snake on the floor, where it fell
limply, as any dead thing would, then he put it on its back and coiled
it up, head inwards, saying again, “You see, snake dead.”
He left the thing lying there, and searched in his sack till he found
what appeared to be a very small piece of wood, it was, in fact,
exactly like a wooden match. The sack, all this time, was at his
side, but not close to him, while the snake was straight in front of
him, under our noses. Breaking off a very small piece of the wood,
he gave it to the mongoose, which began to eat it, apparently as a
matter of duty. At the same time the conjurer took an even smaller
bit of the same stuff, and opening the snake’s mouth, pushed the
stick, or whatever it was, inside, and then shut the mouth again. This
transaction would, I think, have convinced any one who saw it that
there was no life in the snake.
The conjurer now took up his pipe, and made it squeal some high
discordant notes. Then taking it from his lips, he said in Hindustani,
as he touched the snake’s tail with the pipe, “Put out your tail,”
and the creature’s tail moved slowly outwards, a little way from
the rest of the coiled body. The conjurer skirled another stave on
his pipe, and as he lowered the instrument with his left hand, he
exclaimed, “Snake all right now,” and stretched out his right hand
at the same instant, to seize the reptile by the tail. Either as
he touched it, or just before, the snake with one movement was up,
wriggling and twisting, apparently more alive than when first taken
out of the _chatty_. While the conjurer thrust it back into the vessel
there was plenty of time to remark that, miraculous as the resurrection
appeared to be, the creature’s eye still protruded through the blood
which oozed from the hole in its head.
As he tied the rag over the top of the _chatty_, the conjurer said,
with a smile, “Very clever mongoose,” gathered up his sack, took the
string of his clever assistant in his left hand, raised his right to
his forehead, and with a low bow, and a respectful “Salâam, Sahib,” had
left the room before I had quite grasped the situation.
I looked at the dealer in curios, and, as with Bill Nye, “he gazed upon
me,” but in our few minutes’ conversation, before he left, he could
throw no light on the mystery, and we agreed that our philosophy was
distinctly at fault.
That evening I related what had taken place to half-a-dozen men, all of
whom had lived in India for some years, and I asked if any of them had
seen and could explain the phenomenon.
No one had seen it, some had heard of it, all plainly doubted my story.
One suggested that a new snake had been substituted for that killed by
the mongoose, and another thought that there was no real snake at all,
only a wooden make-believe. That rather exasperated me, and I said I
was well enough acquainted with snakes to be able to distinguish them
from chair-legs. As the company was decidedly sceptical, and inclined
to be facetious at my expense, I said I would send for the man again,
and they could tell me how the thing was done when they had seen it.
I sent, and it so happened that the conjurer came on a Sunday, when I
was sitting in the hall, on the ground-floor of the house where I was
staying. The conjurer was already squatted on the white marble flags,
with his sack and his _chatty_ (the mongoose’s string held under his
foot), when my friends, the unbelievers, or some of them, returned
from church, and joined me to watch the proceedings. I will not weary
you by going through it all again. What took place then was an exact
repetition of what occurred in my room, except that this time the
man had a larger _chatty_, which contained several snakes, and when
he had taken out one, and the mongoose had consented to lay hold of
it, he worried the creature as a terrier does a rat, and, pulling his
string away from under his master’s foot, he carried the snake into
the corner of the room, whither the conjurer pursued him and deprived
him of his prey. The result of the encounter was that the marble
was smeared with streaks of blood that effectually disposed of the
wooden-snake theory. That little incident was certainly not planned by
the conjurer; but when the victim had been duly coiled on the floor and
the bit of stick placed (like the coin with which to fee Charon) within
its mouth, then, to my surprise, the conjurer re-opened the _chatty_,
took out _another_ snake, which in its turn was apparently killed by
the mongoose, and this one was coiled up and laid on the floor beside
the first victim. Then, whilst the first corpse was duly resuscitated,
according to the approved methods I have already described, the second
lay on the floor, without a sign of life, and it was only when No.
1 had been “resurrectioned,” and put back in the vessel, that the
conjurer took up the case of No. 2, and, with him, repeated the miracle.
This time I was so entertained by the manifest and expressed
astonishment of the whilom scoffers, that again the conjurer had gone
before I had an opportunity of buying this secret, if indeed he would
have sold it. I never saw the man again.
There is the story, and, even as it stands, I think you will admit
that the explanation is not exactly apparent on the surface. I can
assure you, however, that wherever the deception (and I diligently,
but unsuccessfully, sought to find it), the performance was the most
remarkable I have ever witnessed in any country. To see a creature,
full of life,--and a snake, at close quarters, is apt to impress you
with its vitality,--to see it killed, just under your eyes, to watch
its last convulsive struggles, to feel it in your hands, and gaze
at it as it lies, limp and dead, for a space of minutes; then heigh,
presto! and the thing is wriggling about as lively as ever. It is a
very curious trick--if trick it is.
That, however, is not quite all.
A month or two later I was sitting in the verandah of an hotel in Agra.
A number of American globe-trotters occupied most of the other chairs,
or stood about the porch, where I noticed there was a little knot of
people gathered together. I was idly staring into the street when the
words, “Very clever little mongoose,” suddenly attracted my attention,
and I realised that two Indian conjurers were amusing the party in the
porch. I went at once to the spot, and found the mongoose-snake trick
was just beginning. I watched it with great attention, and I noticed
that the mongoose only seemed to give the snake one single nip, and
there was very little blood drawn. The business proceeded merrily, and
in all respects in accordance with what I had already seen, until,
at the conclusion of the sort of Salvation-Army resurrection-march,
the juggler declared that the snake was quite alive and well--but he
was not, he was dead, dead as Bahram the Great Hunter. No piping
or tickling or pulling of his tail could awaken the very faintest
response from that limp carcass, and the conjurers shuffled their
things together with downcast faces, and departed in what the
spectators called “a frost.” To them, no doubt, the game was absolutely
meaningless; to me it seemed that the mongoose had “exceeded his
instructions.”
V
A BLUE DAY
“There is a green hill,” you know it well; it is not very “far away,”
perhaps a little over a mile, but then that mile is not quite like
other miles. For one thing it takes you up 500 feet, and as that is
the last pull to reach the highest point of this range (the summit
of a mountain over 5000 feet in height), the climb is steep. Indeed,
one begins by going down some rough stone steps, between two immense
granite boulders; then you make a half-circuit of the hill by a path
cut on the level, and thence descend for at least 250 feet, till you
are on the narrow saddle which joins this peak to the rest of the
range. Really, therefore, in a distance of little over half a mile
there is an ascent of 750 feet.
And what a path it is that brings you here! For I am now on the summit,
though several times on the way I was sorely tempted to sit down and
put on paper the picture of that road as it lay before my eyes. It is
a narrow jungle track, originally made by the rhinoceros, the bison,
and the elephant, and now simply kept clear of falling trees. It is
exceeding steep, as I have said, and you may remember. It begins by
following the stony bed of a mountain stream, dry in fine weather, but
full of water after half-an-hour’s tropical rain. Where the path
is not covered by roots or stones, it is of a chocolate colour; but,
in the main, it is overspread by a network of gnarled and knotted
tree-roots, which, in the lapse of ages, have become so interlaced
that they hide the soil. These roots, the stones round which they are
often twined, and the banks on either side, are covered by mosses in
infinite variety, so that when you look upwards the path stands like a
moss-grown cleft in the wood.
The forest through which this track leads is a mass of dwarfed trees,
of palms, shrubs, and creepers. Every tree, without exception, is
clothed with moss, wherever there is room to cling on branch or stem,
while often there are great fat tufts of it growing in and round the
forks, or at any other place with convenient holding. The trees are
moss-grown, but that is only where the innumerable creepers, ferns,
and orchids leave any space to cover. The way in which these things
climb up, embrace, and hang to every tree or stick that will give them
a footing is simply marvellous. Even the great granite boulders are
hidden by this wealth of irresistible vegetation. Through the green
foliage blaze vivid patches of scarlet, marking the dazzling blossoms
of a rhododendron that may be seen in all directions, but usually
perched high on some convenient tree. Then there is the wonderful
magnolia with its creamy petals; the jungle apple-blossom, whose white
flowers are now turning to crimson berries; the forest lilac, graceful
in form, and a warm heliotrope in colour. These first catch the eye,
but, by-and-by, one realises that there are orchids everywhere, and
that, if the blossoms are not great in size or wonderful in colour,
they are still charming in form, and painted in delicate soft tones of
lilac and brown, orange and lemon, while one, with strings of large,
pale, apple-green blossoms, is as lovely as it is _bizarre_.
As for palms, the forest is full of them, in every size, colour, and
shape; and wherever the sunlight can break through the foliage will be
found the graceful fronds of the giant tree-fern. Lastly, the ground
is carpeted with an extravagant luxuriance of ferns and flowers and
“creeping things innumerable, both small and great.” The wasteful
abundance of it all is what first strikes one, and then you begin to
see the beauty of the details. Masses of _lycopodium_, ringing all the
changes through wonderful metallic-blue to dark and light green, and
then to russet brown; there are Malay primroses, yellow and blue, and a
most delightful little pale-violet trumpet, with crinkled lip, gazing
towards the light from the highest point of its delicate stem. On
either side of this path one sees a dozen jungle flowers in different
shades of blue or lilac; it seems to be the prevailing colour for the
small flowers, as scarlet and yellow are for the great masses of more
striking blossom. And then there are birds--oh yes, there are birds,
but they are strange, like their surroundings. At the foot of this hill
I came suddenly on a great black-and-white hornbill, which, seeing me,
slowly got up and flew away with the noise of a train passing at a
distance. High up the path was a collection of small birds, flitting
and twittering amongst the leaves. There were hardly two of the same
plumage, but most of them carried their tails spread out like fans,
and many had pronounced tufts of feathers on their heads. The birds at
this height are usually silent, and, when they make any sound at all,
they do not seem to sing but to call; and from the jungle all round,
far and near, loud and faint, will be heard similar answering calls. I
was surprised to hear, suddenly, some bars of song, close by me, and I
waited for a long time, peering earnestly into the tree from which the
sound came; but I saw nothing and heard nothing beyond the perpetual
double note (short and long, with the accent on the latter) of a bird
that must be the bore and outcast of the forest.
Coming out into the clearing which crowns the hill, I passed several
kinds of graceful grasses, ten or twelve feet high, and the flight
of steps which leads to the actual summit is cut through a mass of
bracken, over and through which hang the strange, delicately painted
cups of the _nepenthes_, the stems of the bracken rising from a bed
made rosy by the countless blossoms of a three-pointed pale-pink
starwort.
In the jungle one could only see the things within reach, but, once on
the peak, one has only eyes for the grandeur and magnificence of an
unequalled spectacle.
The view seems limitless, it is complete in every direction, unbarred
by any obstruction, natural or artificial. First I look eastwards to
those great ranges of unexplored mountains, rising tier after tier,
their outlines clear as cut cameos against the grey-blue sky. Betwixt
them and my point of sight flows a great river, and though it is ten or
twelve miles distant as the crow flies, I can see that it is brown with
flood-water, and, in some places, overflowing its banks. Nearer lie the
green rice-fields and orchards, and, nearer still, the spurs of the
great range on whose highest point I stand.
Then northward, that is the view that is usually shut out from me.
It is only hill and dale, river and plain, but it is grand by reason
of its extent, beautiful in colour and form, intensely attractive in
the vastness of those miles of mysterious jungle, untrodden, save by
the feet of wild beasts; endless successions of mountain and valley,
peak and spur, immovable and eternal. You know there are grey days and
golden days; as there are crimson and heliotrope evenings, white, and,
alas! also black nights--well, this is a blue day. There is sunlight,
but it is not in your eyes, it only gives light without shedding its
own colour on the landscape. The atmosphere seems to be blue; the sky
is blue, except on the horizon, where it pales into a clear grey. Blue
forest-clad hills rise, in the middle distance, from an azure plain,
and the distant mountains are sapphire, deep sapphire. The effect is
strange and uncommon, but supremely beautiful.
Westward, a deep valley runs down from this range into the flat,
forest-covered plains, till, nearing the coast, great patches of light
mark fields of sugar-canes and thousands upon thousands of acres of
rice. Then the sea, the sea dotted by distant islands, the nearest
thirty miles away, the farthest perhaps fifty. The morning heat is
drawing a veil of haze across the distance; on a clear evening a great
island, eighty miles away to the northward, is clearly visible.
I turn to the south, and straight before me rises the grand blue peak
of a mountain, 6000 feet high, and not more than six miles away. It
is the highest point of a gigantic mass of hill that seems to fill
the great space between the flooded river and the bright calm sea.
Looking across the eastern shoulder of the mountain, the eye wanders
over a wide plain, lost far away to the south in cloud-wrapt distance.
Beyond the western slopes lies the calm mirror of a summer sea, whereon
many islands seem to float. The coast-line is broken, picturesque and
beautiful, by reason of its many indentations and the line of bold
hills which, rising sheer out of the water, seem to guard the shore.
Due west I see across the deep valley into my friend’s house,
where it crowns the ridge, and then beyond to that vast plain which,
in its miles and miles of forest-covered flatness, broken by great
river-mouths, long vistas of deep lagoons, and a group of shining pools
scattered over its surface, forms one of the strangest features in
this matchless panorama of mountain, river and plain, sea, sky, and
ever-changing cloud-effects.
There is an empty one-roomed hut of brown palm-leaves on this most
lonely peak. One pushes the mat window upwards and supports it on a
stick,--beneath the window is a primitive seat or couch. That is where
I have been sitting, a cool breeze blowing softly through the wide open
windows. I could not stay there any longer, the place seemed full of
memories of another day, when there was no need, and no inclination, to
look outside to see the beauty of the world and the divine perfection
of the Creator’s genius. And then I heard something, it must have
been fancy, but there was a faint but distinct jingle of metal.
It is better out here, sitting on a moss-grown boulder in the pleasant
warmth of the sun. The swifts are circling the hill, and they flash
past me with the hiss of a sword cleaving the air. I look down on the
tops of all these stunted trees, heavy with their burden of creepers
and mosses straining towards the light. A great bunch of pitcher-plants
is hanging in front of me, pitcher-plants a foot long, scarlet and
yellow, green and purple, in all the stages of their growth, their lids
standing tilted upwards, leaving the pitcher open to be filled by any
passing shower. But my eyes travel across all the intervening miles to
rest upon the sea, the sea which is now of a quite indescribable blue,
basking under a sky of the same colour. Out there, westward, if I could
only pierce the distance, I should see----
Ah! the great white clouds are rising and warning me to go. Good-bye!
good-bye! for you the missing words are as plain as these.
VI
OF LOVE, IN FICTION