Be careful not to pull the sail to the left.
In three months and ten days,
Thou wilt return, my brother!
Oh, my shelter! make for the island, Sri Rama;
For there are two marabouts and a fish-weir.
Though thou leavest me, be not long absent;
In two, at most in three, months, return again.
Oh, my shelter! the waters of the sea are calm,
Yet do not hug the shore.
Have no fear of my betrothed;
Was not thy sword but lately sharpened?
Oh, my shelter! thou camest to Teluk Bâtu,
And the peace of my heart has gone.
Satan delights in my undoing,
For my heart cleaves to thine.
Oh, my shelter! take good thought,
The passions war with the soul.
Do not waste the gold in thy hand,
Lest scoffers have cause to mock thee.
Oh, my Nakhôdah! when the mattress is spread, who will lie on it?
Who shall be covered by the folded coverlet?
Who will sit upon the embroidered mat,
Or lean against the great round pillow?
Oh, my Nakhôdah! the feast is waiting, but who will eat it?
The water is cool, but who will drink it?
The napkin is there, whose mouth can it wipe?
The sireh is ready, but who will use it?
Thy Sister is cold, who will fondle her?
Ah-hu! ah-hu! come death, deliver me.’
“And then she fell to weeping and moaning, struggling with her sisters,
and trying to cast herself into the sea.
“That is the tale of Ra’ûnah and Nakhôdah Ma’win, and every one
knows it. Some tell it one way and some another, but that is how it
came to me. The girl was mad, mad with love and regret for six months;
and then her father married her to another man, and that cured her. I
knew the man: he was a foreigner. She and two of her sisters died long
ago, but the other is alive still.
“How to get the dûyong’s tears? Oh, that is easy enough. You catch
the sea-woman when she comes up the sand to eat the sweet grass on
shore. I told you how to do it. You have to lie in wait and she
waddles up on two sort of fins that she uses like feet, helping with
her tail. If she sees you, she tries to get back into the sea, but you
stand between her and the water and so catch her. Then, if you want
her tears, you make a palisade of sticks in the deeper water of the
bay through which she came, and there you bind her in a sort of cage,
at the surface of the water, so that she can’t move. It is like the
thing they put elephants in when they are half-tamed. When she finds
she is held fast there, and cannot get down into the deep water to her
young, she weeps, and as the tears stream down her face you catch them,
sweep them into a vessel, and you have the philtre.”
There was a pause. Then a man said, “I hear they sell dûyong’s tears
in Penang.”
The teller of the story at once replied, “Very likely, I have heard it
too; but it is probably only some make-believe stuff. You must try it
before you buy it.”
“How do you do that?”
“Easily. Rub some of the philtre on a chicken’s beak; if it is really
potent, the chicken will follow you wherever you go!”
“Have you seen that yourself?”
“No. I want no love-philtres. I manage well enough without them. I
don’t care to play with a thing you can’t control. I might get into
trouble, like Nakhôdah Ma’win. It is easy enough to give the potion,
but I never heard what you do to stop it. Anyhow, if I wanted to buy
the stuff, I should first try it on a chicken, and if it had no effect
I should not believe in it, for every one knows that the story of
Ra’ûnah and Ma’win is true, or they would not sing about it to this
day. Hark! the teacher is calling to prayer.”
A number of boys’ high-pitched voices were chanting--
“_Bihak-illah, rizal-l’ Allah!
A’ain-nu na, bi-aun illah!_”
and, across their chorus, came the sonorous, far-reaching tones of the
priest--
“_Allah-hu akbar!
Allah-hu akbar!
Ashâd-du Allah, illah-ha il-Allah._”
When the little group of men had fallen into their places, and
the only sound in the building was the musical intoning of the
half-whispered prayers, I could not help musing on the extraordinarily
happy expression, “he found an old woman to _needle_ the way for
him.” Nothing could be more delightful than the symbol of the small,
insinuating, finely tempered, horribly sharp bit of steel that goes so
easily through things, and leaves no trace of its passage. And then
there is nearly always a thread behind it, and that remains when the
needle has gone!
I have translated Ra’ûnah’s lament for you absolutely literally,
except that the word which occurs so often, and which I have rendered
“shelter,” means “umbrella.” The umbrella here, as in other countries,
is an emblem of the highest distinction: a shelter from sun and rain,
a shield and protection, “the shadow of a great rock in a dry land.” A
yellow umbrella is a sign and token of sovereignty.
XXVII
MOONSTRUCK
Once I suggested to you that the greatest facts of life are, in
English, expressed by the smallest words, and, with that dainty,
hesitating manner that is so captivating, you almost consented to
agree. Look, for instance, at these words: God, sin, good, bad, day,
night, sun, moon, light, dark, heat, cold, earth, sky, sea, world,
peace, war, joy, pain, eat, drink, sleep, love, hate, birth, death.
They cover a good deal of ground, and you can easily add to them. A
philologist would tell you why the most profound conceptions, the
most important abstract facts, are denoted by simple words, but the
explanation might not interest you. The circle of my acquaintances does
not include a philologist; my nearest approach to such dissipation is a
friend who pretends to be a lexicographer. Now look at that word, it is
long enough in all conscience, but the idea which it represents only
makes one tired.
Whilst a good reason could be found for expressing original principles
in monosyllables, I wonder if any one can say why that fantastic
product of this century, the (so-called) educated Indian, revels in
the use and misuse of all the longest words he can find to convey his,
sometimes grotesque, but nearly always commonplace, thoughts, when he
tries to put them in English. Curiously enough, this transcendental
language, which is the peculiar pride of the Indian babu, leaves on
the mind of the listener no concrete idea, no definite conception of
what the speaker wants to say; but it does invariably conjure up a
figure typical of the class which employs this barbarous tongue as
a high-sounding medium in which to disguise its shallow thoughts.
And then one feels sorry for the poor overthrown words, the maimed
quotations, and the slaughtered sentences, so that one realises how
happy is that description which speaks of the English conversation of
East Indians as a _mêlée_, wherein the words lie about “like dead men
on a battle-field.” There must be something in the Indian’s character
to account for this; and, as a great stream of words pours from the
narrow channel of his mind, and gives expression to his turgid thoughts
in an avalanche of sound, so you will see the same extravagance of
outward display in the manner of his life, in his strange garments, his
sham jewellery, and his pitiful and disastrous attempts to ape what he
thinks is the riotous “fastness” of the quite white man. Behind this
outward seeming, there is also, in many cases, nothing, and sometimes
even less than that. Misapplied English education has a good deal to
answer for, and, if the babu has a soul, it may demand a reckoning
from those who gave it a speech in which to make known the impossible
aspirations of a class that is as rich in wordy agitation as it is poor
in the spirit and physique of a ruling race. Many babus cannot quench
revolt. Perhaps the babu is the “thing too much” in India; they could
do without him. And yet he and education, combined, make a growing
danger that may yet have to be counted with. But enough of the babu; I
cannot think how he got into my letter.
* * * * *
My visit to this strange and beautiful country is over. For the last
time a steamer is hurrying me down one of those great waterways
which, until recent times, have been the only means of getting into
this mysterious land. The dying day supplied a feast of colour, of
momentarily changing pictures that, however familiar, seem always new,
always resplendent with amazing lights, delicate half-tints, and soft
shadows, such as only a moisture-charged atmosphere and a fiery sun can
produce. Does the thought of such an evening ever come back to you,
or are you trying to accustom yourself to the greys and neutral tints
of the life of resignation? Ah! The moon is just rising; the scene is
quite enchanting, and I must try to tell you exactly what I see.
The river is six or seven hundred yards wide. It is high tide, and,
to the eye, the picture has but three component parts--sky, wood,
and water. Sky and water are divided by a belt of wood which borders
the river. The continuous belt of trees, of varying height, growing
from out the river and up the bank, makes a deeply indented line
of vegetation. This belt is unbroken, but it rises into plumes and
graceful fronds, where some loftier palm or giant jungle-tree towers
above its neighbours, and all its foliage shows clear as an etching
against the grey-blue background. Again, the belt dips and leaves
broken spaces of sky, where the foliage suddenly dwarfs. The sky is
dark grey just above the trees, but the grey changes to blue as the
eye travels upward, and overhead the zenith is sapphire, cloudless
sapphire spangled with stars. The water is like burnished gun-metal,
and, under the shore, there is a shadow as dark and wide as the line of
trees which throws it. The moon, a perfect circle of brilliant light,
not silver nor gold, but the colour produced by silvering over a golden
ground, has just risen, and rides a short space above the trees. In the
deepest shadow, exactly where water and land meet, there is a narrow
streak of amazingly bright light; then a space of darkness, covered
by the shadow of the trees, and then a veritable column of gold, the
width of the moon, and the length of the moon’s distance above the
trees. The column is not still, it is moved by the shimmer of the
water, and it dazzles the eyes. The effect is marvellous: this intense
brilliance as of molten gold, this pillar of light with quivering but
clearly-defined edges, playing on a mirror of dark burnished steel.
Then that weird glint of yellow flame, appearing and disappearing, in
the very centre of the blackest shadow, and, above all, the Queen of
Night moves through the heavens in superb consciousness of her own
transcendent beauty, calmly satisfied to recognise that the sapphire
firmament, and all the world of stars, are but the background and the
foils to her surpassing loveliness.
As the moon rises, the reflection in the river lengthens, widens,
breaks into ripples of amber, and shoots out arrows of paler light.
Soon there is a broad pathway of glittering wavelets, which opens out
into a great silvery road, and the light of the risen moon dispels the
grey fog that hung over the belt of jungle, and tinges with silver the
few fleecy clouds that emphasise the blueness of their background.
Then a dark curtain gradually spreads itself across the sky, dims the
moonlight, veils the stars, and throws a spell over the river, hiding
its luminous highway, and casting upon the water the reflection of its
own spectre-like form.
* * * * *
The fog clung to the river, but when we reached the sea the moon
reigned alone, paling the stars and filling the air with a flood of
delicious light. I was leaning over the side of the ship, wondering
where I could ever see such a sight again, when a man of the country
came and stood by me. I said something to him of the beauty of the
night, and he answered, “Yes, there are flowers in the moon.”
I asked him what he meant, and this is what he told me:--
“It was a night like this, and I was going with my mother, my wife,
and child to a neighbouring island to visit some relatives. We were
travelling by a small steamer, and in the early hours of the morning
were coasting along the shore of the island. The moon was then setting,
but it was extraordinarily brilliant, and I tried to find a spot in the
shadow where I could sleep. As I settled myself comfortably, I noticed
that my mother was standing, looking over the bulwark. It might have
been an hour later when I awoke, and, as we were near the port, I went
to rouse my people and collect my luggage. I could not find my mother
anywhere. The rest of my party and all the other passengers were asleep
till I roused them, and no one had seen or heard anything unusual. We
all of us searched the ship in every direction, but without success,
and the only conclusion was that the poor old lady had somehow fallen
overboard. By this time the vessel had reached the anchorage, and there
was nothing to be done but to go ashore. I took my family to the house
of our friends, some miles from the landing-place, and then wondered
what to do next. The village we had come to was on the shore, and not
very far from the place where I had last seen my mother on board the
ship. I determined, therefore, to drive to a spot as nearly opposite
that place as I could get, and then to walk along the beach, and ask at
the huts of the Chinese fishermen whether they had seen a body in the
water. The first two or three cottages I came to were empty, but I made
my way to a solitary hut which I saw standing in the centre of a tiny
bay. In that hut, to my surprise and great joy, I found my mother and
two Chinese fishermen. The men told me that they had gone out before
daylight to set their nets, and in the light of the moon, then almost
on the horizon, they saw a woman, as they described it, “standing in
the water,” so that, though her head only was visible, she seemed to be
upright, and they imagined she must be supported somehow, or resting
her feet on an old fishing stake, for the water was fifteen or twenty
feet deep there. She did not cry out or seem frightened, only rather
dazed. They rowed to the spot and pulled her into the boat, and just
then the moon sank out of sight. The old lady had lost her skirt, but
otherwise seemed little the worse, and, as far as the fishermen could
see, she was not resting on any support. When I asked her how she got
into the sea, she said she could not tell, but she was looking at the
moon, and she saw such lovely flowers in it that she felt she must try
to get to them. Then she found herself in the water, but all the time
she kept looking at the flowers till the fishermen pulled her into
their boat and brought her on shore. I took her to the house where we
were staying, and I have left her in the island ever since, because I
dare not let her travel by sea again.”
XXVIII
THE “DEVI”
I am in Agra. The Japanese say that if you have not been to Nikko
you cannot say _kekko_. That is an insular conceit, meant, no
doubt, originally for Japan and the Japanese only; but national
pride--speaking as the frog spoke who lived under half a coconut-shell,
and thought the limits of his vision comprised the universe--now
declares that the Nikko temples are incomparable. I cannot claim to
have seen all the great buildings in the world, but I have visited some
of the most famous, and I say with confidence that the Tâj at Agra is
the most perfect triumph of the architect’s and builder’s skill in
existence. I visited this tomb first by daylight, and it is difficult
to give you any idea of the extraordinary effect the first sight of it
produced on me. I drove in a wretched two-horse gharry, along a dusty
and uninteresting road, until the rickety vehicle was pulled up with
a jerk in front of a great red stone portal, and I got out. Through
that lofty Gothic arch, and framed by it, appeared a vision of white
loveliness, an amazing structure of dazzling marble, shooting towers
and minarets into a clear, blue, cloudless sky.
The Tâj--the Crown of Kings--stands on a raised terrace; it is a
considerable distance from the gate, and the eye is led to it by a
wide, straight path, bisecting a garden, which, at the first glance,
seems a mass of dark green foliage. The garden is extensive, and shut
in by a high wall. Just outside this wall, to right and left of the
Tâj, are a palace and a mosque of deep red sandstone. More than that
you cannot see, but the river Jumna flows under the rear wall of the
raised terrace on which the Tâj stands.
The marble monument, which contains the tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz
Mahal, is an enormous building, and represents seventeen years’ work
of a force of twenty thousand men. But the design is so faultless, the
proportions so perfect, the whole effect so exquisitely graceful, that,
until you are close to the wide steps leading up to the terrace, and
realise that men standing by the walls look almost like flies, you are
not struck by any sense of extraordinary size.
The building itself is superb. The conception is absolutely unique,
and the harmony of every part a crowning triumph; the splendour of
material, the purity of that dazzling, unbroken whiteness--these are a
joy and a delight.
But the surroundings, the setting in which this jewel stands, are so
marvellously well calculated to exactly frame the picture, that the
whole scene seems a vision, unearthly in its beauty. When once that
sensation passes, when one has gazed, and blinked, and rubbed one’s
eyes, and compassed the reality of it all, one is profoundly impressed
by the genius that could raise such a heavenly edifice, and one is
proudly thankful to have lived that hour of life, to have felt the soul
stir, and to carry away an imperishable memory of one of the noblest of
human achievements.
The main entrance is by a great arched door, bordered by Arabic
characters in black marble let into the white wall. Pierced marble
windows admit a dim and softened light to a lofty chamber. In the
comparative gloom one slowly discerns a marble wall surrounding the
centre space. The wall is inlaid with precious stones--jasper and
onyx, sardius and topaz, amethyst, chrysobel, and sapphire, set in
floral designs. Within this enclosure are the white marble tombs of
Shah Jahan and his wife.
Last night the moon was full, and, an hour before midnight, I went
and sat in that dark stone palace, and revelled in the beauty of a
spectacle that cannot be equalled on earth. It is said that the palace
was built for Royal ladies, and was specially designed to give them
the most perfect view of the Tâj. There is an open stone verandah,
over which I leaned and gazed in ecstasy at the scene. The dark trees
of the garden spread from under the walls of the palace over a wide
space of ground, and from them rose the incomparable Tâj; minarets,
walls, and windows, blazing with silver sheen under the direct rays
of the moon, softened in the half shadows, darkening to deep tones of
grey on the river face. Slightly to the left of the Tâj, and as far
beyond it as the Tâj was from me, stood the mosque, a splendid foil to
the glittering radiance of the tomb. In the shadow, cast by the great
mass of marble, rippled the shallow waters of the wide river. The rear
walls of the building are on the edge of the bank, and beyond the Tâj
the river stretches away in a silver ribbon towards the city. In a
line to the right of the Tâj, and distant about three miles, rises a
dark hill, crowned by the Palace and Citadel of Agra. The enclosing
walls and battlements, built of the same red sandstone, were scarcely
distinguishable from the hill; but the moonlight caught the white
marble buildings within, and innumerable lights twinkled from walls and
windows.
I must have been a long time in my solitude, intoxicated by the wonder
of the night and the splendour of the scene, when I heard the strains
of a violin, played with extraordinary skill. The music seemed familiar
(for I had heard the songs of many Eastern lands), and, moreover,
I became certain that the instrument was being played somewhere in
the great building wherein I chanced to be. The sounds ceased, but
presently the musician began a Persian dance which I recognised; and
as the wild air leaped from the strings in quickening waves of sound,
the devilry of the mad nautch seemed to possess me, and it became
impossible not to beat time to the rhythm of the music. Again there
was silence, and I wondered greatly who could make a violin throb
with such feeling, and where the minstrel could be. Whilst still
absorbed by these thoughts, and anxiously listening for the faintest
sound, my ear caught the strains of an Arab love-song that I knew well
enough, but had never heard played like this before, nor yet under
such circumstances. The air was in the minor key, and was, I knew,
played only on three strings, but it seemed to wail and shiver from the
instrument out into the night, through the trees, across the bright
lights and deep shadows, to mingle with the crooning of the river, to
fill the atmosphere and soar towards the empyrean. It was like the song
of a lark at the dawn of a day in spring. The power of the musician was
such that Tâj and city, mosque and river and garden faded away, and I
distinctly saw a narrow street in an Arab town. Flat-roofed buildings,
pierced by a few small iron-barred windows, lined either side of a
street, which rose in a gentle ascent till it twisted out of sight
round a distant corner. A brilliant moon, shining in a cloudless sky,
threw into white light the roofs on one side the street. But the houses
on the other side cast a deep shadow, and in that shadow a man, with
his back to me, was standing playing the three-stringed Arab _gambus_,
and singing--singing as though for his life, in a low, sweet voice--up
to a barred window whence issued a ray of yellow light. I thought I
could even understand the words of the passionate _serenata_, though I
know almost as little of the Arabic as of the Patagonian tongue. It was
the music, the angelic skill of the violinist, which had bewitched me,
and I stood enthralled by that soul-entrancing melody.
Before you write me down an emotional ass, remember where I was, and
try to imagine what I saw, what I heard. I cannot expect to impress you
with any true idea of either scene or song.
While those yearning, thrilling, imploring waves of sound cried to the
exquisite beauty of the night, I was spell-bound. But, in the silence
that followed, I reasoned that the music came from above me, probably
from the roof, and that I might well seek the author of it. I passed
through a maze of passages, where light and shadow alternated, and, as
I groped about to find a staircase, I was guided to my object by the
strains of the violin, and a gleam of light which, striking through a
narrow window, disclosed a winding stair.