"I don't know."

There was no collusion. She had not seen the pictures, and they had not

been mentioned. She ought to have thought of some recent news that came

to Paris, for we were but seven months from there and had been living

there a couple of years when we started on this trip; but instead of that

she thought of an incident of our brief sojourn in Paris of sixteen years

before.

Here was a clear case of mental telegraphy; of mind-transference; of my

mind telegraphing a thought into hers. How do I know? Because I

telegraphed an error. For it turned out that the pictures did not

represent the killing of Lulu at all, nor anything connected with Lulu.

She had to get the error from my head--it existed nowhere else.

CHAPTER XXXV.

The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the

earth; but he cannot stop a sneeze.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

WAUGANIUI, December 3. A pleasant trip, yesterday, per Ballarat Fly.

Four hours. I do not know the distance, but it must have been well along

toward fifty miles. The Fly could have spun it out to eight hours and

not discommoded me; for where there is comfort, and no need for hurry,

speed is of no value--at least to me; and nothing that goes on wheels can

be more comfortable, more satisfactory, than the New Zealand trains.

Outside of America there are no cars that are so rationally devised.

When you add the constant presence of charming scenery and the nearly

constant absence of dust--well, if one is not content then, he ought to

get out and walk. That would change his spirit, perhaps? I think so.

At the end of an hour you would find him waiting humbly beside the track,

and glad to be taken aboard again.

Much horseback riding, in and around this town; many comely girls in cool

and pretty summer gowns; much Salvation Army; lots of Maoris; the faces

and bodies of some of the old ones very tastefully frescoed. Maori

Council House over the river-large, strong, carpeted from end to end with

matting, and decorated with elaborate wood carvings, artistically

executed. The Maoris were very polite.

I was assured by a member of the House of Representatives that the native

race is not decreasing, but actually increasing slightly. It is another

evidence that they are a superior breed of savages. I do not call to

mind any savage race that built such good houses, or such strong and

ingenious and scientific fortresses, or gave so much attention to

agriculture, or had military arts and devices which so nearly approached

the white man's. These, taken together with their high abilities in

boat-building, and their tastes and capacities in the ornamental arts

modify their savagery to a semi-civilization--or at least to,

a quarter-civilization.

It is a compliment to them that the British did not exterminate them, as

they did the Australians and the Tasmanians, but were content with

subduing them, and showed no desire to go further. And it is another

compliment to them that the British did not take the whole of their

choicest lands, but left them a considerable part, and then went further

and protected them from the rapacities of landsharks--a protection which

the New Zealand Government still extends to them. And it is still

another compliment to the Maoris that the Government allows native

representation--in both the legislature and the cabinet, and gives both

sexes the vote. And in doing these things the Government also

compliments itself; it has not been the custom of the world for

conquerors to act in this large spirit toward the conquered.

The highest class white men Who lived among the Maoris in the earliest

time had a high opinion of them and a strong affection for them. Among

the whites of this sort was the author of "Old New Zealand;" and Dr.

Campbell of Auckland was another. Dr. Campbell was a close friend of

several chiefs, and has many pleasant things to say of their fidelity,

their magnanimity, and their generosity. Also of their quaint notions

about the white man's queer civilization, and their equally quaint

comments upon it. One of them thought the missionary had got everything

wrong end first and upside down. "Why, he wants us to stop worshiping

and supplicating the evil gods, and go to worshiping and supplicating the

Good One! There is no sense in that. A good god is not going to do us

any harm."

The Maoris had the tabu; and had it on a Polynesian scale of

comprehensiveness and elaboration. Some of its features could have been

importations from India and Judea. Neither the Maori nor the Hindoo of

common degree could cook by a fire that a person of higher caste had

used, nor could the high Maori or high Hindoo employ fire that had served

a man of low grade; if a low-grade Maori or Hindoo drank from a vessel

belonging to a high-grade man, the vessel was defiled, and had to be

destroyed. There were other resemblances between Maori tabu and Hindoo

caste-custom.

Yesterday a lunatic burst into my quarters and warned me that the Jesuits

were going to "cook" (poison) me in my food, or kill me on the stage at

night. He said a mysterious sign was visible upon my posters and meant

my death. He said he saved Rev. Mr. Haweis's life by warning him that

there were three men on his platform who would kill him if he took his

eyes off them for a moment during his lecture. The same men were in my

audience last night, but they saw that he was there. "Will they be there

again to-night?" He hesitated; then said no, he thought they would

rather take a rest and chance the poison. This lunatic has no delicacy.

But he was not uninteresting. He told me a lot of things. He said he

had "saved so many lecturers in twenty years, that they put him in the

asylum." I think he has less refinement than any lunatic I have met.

December 8. A couple of curious war-monuments here at Wanganui. One is

in honor of white men "who fell in defence of law and order against

fanaticism and barbarism." Fanaticism. We Americans are English in

blood, English in speech, English in religion, English in the essentials

of our governmental system, English in the essentials of our

civilization; and so, let us hope, for the honor of the blend, for the

honor of the blood, for the honor of the race, that that word got there

through lack of heedfulness, and will not be suffered to remain. If you

carve it at Thermopylae, or where Winkelried died, or upon Bunker Hill

monument, and read it again "who fell in defence of law and order against

fanaticism" you will perceive what the word means, and how mischosen it

is. Patriotism is Patriotism. Calling it Fanaticism cannot degrade it;

nothing can degrade it. Even though it be a political mistake, and a

thousand times a political mistake, that does not affect it; it is

honorable always honorable, always noble--and privileged to hold its head

up and look the nations in the face. It is right to praise these brave

white men who fell in the Maori war--they deserve it; but the presence of

that word detracts from the dignity of their cause and their deeds, and

makes them appear to have spilt their blood in a conflict with ignoble

men, men not worthy of that costly sacrifice. But the men were worthy.

It was no shame to fight them. They fought for their homes, they fought

for their country; they bravely fought and bravely fell; and it would

take nothing from the honor of the brave Englishmen who lie under the

monument, but add to it, to say that they died in defense of English laws

and English homes against men worthy of the sacrifice--the Maori

patriots.

The other monument cannot be rectified. Except with dynamite. It is a

mistake all through, and a strangely thoughtless one. It is a monument

erected by white men to Maoris who fell fighting with the whites and

against their own people, in the Maori war. "Sacred to the memory of the

brave men who fell on the 14th of May, 1864," etc. On one side are the

names of about twenty Maoris. It is not a fancy of mine; the monument

exists. I saw it. It is an object-lesson to the rising generation. It

invites to treachery, disloyalty, unpatriotism. Its lesson, in frank

terms is, "Desert your flag, slay your people, burn their homes, shame

your nationality--we honor such."

December 9. Wellington. Ten hours from Wanganui by the Fly.

December 12. It is a fine city and nobly situated. A busy place, and

full of life and movement. Have spent the three days partly in walking

about, partly in enjoying social privileges, and largely in idling around

the magnificent garden at Hutt, a little distance away, around the shore.

I suppose we shall not see such another one soon.

We are packing to-night for the return-voyage to Australia. Our stay in

New Zealand has been too brief; still, we are not unthankful for the

glimpse which we have had of it.

The sturdy Maoris made the settlement of the country by the whites rather

difficult. Not at first--but later. At first they welcomed the whites,

and were eager to trade with them--particularly for muskets; for their

pastime was internecine war, and they greatly preferred the white man's

weapons to their own. War was their pastime--I use the word advisedly.

They often met and slaughtered each other just for a lark, and when there

was no quarrel. The author of "Old New Zealand" mentions a case where a

victorious army could have followed up its advantage and exterminated the

opposing army, but declined to do it; explaining naively that "if we did

that, there couldn't be any more fighting." In another battle one army

sent word that it was out of ammunition, and would be obliged to stop

unless the opposing army would send some. It was sent, and the fight

went on.

In the early days things went well enough. The natives sold land without

clearly understanding the terms of exchange, and the whites bought it

without being much disturbed about the native's confusion of mind. But

by and by the Maori began to comprehend that he was being wronged; then

there was trouble, for he was not the man to swallow a wrong and go aside

and cry about it. He had the Tasmanian's spirit and endurance, and a

notable share of military science besides; and so he rose against the

oppressor, did this gallant "fanatic," and started a war that was not

brought to a definite end until more than a generation had sped.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is

cowardice.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is

pronounced Jackson.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Friday, December 13. Sailed, at 3 p.m., in the 'Mararoa'. Summer seas

and a good ship-life has nothing better.

Monday. Three days of paradise. Warm and sunny and smooth; the sea a

luminous Mediterranean blue . . . . One lolls in a long chair all day

under deck-awnings, and reads and smokes, in measureless content. One

does not read prose at such a time, but poetry. I have been reading the

poems of Mrs. Julia A. Moore, again, and I find in them the same grace

and melody that attracted me when they were first published, twenty years

ago, and have held me in happy bonds ever since.

"The Sentimental Song Book" has long been out of print, and has been

forgotten by the world in general, but not by me. I carry it with me

always--it and Goldsmith's deathless story.

Indeed, it has the same deep charm for me that the Vicar of Wakefield

has, and I find in it the same subtle touch--the touch that makes an

intentionally humorous episode pathetic and an intentionally pathetic one

funny. In her time Mrs. Moore was called "the Sweet Singer of Michigan,"

and was best known by that name. I have read her book through twice

today, with the purpose of determining which of her pieces has most

merit, and I am persuaded that for wide grasp and sustained power,

"William Upson" may claim first place:

WILLIAM UPSON.

Air--"The Major's Only Son."

Come all good people far and near,

Oh, come and see what you can hear,

It's of a young man true and brave,

That is now sleeping in his grave.

Now, William Upson was his name

If it's not that, it's all the same

He did enlist in a cruel strife,

And it caused him to lose his life.

He was Perry Upson's eldest son,

His father loved his noble son,

This son was nineteen years of age

When first in the rebellion he engaged.

His father said that he might go,

But his dear mother she said no,

"Oh! stay at home, dear Billy," she said,

But she could not turn his head.

He went to Nashville, in Tennessee,

There his kind friends he could not see;

He died among strangers, so far away,

They did not know where his body lay.

He was taken sick and lived four weeks,

And Oh! how his parents weep,

But now they must in sorrow mourn,

For Billy has gone to his heavenly home.

Oh! if his mother could have seen her son,

For she loved him, her darling son;

If she could heard his dying prayer,

It would ease her heart till she met him there.

How it would relieve his mother's heart

To see her son from this world depart,

And hear his noble words of love,

As he left this world for that above.

Now it will relieve his mother's heart,

For her son is laid in our graveyard;

For now she knows that his grave is near,

She will not shed so many tears.

Although she knows not that it was her son,

For his coffin could not be opened

It might be someone in his place,

For she could not see his noble face.

December, 17. Reached Sydney.

December, 19. In the train. Fellow of 30 with four valises; a slim

creature, with teeth which made his mouth look like a neglected

churchyard. He had solidified hair--solidified with pomatum; it was all

one shell. He smoked the most extraordinary cigarettes--made of some

kind of manure, apparently. These and his hair made him smell like the

very nation. He had a low-cut vest on, which exposed a deal of frayed

and broken and unclean shirtfront. Showy studs, of imitation gold--they

had made black disks on the linen. Oversized sleeve buttons of imitation

gold, the copper base showing through. Ponderous watch-chain of

imitation gold. I judge that he couldn't tell the time by it, for he

asked Smythe what time it was, once. He wore a coat which had been gay

when it was young; 5-o'clock-tea-trousers of a light tint, and

marvelously soiled; yellow mustache with a dashing upward whirl at the

ends; foxy shoes, imitation patent leather. He was a novelty--an

imitation dude. He would have been a real one if he could have afforded

it. But he was satisfied with himself. You could see it in his

expression, and in all his attitudes and movements. He was living in a

dude dreamland where all his squalid shams were genuine, and himself a

sincerity. It disarmed criticism, it mollified spite, to see him so

enjoy his imitation languors, and arts, and airs, and his studied

daintinesses of gesture and misbegotten refinements. It was plain to me

that he was imagining himself the Prince of Wales, and was doing

everything the way he thought the Prince would do it. For bringing his

four valises aboard and stowing them in the nettings, he gave his porter

four cents, and lightly apologized for the smallness of the gratuity

--just with the condescendingest little royal air in the world. He

stretched himself out on the front seat and rested his pomatum-cake on

the middle arm, and stuck his feet out of the window, and began to pose

as the Prince and work his dreams and languors for exhibition; and he

would indolently watch the blue films curling up from his cigarette, and

inhale the stench, and look so grateful; and would flip the ash away with

the daintiest gesture, unintentionally displaying his brass ring in the

most intentional way; why, it was as good as being in Marlborough House

itself to see him do it so like.

There was other scenery in the trip. That of the Hawksbury river, in the

National Park region, fine--extraordinarily fine, with spacious views of

stream and lake imposingly framed in woody hills; and every now and then

the noblest groupings of mountains, and the most enchanting

rearrangements of the water effects. Further along, green flats, thinly

covered with gum forests, with here and there the huts and cabins of

small farmers engaged in raising children. Still further along, arid

stretches, lifeless and melancholy. Then Newcastle, a rushing town,

capital of the rich coal regions. Approaching Scone, wide farming and

grazing levels, with pretty frequent glimpses of a troublesome plant--a

particularly devilish little prickly pear, daily damned in the orisons of

the agriculturist; imported by a lady of sentiment, and contributed

gratis to the colony. Blazing hot, all day.

December 20. Back to Sydney. Blazing hot again. From the newspaper,

and from the map, I have made a collection of curious names of

Australasian towns, with the idea of making a poem out of them:

Tumut

Takee

Murriwillumba

Bowral

Ballarat

Mullengudgery

Murrurundi

Wagga-Wagga

Wyalong

Murrumbidgee

Goomeroo

Wolloway

Wangary

Wanilla

Worrow

Koppio

Yankalilla

Yaranyacka

Yackamoorundie

Kaiwaka

Coomooroo

Tauranga

Geelong

Tongariro

Kaikoura

Wakatipu

Oohipara

Waitpinga

Goelwa

Munno Para

Nangkita

Myponga

Kapunda

Kooringa

Penola

Nangwarry

Kongorong

Comaum

Koolywurtie

Killanoola

Naracoorte

Muloowurtie

Binnum

Wallaroo

Wirrega

Mundoora

Hauraki

Rangiriri

Teawamute

Taranaki

Toowoomba

Goondiwindi

Jerrilderie

Whangaroa

Wollongong

Woolloomooloo

Bombola

Coolgardie

Bendigo

Coonamble

Cootamundra

Woolgoolga

Mittagong

Jamberoo

Kondoparinga

Kuitpo

Tungkillo

Oukaparinga

Talunga

Yatala

Parawirra

Moorooroo

Whangarei

Woolundunga

Booleroo

Pernatty

Parramatta

Taroom

Narrandera

Deniliquin

Kawakawa.

It may be best to build the poem now, and make the weather help

A SWELTERING DAY IN AUSTRALIA.

(To be read soft and low, with the lights turned down.)

The Bombola faints in the hot Bowral tree,

Where fierce Mullengudgery's smothering fires

Far from the breezes of Coolgardie

Burn ghastly and blue as the day expires;

And Murriwillumba complaineth in song

For the garlanded bowers of Woolloomooloo,

And the Ballarat Fly and the lone Wollongong

They dream of the gardens of Jamberoo;

The wallabi sighs for the Murrubidgee,

For the velvety sod of the Munno Parah,

Where the waters of healing from Muloowurtie

Flow dim in the gloaming by Yaranyackah;

The Koppio sorrows for lost Wolloway,

And sigheth in secret for Murrurundi,

The Whangeroo wombat lamenteth the day

That made him an exile from Jerrilderie;

The Teawamute Tumut from Wirrega's glade,

The Nangkita swallow, the Wallaroo swan,

They long for the peace of the Timaru shade

And thy balmy soft airs, O sweet Mittagong!

The Kooringa buffalo pants in the sun,

The Kondoparinga lies gaping for breath,

The Kongorong Camaum to the shadow has won,

But the Goomeroo sinks in the slumber of death;

In the weltering hell of the Moorooroo plain

The Yatala Wangary withers and dies,

And the Worrow Wanilla, demented with pain,

To the Woolgoolga woodlands despairingly flies;

Sweet Nangwarry's desolate, Coonamble wails,

And Tungkillo Kuito in sables is drest,

For the Whangerei winds fall asleep in the sails

And the Booleroo life-breeze is dead in the west.

Mypongo, Kapunda, O slumber no more

Yankalilla, Parawirra, be warned

There's death in the air!

Killanoola, wherefore

Shall the prayer of Penola be scorned?

Cootamundra, and Takee, and Wakatipu,

Toowoomba, Kaikoura are lost

From Onkaparinga to far Oamaru

All burn in this hell's holocaust!

Paramatta and Binnum are gone to their rest

In the vale of Tapanni Taroom,

Kawakawa, Deniliquin--all that was best

In the earth are but graves and a tomb!

Narrandera mourns, Cameron answers not

When the roll of the scathless we cry

Tongariro, Goondiwindi, Woolundunga, the spot

Is mute and forlorn where ye lie.

Those are good words for poetry. Among the best I have ever seen.

There are 81 in the list. I did not need them all, but I have knocked

down 66 of them; which is a good bag, it seems to me, for a person not in

the business. Perhaps a poet laureate could do better, but a poet

laureate gets wages, and that is different. When I write poetry I do not

get any wages; often I lose money by it. The best word in that list, and

the most musical and gurgly, is Woolloomoolloo. It is a place near

Sydney, and is a favorite pleasure-resort. It has eight O's in it.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law,

concealment of it will do.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

MONDAY,--December 23, 1895. Sailed from Sydney for Ceylon in the P. & O.

steamer 'Oceana'. A Lascar crew mans this ship--the first I have seen.

White cotton petticoat and pants; barefoot; red shawl for belt; straw

cap, brimless, on head, with red scarf wound around it; complexion a rich

dark brown; short straight black hair; whiskers fine and silky; lustrous

and intensely black. Mild, good faces; willing and obedient people;

capable, too; but are said to go into hopeless panics when there is

danger. They are from Bombay and the coast thereabouts. Left some of

the trunks in Sydney, to be shipped to South Africa by a vessel

advertised to sail three months hence. The proverb says: "Separate not

yourself from your baggage."

This 'Oceana' is a stately big ship, luxuriously appointed. She has

spacious promenade decks. Large rooms; a surpassingly comfortable ship.

The officers' library is well selected; a ship's library is not usually

that . . . . For meals, the bugle call, man-of-war fashion; a

pleasant change from the terrible gong . . . . Three big cats--very

friendly loafers; they wander all over the ship; the white one follows

the chief steward around like a dog. There is also a basket of kittens.

One of these cats goes ashore, in port, in England, Australia, and India,

to see how his various families are getting along, and is seen no more

till the ship is ready to sail. No one knows how he finds out the

sailing date, but no doubt he comes down to the dock every day and takes

a look, and when he sees baggage and passengers flocking in, recognizes

that it is time to get aboard. This is what the sailors believe. The

Chief Engineer has been in the China and India trade thirty three years,

and has had but three Christmases at home in that time . . . .

Conversational items at dinner, "Mocha! sold all over the world! It is

not true. In fact, very few foreigners except the Emperor of Russia have

ever seen a grain of it, or ever will, while they live." Another man

said: "There is no sale in Australia for Australian wine. But it goes to

France and comes back with a French label on it, and then they buy it."

I have heard that the most of the French-labeled claret in New York is

made in California. And I remember what Professor S. told me once about

Veuve Cliquot--if that was the wine, and I think it was. He was the

guest of a great wine merchant whose town was quite near that vineyard,

and this merchant asked him if very much V. C. was drunk in America.

"Oh, yes," said S., "a great abundance of it."

"Is it easy to be had?"

"Oh, yes--easy as water. All first and second-class hotels have it."

"What do you pay for it?"

"It depends on the style of the hotel--from fifteen to twenty-five francs

a bottle."

"Oh, fortunate country! Why, it's worth 100 francs right here on the

ground."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Do you mean that we are drinking a bogus Veuve-Cliquot over there?"

"Yes--and there was never a bottle of the genuine in America since

Columbus's time. That wine all comes from a little bit of a patch of

ground which isn't big enough to raise many bottles; and all of it that

is produced goes every year to one person--the Emperor of Russia. He

takes the whole crop in advance, be it big or little."

January 4, 1898. Christmas in Melbourne, New Year's Day in Adelaide,

and saw most of the friends again in both places . . . . Lying here

at anchor all day--Albany (King George's Sound), Western Australia. It

is a perfectly landlocked harbor, or roadstead--spacious to look at, but

not deep water. Desolate-looking rocks and scarred hills. Plenty of

ships arriving now, rushing to the new gold-fields. The papers are full

of wonderful tales of the sort always to be heard in connection with new

gold diggings. A sample: a youth staked out a claim and tried to sell

half for L5; no takers; he stuck to it fourteen days, starving, then

struck it rich and sold out for L10,000. . . About sunset, strong

breeze blowing, got up the anchor. We were in a small deep puddle, with

a narrow channel leading out of it, minutely buoyed, to the sea.

I stayed on deck to see how we were going to manage it with such a big

ship and such a strong wind. On the bridge our giant captain, in

uniform; at his side a little pilot in elaborately gold-laced uniform; on

the forecastle a white mate and quartermaster or two, and a brilliant

crowd of lascars standing by for business. Our stern was pointing

straight at the head of the channel; so we must turn entirely around in

the puddle--and the wind blowing as described. It was done, and

beautifully. It was done by help of a jib. We stirred up much mud, but

did not touch the bottom. We turned right around in our tracks--a

seeming impossibility. We had several casts of quarter-less 5, and one

cast of half 4--27 feet; we were drawing 26 astern. By the time we were

entirely around and pointed, the first buoy was not more than a hundred

yards in front of us. It was a fine piece of work, and I was the only

passenger that saw it. However, the others got their dinner; the P. & O.

Company got mine . . . . More cats developed. Smythe says it is a

British law that they must be carried; and he instanced a case of a ship

not allowed to sail till she sent for a couple. The bill came, too:

"Debtor, to 2 cats, 20 shillings." . . . News comes that within this

week Siam has acknowledged herself to be, in effect, a French province.

It seems plain that all savage and semi-civilized countries are going to

be grabbed . . . . A vulture on board; bald, red, queer-shaped head,

featherless red places here and there on his body, intense great black

eyes set in featherless rims of inflamed flesh; dissipated look; a

businesslike style, a selfish, conscienceless, murderous aspect--the very

look of a professional assassin, and yet a bird which does no murder.

What was the use of getting him up in that tragic style for so innocent a

trade as his? For this one isn't the sort that wars upon the living, his

diet is offal--and the more out of date it is the better he likes it.

Nature should give him a suit of rusty black; then he would be all right,

for he would look like an undertaker and would harmonize with his

business; whereas the way he is now he is horribly out of true.

January 5. At 9 this morning we passed Cape Leeuwin (lioness) and

ceased from our long due-west course along the southern shore of

Australia. Turning this extreme southwestern corner, we now take a long

straight slant nearly N. W., without a break, for Ceylon. As we speed

northward it will grow hotter very fast--but it isn't chilly, now. . . .

The vulture is from the public menagerie at Adelaide--a great and

interesting collection. It was there that we saw the baby tiger solemnly

spreading its mouth and trying to roar like its majestic mother. It

swaggered, scowling, back and forth on its short legs just as it had seen

her do on her long ones, and now and then snarling viciously, exposing

its teeth, with a threatening lift of its upper lip and bristling

moustache; and when it thought it was impressing the visitors, it would

spread its mouth wide and do that screechy cry which it meant for a roar,

but which did not deceive. It took itself quite seriously, and was

lovably comical. And there was a hyena--an ugly creature; as ugly as the

tiger-kitty was pretty. It repeatedly arched its back and delivered

itself of such a human cry; a startling resemblance; a cry which was just

that of a grown person badly hurt. In the dark one would assuredly go to

its assistance--and be disappointed . . . . Many friends of

Australasian Federation on board. They feel sure that the good day is

not far off, now. But there seems to be a party that would go further

--have Australasia cut loose from the British Empire and set up

housekeeping on her own hook. It seems an unwise idea. They point to

the United States, but it seems to me that the cases lack a good deal of

being alike. Australasia governs herself wholly--there is no

interference; and her commerce and manufactures are not oppressed in any

way. If our case had been the same we should not have gone out when we

did.

January 13. Unspeakably hot. The equator is arriving again. We are

within eight degrees of it. Ceylon present. Dear me, it is beautiful!

And most sumptuously tropical, as to character of foliage and opulence of

it. "What though the spicy breezes blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle"--an

eloquent line, an incomparable line; it says little, but conveys whole

libraries of sentiment, and Oriental charm and mystery, and tropic

deliciousness--a line that quivers and tingles with a thousand

unexpressed and inexpressible things, things that haunt one and find no

articulate voice . . . . Colombo, the capital. An Oriental town,

most manifestly; and fascinating.

In this palatial ship the passengers dress for dinner. The ladies'

toilettes make a fine display of color, and this is in keeping with the

elegance of the vessel's furnishings and the flooding brilliancies of the

electric light. On the stormy Atlantic one never sees a man in evening

dress, except at the rarest intervals; and then there is only one, not

two; and he shows up but once on the voyage--the night before the ship

makes port--the night when they have the "concert" and do the amateur

wailings and recitations. He is the tenor, as a rule . . . . There

has been a deal of cricket-playing on board; it seems a queer game for a

ship, but they enclose the promenade deck with nettings and keep the ball

from flying overboard, and the sport goes very well, and is properly

violent and exciting . . . . We must part from this vessel here.

January 14. Hotel Bristol. Servant Brompy. Alert, gentle, smiling,

winning young brown creature as ever was. Beautiful shining black hair

combed back like a woman's, and knotted at the back of his head

--tortoise-shell comb in it, sign that he is a Singhalese; slender, shapely

form; jacket; under it is a beltless and flowing white cotton gown--from

neck straight to heel; he and his outfit quite unmasculine. It was an

embarrassment to undress before him.

We drove to the market, using the Japanese jinriksha--our first

acquaintanceship with it. It is a light cart, with a native to draw it.

He makes good speed for half-an-hour, but it is hard work for him; he is

too slight for it. After the half-hour there is no more pleasure for

you; your attention is all on the man, just as it would be on a tired

horse, and necessarily your sympathy is there too. There's a plenty of

these 'rickshas, and the tariff is incredibly cheap.

I was in Cairo years ago. That was Oriental, but there was a lack. When

you are in Florida or New Orleans you are in the South--that is granted;

but you are not in the South; you are in a modified South, a tempered

South. Cairo was a tempered Orient--an Orient with an indefinite

something wanting. That feeling was not present in Ceylon. Ceylon was

Oriental in the last measure of completeness--utterly Oriental; also

utterly tropical; and indeed to one's unreasoning spiritual sense the two

things belong together. All the requisites were present. The costumes

were right; the black and brown exposures, unconscious of immodesty, were

right; the juggler was there, with his basket, his snakes, his mongoose,

and his arrangements for growing a tree from seed to foliage and ripe

fruitage before one's eyes; in sight were plants and flowers familiar to

one on books but in no other way celebrated, desirable, strange, but in

production restricted to the hot belt of the equator; and out a little

way in the country were the proper deadly snakes, and fierce beasts of

prey, and the wild elephant and the monkey. And there was that swoon in

the air which one associates with the tropics, and that smother of heat,

heavy with odors of unknown flowers, and that sudden invasion of purple

gloom fissured with lightnings,--then the tumult of crashing thunder and

the downpour and presently all sunny and smiling again; all these things

were there; the conditions were complete, nothing was lacking. And away

off in the deeps of the jungle and in the remotenesses of the mountains

were the ruined cities and mouldering temples, mysterious relics of the

pomps of a forgotten time and a vanished race--and this was as it should

be, also, for nothing is quite satisfyingly Oriental that lacks the

somber and impressive qualities of mystery and antiquity.

The drive through the town and out to the Galle Face by the seashore,

what a dream it was of tropical splendors of bloom and blossom, and

Oriental conflagrations of costume! The walking groups of men, women,

boys, girls, babies--each individual was a flame, each group a house

afire for color. And such stunning colors, such intensely vivid colors,

such rich and exquisite minglings and fusings of rainbows and lightnings!

And all harmonious, all in perfect taste; never a discordant note; never

a color on any person swearing at another color on him or failing to

harmonize faultlessly with the colors of any group the wearer might join.

The stuffs were silk-thin, soft, delicate, clinging; and, as a rule, each

piece a solid color: a splendid green, a splendid blue, a splendid

yellow, a splendid purple, a splendid ruby, deep, and rich with

smouldering fires they swept continuously by in crowds and legions and

multitudes, glowing, flashing, burning, radiant; and every five seconds

came a burst of blinding red that made a body catch his breath, and

filled his heart with joy. And then, the unimaginable grace of those

costumes! Sometimes a woman's whole dress was but a scarf wound about

her person and her head, sometimes a man's was but a turban and a

careless rag or two--in both cases generous areas of polished dark skin

showing--but always the arrangement compelled the homage of the eye and

made the heart sing for gladness.

I can see it to this day, that radiant panorama, that wilderness of rich

color, that incomparable dissolving-view of harmonious tints, and lithe

half-covered forms, and beautiful brown faces, and gracious and graceful

gestures and attitudes and movements, free, unstudied, barren of

stiffness and restraint, and--

Just then, into this dream of fairyland and paradise a grating dissonance

was injected.

Out of a missionary school came marching, two and two, sixteen prim and

pious little Christian black girls, Europeanly clothed--dressed, to the

last detail, as they would have been dressed on a summer Sunday in an

English or American village. Those clothes--oh, they were unspeakably

ugly! Ugly, barbarous, destitute of taste, destitute of grace, repulsive

as a shroud. I looked at my womenfolk's clothes--just full-grown

duplicates of the outrages disguising those poor little abused creatures

--and was ashamed to be seen in the street with them. Then I looked at

my own clothes, and was ashamed to be seen in the street with myself.

However, we must put up with our clothes as they are--they have their

reason for existing. They are on us to expose us--to advertise what we

wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of

suppressed vanity; a pretense that we despise gorgeous colors and the

graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and

back it up. But we do not deceive our neighbor; and when we step into

Ceylon we realize that we have not even deceived ourselves. We do love

brilliant colors and graceful costumes; and at home we will turn out in a

storm to see them when the procession goes by--and envy the wearers. We

go to the theater to look at them and grieve that we can't be clothed

like that. We go to the King's ball, when we get a chance, and are glad

of a sight of the splendid uniforms and the glittering orders. When we

are granted permission to attend an imperial drawing-room we shut

ourselves up in private and parade around in the theatrical court-dress

by the hour, and admire ourselves in the glass, and are utterly happy;

and every member of every governor's staff in democratic America does the

same with his grand new uniform--and if he is not watched he will get

himself photographed in it, too. When I see the Lord Mayor's footman I

am dissatisfied with my lot. Yes, our clothes are a lie, and have been

nothing short of that these hundred years. They are insincere, they are

the ugly and appropriate outward exposure of an inward sham and a moral

decay.

The last little brown boy I chanced to notice in the crowds and swarms of

Colombo had nothing on but a twine string around his waist, but in my

memory the frank honesty of his costume still stands out in pleasant

contrast with the odious flummery in which the little Sunday-school

dowdies were masquerading.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

EVENING--11th. Sailed in the Rosetta. This is a poor old ship, and

ought to be insured and sunk. As in the 'Oceana', just so here:

everybody dresses for dinner; they make it a sort of pious duty. These

fine and formal costumes are a rather conspicuous contrast to the poverty

and shabbiness of the surroundings . . . . If you want a slice of a

lime at four o'clock tea, you must sign an order on the bar. Limes cost

14 cents a barrel.

January 18th. We have been running up the Arabian Sea, latterly.

Closing up on Bombay now, and due to arrive this evening.

January 20th. Bombay! A bewitching place, a bewildering place, an

enchanting place--the Arabian Nights come again? It is a vast city;

contains about a million inhabitants. Natives, they are, with a slight

sprinkling of white people--not enough to have the slightest modifying

effect upon the massed dark complexion of the public. It is winter here,

yet the weather is the divine weather of June, and the foliage is the

fresh and heavenly foliage of June. There is a rank of noble great shade

trees across the way from the hotel, and under them sit groups of

picturesque natives of both sexes; and the juggler in his turban is there

with his snakes and his magic; and all day long the cabs and the

multitudinous varieties of costumes flock by. It does not seem as if one

could ever get tired of watching this moving show, this shining and

shifting spectacle . . . . In the great bazar the pack and jam of

natives was marvelous, the sea of rich-colored turbans and draperies an

inspiring sight, and the quaint and showy Indian architecture was just

the right setting for it. Toward sunset another show; this is the drive

around the sea-shore to Malabar Point, where Lord Sandhurst, the Governor

of the Bombay Presidency, lives. Parsee palaces all along the first part

of the drive; and past them all the world is driving; the private

carriages of wealthy Englishmen and natives of rank are manned by a

driver and three footmen in stunning oriental liveries--two of these

turbaned statues standing up behind, as fine as monuments. Sometimes

even the public carriages have this superabundant crew, slightly

modified--one to drive, one to sit by and see it done, and one to stand

up behind and yell--yell when there is anybody in the way, and for

practice when there isn't. It all helps to keep up the liveliness and

augment the general sense of swiftness and energy and confusion and

pow-wow.

In the region of Scandal Point--felicitous name--where there are handy

rocks to sit on and a noble view of the sea on the one hand, and on the

other the passing and reprising whirl and tumult of gay carriages, are

great groups of comfortably-off Parsee women--perfect flower-beds of

brilliant color, a fascinating spectacle. Tramp, tramp, tramping along

the road, in singles, couples, groups, and gangs, you have the

working-man and the working-woman--but not clothed like ours. Usually

the man is a nobly-built great athlete, with not a rag on but his

loin-handkerchief; his color a deep dark brown, his skin satin, his

rounded muscles knobbing it as if it had eggs under it. Usually the

woman is a slender and shapely creature, as erect as a lightning-rod, and

she has but one thing on--a bright-colored piece of stuff which is wound

about her head and her body down nearly half-way to her knees, and which

clings like her own skin. Her legs and feet are bare, and so are her

arms, except for her fanciful bunches of loose silver rings on her ankles

and on her arms. She has jewelry bunched on the side of her nose also,

and showy clusterings on her toes. When she undresses for bed she takes

off her jewelry, I suppose. If she took off anything more she would

catch cold. As a rule she has a large shiney brass water jar of graceful

shape on her head, and one of her naked arms curves up and the hand holds

it there. She is so straight, so erect, and she steps with such style,

and such easy grace and dignity; and her curved arm and her brazen jar

are such a help to the picture indeed, our working-women cannot begin

with her as a road-decoration.

It is all color, bewitching color, enchanting color--everywhere all

around--all the way around the curving great opaline bay clear to

Government House, where the turbaned big native 'chuprassies' stand

grouped in state at the door in their robes of fiery red, and do most

properly and stunningly finish up the splendid show and make it

theatrically complete. I wish I were a 'chuprassy'.

This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth

and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of

famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers

and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations

and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods,

cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history,

grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays

bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations--the

one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable

interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant,

wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men

desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give

that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.

Even now, after the lapse of a year, the delirium of those days in Bombay

has not left me, and I hope never will. It was all new, no detail of it

hackneyed. And India did not wait for morning, it began at the hotel

--straight away. The lobbies and halls were full of turbaned, and fez'd

and embroidered, cap'd, and barefooted, and cotton-clad dark natives,

some of them rushing about, others at rest squatting, or sitting on the

ground; some of them chattering with energy, others still and dreamy; in

the dining-room every man's own private native servant standing behind

his chair, and dressed for a part in the Arabian Nights.

Our rooms were high up, on the front. A white man--he was a burly German

--went up with us, and brought three natives along to see to arranging

things. About fourteen others followed in procession, with the

hand-baggage; each carried an article--and only one; a bag, in some

cases, in other cases less. One strong native carried my overcoat,

another a parasol, another a box of cigars, another a novel, and the last

man in the procession had no load but a fan. It was all done with

earnestness and sincerity, there was not a smile in the procession from

the head of it to the tail of it. Each man waited patiently, tranquilly,

in no sort of hurry, till one of us found time to give him a copper, then

he bent his head reverently, touched his forehead with his fingers, and

went his way. They seemed a soft and gentle race, and there was

something both winning and touching about their demeanor.

There was a vast glazed door which opened upon the balcony. It needed

closing, or cleaning, or something, and a native got down on his knees

and went to work at it. He seemed to be doing it well enough, but

perhaps he wasn't, for the burly German put on a look that betrayed

dissatisfaction, then without explaining what was wrong, gave the native

a brisk cuff on the jaw and then told him where the defect was. It

seemed such a shame to do that before us all. The native took it with

meekness, saying nothing, and not showing in his face or manner any

resentment. I had not seen the like of this for fifty years. It carried

me back to my boyhood, and flashed upon me the forgotten fact that this

was the usual way of explaining one's desires to a slave. I was able to

remember that the method seemed right and natural to me in those days, I

being born to it and unaware that elsewhere there were other methods; but

I was also able to remember that those unresented cuffings made me sorry

for the victim and ashamed for the punisher. My father was a refined and

kindly gentleman, very grave, rather austere, of rigid probity, a sternly

just and upright man, albeit he attended no church and never spoke of

religious matters, and had no part nor lot in the pious joys of his

Presbyterian family, nor ever seemed to suffer from this deprivation. He

laid his hand upon me in punishment only twice in his life, and then not

heavily; once for telling him a lie--which surprised me, and showed me

how unsuspicious he was, for that was not my maiden effort. He punished

me those two times only, and never any other member of the family at all;

yet every now and then he cuffed our harmless slave boy, Lewis, for

trifling little blunders and awkwardnesses. My father had passed his life

among the slaves from his cradle up, and his cuffings proceeded from the

custom of the time, not from his nature. When I was ten years old I saw

a man fling a lump of iron-ore at a slaveman in anger, for merely doing

something awkwardly--as if that were a crime. It bounded from the man's

skull, and the man fell and never spoke again. He was dead in an hour.

I knew the man had a right to kill his slave if he wanted to, and yet it

seemed a pitiful thing and somehow wrong, though why wrong I was not deep

enough to explain if I had been asked to do it. Nobody in the village

approved of that murder, but of course no one said much about it.

It is curious--the space-annihilating power of thought. For just one

second, all that goes to make the me in me was in a Missourian village,

on the other side of the globe, vividly seeing again these forgotten

pictures of fifty years ago, and wholly unconscious of all things but

just those; and in the next second I was back in Bombay, and that

kneeling native's smitten cheek was not done tingling yet! Back to

boyhood--fifty years; back to age again, another fifty; and a flight

equal to the circumference of the globe-all in two seconds by the watch!

Some natives--I don't remember how many--went into my bedroom, now, and

put things to rights and arranged the mosquito-bar, and I went to bed to

nurse my cough. It was about nine in the evening. What a state of

things! For three hours the yelling and shouting of natives in the hall

continued, along with the velvety patter of their swift bare feet--what a

racket it was! They were yelling orders and messages down three flights.

Why, in the matter of noise it amounted to a riot, an insurrection, a

revolution. And then there were other noises mixed up with these and at

intervals tremendously accenting them--roofs falling in, I judged,

windows smashing, persons being murdered, crows squawking, and deriding,

and cursing, canaries screeching, monkeys jabbering, macaws blaspheming,

and every now and then fiendish bursts of laughter and explosions of

dynamite. By midnight I had suffered all the different kinds of shocks

there are, and knew that I could never more be disturbed by them, either

isolated or in combination. Then came peace--stillness deep and solemn

and lasted till five.

Then it all broke loose again. And who re-started it? The Bird of Birds

the Indian crow. I came to know him well, by and by, and be infatuated

with him. I suppose he is the hardest lot that wears feathers. Yes, and

the cheerfulest, and the best satisfied with himself. He never arrived

at what he is by any careless process, or any sudden one; he is a work of

art, and "art is long"; he is the product of immemorial ages, and of deep

calculation; one can't make a bird like that in a day. He has been

reincarnated more times than Shiva; and he has kept a sample of each

incarnation, and fused it into his constitution. In the course of his

evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he

has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a

blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading

politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a

reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a royalist, a

democrat, a practicer and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an

intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love

of it. The strange result, the incredible result, of this patient

accumulation of all damnable traits is, that be does not know what care

is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is,

his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and he will go to

his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an

author or something, and be even more intolerably capable and comfortable

than ever he was before.

In his straddling wide forward-step, and his springy side-wise series of

hops, and his impudent air, and his cunning way of canting his head to

one side upon occasion, he reminds one of the American blackbird. But

the sharp resemblances stop there. He is much bigger than the blackbird;

and he lacks the blackbird's trim and slender and beautiful build and

shapely beak; and of course his sober garb of gray and rusty black is a

poor and humble thing compared with the splendid lustre of the

blackbird's metallic sables and shifting and flashing bronze glories.

The blackbird is a perfect gentleman, in deportment and attire, and is

not noisy, I believe, except when holding religious services and

political conventions in a tree; but this Indian sham Quaker is just a

rowdy, and is always noisy when awake--always chaffing, scolding,

scoffing, laughing, ripping, and cursing, and carrying on about something

or other. I never saw such a bird for delivering opinions. Nothing

escapes him; he notices everything that happens, and brings out his

opinion about it, particularly if it is a matter that is none of his

business. And it is never a mild opinion, but always violent--violent

and profane--the presence of ladies does not affect him. His opinions

are not the outcome of reflection, for he never thinks about anything,

but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind, and which is often

an opinion about some quite different thing and does not fit the case.

But that is his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and if he

stopped to think he would lose chances.

I suppose he has no enemies among men. The whites and Mohammedans never

seemed to molest him; and the Hindoos, because of their religion, never

take the life of any creature, but spare even the snakes and tigers and

fleas and rats. If I sat on one end of the balcony, the crows would

gather on the railing at the other end and talk about me; and edge

closer, little by little, till I could almost reach them; and they would

sit there, in the most unabashed way, and talk about my clothes, and my

hair, and my complexion, and probable character and vocation and

politics, and how I came to be in India, and what I had been doing, and

how many days I had got for it, and how I had happened to go unhanged

so long, and when would it probably come off, and might there be more of

my sort where I came from, and when would they be hanged,--and so on, and

so on, until I could not longer endure the embarrassment of it; then I

would shoo them away, and they would circle around in the air a little

while, laughing and deriding and mocking, and presently settle on the

rail and do it all over again.

They were very sociable when there was anything to eat--oppressively so.

With a little encouragement they would come in and light on the table and

help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was in the other room and they

found themselves alone, they carried off everything they could lift; and

they were particular to choose things which they could make no use of

after they got them. In India their number is beyond estimate, and their

noise is in proportion. I suppose they cost the country more than the

government does; yet that is not a light matter. Still, they pay; their

company pays; it would sadden the land to take their cheerful voice out

of it.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's,

I mean.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

You soon find your long-ago dreams of India rising in a sort of vague and

luscious moonlight above the horizon-rim of your opaque consciousness,

and softly lighting up a thousand forgotten details which were parts of a

vision that had once been vivid to you when you were a boy, and steeped

your spirit in tales of the East. The barbaric gorgeousnesses, for

instance; and the princely titles, the sumptuous titles, the sounding

titles,--how good they taste in the mouth! The Nizam of Hyderabad; the

Maharajah of Travancore; the Nabob of Jubbelpore; the Begum of Bhopal;

the Nawab of Mysore; the Rance of Gulnare; the Ahkoond of Swat's; the Rao

of Rohilkund; the Gaikwar of Baroda. Indeed, it is a country that runs

richly to name. The great god Vishnu has 108--108 special ones--108

peculiarly holy ones--names just for Sunday use only. I learned the

whole of Vishnu's 108 by heart once, but they wouldn't stay; I don't

remember any of them now but John W.

And the romances connected with, those princely native houses--to this

day they are always turning up, just as in the old, old times. They were

sweating out a romance in an English court in Bombay a while before we

were there. In this case a native prince, 16 1/2 years old, who has been

enjoying his titles and dignities and estates unmolested for fourteen

years, is suddenly haled into court on the charge that he is rightfully

no prince at all, but a pauper peasant; that the real prince died when

two and one-half years old; that the death was concealed, and a peasant

child smuggled into the royal cradle, and that this present incumbent was

that smuggled substitute. This is the very material that so many

oriental tales have been made of.

The case of that great prince, the Gaikwar of Baroda, is a reversal of

the theme. When that throne fell vacant, no heir could be found for some

time, but at last one was found in the person of a peasant child who was

making mud pies in a village street, and having an innocent good time.

But his pedigree was straight; he was the true prince, and he has reigned

ever since, with none to dispute his right.

Lately there was another hunt for an heir to another princely house, and

one was found who was circumstanced about as the Gaikwar had been. His

fathers were traced back, in humble life, along a branch of the ancestral

tree to the point where it joined the stem fourteen generations ago, and

his heirship was thereby squarely established. The tracing was done by

means of the records of one of the great Hindoo shrines, where princes on

pilgrimage record their names and the date of their visit. This is to

keep the prince's religious account straight, and his spiritual person

safe; but the record has the added value of keeping the pedigree

authentic, too.

When I think of Bombay now, at this distance of time, I seem to have a

kaleidoscope at my eye; and I hear the clash of the glass bits as the

splendid figures change, and fall apart, and flash into new forms, figure

after figure, and with the birth of each new form I feel my skin crinkle

and my nerve-web tingle with a new thrill of wonder and delight. These

remembered pictures float past me in a sequence of contracts; following

the same order always, and always whirling by and disappearing with the

swiftness of a dream, leaving me with the sense that the actuality was

the experience of an hour, at most, whereas it really covered days, I

think.

The series begins with the hiring of a "bearer"--native man-servant--a

person who should be selected with some care, because as long as he is in

your employ he will be about as near to you as your clothes.

In India your day may be said to begin with the "bearer's" knock on the

bedroom door, accompanied by a formula of, words--a formula which is

intended to mean that the bath is ready. It doesn't really seem to mean

anything at all. But that is because you are not used to "bearer"

English. You will presently understand.

Where he gets his English is his own secret. There is nothing like it

elsewhere in the earth; or even in paradise, perhaps, but the other place

is probably full of it. You hire him as soon as you touch Indian soil;

for no matter what your sex is, you cannot do without him. He is

messenger, valet, chambermaid, table-waiter, lady's maid, courier--he is

everything. He carries a coarse linen clothes-bag and a quilt; he sleeps

on the stone floor outside your chamber door, and gets his meals you do

not know where nor when; you only know that he is not fed on the

premises, either when you are in a hotel or when you are a guest in a,

private house. His wages are large--from an Indian point of view--and he

feeds and clothes himself out of them. We had three of him in two and a

half months. The first one's rate was thirty rupees a month that is to

say, twenty-seven cents a day; the rate of the others, Rs. 40 (40 rupees)

a month. A princely sum; for the native switchman on a railway and the

native servant in a private family get only Rs. 7 per month, and the

farm-hand only 4. The two former feed and clothe themselves and their

families on their $1.90 per month; but I cannot believe that the farmhand

has to feed himself on his $1.08. I think the farm probably feeds him,

and that the whole of his wages, except a trifle for the priest, go to

the support of his family. That is, to the feeding of his family; for

they live in a mud hut, hand-made, and, doubtless, rent-free, and they

wear no clothes; at least, nothing more than a rag. And not much of a

rag at that, in the case of the males. However, these are handsome times

for the farm-hand; he was not always the child of luxury that he is now.

The Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, in a recent official

utterance wherein he was rebuking a native deputation for complaining of

hard times, reminded them that they could easily remember when a

farm-hand's wages were only half a rupee (former value) a month--that

is to say, less than a cent a day; nearly $2.90 a year. If such a

wage-earner had a good deal of a family--and they all have that, for God

is very good to these poor natives in some ways--he would save a profit

of fifteen cents, clean and clear, out of his year's toil; I mean a

frugal, thrifty person would, not one given to display and ostentation.

And if he owed $13.50 and took good care of his health, he could pay it

off in ninety years. Then he could hold up his head, and look his

creditors in the face again.

Think of these facts and what they mean. India does not consist of

cities. There are no cities in India--to speak of. Its stupendous

population consists of farm-laborers. India is one vast farm--one almost

interminable stretch of fields with mud fences between. . . Think of the

above facts; and consider what an incredible aggregate of poverty they

place before you.

The first Bearer that applied, waited below and sent up his

recommendations. That was the first morning in Bombay. We read them

over; carefully, cautiously, thoughtfully. There was not a fault to find

with them--except one; they were all from Americans. Is that a slur?

If it is, it is a deserved one. In my experience, an American's

recommendation of a servant is not usually valuable. We are too

good-natured a race; we hate to say the unpleasant thing; we shrink from

speaking the unkind truth about a poor fellow whose bread depends upon

our verdict; so we speak of his good points only, thus not scrupling to

tell a lie--a silent lie--for in not mentioning his bad ones we as good

as say he hasn't any. The only difference that I know of between a

silent lie and a spoken one is, that the silent lie is a less respectable

one than the other. And it can deceive, whereas the other can't--as a

rule. We not only tell the silent lie as to a servant's faults, but we

sin in another way: we overpraise his merits; for when it comes to

writing recommendations of servants we are a nation of gushers. And we

have not the Frenchman's excuse. In France you must give the departing

servant a good recommendation; and you must conceal his faults; you have

no choice. If you mention his faults for the protection of the next

candidate for his services, he can sue you for damages; and the court

will award them, too; and, moreover, the judge will give you a sharp

dressing-down from the bench for trying to destroy a poor man's

character, and rob him of his bread. I do not state this on my own

authority, I got it from a French physician of fame and repute--a man who

was born in Paris, and had practiced there all his life. And he said

that he spoke not merely from common knowledge, but from exasperating

personal experience.

As I was saying, the Bearer's recommendations were all from American

tourists; and St. Peter would have admitted him to the fields of the

blest on them--I mean if he is as unfamiliar with our people and our ways

as I suppose he is. According to these recommendations, Manuel X. was

supreme in all the arts connected with his complex trade; and these

manifold arts were mentioned--and praised-in detail. His English was

spoken of in terms of warm admiration--admiration verging upon rapture.

I took pleased note of that, and hoped that some of it might be true.

We had to have some one right away; so the family went down stairs and

took him a week on trial; then sent him up to me and departed on their

affairs. I was shut up in my quarters with a bronchial cough, and glad

to have something fresh to look at, something new to play with. Manuel

filled the bill; Manuel was very welcome. He was toward fifty years old,

tall, slender, with a slight stoop--an artificial stoop, a deferential

stoop, a stoop rigidified by long habit--with face of European mould;

short hair intensely black; gentle black eyes, timid black eyes, indeed;

complexion very dark, nearly black in fact; face smooth-shaven. He was

bareheaded and barefooted, and was never otherwise while his week with us

lasted; his clothing was European, cheap, flimsy, and showed much wear.

He stood before me and inclined his head (and body) in the pathetic

Indian way, touching his forehead with the finger--ends of his right

hand, in salute. I said:

"Manuel, you are evidently Indian, but you seem to have a Spanish name

when you put it all together. How is that?"

A perplexed look gathered in his face; it was plain that he had not

understood--but he didn't let on. He spoke back placidly.

"Name, Manuel. Yes, master."

"I know; but how did you get the name?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose. Think happen so. Father same name, not mother."

I saw that I must simplify my language and spread my words apart, if I

would be understood by this English scholar.

"Well--then--how--did--your--father--get--his name?"

"Oh, he,"--brightening a little--"he Christian--Portygee; live in Goa; I

born Goa; mother not Portygee, mother native-high-caste Brahmin--Coolin

Brahmin; highest caste; no other so high caste. I high-caste Brahmin,

too. Christian, too, same like father; high-caste Christian Brahmin,

master--Salvation Army."

All this haltingly, and with difficulty. Then he had an inspiration, and

began to pour out a flood of words that I could make nothing of; so I

said:

"There--don't do that. I can't understand Hindostani."

"Not Hindostani, master--English. Always I speaking English sometimes

when I talking every day all the time at you."

"Very well, stick to that; that is intelligible. It is not up to my

hopes, it is not up to the promise of the recommendations, still it is

English, and I understand it. Don't elaborate it; I don't like

elaborations when they are crippled by uncertainty of touch."

"Master?"

"Oh, never mind; it was only a random thought; I didn't expect you to

understand it. How did you get your English; is it an acquirement, or

just a gift of God?"

After some hesitation--piously:

"Yes, he very good. Christian god very good, Hindoo god very good, too.

Two million Hindoo god, one Christian god--make two million and one. All

mine; two million and one god. I got a plenty. Sometime I pray all time

at those, keep it up, go all time every day; give something at shrine,

all good for me, make me better man; good for me, good for my family, dam

good."

Then he had another inspiration, and went rambling off into fervent

confusions and incoherencies, and I had to stop him again. I thought we

had talked enough, so I told him to go to the bathroom and clean it up

and remove the slops--this to get rid of him. He went away, seeming to

understand, and got out some of my clothes and began to brush them. I

repeated my desire several times, simplifying and re-simplifying it, and

at last he got the idea. Then he went away and put a coolie at the work,

and explained that he would lose caste if he did it himself; it would be

pollution, by the law of his caste, and it would cost him a deal of fuss

and trouble to purify himself and accomplish his rehabilitation. He said

that that kind of work was strictly forbidden to persons of caste, and as

strictly restricted to the very bottom layer of Hindoo society--the

despised 'Sudra' (the toiler, the laborer). He was right; and apparently

the poor Sudra has been content with his strange lot, his insulting

distinction, for ages and ages--clear back to the beginning of things, so

to speak. Buckle says that his name--laborer--is a term of contempt;

that it is ordained by the Institutes of Menu (900 B.C.) that if a Sudra

sit on a level with his superior he shall be exiled or branded--[Without

going into particulars I will remark that as a rule they wear no clothing

that would conceal the brand.--M. T.]. . . ; if he speak

contemptuously of his superior or insult him he shall suffer death; if he

listen to the reading of the sacred books he shall have burning oil

poured in his ears; if he memorize passages from them he shall be killed;

if he marry his daughter to a Brahmin the husband shall go to hell for

defiling himself by contact with a woman so infinitely his inferior; and

that it is forbidden to a Sudra to acquire wealth. "The bulk of the

population of India," says Bucklet--[Population to-day, 300,000,000.]

--"is the Sudras--the workers, the farmers, the creators of wealth."

Manuel was a failure, poor old fellow. His age was against him. He was

desperately slow and phenomenally forgetful. When he went three blocks

on an errand he would be gone two hours, and then forget what it was he

went for. When he packed a trunk it took him forever, and the trunk's

contents were an unimaginable chaos when he got done. He couldn't wait

satisfactorily at table--a prime defect, for if you haven't your own

servant in an Indian hotel you are likely to have a slow time of it and

go away hungry. We couldn't understand his English; he couldn't

understand ours; and when we found that he couldn't understand his own,

it seemed time for us to part. I had to discharge him; there was no help

for it. But I did it as kindly as I could, and as gently. We must part,

said I, but I hoped we should meet again in a better world. It was not

true, but it was only a little thing to say, and saved his feelings and

cost me nothing.

But now that he was gone, and was off my mind and heart, my spirits began

to rise at once, and I was soon feeling brisk and ready to go out and

have adventures. Then his newly-hired successor flitted in, touched his

forehead, and began to fly around here, there, and everywhere, on his

velvet feet, and in five minutes he had everything in the room

"ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as the sailors say, and was standing at

the salute, waiting for orders. Dear me, what a rustler he was after the

slumbrous way of Manuel, poor old slug! All my heart, all my affection,

all my admiration, went out spontaneously to this frisky little forked

black thing, this compact and compressed incarnation of energy and force

and promptness and celerity and confidence, this smart, smily, engaging,

shiney-eyed little devil, feruled on his upper end by a gleaming

fire-coal of a fez with a red-hot tassel dangling from it. I said,

with deep satisfaction--

"You'll suit. What is your name?"

He reeled it mellowly off.

"Let me see if I can make a selection out of it--for business uses, I

mean; we will keep the rest for Sundays. Give it to me in installments."

He did it. But there did not seem to be any short ones, except

Mousawhich suggested mouse. It was out of character; it was too soft,

too quiet, too conservative; it didn't fit his splendid style. I

considered, and said--

"Mousa is short enough, but I don't quite like it. It seems colorless

--inharmonious--inadequate; and I am sensitive to such things. How do you

think Satan would do?"

"Yes, master. Satan do wair good."

It was his way of saying "very good."

There was a rap at the door. Satan covered the ground with a single

skip; there was a word or two of Hindostani, then he disappeared. Three

minutes later he was before me again, militarily erect, and waiting for

me to speak first.

"What is it, Satan?"

"God want to see you."

"Who?"

"God. I show him up, master?"

"Why, this is so unusual, that--that--well, you see indeed I am so

unprepared--I don't quite know what I do mean. Dear me, can't you

explain? Don't you see that this is a most ex----"

"Here his card, master."

Wasn't it curious--and amazing, and tremendous, and all that? Such a

personage going around calling on such as I, and sending up his card,

like a mortal--sending it up by Satan. It was a bewildering collision of

the impossibles. But this was the land of the Arabian Nights, this was

India! and what is it that cannot happen in India?

We had the interview. Satan was right--the Visitor was indeed a God in

the conviction of his multitudinous followers, and was worshiped by them

in sincerity and humble adoration. They are troubled by no doubts as to

his divine origin and office. They believe in him, they pray to him,

they make offerings to him, they beg of him remission of sins; to them

his person, together with everything connected with it, is sacred; from

his barber they buy the parings of his nails and set them in gold, and

wear them as precious amulets.

I tried to seem tranquilly conversational and at rest, but I was not.

Would you have been? I was in a suppressed frenzy of excitement and

curiosity and glad wonder. I could not keep my eyes off him. I was

looking upon a god, an actual god, a recognized and accepted god; and

every detail of his person and his dress had a consuming interest for me.

And the thought went floating through my head, "He is worshiped--think of

it--he is not a recipient of the pale homage called compliment, wherewith

the highest human clay must make shift to be satisfied, but of an

infinitely richer spiritual food: adoration, worship!--men and women lay

their cares and their griefs and their broken hearts at his feet; and he

gives them his peace; and they go away healed."

And just then the Awful Visitor said, in the simplest way--"There is a

feature of the philosophy of Huck Finn which"--and went luminously on

with the construction of a compact and nicely-discriminated literary

verdict.

It is a land of surprises--India! I had had my ambitions--I had hoped,

and almost expected, to be read by kings and presidents and emperors--but

I had never looked so high as That. It would be false modesty to pretend

that I was not inordinately pleased. I was. I was much more pleased

than I should have been with a compliment from a man.

He remained half an hour, and I found him a most courteous and charming

gentleman. The godship has been in his family a good while, but I do not

know how long. He is a Mohammedan deity; by earthly rank he is a prince;

not an Indian but a Persian prince. He is a direct descendant of the

Prophet's line. He is comely; also young--for a god; not forty, perhaps

not above thirty-five years old. He wears his immense honors with

tranquil brace, and with a dignity proper to his awful calling. He

speaks English with the ease and purity of a person born to it. I think

I am not overstating this. He was the only god I had ever seen, and I

was very favorably impressed. When he rose to say good-bye, the door

swung open and I caught the flash of a red fez, and heard these words,

reverently said--

"Satan see God out?"

"Yes." And these mis-mated Beings passed from view Satan in the lead and

The Other following after.

CHAPTER XL.

Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The next picture in my mind is Government House, on Malabar Point, with

the wide sea-view from the windows and broad balconies; abode of His

Excellency the Governor of the Bombay Presidency--a residence which is

European in everything but the native guards and servants, and is a home

and a palace of state harmoniously combined.

That was England, the English power, the English civilization, the modern

civilization--with the quiet elegancies and quiet colors and quiet tastes

and quiet dignity that are the outcome of the modern cultivation. And

following it came a picture of the ancient civilization of India--an hour

in the mansion of a native prince: Kumar Schri Samatsinhji Bahadur of the

Palitana State.

The young lad, his heir, was with the prince; also, the lad's sister, a

wee brown sprite, very pretty, very serious, very winning, delicately

moulded, costumed like the daintiest butterfly, a dear little fairyland

princess, gravely willing to be friendly with the strangers, but in the

beginning preferring to hold her father's hand until she could take stock

of them and determine how far they were to be trusted. She must have

been eight years old; so in the natural (Indian) order of things she

would be a bride in three or four years from now, and then this free

contact with the sun and the air and the other belongings of out-door

nature and comradeship with visiting male folk would end, and she would

shut herself up in the zenana for life, like her mother, and by inherited

habit of mind would be happy in that seclusion and not look upon it as an

irksome restraint and a weary captivity.

The game which the prince amuses his leisure with--however, never mind

it, I should never be able to describe it intelligibly. I tried to get

an idea of it while my wife and daughter visited the princess in the

zenana, a lady of charming graces and a fluent speaker of English, but I

did not make it out. It is a complicated game, and I believe it is said

that nobody can learn to play it well--but an Indian. And I was not able

to learn how to wind a turban. It seemed a simple art and easy; but that

was a deception. It is a piece of thin, delicate stuff a foot wide or

more, and forty or fifty feet long; and the exhibitor of the art takes

one end of it in his hands, and winds it in and out intricately about his

head, twisting it as he goes, and in a minute or two the thing is

finished, and is neat and symmetrical and fits as snugly as a mould.

We were interested in the wardrobe and the jewels, and in the silverware,

and its grace of shape and beauty and delicacy of ornamentation. The

silverware is kept locked up, except at meal-times, and none but the

chief butler and the prince have keys to the safe. I did not clearly

understand why, but it was not for the protection of the silver. It was

either to protect the prince from the contamination which his caste would

suffer if the vessels were touched by low-caste hands, or it was to

protect his highness from poison. Possibly it was both. I believe a

salaried taster has to taste everything before the prince ventures it--an

ancient and judicious custom in the East, and has thinned out the tasters

a good deal, for of course it is the cook that puts the poison in. If I

were an Indian prince I would not go to the expense of a taster, I would

eat with the cook.

Ceremonials are always interesting; and I noted that the Indian

good-morning is a ceremonial, whereas ours doesn't amount to that. In

salutation the son reverently touches the father's forehead with a small

silver implement tipped with vermillion paste which leaves a red spot

there, and in return the son receives the father's blessing. Our good

morning is well enough for the rowdy West, perhaps, but would be too

brusque for the soft and ceremonious East.

After being properly necklaced, according to custom, with great garlands

made of yellow flowers, and provided with betel-nut to chew, this

pleasant visit closed, and we passed thence to a scene of a different

sort: from this glow of color and this sunny life to those grim

receptacles of the Parsee dead, the Towers of Silence. There is

something stately about that name, and an impressiveness which sinks

deep; the hush of death is in it. We have the Grave, the Tomb, the

Mausoleum, God's Acre, the Cemetery; and association has made them

eloquent with solemn meaning; but we have no name that is so majestic as

that one, or lingers upon the ear with such deep and haunting pathos.

On lofty ground, in the midst of a paradise of tropical foliage and

flowers, remote from the world and its turmoil and noise, they stood--the

Towers of Silence; and away below was spread the wide groves of cocoa

palms, then the city, mile on mile, then the ocean with its fleets of

creeping ships all steeped in a stillness as deep as the hush that

hallowed this high place of the dead. The vultures were there. They

stood close together in a great circle all around the rim of a massive

low tower--waiting; stood as motionless as sculptured ornaments, and

indeed almost deceived one into the belief that that was what they were.

Presently there was a slight stir among the score of persons present, and

all moved reverently out of the path and ceased from talking. A funeral

procession entered the great gate, marching two and two, and moved

silently by, toward the Tower. The corpse lay in a shallow shell, and

was under cover of a white cloth, but was otherwise naked. The bearers

of the body were separated by an interval of thirty feet from the

mourners. They, and also the mourners, were draped all in pure white,

and each couple of mourners was figuratively bound together by a piece of

white rope or a handkerchief--though they merely held the ends of it in

their hands. Behind the procession followed a dog, which was led in a

leash. When the mourners had reached the neighborhood of the Tower

--neither they nor any other human being but the bearers of the dead must

approach within thirty feet of it--they turned and went back to one of

the prayer-houses within the gates, to pray for the spirit of their dead.

The bearers unlocked the Tower's sole door and disappeared from view

within. In a little while they came out bringing the bier and the white

covering-cloth, and locked the door again. Then the ring of vultures

rose, flapping their wings, and swooped down into the Tower to devour the

body. Nothing was left of it but a clean-picked skeleton when they

flocked-out again a few minutes afterward.

The principle which underlies and orders everything connected with a

Parsee funeral is Purity. By the tenets of the Zoroastrian religion, the

elements, Earth, Fire, and Water, are sacred, and must not be

contaminated by contact with a dead body. Hence corpses must not be

burned, neither must they be buried. None may touch the dead or enter

the Towers where they repose except certain men who are officially

appointed for that purpose. They receive high pay, but theirs is a

dismal life, for they must live apart from their species, because their

commerce with the dead defiles them, and any who should associate with

them would share their defilement. When they come out of the Tower the

clothes they are wearing are exchanged for others, in a building within

the grounds, and the ones which they have taken off are left behind, for

they are contaminated, and must never be used again or suffered to go

outside the grounds. These bearers come to every funeral in new

garments. So far as is known, no human being, other than an official

corpse-bearer--save one--has ever entered a Tower of Silence after its

consecration. Just a hundred years ago a European rushed in behind the

bearers and fed his brutal curiosity with a glimpse of the forbidden

mysteries of the place. This shabby savage's name is not given; his

quality is also concealed. These two details, taken in connection with

the fact that for his extraordinary offense the only punishment he got

from the East India Company's Government was a solemn official

"reprimand"--suggest the suspicion that he was a European of consequence.

The same public document which contained the reprimand gave warning that

future offenders of his sort, if in the Company's service, would be

dismissed; and if merchants, suffer revocation of license and exile to

England.

The Towers are not tall, but are low in proportion to their

circumference, like a gasometer. If you should fill a gasometer half way

up with solid granite masonry, then drive a wide and deep well down

through the center of this mass of masonry, you would have the idea of a

Tower of Silence. On the masonry surrounding the well the bodies lie, in

shallow trenches which radiate like wheel-spokes from the well. The

trenches slant toward the well and carry into it the rainfall.

Underground drains, with charcoal filters in them, carry off this water

from the bottom of the well.

When a skeleton has lain in the Tower exposed to the rain and the flaming

sun a month it is perfectly dry and clean. Then the same bearers that

brought it there come gloved and take it up with tongs and throw it into

the well. There it turns to dust. It is never seen again, never touched

again, in the world. Other peoples separate their dead, and preserve and

continue social distinctions in the grave--the skeletons of kings and

statesmen and generals in temples and pantheons proper to skeletons of

their degree, and the skeletons of the commonplace and the poor in places

suited to their meaner estate; but the Parsees hold that all men rank

alike in death--all are humble, all poor, all destitute. In sign of

their poverty they are sent to their grave naked, in sign of their

equality the bones of the rich, the poor, the illustrious and the obscure

are flung into the common well together. At a Parsee funeral there are

no vehicles; all concerned must walk, both rich and poor, howsoever great

the distance to be traversed may be. In the wells of the Five Towers of

Silence is mingled the dust of all the Parsee men and women and children

who have died in Bombay and its vicinity during the two centuries which

have elapsed since the Mohammedan conquerors drove the Parsees out of

Persia, and into that region of India. The earliest of the five towers

was built by the Modi family something more than 200 years ago, and it is

now reserved to the heirs of that house; none but the dead of that blood

are carried thither.

The origin of at least one of the details of a Parsee funeral is not now

known--the presence of the dog. Before a corpse is borne from the house

of mourning it must be uncovered and exposed to the gaze of a dog; a dog

must also be led in the rear of the funeral. Mr. Nusserwanjee Byranijee,

Secretary to the Parsee Punchayet, said that these formalities had once

had a meaning and a reason for their institution, but that they were

survivals whose origin none could now account for. Custom and tradition

continue them in force, antiquity hallows them. It is thought that in

ancient times in Persia the dog was a sacred animal and could guide souls

to heaven; also that his eye had the power of purifying objects which had

been contaminated by the touch of the dead; and that hence his presence

with the funeral cortege provides an ever-applicable remedy in case of

need.

The Parsees claim that their method of disposing of the dead is an

effective protection of the living; that it disseminates no corruption,

no impurities of any sort, no disease-germs; that no wrap, no garment

which has touched the dead is allowed to touch the living afterward; that

from the Towers of Silence nothing proceeds which can carry harm to the

outside world. These are just claims, I think. As a sanitary measure,

their system seems to be about the equivalent of cremation, and as sure.

We are drifting slowly--but hopefully--toward cremation in these days.

It could not be expected that this progress should be swift, but if it be

steady and continuous, even if slow, that will suffice. When cremation

becomes the rule we shall cease to shudder at it; we should shudder at

burial if we allowed ourselves to think what goes on in the grave.

The dog was an impressive figure to me, representing as he did a mystery

whose key is lost. He was humble, and apparently depressed; and he let

his head droop pensively, and looked as if he might be trying to call

back to his mind what it was that he had used to symbolize ages ago when

he began his function. There was another impressive thing close at hand,

but I was not privileged to see it. That was the sacred fire--a fire

which is supposed to have been burning without interruption for more than

two centuries; and so, living by the same heat that was imparted to it so

long ago.

The Parsees are a remarkable community. There are only about 60,000 in

Bombay, and only about half as many as that in the rest of India; but

they make up in importance what they lack in numbers. They are highly

educated, energetic, enterprising, progressive, rich, and the Jew himself

is not more lavish or catholic in his charities and benevolences. The

Parsees build and endow hospitals, for both men and animals; and they and

their womenkind keep an open purse for all great and good objects. They

are a political force, and a valued support to the government. They have

a pure and lofty religion, and they preserve it in its integrity and

order their lives by it.

We took a final sweep of the wonderful view of plain and city and ocean,

and so ended our visit to the garden and the Towers of Silence; and the

last thing I noticed was another symbol--a voluntary symbol this one; it

was a vulture standing on the sawed-off top of a tall and slender and

branchless palm in an open space in the ground; he was perfectly

motionless, and looked like a piece of sculpture on a pillar. And he had

a mortuary look, too, which was in keeping with the place.

CHAPTER XLI.

There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty.

"When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend."

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

The next picture that drifts across the field of my memory is one which

is connected with religious things. We were taken by friends to see a

Jain temple. It was small, and had many flags or streamers flying from

poles standing above its roof; and its little battlements supported a

great many small idols or images. Upstairs, inside, a solitary Jain was

praying or reciting aloud in the middle of the room. Our presence did

not interrupt him, nor even incommode him or modify his fervor. Ten or

twelve feet in front of him was the idol, a small figure in a sitting

posture. It had the pinkish look of a wax doll, but lacked the doll's

roundness of limb and approximation to correctness of form and justness

of proportion. Mr. Gandhi explained every thing to us. He was delegate

to the Chicago Fair Congress of Religions. It was lucidly done, in

masterly English, but in time it faded from me, and now I have nothing

left of that episode but an impression: a dim idea of a religious belief

clothed in subtle intellectual forms, lofty and clean, barren of fleshly

grossnesses; and with this another dim impression which connects that

intellectual system somehow with that crude image, that inadequate idol

--how, I do not know. Properly they do not seem to belong together.

Apparently the idol symbolized a person who had become a saint or a god

through accessions of steadily augmenting holiness acquired through a

series of reincarnations and promotions extending over many ages; and was

now at last a saint and qualified to vicariously receive worship and

transmit it to heaven's chancellery. Was that it?

And thence we went to Mr. Premchand Roychand's bungalow, in Lovelane,

Byculla, where an Indian prince was to receive a deputation of the Jain

community who desired to congratulate him upon a high honor lately

conferred upon him by his sovereign, Victoria, Empress of India. She had

made him a knight of the order of the Star of India. It would seem that

even the grandest Indian prince is glad to add the modest title "Sir" to

his ancient native grandeurs, and is willing to do valuable service to

win it. He will remit taxes liberally, and will spend money freely upon

the betterment of the condition of his subjects, if there is a knighthood

to be gotten by it. And he will also do good work and a deal of it to

get a gun added to the salute allowed him by the British Government.

Every year the Empress distributes knighthoods and adds guns for public

services done by native princes. The salute of a small prince is three

or four guns; princes of greater consequence have salutes that run higher

and higher, gun by gun,--oh, clear away up to eleven; possibly more, but

I did not hear of any above eleven-gun princes. I was told that when a

four-gun prince gets a gun added, he is pretty troublesome for a while,

till the novelty wears off, for he likes the music, and keeps hunting up

pretexts to get himself saluted. It may be that supremely grand folk,

like the Nyzam of Hyderabad and the Gaikwar of Baroda, have more than

eleven guns, but I don't know.

When we arrived at the bungalow, the large hall on the ground floor was

already about full, and carriages were still flowing into the grounds.

The company present made a fine show, an exhibition of human fireworks,

so to speak, in the matters of costume and comminglings of brilliant

color. The variety of form noticeable in the display of turbans was

remarkable. We were told that the explanation of this was, that this

Jain delegation was drawn from many parts of India, and that each man

wore the turban that was in vogue in his own region. This diversity of

turbans made a beautiful effect.

I could have wished to start a rival exhibition there, of Christian hats

and clothes. I would have cleared one side of the room of its Indian

splendors and repacked the space with Christians drawn from America,

England, and the Colonies, dressed in the hats and habits of now, and of

twenty and forty and fifty years ago. It would have been a hideous

exhibition, a thoroughly devilish spectacle. Then there would have been

the added disadvantage of the white complexion. It is not an unbearably

unpleasant complexion when it keeps to itself, but when it comes into

competition with masses of brown and black the fact is betrayed that it

is endurable only because we are used to it. Nearly all black and brown

skins are beautiful, but a beautiful white skin is rare. How rare, one

may learn by walking down a street in Paris, New York, or London on a

week-day particularly an unfashionable street--and keeping count of the

satisfactory complexions encountered in the course of a mile. Where dark

complexions are massed, they make the whites look bleached-out,

unwholesome, and sometimes frankly ghastly. I could notice this as a

boy, down South in the slavery days before the war. The splendid black

satin skin of the South African Zulus of Durban seemed to me to come very

close to perfection. I can see those Zulus yet--'ricksha athletes

waiting in front of the hotel for custom; handsome and intensely black

creatures, moderately clothed in loose summer stuffs whose snowy

whiteness made the black all the blacker by contrast. Keeping that group

in my mind, I can compare those complexions with the white ones which are

streaming past this London window now:

A lady. Complexion, new parchment. Another lady. Complexion, old

parchment.

Another. Pink and white, very fine.

Man. Grayish skin, with purple areas.

Man. Unwholesome fish-belly skin.

Girl. Sallow face, sprinkled with freckles.

Old woman. Face whitey-gray.

Young butcher. Face a general red flush.

Jaundiced man--mustard yellow.

Elderly lady. Colorless skin, with two conspicuous moles.

Elderly man--a drinker. Boiled-cauliflower nose in a flabby face

veined with purple crinklings.

Healthy young gentleman. Fine fresh complexion.

Sick young man. His face a ghastly white.

No end of people whose skins are dull and characterless modifications of

the tint which we miscall white. Some of these faces are pimply; some

exhibit other signs of diseased blood; some show scars of a tint out of a

harmony with the surrounding shades of color. The white man's complexion

makes no concealments. It can't. It seemed to have been designed as a

catch-all for everything that can damage it. Ladies have to paint it,

and powder it, and cosmetic it, and diet it with arsenic, and enamel it,

and be always enticing it, and persuading it, and pestering it, and

fussing at it, to make it beautiful; and they do not succeed. But these

efforts show what they think of the natural complexion, as distributed.

As distributed it needs these helps. The complexion which they try to

counterfeit is one which nature restricts to the few--to the very few.

To ninety-nine persons she gives a bad complexion, to the hundredth a

good one. The hundredth can keep it--how long? Ten years, perhaps.

The advantage is with the Zulu, I think. He starts with a beautiful

complexion, and it will last him through. And as for the Indian brown

--firm, smooth, blemishless, pleasant and restful to the eye, afraid of no

color, harmonizing with all colors and adding a grace to them all--I

think there is no sort of chance for the average white complexion against

that rich and perfect tint.

To return to the bungalow. The most gorgeous costume present were worn

by some children. They seemed to blaze, so bright were the colors, and

so brilliant the jewels strum over the rich materials. These children

were professional nautch-dancers, and looked like girls, but they were

boys, They got up by ones and twos and fours, and danced and sang to an

accompaniment of weird music. Their posturings and gesturings were

elaborate and graceful, but their voices were stringently raspy and

unpleasant, and there was a good deal of monotony about the tune.

By and by there was a burst of shouts and cheers outside and the prince

with his train entered in fine dramatic style. He was a stately man, he

was ideally costumed, and fairly festooned with ropes of gems; some of

the ropes were of pearls, some were of uncut great emeralds--emeralds

renowned in Bombay for their quality and value. Their size was

marvelous, and enticing to the eye, those rocks. A boy--a princeling

--was with the prince, and he also was a radiant exhibition.

The ceremonies were not tedious. The prince strode to his throne with

the port and majesty--and the sternness--of a Julius Caesar coming to

receive and receipt for a back-country kingdom and have it over and get

out, and no fooling. There was a throne for the young prince, too, and

the two sat there, side by side, with their officers grouped at either

hand and most accurately and creditably reproducing the pictures which

one sees in the books--pictures which people in the prince's line of

business have been furnishing ever since Solomon received the Queen of

Sheba and showed her his things. The chief of the Jain delegation read

his paper of congratulations, then pushed it into a beautifully engraved

silver cylinder, which was delivered with ceremony into the prince's

hands and at once delivered by him without ceremony into the hands of an

officer. I will copy the address here. It is interesting, as showing

what an Indian prince's subject may have opportunity to thank him for in

these days of modern English rule, as contrasted with what his ancestor

would have given them opportunity to thank him for a century and a half

ago--the days of freedom unhampered by English interference. A century

and a half ago an address of thanks could have been put into small space.

It would have thanked the prince--

1. For not slaughtering too many of his people upon mere caprice;

2. For not stripping them bare by sudden and arbitrary tax levies,

and bringing famine upon them;

3. For not upon empty pretext destroying the rich and seizing their

property;

4. For not killing, blinding, imprisoning, or banishing the

relatives of the royal house to protect the throne from possible

plots;

5. For not betraying the subject secretly, for a bribe, into the

hands of bands of professional Thugs, to be murdered and robbed in

the prince's back lot.

Those were rather common princely industries in the old times, but they

and some others of a harsh sort ceased long ago under English rule.

Better industries have taken their place, as this Address from the Jain

community will show:

"Your Highness,--We the undersigned members of the Jain community of

Bombay have the pleasure to approach your Highness with the

expression of our heartfelt congratulations on the recent conference

on your Highness of the Knighthood of the Most Exalted Order of the

Star of India. Ten years ago we had the pleasure and privilege of

welcoming your Highness to this city under circumstances which have

made a memorable epoch in the history of your State, for had it not

been for a generous and reasonable spirit that your Highness

displayed in the negotiations between the Palitana Durbar and the

Jain community, the conciliatory spirit that animated our people

could not have borne fruit. That was the first step in your

Highness's administration, and it fitly elicited the praise of the

Jain community, and of the Bombay Government. A decade of your

Highness's administration, combined with the abilities, training,

and acquirements that your Highness brought to bear upon it, has

justly earned for your Highness the unique and honourable

distinction--the Knighthood of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of

India, which we understand your Highness is the first to enjoy among

Chiefs of your, Highness's rank and standing. And we assure your

Highness that for this mark of honour that has been conferred on you

by Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen-Empress, we feel no less

proud than your Highness. Establishment of commercial factories,

schools, hospitals, etc., by your Highness in your State has marked

your Highness's career during these ten years, and we trust that

your Highness will be spared to rule over your people with wisdom

and foresight, and foster the many reforms that your Highness has

been pleased to introduce in your State. We again offer your

Highness our warmest felicitations for the honour that has been

conferred on you. We beg to remain your Highness's obedient

servants."

Factories, schools, hospitals, reforms. The prince propagates that kind

of things in the modern times, and gets knighthood and guns for it.

After the address the prince responded with snap and brevity; spoke a

moment with half a dozen guests in English, and with an official or two

in a native tongue; then the garlands were distributed as usual, and the

function ended.

CHAPTER XLII.

Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others--his

last breath.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Toward midnight, that night, there was another function. This was a

Hindoo wedding--no, I think it was a betrothal ceremony. Always before,

we had driven through streets that were multitudinous and tumultuous with

picturesque native life, but now there was nothing of that. We seemed to

move through a city of the dead. There was hardly a suggestion of life

in those still and vacant streets. Even the crows were silent. But

everywhere on the ground lay sleeping natives-hundreds and hundreds.

They lay stretched at full length and tightly wrapped in blankets, beads

and all. Their attitude and their rigidity counterfeited death. The

plague was not in Bombay then, but it is devastating the city now. The

shops are deserted, now, half of the people have fled, and of the

remainder the smitten perish by shoals every day. No doubt the city

looks now in the daytime as it looked then at night. When we had pierced

deep into the native quarter and were threading its narrow dim lanes, we

had to go carefully, for men were stretched asleep all about and there

was hardly room to drive between them. And every now and then a swarm of

rats would scamper across past the horses' feet in the vague light--the

forbears of the rats that are carrying the plague from house to house in

Bombay now. The shops were but sheds, little booths open to the street;

and the goods had been removed, and on the counters families were

sleeping, usually with an oil lamp present. Recurrent dead watches, it

looked like.

But at last we turned a corner and saw a great glare of light ahead. It

was the home of the bride, wrapped in a perfect conflagration of

illuminations,--mainly gas-work designs, gotten up specially for the

occasion. Within was abundance of brilliancy--flames, costumes, colors,

decorations, mirrors--it was another Aladdin show.

The bride was a trim and comely little thing of twelve years, dressed as

we would dress a boy, though more expensively than we should do it, of

course. She moved about very much at her ease, and stopped and talked

with the guests and allowed her wedding jewelry to be examined. It was

very fine. Particularly a rope of great diamonds, a lovely thing to look

at and handle. It had a great emerald hanging to it.

The bridegroom was not present. He was having betrothal festivities of

his own at his father's house. As I understood it, he and the bride were

to entertain company every night and nearly all night for a week or more,

then get married, if alive. Both of the children were a little elderly,

as brides and grooms go, in India--twelve; they ought to have been

married a year or two sooner; still to a, stranger twelve seems quite

young enough.

A while after midnight a couple of celebrated and high-priced

nautch-girls appeared in the gorgeous place, and danced and sang. With

them were men who played upon strange instruments which made uncanny

noises of a sort to make one's flesh creep. One of these instruments was

a pipe, and to its music the girls went through a performance which

represented snake charming. It seemed a doubtful sort of music to charm

anything with, but a native gentleman assured me that snakes like it and

will come out of their holes and listen to it with every evidence of

refreshment And gratitude. He said that at an entertainment in his

grounds once, the pipe brought out half a dozen snakes, and the music had

to be stopped before they would be persuaded to go. Nobody wanted their

company, for they were bold, familiar, and dangerous; but no one would

kill them, of course, for it is sinful for a Hindoo to kill any kind of a

creature.

We withdrew from the festivities at two in the morning. Another picture,

then--but it has lodged itself in my memory rather as a stage-scene than

as a reality. It is of a porch and short flight of steps crowded with

dark faces and ghostly-white draperies flooded with the strong glare from

the dazzling concentration of illuminations; and midway of the steps one

conspicuous figure for accent--a turbaned giant, with a name according to

his size: Rao Bahadur Baskirao Balinkanje Pitale, Vakeel to his Highness

the Gaikwar of Baroda. Without him the picture would not have been

complete; and if his name had been merely Smith, he wouldn't have

answered. Close at hand on house-fronts on both sides of the narrow

street were illuminations of a kind commonly employed by the natives

--scores of glass tumblers (containing tapers) fastened a few in inches

apart all over great latticed frames, forming starry constellations which

showed out vividly against their black back grounds. As we drew away

into the distance down the dim lanes the illuminations gathered together

into a single mass, and glowed out of the enveloping darkness like a sun.

Then again the deep silence, the skurrying rats, the dim forms stretched

every-where on the ground; and on either hand those open booths

counterfeiting sepulchres, with counterfeit corpses sleeping motionless

in the flicker of the counterfeit death lamps. And now, a year later,

when I read the cablegrams I seem to be reading of what I myself partly

saw--saw before it happened--in a prophetic dream, as it were. One

cablegram says, "Business in the native town is about suspended. Except

the wailing and the tramp of the funerals. There is but little life or

movement. The closed shops exceed in number those that remain open."

Another says that 325,000 of the people have fled the city and are

carrying the plague to the country. Three days later comes the news,

"The population is reduced by half." The refugees have carried the

disease to Karachi; "220 cases, 214 deaths." A day or two later, "52

fresh cases, all of which proved fatal."

The plague carries with it a terror which no other disease can excite;

for of all diseases known to men it is the deadliest--by far the

deadliest. "Fifty-two fresh cases--all fatal." It is the Black Death

alone that slays like that. We can all imagine, after a fashion, the

desolation of a plague-stricken city, and the stupor of stillness broken

at intervals by distant bursts of wailing, marking the passing of

funerals, here and there and yonder, but I suppose it is not possible for

us to realize to ourselves the nightmare of dread and fear that possesses

the living who are present in such a place and cannot get away. That

half million fled from Bombay in a wild panic suggests to us something of

what they were feeling, but perhaps not even they could realize what the

half million were feeling whom they left stranded behind to face the

stalking horror without chance of escape. Kinglake was in Cairo many

years ago during an epidemic of the Black Death, and he has imagined the

terrors that creep into a man's heart at such a time and follow him until

they themselves breed the fatal sign in the armpit, and then the delirium

with confused images, and home-dreams, and reeling billiard-tables, and

then the sudden blank of death:

"To the contagionist, filled as he is with the dread of final

causes, having no faith in destiny, nor in the fixed will of God,

and with none of the devil-may-care indifference which might stand

him instead of creeds--to such one, every rag that shivers in the

breeze of a plague-stricken city has this sort of sublimity. If by

any terrible ordinance he be forced to venture forth, be sees death

dangling from every sleeve; and, as he creeps forward, he poises his

shuddering limbs between the imminent jacket that is stabbing at his

right elbow and the murderous pelisse that threatens to mow him

clean down as it sweeps along on his left. But most of all he

dreads that which most of all he should love--the touch of a woman's

dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying forth on kindly errands from

the bedsides of the dying, go slouching along through the streets

more willfully and less courteously than the men. For a while it

may be that the caution of the poor Levantine may enable him to

avoid contact, but sooner or later, perhaps, the dreaded chance

arrives; that bundle of linen, with the dark tearful eyes at the top

of it, that labors along with the voluptuous clumsiness of Grisi

--she has touched the poor Levantine with the hem of her sleeve! From

that dread moment his peace is gone; his mind for ever hanging upon

the fatal touch invites the blow which he fears; he watches for the

symptoms of plague so carefully, that sooner or later they come in

truth. The parched mouth is a sign--his mouth is parched; the

throbbing brain--his brain does throb; the rapid pulse--he touches

his own wrist (for he dares not ask counsel of any man lest he be

deserted), he touches his wrist, and feels how his frighted blood

goes galloping out of his heart. There is nothing but the fatal

swelling that is wanting to make his sad conviction complete;

immediately, he has an odd feel under the arm--no pain, but a little

straining of the skin; he would to God it were his fancy that were

strong enough to give him that sensation; this is the worst of all.

It now seems to him that he could be happy and contented with his

parched mouth, and his throbbing brain, and his rapid pulse, if only

he could know that there were no swelling under the left arm; but

dares he try?--in a moment of calmness and deliberation he dares

not; but when for a while he has writhed under the torture of

suspense, a sudden strength of will drives him to seek and know his

fate; he touches the gland, and finds the skin sane and sound but

under the cuticle there lies a small lump like a pistol-bullet, that

moves as he pushes it. Oh! but is this for all certainty, is this

the sentence of death? Feel the gland of the other arm. There is

not the same lump exactly, yet something a little like it. Have not

some people glands naturally enlarged?--would to heaven he were one!

So he does for himself the work of the plague, and when the Angel of

Death thus courted does indeed and in truth come, he has only to

finish that which has been so well begun; he passes his fiery hand

over the brain of the victim, and lets him rave for a season, but

all chance-wise, of people and things once dear, or of people and

things indifferent. Once more the poor fellow is back at his home

in fair Provence, and sees the sundial that stood in his childhood's

garden--sees his mother, and the long-since forgotten face of that

little dear sister--(he sees her, he says, on a Sunday morning, for

all the church bells are ringing); he looks up and down through the

universe, and owns it well piled with bales upon bales of cotton,

and cotton eternal--so much so that he feels--he knows--he swears he

could make that winning hazard, if the billiard-table would not

slant upwards, and if the cue were a cue worth playing with; but it

is not--it's a cue that won't move--his own arm won't move--in

short, there's the devil to pay in the brain of the poor Levantine;

and perhaps, the next night but one he becomes the 'life and the

soul' of some squalling jackal family, who fish him out by the foot

from his shallow and sandy grave."

CHAPTER XLIII.

Hunger is the handmaid of genius

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

One day during our stay in Bombay there was a criminal trial of a most

interesting sort, a terribly realistic chapter out of the "Arabian

Nights," a strange mixture of simplicities and pieties and murderous

practicalities, which brought back the forgotten days of Thuggee and made

them live again; in fact, even made them believable. It was a case where

a young girl had been assassinated for the sake of her trifling

ornaments, things not worth a laborer's day's wages in America. This

thing could have been done in many other countries, but hardly with the

cold business-like depravity, absence of fear, absence of caution,

destitution of the sense of horror, repentance, remorse, exhibited in

this case. Elsewhere the murderer would have done his crime secretly, by

night, and without witnesses; his fears would have allowed him no peace

while the dead body was in his neighborhood; he would not have rested

until he had gotten it safe out of the way and hidden as effectually as

he could hide it. But this Indian murderer does his deed in the full

light of day, cares nothing for the society of witnesses, is in no way

incommoded by the presence of the corpse, takes his own time about

disposing of it, and the whole party are so indifferent, so phlegmatic,

that they take their regular sleep as if nothing was happening and no

halters hanging over them; and these five bland people close the episode

with a religious service. The thing reads like a Meadows-Taylor Thug-tale

of half a century ago, as may be seen by the official report of the

trial:

"At the Mazagon Police Court yesterday, Superintendent Nolan again

charged Tookaram Suntoo Savat Baya, woman, her daughter Krishni, and

Gopal Yithoo Bhanayker, before Mr. Phiroze Hoshang Dastur, Fourth

Presidency Magistrate, under sections 302 and 109 of the Code, with

having on the night of the 30th of December last murdered a Hindoo

girl named Cassi, aged 12, by strangulation, in the room of a chawl

at Jakaria Bunder, on the Sewriroad, and also with aiding and

abetting each other in the commission of the offense.

"Mr. F. A. Little, Public Prosecutor, conducted the case on behalf

of the Crown, the accused being undefended.

"Mr. Little applied under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure

Code to tender pardon to one of the accused, Krishni, woman, aged

22, on her undertaking to make a true and full statement of facts

under which the deceased girl Cassi was murdered.

"The Magistrate having granted the Public Prosecutor's application,

the accused Krishni went into the witness-box, and, on being

examined by Mr. Little, made the following confession:--I am a

mill-hand employed at the Jubilee Mill. I recollect the day

(Tuesday); on which the body of the deceased Cassi was found.

Previous to that I attended the mill for half a day, and then

returned home at 3 in the afternoon, when I saw five persons in the

house, viz.: the first accused Tookaram, who is my paramour, my

mother, the second accused Baya, the accused Gopal, and two guests

named Ramji Daji and Annaji Gungaram. Tookaram rented the room of

the chawl situated at Jakaria Bunder-road from its owner,

Girdharilal Radhakishan, and in that room I, my paramour, Tookaram,

and his younger brother, Yesso Mahadhoo, live. Since his arrival in

Bombay from his native country Yesso came and lived with us. When I

returned from the mill on the afternoon of that day, I saw the two

guests seated on a cot in the veranda, and a few minutes after the

accused Gopal came and took his seat by their side, while I and my

mother were seated inside the room. Tookaram, who had gone out to

fetch some 'pan' and betelnuts, on his return home had brought the

two guests with him. After returning home he gave them 'pan

supari'. While they were eating it my mother came out of the room

and inquired of one of the guests, Ramji, what had happened to his

foot, when he replied that he had tried many remedies, but they had

done him no good. My mother then took some rice in her hand and

prophesied that the disease which Ramji was suffering from would not

be cured until he returned to his native country. In the meantime

the deceased Casi came from the direction of an out-house, and stood

in front on the threshold of our room with a 'lota' in her hand.

Tookaram then told his two guests to leave the room, and they then

went up the steps towards the quarry. After the guests had gone

away, Tookaram seized the deceased, who had come into the room, and

he afterwards put a waistband around her, and tied her to a post

which supports a loft. After doing this, he pressed the girl's

throat, and, having tied her mouth with the 'dhotur' (now shown in

Court), fastened it to the post. Having killed the girl, Tookaram

removed her gold head ornament and a gold 'putlee', and also took

charge of her 'lota'. Besides these two ornaments Cassi had on her

person ear-studs a nose-ring, some silver toe-rings, two necklaces,

a pair of silver anklets and bracelets. Tookaram afterwards tried

to remove the silver amulets, the ear-studs, and the nose-ring; but

he failed in his attempt. While he was doing so, I, my mother, and

Gopal were present. After removing the two gold ornaments, he

handed them over to Gopal, who was at the time standing near me.

When he killed Cassi, Tookaram threatened to strangle me also if I

informed any one of this. Gopal and myself were then standing at

the door of our room, and we both were threatened by Tookaram. My

mother, Baya, had seized the legs of the deceased at the time she

was killed, and whilst she was being tied to the post. Cassi then

made a noise. Tookaram and my mother took part in killing the girl.

After the murder her body was wrapped up in a mattress and kept on

the loft over the door of our room. When Cassi was strangled, the

door of the room was fastened from the inside by Tookaram. This

deed was committed shortly after my return home from work in the

mill. Tookaram put the body of the deceased in the mattress, and,

after it was left on the loft, he went to have his head shaved by a

barber named Sambhoo Raghoo, who lives only one door away from me.

My mother and myself then remained in the possession of the

information. I was slapped and threatened by my paramour, Tookaram,

and that was the only reason why I did not inform any one at that

time. When I told Tookaram that I would give information of the

occurrence, he slapped me. The accused Gopal was asked by Tookaram

to go back to his room, and he did so, taking away with him the two

gold ornaments and the 'lota'. Yesso Mahadhoo, a brother-in-law of

Tookaram, came to the house and asked Taokaram why he was washing,

the water-pipe being just opposite. Tookaram replied that he was

washing his dhotur, as a fowl had polluted it. About 6 o'clock of

the evening of that day my mother gave me three pice and asked me to

buy a cocoanut, and I gave the money to Yessoo, who went and fetched

a cocoanut and some betel leaves. When Yessoo and others were in

the room I was bathing, and, after I finished my bath, my mother

took the cocoanut and the betel leaves from Yessoo, and we five went

to the sea. The party consisted of Tookaram, my mother, Yessoo,

Tookaram's younger brother, and myself. On reaching the seashore,

my mother made the offering to the sea, and prayed to be pardoned

for what we had done. Before we went to the sea, some one came to

inquire after the girl Cassi. The police and other people came to

make these inquiries both before and after we left the house for the

seashore. The police questioned my mother about the girl, and she

replied that Cassi had come to her door, but had left. The next day

the police questioned Tookaram, and he, too, gave a similar reply.

This was said the same night when the search was made for the girl.

After the offering was made to the sea, we partook of the cocoanut

and returned home, when my mother gave me some food; but Tookaram

did not partake of any food that night. After dinner I and my

mother slept inside the room, and Tookaram slept on a cot near his

brother-in-law, Yessoo Mahadhoo, just outside the door. That was

not the usual place where Tookaram slept. He usually slept inside

the room. The body of the deceased remained on the loft when I went

to sleep. The room in which we slept was locked, and I heard that

my paramour, Tookaram, was restless outside. About 3 o'clock the

following morning Tookaram knocked at the door, when both myself and

my mother opened it. He then told me to go to the steps leading to

the quarry, and see if any one was about. Those steps lead to a

stable, through which we go to the quarry at the back of the

compound. When I got to the steps I saw no one there. Tookaram

asked me if any one was there, and I replied that I could see no one

about. He then took the body of the deceased from the loft, and

having wrapped it up in his saree, asked me to accompany him to the

steps of the quarry, and I did so. The 'saree' now produced here

was the same. Besides the 'saree', there was also a 'cholee' on the

body. He then carried the body in his arms, and went up the steps,

through the stable, and then to the right hand towards a Sahib's

bungalow, where Tookaram placed the body near a wall. All the time

I and my mother were with him. When the body was taken down, Yessoo

was lying on the cot. After depositing the body under the wall, we

all returned home, and soon after 5 a.m. the police again came and

took Tookaram away. About an hour after they returned and took me

and my mother away. We were questioned about it, when I made a

statement. Two hours later I was taken to the room, and I pointed

out this waistband, the 'dhotur', the mattress, and the wooden post

to Superintendent Nolan and Inspectors Roberts and Rashanali, in the

presence of my mother and Tookaram. Tookaram killed the girl Cassi

for her ornaments, which he wanted for the girl to whom he was

shortly going to be married. The body was found in the same place

where it was deposited by Tookaram."

The criminal side of the native has always been picturesque, always

readable. The Thuggee and one or two other particularly outrageous

features of it have been suppressed by the English, but there is enough

of it left to keep it darkly interesting. One finds evidence of these

survivals in the newspapers. Macaulay has a light-throwing passage upon

this matter in his great historical sketch of Warren Hastings, where he

is describing some effects which followed the temporary paralysis of

Hastings' powerful government brought about by Sir Philip Francis and his

party:

"The natives considered Hastings as a fallen man; and they acted

after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen, in India, a

cloud of crows pecking a sick vulture to death--no bad type of what

happens in that country as often as fortune deserts one who has been

great and dreaded. In an instant all the sycophants, who had lately

been ready to lie for him, to forge for him, to pander for him, to

poison for him, hasten to purchase the favor of his victorious

enemies by accusing him. An Indian government has only to let it be

understood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined, and in

twenty-four hours it will be furnished with grave charges, supported

by depositions so full and circumstantial that any person

unaccustomed to Asiatic mendacity would regard them as decisive. It

is well if the signature of the destined victim is not counterfeited

at the foot of some illegal compact, and if some treasonable paper

is not slipped into a hiding-place in his house."

That was nearly a century and a quarter ago. An article in one of the

chief journals of India (the Pioneer) shows that in some respects the

native of to-day is just what his ancestor was then. Here are niceties

of so subtle and delicate a sort that they lift their breed of rascality

to a place among the fine arts, and almost entitle it to respect:

"The records of the Indian courts might certainly be relied upon to

prove that swindlers as a class in the East come very close to, if

they do not surpass, in brilliancy of execution and originality of

design the most expert of their fraternity in Europe and America.

India in especial is the home of forgery. There are some particular

districts which are noted as marts for the finest specimens of the

forger's handiwork. The business is carried on by firms who possess

stores of stamped papers to suit every emergency. They habitually

lay in a store of fresh stamped papers every year, and some of the

older and more thriving houses can supply documents for the past

forty years, bearing the proper water-mark and possessing the

genuine appearance of age. Other districts have earned notoriety

for skilled perjury, a pre-eminence that excites a respectful

admiration when one thinks of the universal prevalence of the art,

and persons desirous of succeeding in false suits are ready to pay

handsomely to avail themselves of the services of these local

experts as witnesses."

Various instances illustrative of the methods of these swindlers are

given. They exhibit deep cunning and total depravity on the part of the

swindler and his pals, and more obtuseness on the part of the victim than

one would expect to find in a country where suspicion of your neighbor

must surely be one of the earliest things learned. The favorite subject

is the young fool who has just come into a fortune and is trying to see

how poor a use he can put it to. I will quote one example:

"Sometimes another form of confidence trick is adopted, which is

invariably successful. The particular pigeon is spotted, and, his

acquaintance having been made, he is encouraged in every form of

vice. When the friendship is thoroughly established, the swindler

remarks to the young man that he has a brother who has asked him to

lend him Rs.10,000. The swindler says he has the money and would

lend it; but, as the borrower is his brother, he cannot charge

interest. So he proposes that he should hand the dupe the money,

and the latter should lend it to the swindler's brother, exacting a

heavy pre-payment of interest which, it is pointed out, they may

equally enjoy in dissipation. The dupe sees no objection, and on

the appointed day receives Rs.7,000 from the swindler, which he

hands over to the confederate. The latter is profuse in his thanks,

and executes a promissory note for Rs.10,000, payable to bearer.

The swindler allows the scheme to remain quiescent for a time, and

then suggests that, as the money has not been repaid and as it would

be unpleasant to sue his brother, it would be better to sell the

note in the bazaar. The dupe hands the note over, for the money he

advanced was not his, and, on being informed that it would be

necessary to have his signature on the back so as to render the

security negotiable, he signs without any hesitation. The swindler

passes it on to confederates, and the latter employ a respectable

firm of solicitors to ask the dupe if his signature is genuine. He

admits it at once, and his fate is sealed. A suit is filed by a

confederate against the dupe, two accomplices being made

co-defendants. They admit their Signatures as indorsers, and the

one swears he bought the note for value from the dupe. The latter

has no defense, for no court would believe the apparently idle

explanation of the manner in which he came to endorse the note."

There is only one India! It is the only country that has a monopoly of

grand and imposing specialties. When another country has a remarkable

thing, it cannot have it all to itself--some other country has a

duplicate. But India--that is different. Its marvels are its own; the

patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible. And think of

the size of them, the majesty of them, the weird and outlandish character

of the most of them!

There is the Plague, the Black Death: India invented it; India is the

cradle of that mighty birth.

The Car of Juggernaut was India's invention.

So was the Suttee; and within the time of men still living eight hundred

widows willingly, and, in fact, rejoicingly, burned themselves to death

on the bodies of their dead husbands in a single year. Eight hundred

would do it this year if the British government would let them.

Famine is India's specialty. Elsewhere famines are inconsequential

incidents--in India they are devastating cataclysms; in one case they

annihilate hundreds; in the other, millions.

India had 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion all other

countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

With her everything is on a giant scale--even her poverty; no other

country can show anything to compare with it. And she has been used to

wealth on so vast a scale that she has to shorten to single words the

expressions describing great sums. She describes 100,000 with one word

--a 'lahk'; she describes ten millions with one word--a 'crore'.

In the bowels of the granite mountains she has patiently carved out

dozens of vast temples, and made them glorious with sculptured colonnades

and stately groups of statuary, and has adorned the eternal walls with

noble paintings. She has built fortresses of such magnitude that the

show-strongholds of the rest of the world are but modest little things by

comparison; palaces that are wonders for rarity of materials, delicacy

and beauty of workmanship, and for cost; and one tomb which men go around

the globe to see. It takes eighty nations, speaking eighty languages, to

people her, and they number three hundred millions.

On top of all this she is the mother and home of that wonder of wonders

caste--and of that mystery of mysteries, the satanic brotherhood of the

Thugs.

India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She

had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material

wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she

had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soil. It would seem as if she

should have kept the lead, and should be to-day not the meek dependent of

an alien master, but mistress of the world, and delivering law and

command to every tribe and nation in it. But, in truth, there was never

any possibility of such supremacy for her. If there had been but one

India and one language--but there were eighty of them! Where there are

eighty nations and several hundred governments, fighting and quarreling

must be the common business of life; unity of purpose and policy are

impossible; out of such elements supremacy in the world cannot come.

Even caste itself could have had the defeating effect of a multiplicity

of tongues, no doubt; for it separates a people into layers, and layers,

and still other layers, that have no community of feeling with each

other; and in such a condition of things as that, patriotism can have no

healthy growth.

It was the division of the country into so many States and nations that

made Thuggee possible and prosperous. It is difficult to realize the

situation. But perhaps one may approximate it by imagining the States of

our Union peopled by separate nations, speaking separate languages, with

guards and custom-houses strung along all frontiers, plenty of

interruptions for travelers and traders, interpreters able to handle all

the languages very rare or non-existent, and a few wars always going on

here and there and yonder as a further embarrassment to commerce and

excursioning. It would make intercommunication in a measure ungeneral.

India had eighty languages, and more custom-houses than cats. No clever

man with the instinct of a highway robber could fail to notice what a

chance for business was here offered. India was full of clever men with

the highwayman instinct, and so, quite naturally, the brotherhood of the

Thugs came into being to meet the long-felt want.

How long ago that was nobody knows-centuries, it is supposed. One of the

chiefest wonders connected with it was the success with which it kept its

secret. The English trader did business in India two hundred years and

more before he ever heard of it; and yet it was assassinating its

thousands all around him every year, the whole time.

CHAPTER XLIV.

The old saw says, "Let a sleeping dog lie." Right.... Still, when there

is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.

--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

FROM DIARY:

January 28. I learned of an official Thug-book the other day. I was

not aware before that there was such a thing. I am allowed the temporary

use of it. We are making preparations for travel. Mainly the

preparations are purchases of bedding. This is to be used in sleeping

berths in the trains; in private houses sometimes; and in nine-tenths of

the hotels. It is not realizable; and yet it is true. It is a survival;

an apparently unnecessary thing which in some strange way has outlived

the conditions which once made it necessary. It comes down from a time

when the railway and the hotel did not exist; when the occasional white

traveler went horseback or by bullock-cart, and stopped over night in the

small dak-bungalow provided at easy distances by the government--a

shelter, merely, and nothing more. He had to carry bedding along, or do

without. The dwellings of the English residents are spacious and

comfortable and commodiously furnished, and surely it must be an odd

sight to see half a dozen guests come filing into such a place and

dumping blankets and pillows here and there and everywhere. But custom

makes incongruous things congruous.

One buys the bedding, with waterproof hold-all for it at almost any shop

--there is no difficulty about it.