CHAPTER VII.

THE BREAKING UP.

Kay was indeed one of the many to whom a temporary relief from the

bread-tax came too late. Five years before, no man could be found more

eager in the statement of his case of hardship: five months before, he

had still some hope that a perpetuation of the then ample supply of food

might yet avail to restore his domestic peace. His wife might struggle

through her difficulties, and be once more a mother to his children, and

in aspect and mind something like the woman he married. Now, however,

all hope of this was over, and Kay had had no heart to attend the

meeting in the wood, or to mix with his former companions more than

could not be avoided. He went straight from the foundry to the side of

his wife’s chair, as long as she was able to sit up, and to nurse her

when she at length took to her bed. He owed her the exemplary attention

she received from him; for the same poverty which had seduced her into a

fatal habit had embittered his temper, and they had need of mutual

forgiveness. Since the noble effort each had made,—he to warn his

children against her example, and she to break away from the indulgence

which had become necessary,—neither had sinned against the other. No

rough word was heard from his lips, and self-denial, by Mary’s help,

never failed. Mrs. Kay sank slowly and very painfully. She well knew

that she must sink, either way, and to this she had no objection; but

often and often, in the solitude of her daily sufferings and the

restlessness of her nightly dozings, she thought that every body was

hard upon her; that they might have let her sink a little more rapidly,

and give her what she longed for. They did not seem to feel for her as

she thought they might, or they would indulge her without letting the

children perceive it. Mary must know sometimes, when she saw her very

low, what it must be that she wanted; but instead of taking any notice,

she only began to talk about any thing that would win away her mind for

a while. Then all these secret complainings were thrust away as if they

were suggestions of the devil, and a throng of reproachful recollections

would come,—of her husband’s patience in smoothing her pillow twenty

times in a night, and holding her head for hours when her startings had

frightened her; and of Mary’s never seeming tired, with all that was

upon her, or saying a word about what she gave up for her in keeping

Chatham waiting so long. She knew that it was only on her account that

they were not married yet, and she hoped she should soon be under the

sod, and no hinderance to any body; meanwhile, nobody but she would

perceive, so much as Mary had to say now, and so cheerfully as she

spoke, that she was giving up any thing for a sister who had deserved so

little from her.

Mrs. Kay expressed all this so fully and forcibly to her husband one

day, that he told Mary he really believed it would make all parties

happier if she would marry Chatham at once. The affair was soon settled,

and every body concerned was so evidently satisfied, that very few

neighbours ventured to pronounce above their breath how shocking it was

to marry from a house where there must soon be a death.

Mrs. Skipper, who had throughout been profuse of neighbourly attentions,

came to sit with Mrs. Kay while the party were gone to church on the

Sunday morning when the marriage took place. She was far from being the

most considerate and judicious of nurses; but Mrs. Kay did not seem so

alive to this as her husband and Mary, and appeared to like that she

should occasionally supply their place. This morning she showed herself

with eyes more red and swollen than a nurse should ever exhibit. Mrs.

Kay directly perceived this.

“O dear, Mrs. Skipper, what has happened to you? I am sure some

misfortune has happened. Tell me! Tell us at once.”

“Why, love, ’tis no misfortune of mine particularly, but every body’s

misfortune.”

“Why, that is worse still! Nothing has come in the way of the wedding?”

And she tried to start up in her bed.

“Bless you, no! Lie still. The wedding is likely to go on well enough;

and in my opinion it is high time they were off to church. No, no. It is

only that the Fergussons are gone.”

“Gone!” cried every voice in the house.

“Yes. Just slipped away quietly on a Sunday morning, when nobody was

suspecting, that they might not have their hearts half broke, I suppose—

—-“—A loud sob stopped the good woman’s utterance.

“Well, I am sure, Mrs. Skipper, it gives us all much concern,” said Kay.

“They are good people,—the Fergussons,—and of great consequence to all

the people about them; and it will be a sad thing to see the Abbey shut

up, and the grounds left to themselves. It is not the less melancholy

for our having looked forward to it this long while.”

“Why no, but rather the more,” said Chatham, “because we know what

misfortune sent them away. When the wind has torn the linnets’ nest, we

know that they will fly away; and the wood will miss them the more, and

not the less, for the fear that they will not venture to build in the

same place again.”

“And ’tis six years, come Michaelmas,” said Mrs. Skipper, “that they

have had hot bread from me every morning, except while they were just

gone to London. They have been the best customers that ever I had, and

now there is no knowing——They looked very grave, every one of them that

I could see, as they whisked past. I wonder whether they saw how I

cried. I hope they did. I am sure I don’t care who saw, for I am not

ashamed of being sorry for such as they.”

“I thought they would have stayed till harvest,” said Mary. “Such a

beautiful harvest as it will be this year. I have been telling my

sister, Mrs. Skipper, what a fine promising season it is. John and I

shall manage a better gleaning this year.”

“Why, yes, Mrs. Kay,” observed the widow, “I could not help thinking,

when I saw the sun shining, and the fields waving, and the people all

abroad in their best, that it is hard upon you to be lying here, so

dull, when you have not seen a green field, nor a number of people, for

I don’t know when. Well, I must tell you all about it, instead, when

they are gone. Now, Mary, what are you going in that way for, as grave

as a quaker, and more so than the quaker I saw married once? I know you

have a gown more fit to be married in than that. Go and put it on in a

minute,—your light green one, I mean, and I will lend you my pink

handkerchief. I will step for it, and bring it before you have got your

gown on. And you shall have this cap,—the ribbon is pink, you see; and

my other better one will do just as well for me. Come! Make haste!”

Such was not Mary’s will, however; and as her brother declared it quite

time to be gone, she proceeded at once to the altar in her dark-coloured

gown, thus leaving a fruitful topic for Mrs. Skipper to enlarge upon to

her patient, as soon as the party had closed the door behind them.

Before they went out, Mary offered a smiling hint to the widow not to

cry any more about the Fergussons, or any thing else, if she could help

it, while they were away; and to keep her charge as cheerful, if she

could, as she had been for the last few hours; hours of more ease than

she had known for some time past.

On their return, they found Mrs. Skipper,—not crying,—but in great

trouble,—in far too deep a trouble for tears. She was leaning over the

bed, looking aghast, when Chatham and Mary entered, arm in arm, with Kay

and his two elder children following.

“Why, Mrs. Skipper, what have you been doing to my wife?” cried Kay,

seeing that the sick woman’s eyes were fixed, and her whole countenance

quite different from what he had ever seen it before.

“Nothing, Mr. Kay; but I thought you never would have come back. She

took such a strange way the minute you were gone, I had the greatest

mind to call you back.”

“I wish you had,” said Mary, who had already thrown off her bonnet, and

was chafing the cold hands that lay helpless on the bed clothes.

“Ah! she has changed much within a few minutes too. Her hand lies still

now; but I had to put it down several times. She kept stretching it out

as if she thought to reach something; and I supposed she was thirsty,

but——”

A mournful shake of the head from Kay stopped her. He said she had often

done this when she was not quite herself.

“Yes: often and often,” said Mary; “and I have seen her as bad as this

before. Look, she is coming about. She sees us now.”

“If she be not trying to speak!” whispered Mrs. Skipper.

Mrs. Kay spoke, but she was wandering. She told Mary that next Sunday

should be the day for Chatham and her to be married, as she herself

should be buried out of their way by that time. Then perceiving Chatham,

she tried to give him some advice incoherently, and far too painfully to

be ever referred to after that day by any of them, about not letting his

wife come to poverty,—extreme poverty; and about distrusting her in such

a case, if she were an angel from heaven.

“For God’s sake stop her!” cried Kay, taking a sudden turn through the

room; and Mary stopped her by a kiss, though her own tears were dropping

like rain. Mrs. Kay proceeded with her self-accusations, however, as

long as she could speak at all; and the awe-struck children were taken

out of the room by Chatham.

“No, no!” said Mary, whispering her emphatic contradictions into the ear

of the dying woman, as soon as she could command her voice. “You have

done the noblest——you have gone through the hardest trial——God will not

forget your struggles as you forget them yourself. Your children shall

never forget them. Well, well. It was suffering,—it was hunger that did

all that! Don’t dwell upon that! All that was over long ago; and now the

pain is over,—just over; and we know what the promises are. If _we_

deserved them as well——”

“Bless you! Bless you, Mary!” cried the husband, in a broken voice.

But the painful impression of his wife’s words remained as strong as

ever when the restless eyes were finally closed, and a faint smile

rested on the lips whence the breath had departed. John was terrified by

his father’s manner of fetching him into the room, and saying, as he

showed him the corpse.

“You heard her say that she had been wicked. You heard her say——but

never mind all that. You will not know for this many a year how noble a

woman your mother was, and what she did for your sake. And if I ever

hear you say a word,——if I see you give the least look against her——”

John slunk away as Mary took her brother’s arm, and led him beside

Chatham, while she hung up a curtain before the bed, and made Mrs.

Skipper somewhat ashamed of being so much less able to exert herself

than the nearer connexions of the dead. The widow presently slipped out

to consult with her neighbours on the necessary arrangements, and to

express the most vehement admiration for the departed, while preserving

the strictest honour respecting the particulars of the closing scene.

Since that day, the curse of the bread-tax has alighted again and again

on that busy vale. Again has the landowner had the painful choice of

sinking from his rank at home or going abroad to preserve it. Again has

the farmer found himself, now marvellously rich, and now unaccountably

poor. Again has the manufacturer repined at having to surrender his

resources to support the burden of factitious pauperism,—to take too low

a place in the markets abroad in order that his agricultural neighbour

may be upheld in too high an one at home. Again has the corn-dealer

staked his all upon the chances of man’s caprice, with about as much

confidence as he would upon the cast of the die. Again gloom has brooded

over the dwellings of the poor, and evil passions have wrought there, in

proportion to the pressure of want,—the main spring of the vast

machinery of moral evil by which society is harrowed and torn. And as

often as a gleam of hope and present plenty has visited the cottage of a

long-suffering artizan, it has been clouded by the repinings of some

neighbour whose adversity has been, by ingenious methods of misrule,

made coincident with his prosperity. In this busy vale, as in every

valley of England inhabited by thinking men, there is one question still

for ever rising through the night air, and borne on the morning breeze,—

“How long?”—and on many a hill there are thinking men to take up the

inquiry, and echo “HOW LONG?”

_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._

As exchangeable value is ultimately determined by the cost of

production, and as there is an incessant tendency to an increase in the

cost of producing food, (inferior soils being taken into cultivation as

population increases,) there is a perpetual tendency in the exchangeable

value of food to rise, however this tendency may be temporarily checked

by accidents of seasons, and by improvements in agricultural arts.

As wages rise (without advantage to the labourer) in consequence of a

rise in the value of food, capitalists must either sell their

productions dearer than is necessary where food is cheaper, or submit to

a diminution of their profits.

Under the first alternative, the capitalist is incapacitated for

competition with the capitalists of countries where food is cheaper:

under the second, the capital of the country tends, through perpetual

diminution, to extinction.

Such is the case of a thickly-peopled country depending for food wholly

on its own resources.

There are many countries in the world where these tendencies have not

yet shown themselves; where there is so much fertile land, that the cost

of producing food does not yet increase; and where corn superabounds, or

would do so, if there was inducement to grow it.

Such inducement exists in the liberty to exchange the corn with which a

thinly-peopled country may abound, for the productions in which it is

deficient, and with which a populous country may abound. While, by this

exchange, the first country obtains more corn in return for its other

productions, and the second more of other productions in return for its

corn, than could be extracted at home, both are benefited. The capital

of the thickly-peopled country will perpetually grow; the thinly-peopled

country will become populous; and the only necessary limit of the

prosperity of all will be the limit to the fertility of the world.

-----------------------

But the waste of capital caused by raising corn dear and in limited

quantity at home, when it might be purchased cheap and in unlimited

quantity abroad, is not the only evil attending a restriction of any

country to its own resources of food; a further waste of capital and

infliction of hardship are occasioned by other consequences of such

restriction.

As the demand for bread varies little within any one season, or few

seasons, while the supply is perpetually varying, the exchangeable value

of corn fluctuates more than that of any article whose return to the

cost of production is more calculable.

Its necessity to existence causes a panic to arise on the smallest

deficiency of supply, enhancing its price in undue proportion; and as

the demand cannot materially increase on the immediate occasion of a

surplus, and as corn is a perishable article, the price falls in an

undue proportion.

These excessive fluctuations, alternately wasting the resources of the

consumers and the producers of corn, are avoided where there is liberty

to the one class to buy abroad in deficient seasons, and to the other to

sell abroad in times of superabundance.

It is not enough that such purchase and sale are permitted by special

legislation when occasion arises, as there can be no certainty of

obtaining a sufficient supply, on reasonable terms, in answer to a

capricious and urgent demand.

Permanently importing countries are thus more regularly and cheaply

supplied than those which occasionally import and occasionally export;

but these last are, if their corn exchanges be left free, immeasurably

more prosperous than one which is placed at the mercy of man and

circumstance by a system of alternate restriction and freedom.

By a regular importation of corn, the proper check is provided against

capital being wasted on inferior soils; and this capital is directed

towards manufactures, which bring in a larger return of food from abroad

than could have been yielded by those inferior soils. Labour is at the

same time directed into the most profitable channels. Any degree of

restriction on this natural direction of labour and capital is

ultimately injurious to every class of the community,—to landowners,

farming and manufacturing capitalists, and labourers.

Labourers suffer by whatever makes the prime necessary of life dear and

uncertain in its supply, and by whatever impairs the resources of their

employers.

Manufacturing capitalists suffer by whatever tends needlessly to check

the reciprocal growth of capital and population, to raise wages, and

disable them for competition abroad.

Farming capitalists suffer by whatever exposes their fortunes to

unnecessary vicissitude, and tempts them to an application of capital

which can be rendered profitable only by the maintenance of a system

which injures their customers.

Landowners suffer by whatever renders their revenues fluctuating, and

impairs the prosperity of their tenants, and of the society at large on

which the security of their property depends.

As it is the interest of all classes that the supply of food should be

regular and cheap, and as regularity and cheapness are best secured by a

free trade in corn, it is the interest of all classes that there should

be a free trade in corn.

THE END.

----------------------------

Printed by W. CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth.

CINNAMON AND PEARLS.

=A Tale.=

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

LONDON:

CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

---

833.

CONTENTS.

---

1. The Silent Trip 1

2. A Mushroom City 20

3. Morning in the Jungle 40

4. Night in the Jungle 65

5. Maternal Economy 76

6. Blithe News 101

7. Up and Doing 117

CINNAMON AND PEARLS.

------------------

CHAPTER I.

THE SILENT TRIP.

The brief twilight of the tropics had just sped away before the shadows

of night over the seas which gird Ceylon, when a raft, stealing along

the quiet expanse before the breath of the night-wind, approached the

spot beneath which lay one of the chank beds that enrich the northwest

coast of the island. The situation of the bed was marked by the constant

presence of a boat, placed there by the lessees of the chank bed to

guard its treasures from pilferers. These chanks, or conch-shells, are a

very tempting object of theft to the natives, not only as ornaments for

their own persons, but as being in constant demand for the same purpose,

and for burial with the distinguished dead, throughout the whole

neighbouring continent of India. Sawn into rings, they deck the wrists,

ancles, and fingers of many thousand dark beauties who care as little

whether they are obtained by filching or by lawful fishing, as some

fairer belles inquire whether their articles of luxury are smuggled or

legally imported. Great precautions are therefore necessary to preserve

the property of the chank monopolists; and the best of these precautions

are often useless. In the present case, the guard-boat might as well

have been empty, for any opposition that it offered to the approach of

the raft. The guard were probably asleep, or they would have perceived

it at the moment that the moon lifted her horn above the eastern wave,

spreading a sheet of light over the still expanse. At that moment, the

two dusky figures which had been standing erect and silent beside the

mast of the raft, began to move, though not to speak. Marana pointed to

the golden light which was just appearing, and Rayo, understanding her

sign, proceeded to lower the sail of matting, (which might become

conspicuous in the moonlight,) and to dislodge the mast. Both figures

then lay down beside it, so that the raft might have appeared, even to

close observation, to be no more than a piece of drifting wood, but for

the gleams sent forth from the precious stones with which Marana’s

silver hair-pins were set, and for the ripple of Rayo’s paddle, which he

contrived to ply as he lay. The critical moment must be when he plunged,

as there were no sea sounds amidst which the splash might be lost. All

was as quiet as a lake. The guard-boat was no cradle to those who slept

within it, for it kept its place as if it had been fixed in the sand of

the beach. The black points of rock which rose above the surface at a

distance towards the land were reflected with perfect fidelity, instead

of in fluctuating lines of shadow. Marana dreaded the plunge for her

lover, and fearfully watched to see dark figures rise up in the

guard-boat while the circles were yet spreading, and breaking the

moonlight to shivers on the surface. No foe appeared, however; and

Marana was at liberty for new fears. There were enemies in the green

depths below more formidable than any to the right hand or the left. It

was quite as probable that a shark might take a fancy to this locality

as a diver; and a chance meeting was little likely to end without

strife. Marana drew towards the edge of the raft as its heavings

subsided, and looked eagerly down, dreading to see a red tinge diffuse

itself in the lucid depth, and starting at every shadow that floated

through it. She was fingering her ebony beads meanwhile, and her lips

moved as she murmured some aspirations compounded of a catholic prayer

and a native charm. The depth was little more than two fathoms in this

place, and Rayo was soon up again, though the minute of his submersion

seemed incalculably longer to Marana. He delivered his pouch to her to

be emptied, and rested himself by floating till he was ready for another

descent.

Again and again he dived, till Marana discovered a treasure in the pouch

which destroyed all further temptation to theft that night, and relieved

the damsel from the anxiety of watching more descents of her lover. A

shell which opened to the right, commonly called a right-handed chank, a

shell esteemed worth its weight in gold, appeared in the heap, and it

was not worth while to run any further risk when so rare a possession as

this was obtained. Rayo’s spirits were so raised by his good fortune

that he insisted on paddling quite round the guard-boat, near enough to

see whether there was any one in it, while Marana looked anxiously at

the ascending moon, whose flood of light was now veiling the stars. When

she saw arms gleaming in the boat, she thought it too rash of her lover

to come between the sleeping guard and the moon, and looked imploringly

at him while she pointed to the shore. His curiosity once satisfied, the

danger was soon over. Rayo ventured to stand up to paddle, when the raft

had distanced the boat by half a mile, and Marana began her inquiries as

to what he had seen in the deep.

Rayo made light, as he had done for some time past, of the achievement

of diving for chanks. He had practised it as a preparation for becoming

a pearl-fisher in waters three times as deep, and for a much more

precious treasure. He was to make his first trial of the nobler

occupation at the approaching pearl fishery; and he spoke with becoming

indifference of all meaner accomplishments. He had seen no sharks

to-night; there would be more chance of them in deeper water. He had

been startled by no strange appearances: nine fathoms down was the scene

for wonders. He had found no difficulty in filling his pouch: the oyster

beds would afford harder work. Marana thought all this was

counterbalanced by the absence of a charmer who might say “avaunt!” to

sharks, and interpret all marvels, and lighten all toils. If her father

could have been on the raft with them to-night, she should think as

little of the trip as Rayo himself; and if he could but get himself

engaged for the same boat that was to carry Rayo out to his first pearl

fishing, she should have confidence in his prosperity and safe return.

They fell in with no other vessel till they came in sight of the shore,—

the wildest and dreariest part of the shores of Ceylon. A flat yellow

beach stretched away on either hand, without rock or tree, or any object

which could cast a shadow, except the huts of mud and rushes which

afforded a shelter to the natives. In no place was it easier to make a

landing, and in none was it more difficult to land unperceived, when sun

or moon was above the horizon. No jutting rocks were there, behind whose

screen a raft might lie concealed: no shady creek into which a skiff

might glide and secrete itself beneath the mangroves: no groves of

cocoa-nut, feathering the margin of the tide, beneath whose canopy dusky

pilferers might creep to divide their spoils. All was here open to the

sky, and to a sky whose lesser lights leave little unrevealed even on

the night of a new moon.

Rayo and Marana had little chance of stealing to their homes unobserved

while so many eyes were looking upon them from above, and while a

certain pair of vigilant human eyes preserved their wont of looking

abroad upon the night. The tall figure of Father Anthony, the priest,

was moving on the beach, preceded by his still taller shadow, when the

raft floated on shore. Rayo saw this while still afloat; and if he had

been an English smuggler, he would have pushed off again before he was

recognized, and have kept out of sight till Father Anthony was safely

housed. But Rayo’s ideas of good manners would not allow of this. He had

no notion of failing to pay his respects to any who came in his way,

whatever might be the consequence of the meeting; and he now greeted

Father Anthony with as much deference as Marana herself, hoping that it

was no evil which kept their friend awake at this hour.

“No worse evil than being unable to rest so well here as in Europe,

where there are no excessive heats of the day to make us restless at

night. But what fish do you seek so late? I fear you have lost your

nets,” he continued, seeing no fishing apparatus on board the raft.

Marana looked at Rayo, and Rayo said nothing.

“Chanks!” exclaimed Father Anthony, perceiving now of what Marana’s

burden consisted. “These chanks cannot be yours.”

“His hands brought them up,” declared Marana, pointing to her lover.

“It may be so, but they are no more his than the comb in his hair would

be mine if I were to take it from him. Rayo, why did you steal these

chanks? Do not you know that God punishes theft?”

“Is it theft to get chanks for my bride, when I have worked long for

them, and can get no chanks by working? I thought God laid the chanks in

our seas for our brides.”

“They have become the property of some who may let your brides, or the

brides of India have them, as they may see fit. God gave them into the

hands of those who possess them; and He will be angry with any who take

them away by fraud or violence. All cannot have these chank-beds, and

those who have bought them must be protected in their possession.”

“I have earned as many as I have taken,” replied Rayo; “and to-night God

has given them to me. The guard did not even stir when I plunged.”

“And God gave him this,” added Marana, showing the precious shell as an

indubitable proof of all being right. Father Anthony had not been long

enough in his present station to know the full value of what he now took

into his hand; but if he had, his decision would have been the same,—

that the chanks were not Rayo’s.

Rayo was much in want of his friend’s guidance. In the school, it was

taught as a duty that a just reward should be given for toil. Was it a

duty out of school to toil without reward?

Certainly not, except in the case of the mutual services which friends

and neighbours should yield to each other. But nobody thought of toiling

without reward, as far as Father Anthony knew. The chank-fishers, he was

sure, were paid. Rayo acknowledged having received certain portions of

rice, and of cotton for clothing; but never any wages which would

purchase what was necessary for Marana before her father would allow her

to marry. Rayo had no objection to work, but he had not doubted about

the liberty of paying himself, in case of an insufficiency of wages.

When he heard, however, all the denunciations that Father Anthony had to

bring against the sin of theft, and it was pressed upon him that he had

actually been guilty of the crime, he was perfectly submissive; no less

so than Marana, though his eyes did not stream like hers, and he did not

so instantly betake himself to his devotions. He stood with his eyes

cast down, waiting for instructions.

“Your duty is clear, Rayo,” said Father Anthony. “He that hath stolen

must not only steal no more, but must restore what he hath stolen. When

the sun rises, you must go to the owners of these chanks and restore

them, relating your offence and seeking their pardon;—I need not say

humbly, for I have never observed you fail in humility.”

Rayo made obeisance, and Marana hoped he might also relate how he fell

into the offence.

“If he does it without any pretence of justifying himself,” said Father

Anthony, who was not unwilling that the facts of the oppression under

which his poor friends laboured should be brought home, on every

possible occasion, to the owners of the wealth which surrounded them,

and which they might not appropriate, “Rayo may say why he wishes for

chanks and for the money that chanks will bring; but he must not defend

himself for having taken them without leave. Neither must you excuse

yourself before God, Rayo; but seek His pardon before you sleep. May He

pardon and bless you, Rayo!”

“How far will you have to carry them?” asked Marana, as soon as Father

Anthony was out of hearing. “If it is not too far for a woman, I will go

with you, and carry them, and confess for you. How far must they be

carried.”

Rayo pointed to his father’s hut,—his own abode, and began walking

towards it with a countenance of perfect content. But Marana stopped,

and looked the entreaty which she dared not speak.

“They are heavy,” observed Rayo, taking the chanks from her.

“No, no. I will carry them to the mountains,—I will swim with them

through the sea, sooner than that the curse shall light upon you, Rayo.

Father Anthony says the curse comes upon those who do not do as they

say, and a great curse upon those who steal as we have done, unless they

restore.”

“It will bring a curse to say what he bids me say to the rich men. I

shall fish no more chanks, and lose what I have got, and perhaps fish no

pearls. This will be a curse.”

“But what will Father Anthony say to-morrow?”

“Let us see if he finds it out.”

“But the curse will come, whether Father Anthony knows or not.”

“Your father shall charm it away, and you shall have your rings; and the

rest shall be sold at the fishery. Then we will build a house, and we

will each have new clothing, and we will be married.—But let us hide the

chanks. If my father finds them, he will sell some. If Neyna finds them,

she will ask for rings too. We will hide them in the rushes.”

Marana dared not resist, but her horror of the curse grew every moment.

She did not think at all the worse of her lover for his determination.

She rather admired the bravery of it, her thoughts being employed, not

on the sin, but on its apprehended consequences. She doubted whether her

father had a charm strong enough to obviate the effects of her lover’s

rashness; and she was far less afraid of anything that might come out of

the rushes than of what might come out of the deed which Rayo went to do

there.

When the torches were lighted, without which it is unsafe to penetrate

the places where leopards may be crouching on dry sand, hidden by the

silky rushes, she went first, fearing, not the glaring eye of a savage

beast, but the vigilant glance of some saint or demon whom her religion

or the old superstitions of the country taught her to regard as the

dispenser of punishment from above. She started as the night-wind swept

among the reeds, not so much from dread of some velvet paw that might be

stealing towards her, as from expectation of some token of wrath. All

was quiet, however. The curse was not perceived immediately to light,

and the lovers parted in safety at the door of her father’s hut.

Marana stood for some time hesitating between lying down at once on her

mat to sleep, and waking her father, to trouble him for a charm without

loss of time. A better plan than either flashed across her mind, and

found more and more favour the longer she entertained it. It might avert

the curse without exposing Rayo to shame; and the loss of the chanks

(which was involved in her scheme) was a small price to pay for such

security. She hoped Rayo might be brought to think so; and if not, she

could rather bear his anger than see the curse light upon him. The

chanks were intended chiefly for her; and she could do without them for

ornaments, and had rather marry Rayo without a house and without new

clothing, than expose him to the curse: and thus, by a process of

reasoning over which the fear of a curse presided, she convinced herself

that the best thing she could do was to restore the chanks to their oozy

bed.

Without a torch, for she had not now the means of getting one, she stole

out, and crept to the hiding place among the rushes. Without bite from

snake, or alarm from any living thing more formidable than a bat, she

made her way out again. Without help or hinderance, she pushed the

little raft into the water, hoisted its mast and mat, and stood out

alone into the shining sea. What kind of malignant beings she could

imagine to be hovering between the glorious constellations and their

earthly mirror, it was for her to tell. The miseries which she believed

them commissioned to dispense came from a much nearer place than the

nearest of those radiant spheres, or even of the dense clouds which

began to show like a low wall along the horizon. The miseries under the

pressure of which her lover had committed crime, and she was now

dreading the atonement, came from the corrupt desires and infirm

judgments of men near at hand, whose passion was for the possession of

the powers of the earth, and not for alliance with the powers of the

air.

When Rayo rose in the morning at his father’s call, to trim the boat for

a fishing expedition, he was surprised to see no sign of his little raft

on the beach. It might have been washed away,—the sea being no longer so

smooth as it was a few hours before: or some unscrupulous neighbour

might have used it for his own convenience. It was of little

consequence; a raft being the simplest and cheapest of all contrivances

by which a Cingalese can set himself afloat.—The disappearance was

explained when old Gomgode’s flat-bottomed fishing-boat, containing

himself and Rayo, had made some progress from the land, and was pitching

in the rising swell, while the young man threw out his nets.

“Rayo, Rayo,” said Gomgode, “what is floating out beyond? Rayo, Rayo,

tell me whether it is not your raft.”

Rayo believed it was, but could scarcely distinguish it yet with

sufficient certainty to claim it. The old man’s sight might not be

really better than his son’s, but it was usually sharpened by curiosity

to a much greater degree than that of the less vivacious Rayo. He now

perceived that there was a woman upon the raft, and then Rayo also began

to see very clearly;—and not only to see, but to act. Gomgode could not

conceive what possessed Rayo to draw in the nets so hastily, and quit

their station, and give up every thing for the sake of following or

meeting this raft, when to-day, of all days, it was important to secure

a good draught of fish. They had come out early on purpose, the auction

of the oyster-banks being just about to be held, giving a fine

opportunity for the sale of fish. One boat after another was dropping

out from the shore, and Rayo was losing all the advantage of being out

first,—was giving up all his preparations, for the sake of making

towards the raft.

“Rayo, Rayo,” the old man exclaimed.

“Father, Marana is there, dripping and struggling.”

“Is it Marana? It is Marana. What sent her out, Rayo? How long has she

been out, Rayo? Did you know that she had your raft, Rayo? O, Rayo, what

is she going to do now, Rayo?”

Marana was about to do a somewhat perilous thing. She was about to dash

through a threatening wave as a horserider bursts through a blind hoop,

trusting to light again. The sea was now far too rough for so slight a

machine as this raft. It pitched and shivered as every wave broke over

it, and afforded so little secure hold against the stronger swells which

succeeded each other, that Marana seemed to find it her best way to pass

through them separately. She was seen standing with her face towards the

approaching wave, eyeing it steadily, and cleaving her way through it so

as to come out near the very point to which the raft was descending from

its ridge. This was all very well for awhile; but Marana was yet a great

way from shore, and it was scarcely possible but that such a succession

of plunges must exhaust her before she could commit herself finally to

the waves to be cast upon the beach. It was contrary to her habits also

to use much exertion, and the effort which brought her out thus alone

upon the sea,—whatever might be its motive,—could hardly be long

sustained. Rayo was full of wonder and of fear; and his father’s

remonstrances and questions stood little chance of being attended to

till Marana was safe on board.

Marana herself, though by far the most deferential person that Gomgode

was wont to meet, could scarcely bring herself to give an answer to his

inquiries till she had obtained Rayo’s forgiveness for having, at great

sacrifice to herself, averted the curse from him. Meek and downcast, the

dusky beauty stood before him, her half-clothed frame trembling with her

late exertions, and the salt water dripping from her hair. One corner of

her garment seemed to be very carefully cherished by her. It contained

the precious right-handed chank. She had not found in her heart to part

with it, on arriving at the place of deposit: and, while hesitating,

several good reasons for keeping it occurred to her,—as is not

unfrequently the case with those who are religious after her manner, any

more than with those who are not religious at all. It was a pity the

shell should be lost, and it was likely never to be fished up among so

many. It might be turned to a much better purpose, if her father would

make it a charm. There could be no sin in keeping it, if it was thus

converted to a religious use instead of being sold for a profit. Marana

therefore kept the chank, and was the better able to bear her lover’s

displeasure from the silent consciousness that she held a treasure for

him in her possession.

She did not make a syllable of reply to his lowering look and few

cutting words against herself; and when his wrath turned upon Father

Anthony, or rather upon any priest or religion which interfered with his

doings, Marana testified only by a slight glance round her that she was

uneasy under this rashness of complaint.

The moment the boat touched the shore after a prosperous trip, she

hastened to her father’s cottage, not waiting to observe how much more

Gomgode would ask for his fish than they were actually worth, nor even

to hear whether anything was yet known of the quality of the oysters

which had been brought up as a sample from the pearl banks, and on whose

evidence the auction was to proceed. She had an office to discharge, in

common with her neighbours;—to dress and light up the road by which the

agent of the government was to approach: and she was anxious to obtain

the desired favour from her father before she went forth.

The Charmer, who was expecting an application, in the course of this

day, to hold his services in readiness for the fishery, was now absorbed

in his preparations. He sat in a corner of his hut with his documents

spread before him. Strips of the talipot-leaf, on which some consecrated

style, guided by a wise man’s hand, had traced mysterious characters,

lay before the Charmer, and beads and images and various sacred

indescribable articles were scattered around. He gave no heed to his

child when she entered, and his melancholy countenance wore a deeper

sadness than usual.

“Father!” softly said Marana, after some time waiting his pleasure;

“where will the sharks be during the fishery?”

The Charmer shook his head, and acknowledged his doubt whether St.

Anthony would be permitted to keep them all within the bounds of Adam’s

Bridge, or whether some would be left at large between the north banks

and the shore. The south banks would be safe; but the north, alas! were

those in which Marana was interested.

“Father! the monsoon will surely not arrive too early?”

“Not till April is nearly past,” he replied, cheerfully. “It is even

likely that there may be complaints in the south of drought, from the

delay of the rains. There will be no storms in our fishery.”

“I will ask Father Anthony to praise the saints.—Will the fishery be

rich?”

“To some, and not to others. This is commonly the case; and I cannot

discover whose countenances will be sad in Aripo, and whose merry voices

will sing along the shore at Condatchy, when the last signal-gun has

brought back the last boat.”

There was a long pause before Marana ventured to utter the more

important question,

“Father! will any one be waited for in the paradise under the sea?”

The Charmer rubbed his hand over his brow, and said that this was the

point he was endeavouring to ascertain when his daughter entered. His

indications were at variance; and whether the fishery was to be fatal to

none, or to more than he had put the question for, he could not decide.—

Marana felt that she must request Father Anthony to intercede with, as

well as praise the saints.

“Is it a blind day to you, father?” she inquired, struck by his tone of

doubt on almost every topic she had introduced.

“My blind days are many,” he replied, “and the blindness troubles me.

Marcair looks doubtfully upon me, and I look doubtfully upon myself,—

because I warned him that a wild elephant would tread his rice-ground

seven nights ago. Marcair lighted eleven fires, and thirty-two friends

kept watch with him for three nights; and not a twig was heard to snap

in the jungle: and those who laid ear to the ground say that not so much

as a panther trod within a mile.”

“Seven nights since? That was the night that ball of white fire crossed

the sky——”

“A ball of fire! St. Anthony opened your eyes to see it! A ball of white

fire cast from the hand of a saint is more fearful than eleven fires

kindled by men’s hands.”

“The elephant was scared, father, no doubt. The ball passed over that

very jungle, and then above Marcair’s rice-ground, and then into the

sea.”

The Charmer’s spirits were so raised by the news of this interposition,

that he presently contrived to bring his most important calculations to

an agreement, and then lost no time in charming the shell, that his

daughter might be at liberty to reveal to the neighbours what she had

seen on the seventh preceding night, and thus re-establish her father’s

credit.

She had never heard her father speak more positively on any point than

on this,—that if Rayo was married to her before he went out to the

fishery, this charm would bring Rayo back safe from the fishery.—It

followed that Rayo should have his wish, and be married before the

adventure. There being no dwelling ready nor any thing to put therein,

was a matter of small moment in comparison with Rayo’s safety.

Marana went forth with her usual slow and demure step and demeanour: but

the torches which flashed here and there on her path were reflected back

from her eyes as brightly as from the topazes on the crown of her head.

With a lighter, but no less graceful touch than usual, did she unfurl

the fan-like talipot leaves of which the tents for the strangers were

composed. With more than her usual fancy did she feather with cocoa-nut

leaves the poles of bamboo to which torches were to be fastened at

intervals along the road. She was too poor to pay the tribute of white

cotton cloth for the government agent to walk upon, when he should

arrive within sight of the huts: but she had a new song to offer, which

was worth full as much. She had, besides, a little cocoa-nut oil to

spare for the anointing of a sister beauty or two, when she had made her

own toilet: so that the remark went round that Marana must have got some

new charm from her father for her special adornment. Rayo’s manner

seemed to show that he thought so too.

CHAPTER II.

A MUSHROOM CITY.

After the usual expenditure of anxiety, prudence, jealousy, wrath and

cunning, the letting of the Pearl banks had been accomplished. A great

speculator had offered government a certain sum for the whole fishery of

the season, and had then let the different banks to various merchants,

to whom the gracious permission was given to make what they could of the

natives of the land as well as of the sea;—not only to appropriate the

natural wealth of the region, but to bring its inhabitants as near to

the brink of starvation as they pleased in their methods of employing

their toil. Pearls seem to be thought beautiful all over the world where

they have been seen. Empresses in the north, ladies of all degree in the

east and west, and savages between the tropics, all love to wear pearls;

and where is there a woman, in an Esquimaux hut or a Welsh farmhouse,

who would not wear pearls if she could obtain them? And why should not

all have pearls who wish for them, if there is a boundless store, and

labourers enough willing and ready to provide them? Alas! there are not

only few wearers of pearls because the interests of the many are not

consulted, but the labourers who obtain them are by the same cause kept

bare of almost the necessaries of life, going forth hungry and half

naked to their toil, and returning to seek rest amidst the squalidness

of poverty, while hundreds and thousands of their families and

neighbours stand on the shore envying them as they depart, and preparing

to be jealous of them on their return: both parties being, all the

while, the natural owners of the native wealth of their region. And why

is all this injustice and tyranny? That a few, a very few, may engross a

resource which should enrich the many. Yet, not many things are more

evident than that to impoverish the many is the most certain method of

ultimately impoverishing the few; and the reverse. If the government

would give away its pearl banks to those who now fish those banks for

the scantiest wages which will support life, government would soon gain

more in a year from the pearls of Ceylon than it has hitherto gained by

any five fisheries. If buyers might bid for pearls from every quarter of

the world to those who might sell any where, and after their own manner,

Cingalese huts of mud and rushes would grow into dwellings of timber and

stone; instead of bare walls, there would be furniture from a thousand

British warehouses; instead of marshes, there would be rice-fields;

instead of rickety coasting boats, there would be fleets of merchantmen

riding in the glorious harbours of the island; instead of abject prayers

from man to man as the one is about to suffer the dearth which the other

inflicts, there would be the good will and thanksgiving which spring

from abundance; instead of complaints on the one hand of expensive

dependence, and murmurs about oppression on the other, there would be

mutual congratulation for mutual aid. Ceylon would over pay, if

required, in taxes, if not in advantageous commerce, any sacrifice of

the monopolies by which she has been more thoroughly and ingeniously

beggared than any dependency on which British monopoly has exercised its

skill; and Britain might disburthen her conscience of the crime of

perpetuating barbarism in that fairest of all regions, for whose

civilization she has made herself responsible. There are many methods of

introducing civilization; and some very important ones have been tried

upon this beautiful island, and with as much success as could be

expected: but the most efficacious,—the prime method,—is only beginning

to be tried,—the allowing the people to gain the property which nature

has appointed as their share of her distribution. Let the Cingalese

gather their own pearls, exchange their own timber, sell their own dyes

wherever and in whatsoever manner they like, and they will soon

understand comfort, and care for luxuries, like all who have comforts

and luxuries within their reach; and with these desires and attainments

will come the perceptions of duty,—the new sense of obligation which it

is the object of all plans of civilization to introduce.

Great pains had been taken to civilize Rayo. He had been schooled and

watched over—he could read, and he respected the religion of his priest;

he was willing to toil, and had a taste for comfort. But, beyond the

hope of acquiring a hut and a mat or two, there was little stimulus to

toil, and as little to conduct himself with a view towards any future

circumstances. Strangers not only carried away the wealth of the land,

but they prevented that wealth from growing, and therefore the labour of

the inhabitants from obtaining a wider field. As pearls were fished ten

years before, so they would be fished ten years hence, for any

probability that he saw to the contrary. A thousand divers carried away

a pittance then, insufficient to bring over to them the desirable things

which were waiting on the shores of the neighbouring continent for a

demand; and a like pittance might such another thousand carry away in

time to come; in like manner might they sigh for foreign commodities,

and in like manner might foreign commodities be still waiting, wrought

or unwrought, for a demand. Therefore was Rayo still in a state of

barbarism, though he understood and praised the trial by jury, and could

read the prayers of his church. He was in a state of barbarism, for

these accomplishments had no influence on his conduct and his happiness.

He was selfish in his love; fraudulent with an easy conscience in his

transactions of business; and capable of a revenge towards his superiors

as remorseless as his deportment was gentle and polished. No

circumstance had ever produced so happy an effect upon him as his

advancement to be a pearl-diver, an advancement in dignity, if not in

gain. It was the last promotion he was ever likely to obtain; but,

besides that it softened his heart by occasioning his immediate

marriage, it gave him the new object of distinguishing himself, and

opened the possibility of his profiting by some stray pearl, or by some

chance opportunity of speculating on a lot of oysters. He walked to join

his company on the beach with a demeanour unlike that by which Rayo was

commonly known; and his young wife looked after him with a new feeling

of pride.

He was sure to be as safe as on shore, for the Charmer was to go in the

same boat, and no shark binder of the whole assemblage was more

confident of having effectually bound the sharks than Marana’s father.

All were confident; and the crowds on the beach looked as joyous for the

night as if the work was going on for their sakes. A city of bowers

seemed to have sprung up like Jonah’s gourd, or like the tabernacles

which, in old times of Jewish festivals, made Jerusalem a leafy paradise

for a short season of every year. Talipot tents, and bamboo huts dressed

with greens and flowers were clustered around the sordid dwellings on

the sands. Throngs of merchants and craftsmen, black, tawny, and white,

with their variety of costumes, mingled in this great fair. The polisher

of jewels was there with his glittering treasure. The pearl-driller

looked to his needles and pearl dust, while awaiting on his low seat the

materials on which he was to employ his skill. The bald, yellow-mantled

priest of Budhoo passed on amidst obeisances in one place, as did the

Catholic pastor in another. The white vested Mahomedan, the turbaned

Hindoo, the swathed Malay merchants exhibited their stores, or looked

passively on the gay scene. The quiet Dutchman from the south sent a

keen glance through the market in quest of precious stones in the hands

of an ignorant or indolent vender. The haughty Candian abated his

fierceness, and stepped out of the path of the European; while the

stealthy Cingalese was in no one’s path, but won his way like a snake in

the tall grass of the jungle. The restless lessees of the banks,

meanwhile, were flitting near the boats, now ranged in a long row, each

with its platform, ropes and pullies; each with its shark-binder, its

pilot, its commander, its crew of ten, and its company of ten divers.

The boat-lights were being kindled, one by one, and scattering a

thousand sparkles over the rippling tide. It was just on the stroke of

ten, and the signal gun was all that was waited for. The buzz of voices

fell into a deep silence as the expectation became more intense. Those

who were wont to make the heavens their clock and the stars its

hour-hand, looked up to mark the precise inclination of the Southern

Cross; while those who found an index in the flow of the tide, paced the

sands from watermark to watermark. Yet more turned their faces southward

towards the dark outline of hill and forest that rose on the horizon,

and watched for the land breeze. It came,—at first in light puffs which

scarcely bowed the rushes around the lagoons, or made a stir among the

stalks in the rice-ground. Moment by moment it strengthened, till the

sails of the boats began to bulge, and every torch and faggot of

cocoa-nut leaves on the beach slanted its forks of flame towards the

sea, as if to indicate to the voyagers their way. Then the signal-gun

boomed, its wreath of smoke curled lazily upward and dispersed itself in

the clear air, while a shout, in which every variety of voice was

mingled, seemed to chase the little fleet into the distance. The

shouting ceased amidst the anxiety of watching the clusters of receding

lights, which presently looked as if they had parted company with those

in the sky, and had become a degree less pure by their descent. Then

rose the song of the dancing-girls, as they stood grouped, each with a

jewelled arm withdrawn from beneath her mantle, and her jet-black hair

bound with strings of pearl. Mixed with their chaunt, came the

mutterings and gabblings of the charmers who remained on shore,

contorting their bodies more vehemently than would have been safe on any

footing less stable than terra-firma.

The most imposing part of the spectacle was now to the people at sea. As

their vessels were impelled by an unintermitting wind through the

calmest of seas, they were insensible to motion, and the scene on shore,

with its stir and its sound, seemed to recede like the image of a

phantasmagoria, till the flickering lights blended into one yellow haze

in which every distinct object was lost. It became at length like a dim

star, contrasting strangely in brightness and in hue with the

constellation which appeared to rise as rapidly as majestically over the

southern hills, like an auxiliary wheeling his silent force to restore

the invaded empire of night. Night now had here undisputed sway; for the

torches which flared at the prows of the boats were tokens of homage,

and not attempts at rivalship of her splendours.

Sailing is nearly as calculable a matter on these expeditions as a

journey of fifty miles in an English mail-coach. There is no need to

think about the duration of the darkness, in a region where the days and

nights never vary more than fifteen minutes from their equal length;

and, as for a fair wind, if it is certain that there will be one to

carry you straight out at ten to-night, it is equally certain that there

will be an opposite one to bring you straight in before noon to-morrow.

Nature here saves you the trouble of putting engine and paddle-box into

your boat, in order to be able to calculate your going forth and your

return. By the time the amber haze in the east was parting to disclose

the glories of a tropical sunrise, the fleet was stationed in a circle

over the banks. Every stray shark had received its commands to close its

jaws, and hie back to Adam’s Bridge; and on each side of every platform

stood five men, every one with his foot slung on the pyramidal stone,

whose weight must carry him nine fathoms down into the regions of

monstrous forms and terrifying motions.

Rayo was one who was thus in readiness. He stood next to the Charmer,—

Marana’s father,—over whom a change seemed to have come since he left

the land. It might be from the fasting necessary to his office; it might

be from the intensity of his devotion; but it might also be from fear,

that his hands shook as he fumbled among his sacred furniture, and his

voice quavered as he chaunted his spells. Rayo perceived his disorder,

and a qualm came over the heart of the young diver,—a qualm such as

assails the servile agent of a rich man’s prosperity much sooner than

one in whom independence brings bravery. Rayo looked keenly at the

Charmer; but the Charmer avoided meeting his eye, and it was not

permitted to interrupt his incantation.

It was, perhaps, not the better for Rayo that the opposite five went

first,—it gave more time for the unstringing of his nerves. The splash

of the thousand men who descended within the circle took away his breath

as effectually as the closing waters were about to deprive him of it. It

was a singular sight to see the half of this vast marshalled company

thus suddenly engulphed, and to think of them, in one moment after, as

forming a human population at the bottom of the sea. To be a subject of

the experiment was to the full as strange as to witness it, as Rayo

found, when the minute of his companions’ submersion was at length over,

and a thousand faces (very nearly scarlet, notwithstanding their tawny

skins) rushed up through the green wave. Spouting, dripping, and

panting, they convulsively jerked their burden of oysters out upon the

platform, and then tried to deliver their news from the regions below;

but for this news their comrades must not wait. Down went Rayo, to find

out the difference between three fathoms and nine. How far the lively

idea of a shark’s row of teeth might have quickened his perceptions, he

did not himself inquire; but he was conscious of a more dazzling flash

before his eyes, a sharper boring of the drum of his ear, and a general

pressure so much stronger than ever before, that it would have been easy

for him to believe, if he had been a Hindoo, like his neighbours, that

he supported the tortoise that supported the elephant that supported the

globe. He could see nothing at first in the dizzy green that was

suffocating and boiling him; but that did not signify, as he had no time

to look about him. He thought he was descending clean into a shark’s

jaws, so sharp was that against which his left great toe struck, when

his descent from the ninth heaven to the ninetieth abyss was at length

accomplished. (How could any one call it nine fathoms?) On meeting this

shark’s tooth, or whatever it was, yelling was found to be out of the

question. It was luckily forgotten in the panic, that the rope was to be

pulled in case of accident;—luckily, as there was no alternative between

Rayo’s losing all credit as a diver, and the fishing being at an end for

that day, from his spreading the alarm of a shark. He did not pull the

rope; he only pulled up his left leg vigorously enough to assure himself

that it was still in its proper place; by which time he discovered that

he had only mistaken a large, gaping oyster for a hungry shark. Rayo’s

great toe being not exactly the viand that this oyster had a longing

for, it ceased to gape, and Rayo manfully trampled it under foot, before

wrenching it from the abode of which its seven years’ lease had this day

expired. These oysters required a terrible wrenching, considering that

there was no taking breath between. Now he had got the knack. A pretty

good handful, that!—St. Anthony! where did that slap in the face come

from—so cold and stunning? Rayo’s idea of a buffet from the devil was,

that it would be hot; so he took heart, and supposed it was a fish, as

indeed it was. He must go now,—O! O! he must go. He should die now

before he could get up through that immeasurable abyss. But where was

the rope? St. Anthony! where was the rope? He was lost! No! it was the

rope slapped his face this time. Still he was lost! A shadowy, striding

mountain was coming upon him,—too enormous to be any fish but a whale.

Suppose Rayo should be the first to see a whale in these seas! St.

Anthony! It was one of his companions. If they were not gone up yet,

could not he stay an instant longer, and so avoid being made allowance

for as the youngest diver of the party? No, not an instant. He rather

thought he must be dead already, for it was hours since he breathed. He

was alive enough, however, to coil himself in the rope. Then he went to

sleep for a hundred years; then,—what is this? dawn? A green dawn?—

brighter,—lighter,—vistas of green light everywhere, with wriggling

forms shooting from end to end of them. Pah! here is a mouthful of ooze.

Rayo should not have opened his mouth. Here is the air at last! Rayo

does not care; the water does as well by this time. If he is not dead

now, water will never kill him, for he has been a lifetime under it.

“Well, Rayo,” says the captain, “you have done pretty well for the first

time. You have been under water a full minute, and one man is up before

you. Here comes another.”

“A full minute!”

Even so. Who has not gone through more than this in a dream of less than

a minute? and yet more if he has been in sudden peril of instant death,

when the entire life is lived over again, with the single difference of

all its events being contemporaneous? Since it is impossible to get into

this position voluntarily, let him who would know the full worth of a

minute of waking existence, plunge nine fathoms deep,—not in the sandy

ooze of a storm-vext ocean, where he might as well be asleep for

anything that he will see,—but in some translucent region which Nature

has chosen for her treasury.

Rayo had re-discovered one of the natural uses of air; but he was in

despair at the prospect before him. Forty or fifty such plunges as this

to-day! and as many more to-morrow, and almost every day for six weeks!

Forty or fifty life-times a-day for six weeks! This is not the sort of

eternity he had ever thought of desiring: and if purgatory is worse,

Father Anthony had not yet spoken half ill enough of it. Rayo had better

turn priest: he could speak eloquently now on any subject connected with

duration.

Before the end of the day’s work, however, the impression was much

weakened. The minutes of submersion grew shorter, fish and their shadows

more familiar, and much of the excessive heat and cold were found to

have proceeded from within. Before noon, Rayo could consider of certain

things to be attended to on the platform, as well as on the oyster-bed.

Oysters gape sometimes in the air as well as in the water. As Rayo

floated in the intervals of his plunges, (having grown so hardy as to

resist the remonstrances of the Charmer,) he observed the commander take

the opportunity of slipping a morsel of wood into any oyster-shell that

might happen to open, to prevent its closing again, and thus to save the

necessity of waiting for the putrefaction of the fish before its

treasure could be extracted. Rayo also perceived, that by an unheeded

touch of the commander’s foot, one of these oysters was dislodged from

its horizontal position, and slipped with its hinge uppermost, so as to

give exit to a large white pearl, so round that it rolled on and on,

till it was stopped by a piece of rope, under whose shadow it lay

apparently unperceived. It would have been risking too much to mount the

boat in this present interval, for the purpose of picking up the pearl.

Rayo must wait till after the next plunge; and in the meantime, it was

but too probable somebody would move the rope, and either discover the

pearl, or let it run away to some useless place. Such a pearl as this

was worth all the chanks that Marana had cast away, including the

right-handed one. Such a pearl as this would build a boat as well as a

house, and make Marana look like a bride indeed. Such a pearl as this

was no more than Rayo believed the proper payment of his labour,

considering that strangers carried away all the profit from the country

people. Such a pearl—this very pearl—might have come into his

possession, if he had taken the chance, like some of his companions, of

a lot of oysters, instead of small, fixed wages. In short, Rayo designed

to have the pearl, and found means of justifying the act of dishonesty,

which he would have strongly scrupled if he had been serving a party in

whose prosperity he was interested, instead of one who interfered with

the prosperity of himself and his countrymen. What Father Anthony had

taught served little other purpose at present than quickening Rayo’s

ingenuity in finding reasons for doing whatever suited him. Such

instruction might confirm and exalt his integrity, when he should have

any. In the meantime, his social circumstances did more to make him

dishonest than his religion to render him honest.

When he came up next time, he made so much haste to scramble into the

boat, and seemed so much hurried that the Charmer started up in terror

lest he should have lost a limb,—an accident which the binder of sharks

had been expecting all the morning, from a complete failure of

confidence in his own skill. When he saw that all was safe, he very

nearly forgot his dignity so far as to assist the youth in emptying his

net of oysters upon the heap in the middle of the platform. He stopped

short, however, on Rayo’s repulsing his offers of help, and went back to

his seat, commending the practice of coming on board instead of floating

between the plunges. Rayo sank down on his knees to empty his pouch. The

rope was within reach, and under it still lay the pearl. It was very

natural for Rayo to draw the rope towards him, if he really wanted to

ascertain whether the one round his body was strong enough; but it was

not equally natural for him to put his hand to his mouth under pretence

of dashing the wet from his face where little wet remained. So, at

least, the commander thought; and he was confirmed by observing a hasty

effort to swallow when Rayo was summoned to descend again. Measures of

which the youth little dreamed were in preparation for him while he was

down. He was hoisted upon the platform, and before he knew what he was

about, a man seized him by either arm, a third stepped behind him,

flourishing a knotted rope, while a fourth presented a cocoa-nut shell

of liquid, which did not look or smell very tempting. He was told of a

summary sentence to be flogged for putting his hand to his mouth while

within arm’s-length of oysters, (a great crime in Ceylon, whatever it

may be elsewhere,) and to swallow a strong emetic as the ordeal of

innocence of a further crime. It would have been useless to attempt to

upset the cup; for a double dose would have been the consequence, an

ample stock of emetics being the part of the apparatus of pearl-fishing

least grudged by the speculators. Bolting was equally impossible. There

was nothing for it but to bolt the medicine. The pearl of course

appeared, in due time; and when it once more vanished beneath the lid of

the commander’s spring-box, the fairest of poor Rayo’s hopes vanished

with it. He might consider himself, not disgraced,—for his companions

were wont to applaud the act of stealing pearls,—but turned off from his

employment for this bout, and precluded from the means of establishing

Marana in any thing better than four bare mud walls.

“Pillal Karra,” (binder of sharks,) “you are wise,” observed the

commander respectfully. “I have seen your downcast looks. Doubtless you

knew what should befal this youth.”

“If any doubted our power,” said the Charmer, “they should observe how a

mysterious trouble comes first to foreshow the misfortune that will

follow. When I was younger, I was content to keep off the misfortune;

and when I was over-ruled by the Malabar hags, to let the mischief come

without warning to myself. Now when my mind is tossed, I am learning to

know that the Malabar hags are riding a coming storm.”

“Have these hags bewitched your son-in-law?”

“No doubt; and I know which of them it is. It is Amoottra, who owes me a

grudge on account of Marana’s beauty. If she could meet my daughter out

of the line of my charms, she would touch her with leprosy.”

“Well; if you can convince my employer of this, and disenchant Rayo, he

may come out again to-morrow. Otherwise, he has taken his last plunge

for this season; for there parts the first boat from the circle.”

As the boats warped round into line, the sea-breeze freshened, and all

were presently making a steady progress homewards. Almost as soon as

they came in sight of the orange-tinted shore, apparently floating in

the hot haze of noon, they saw a spark glitter, and some seconds after

came the boom of the signal-gun which was to announce their return to

the anxious speculators and the public at large in the fair. The flag

was next hoisted, and then every man, woman, and child was looking to

seaward while hastening to secure standing-room on the margin of the

tide. The Charmers began to be ambiguous about this day’s success, and

to prophesy magnificently for the next. The dancing girls stationed

themselves round certain matted enclosures, ready to welcome the oysters

to their place of putrefaction. Father Anthony borrowed a telescope of a

contractor, whose hand shook so that he could make no use of it himself;

and Marana stood apart under the shade of a talipot leaf, lowering her

primitive umbrella, with tantalizing constancy, as often as a gallant

stranger or a curious country-woman would have peeped under it.

A talipot leaf will shelter two heads, and hide two faces, as was soon

proved with Marana’s. Rayo did not particularly wish to encounter Father

Anthony, and had withdrawn Marana among the huts, where, screened by the

umbrella, they mourned the adventure. Father Anthony’s eyes, however,

were keen. Keenly they peered under the shelter, and made Rayo’s droop

before them. In vain Rayo pleaded his father-in-law’s word, that he was

bewitched by a Malabar hag. Father Anthony did not allow Malabar hags to

lay waste the fold of which he was the shepherd.—Rayo bowed his head

submissively, and waited for orders.

“Do not insult the contractor by a plea of witchcraft.”

“I will not, father.”

“Do not seek to be employed again this season. There are many waiting

for the office who deserve it better than you. For this season, I shall

recommend Tilleke in your place; by next season, I hope you will have

wrestled with temptation, so that I may send my blessing forth with

you.”

“Is the blessing passed away?” asked Rayo, prostrating himself before

the priest, with deep sorrow in his tone and countenance.

“Perhaps not, if you will freely confess.”

“I will, father.”

Marana moved away, and remained out of hearing with her back turned

towards them, till the priest at length passed her. Dropping a few words

of good cheer, he exhorted her to be a tender wife, but withal faithful

to her religion, and then he trusted Rayo would become proof against

every kind of evil instigation or influence. It really was remarkable

that such influences seemed to beset him in particular places. His sins

of theft took place at sea, where compunction never seemed to visit him;

while no one could be more penitent and submissive than Rayo on land.

Did Marana know of any instance of his committing a theft on shore, or

being penitent at sea? Marana could recollect none, and was confirmed in

her dread of the Malabar witch. If she could but get Rayo farther

inland!—she said to herself, as father Anthony gave her his blessing,

and went on his way.

This aspiration was nearer its accomplishment than she could have

supposed.

“Rayo, what could make you take the pearl?” she asked, when she returned

to her husband.

“If there were a cocoa-nut tree here, as in the south, I should not want

the money which I cannot get. We might build under its shade, and eat

its fruit, and drink the milk from the kernel, and make our ropes of its

fibres, and burn lamps of its oil. But as there are no cocoa-nuts where

we live, I got chanks. You threw them away, and I tried to get a pearl.

If I must not have a pearl——”

“Let us go to the cocoa-trees, as they cannot come to us.”

“If I go at all, I will go far;—down among the cinnamon gardens,

Marana.”

“Not to be a cinnamon peeler!” exclaimed Marana, who thought she saw a

desperation in her husband’s countenance, such as a man might wear who

was about to lose caste. It was now a disputed point which caste ought

to rank highest,—the fishermen or the cinnamon-peelers; but Marana, as

in duty bound, as a fisherman’s daughter, regarded the cinnamon-peelers

as upstarts. “You, a fisherman, will not mix with the cinnamon-peelers?”

Rayo explained no more of his purpose in going among the cinnamon

gardens than that it was not to mix with the peelers. But he gloomily

hinted that perhaps Marana ought not to go,—would she not there be out

of the limit of her father’s charms? Might not the hag Amoottra——

“Touch me with leprosy? No,” said Marana, producing the precious shell

from a corner of her mantle. “My father needs not draw out his spell at

home while I carry this with me. I have shown it to you, Rayo, but you

will not sell it? If we live among the cocoa-nuts, we shall not want the

money. You will not take it from me to part with it?”

Rayo let her deposit it in her mantle, and then she was ready to go.

Every thing that she possessed was now on her person. Her father was

certain, from the nature of his profession, of being well taken care of;

and, if not, her husband’s claims upon her would have been paramount.

Leaving the Charmer to discover by his spells why and whither they were

gone, and old Gomgode to catch fish for himself and his daughter, the

young folks stole away towards the richer country to the south. They

knew that there was little danger of pursuit. There was no lack of

divers to supply Rayo’s place. Nobody supposed they would actually

starve; and, as for living poorly, it was what thousands had done before

them, thousands were doing now, and thousands would do after them.

Gomgode supposed Rayo would preserve caste. The charmer trusted his

daughter not to expose herself rashly to the hag’s wrath, as she knew

the consequences. Perhaps Father Anthony missed and mourned them most;

but he had a firm faith that Rayo would prove an honester man in the

jungle, or among the paddy-fields, than on a haunted sea.

CHAPTER III.

MORNING IN THE JUNGLE.

During the time of the cinnamon harvest, it was the custom of Mr. Carr,

the agent of the East India Company for the management of their cinnamon

contract, to ride every morning through one department or another of the

Marandahn, or great cinnamon garden near Columbo. The beauty of the ride

might afford sufficient temptation at any season of the year. The blue

lake of Colombo, whether gleaming in the sunrise, or darkening in the

storms of the monsoon, never lost its charms. The mountain range in the

distance was an object for the eye to rest lovingly upon, whether

clearly outlined against the glowing sky, or dressed in soft clouds,

from which Adam’s Peak alone stood aloft, like a dark island in the

waters that are above the firmament.

Whether the laurel-like cinnamon wore its early foliage of red or its

later of green, or its white blossom that made the landscape dazzling

with beauty and voluptuous with fragrance; whether the talipot upreared

its noble crest of straw-coloured blossoms above its green canopy, or

presented its clustering fruit; whether the cocoa-nut tree bowed before

the gusts of autumn, or stood in dark, majestic clumps above the verdure

of a less lofty growth, the groves and gardens were a paradise to the

eye of the Europeans.

The reaches of road, and the green paths which might be detected here

and there amidst the vast plantation, the rice grounds and patches of

meadow land interspersed, and the lowly roof peeping out occasionally

from beneath the palms, gave hints of the presence of man and

civilization; while the temple, with its oriental dome supported on

slender pillars, jutting out at the extreme end of a promontory into the

blue waters of the lake, or perched on some point of the piled rocks in

the background, carried back the thoughts to old days of barbarian

superstition. In all this there was so much pleasure as to make a ride

in the Marandahn a tempting pleasure at all times and seasons; though

Mr. Carr’s interest was at its height during the cinnamon harvest.

As he was about to mount his horse one morning, the sound of argument,

not to say dispute, reached him from within.

“My dear child,” Mrs. Carr was saying, “Roomseree and Pellikee shall

give you an airing nearer home, so that you will not be killed with the

heat. Do not think of going with papa this morning.”

“O, mama, you know papa says nothing tires me. I can ride as far as

papa; and papa says he likes to show me what the people are doing; and I

am sure the people like me to go too. Papa enjoys his ride so much more

when I go with him; and the horse does not think me very heavy.”

“Heavy! no, love! You are so small and slight, Alice, that it makes me

tremble to think of your going out under such a sun as it will be by the

time you get back. Papa always promises to take a very short ride; and

it ends with his bringing you home at the end of four or five hours.

Better stay with me, love.”

“All the rest of the day, mama; but papa has had the right saddle put

on, and we are to go the west ride this morning. Cannot you go to sleep

till we come back?”

Mrs. Carr promised to try; and, to do her justice, she was always ready

to do her best to sleep, day and night, bidden and unbidden. With a few

sighs over the charming spirits and the unquenchable curiosity of the

dear child, she closed her eyes on the dewy radiance of a morning in

paradise, and was glad that she had nothing more to do with cinnamon

than to be tired of hearing of it, and to taste it when she pleased.

Alice used her eyes to more purpose this morning. She was yet new enough

to scenes like those before her to be full of wonder, and other

feelings, as natural, perhaps, but less desirable.

“Papa, do giants live in this place?”

“Giants, my dear, no. What made you fancy such a thing? You have seen no

very amazing people, have you?”

“No; they are very small pretty people, I think. Sometimes, when I see

them under such a very tall clump of trees as that, or among the jungle

grass, they put me more in mind of dark fairies than giants; but——”

“But the trees are some of them fit for giants’ walking-sticks, I

suppose you think; and an elephant is a very proper animal for a giant

to ride. Hey?”

“I have seen men on elephants,” replied Alice. “But look there! Look at

that great castle!” And she pointed with awe to a mighty object which

was partially revealed as the morning mists drew off.

“That is not a castle, my dear; though I do not wonder at your taking it

for one. It is a mountain-peak.”

“But the drawbridge, papa;—the drawbridge hanging in the air.”

“Ah! you would be a long time in finding out what that drawbridge (as

you call it) is. You think it made for giants; but it would break down

under your weight. That is only a bridge of creeping plants, for birds

and butterflies to hide in. If a strong wind came, you would see it

swing, like your swing between the cherry trees in the orchard at your

grandmama’s, in England.—When we get out of the garden and nearer the

thickets, you will see some such flowers as that bridge is made of,

hanging from the trees, and binding them together so that we cannot ride

through them.”

“But I do not want to get out of the garden yet. Here come the people,

one after another, from their cottages, with their crooked knives to cut

down the branches. What are those tawny people doing in the shade? They

seem to be sitting very comfortably, all in a ring. This is prettier

than seeing grandmama’s mowers in England, besides that the mowers do

not sing at their work, like these people.”

“The mowers in England have more reason to sing than many of these

peelers. Look how thin many of them are; and that poor child playing in

the grass appears half-starved. Very few people in England are so poor

as some of the natives here, who yet sing from morning till night.”

Alice observed that they were not all thin; and she pointed to one man

whose legs were of an enormous size, and to another whose body was

nearly as broad as it was long.—She was told that these appearances were

caused by disease; and that the diseases of the labourers were in a

great degree owing to their poor way of living. There would be few such

swollen or emaciated bodies as these if the people had flesh to eat, or

good bread, or even the seasoning which was necessary to make their

vegetable food agree with them.

“Seasoning! What sort of seasoning?”

“Salt, and pepper, and cardamoms, and cinnamon.”

“Salt, papa! They must be very lazy if they do not get salt enough.

There is the sea all round Ceylon; and I have seen several ponds where

the water was so salt I could not drink it. There was a crust of salt

all about the edge, papa.”

“Very true, my dear; but the people are not allowed to take it. The king

of Candy lives in the middle of this island; and the kings of Candy have

sometimes been troublesome people to the English, as they were to the

Dutch before them. Now, as the king of Candy cannot get to the sea, or

to any salt lake, without our king’s leave, he and his people depend

upon us for salt; and our government likes to keep him quiet, and get a

great price for its salt at the same time by selling it to the Candians

very dear, and by letting nobody else sell any. So the people of the

country are not allowed to help themselves to salt.”

“But if there was not enough, I would rather make the king of Candy go

without than these poor people who belong to us. We ought to take care

of them first.”

“The government likes to take care of itself before either its own

people or the Candians. There is salt enough for every body here, and

for half India besides; and large quantities are destroyed every year,

to keep up the price, while many are dying for want of it, and those who

live can get nothing better than coarse dirty salt which the beasts in

your grandmama’s farm-yard would turn away from. If we could count the

numbers of Hindoos who die in India for want of the salt which their own

country produces, we should find that a fearful reckoning awaits the

Company there, as there does the government here; a fearful balance of

human life against a high price for salt.”

Alice thought that if the ghosts of these poor natives could haunt the

authorities, such an army of shadows would soon prevail to secure for

their surviving countrymen the food which Providence had made to

superabound before their eyes. She knew how shocked and sorry government

was that a woman here and there burned herself when her husband died;

but when government burned the salt which was left, in order to keep up

the price, Alice thought, and so did her father, that government was

destroying more lives than ever perished on piles kindled by native

hands.

“But pepper, papa: the king of Candy can grow his own pepper in his own

woods, I suppose; for it seems as if it would grow any where here, as

long as there are trees for it to hang upon. I see the pepper vine

dangling in the woods, wherever I go; and the monkeys throw the red

clusters at each other.”

“The monkeys may gather them, but the men and women may not, unless they

are employed to do so by the government. The monkeys cannot pay for

pepper, and some of the people can; therefore the people who cannot must

go without, or steal, and run the risk of being punished.”

“Poor people!”

“Miserably poor, indeed. If they were allowed to grow as much pepper as

they pleased, and sell it to any part of the world where it is wished

for, they would have a great deal of money wherewith to buy things which

the government could sell much more profitably than pepper. Then we

should see mats, strewed with pepper-corns, spread in many a nook of the

thickets which the panther and the snake now have all to themselves; and

many a child would be heard singing among the vines, which now moans its

little life away in its half-starved mother’s arms. The same may be said

of cardamoms. There is no one in these eastern countries who would not

eat cardamoms if he could get them; and there are endless tracts where

cardamoms would grow; and yet very few of the natives can obtain them to

eat. Cardamoms grow wherever vegetable ashes are found in this country.

The plant naturally springs up on the very spots where other precious

things have been burned before the people’s eyes; but the plant must be

rooted up, or its capsules left to be avoided as forbidden fruit, unless

offered to the government for sale. But government gives so low a price

for cardamoms, that the people have little heart to cultivate the

plant.”

“But what does the government do with cardamoms?”

“It sells them; but not to half so many people as would be glad to buy.

If government would let the people freely sell cardamoms, government

would have a people rich enough to pay more in taxes than government

will ever make by selling cardamoms.”

“But you said the people might not have cinnamon. How can any body

prevent their getting it? Look all round, papa. As far as we can see on

this side and on that, and a great way before us, it is one wood of

cinnamon.”

“Yes, my dear. This one garden is fifteen miles round.”

“Well, why cannot the people steal as much as they please? If I were a

poor native, I would cut down all I could get, and sell enough to make a

great deal of money, and then buy what I wished for.”

“As for the cutting it down, my dear, the natives would have little

scruple; for, like all people who are cruelly pinched, they are apt to

take what they can get without caring to whom it belongs. But how are

they to sell it when they have got it?”

“I thought you said that cinnamon grew scarcely anywhere in the world

but here; and I am sure there are plenty of people all over the world

who are fond of it, and would be glad to buy it.”

“Very true; but those who long to sell and those who long to buy cannot

get at each other. Somebody steps between to prevent the bargain. The

English government lets the East India Company have all the cinnamon you

see, on condition of the Company paying so much a-year. So the spice is

carried away to be sold, instead of foreign nations being allowed to

come here to buy; and none is left but that which the Company does not

think it worth while to carry away; and even that is sometimes burned to

keep up the price.”

“Burned! when so many people would be glad of it! Would not the common

people in England like it, if they could get it as cheap as salt? If

they did, they would make the fortunes of the people here.”

“And then the people here would make the fortunes of a great many of the

working people in England. This would certainly be the case.—What do you

think the people in England eat most of, Alice?”

“Bread, I suppose.”

“Yes; and salt comes next. And what next?—Another sort of seasoning.”

It was not pepper, nor mustard; but something that every body liked and

used,—from the infant that will leave sucking its thumb for it, to the

old man that has but one tooth left in his head;—from the king who lets

his queen put it into his coffee, to the labourer’s wife who carries

home a coarse sample of it on the Saturday night.

“That must be sugar. But I think almost every thing that is good with

sugar would be better with cinnamon; and if cinnamon was made very

cheap, what a quantity would be used, and how rich the growers might be!

They would grow more and more, and employ more people, till this whole

large island was one great cinnamon garden——”

“Every part of it that is fit for such a purpose; every part that has a

light dry sandy soil like that which we are riding over so pleasantly.

And then much more use would be made of the rest of the land, the richer

the inhabitants grew. There would be more rice, and more fruits, and

more dye-woods, and more timber, and more of all the useful and

beautiful things that this paradise will produce.”

Alice wondered that the whole world did not cry out for more cinnamon;

and her father agreed with her that such a cry would probably be raised,

if the greater part of the world did but know how good cinnamon is. They

never could have known, or they would not so easily agree to go without

it, for the sake of the pockets of the East India Company.

“The fact is, my dear, the Company and the government do not behave so

ill as some people did before them. The cinnamon trade is a very old

trade;—as old as the time when the wise and wealthy Egyptians used to

trade with the rich and barbarous princes of India; but, though this

trade has passed through many hands, there has never been liberty to buy

and sell as natural wants and wishes rise. Three hundred years ago, the

Portuguese came here, and drove out the turbaned Moors, and sold

cinnamon at their own price to the world, (and let the natives have none

of the benefit of it,) for more than a hundred and thirty years. Then

came the Dutch to take the matter out of the hands of the Portuguese,

and they let the world have a little and a little more, by degrees, till

they prepared the way for a fine commerce for us, if we had but known

how to make use of it. But the mistake of the government of England is

in letting nobody have the spice who will not buy of us and pay our

price for it; when it is very plain that their money would come round to

England at last; and in much greater plenty, if we let the natives grow

and the foreigners buy of them, as much as they pleased.”

“Those poor people who are peeling, and stopping their songs as we pass,

and looking so terribly afraid of us, seem as if they were not fit to

make a bargain, papa.”

“They would soon learn, my dear, if left to manage their own interest.

At present, they know very well how to steal, but very little how to

conduct a fair bargain. The Cingalese come begging and praying, almost

on their knees, that we will buy; and if we condescend to ask their

prices, they name twice as much as they mean to take; and if we choose

to give them only half what they might really look for, they cannot help

themselves: or if we have a fancy to pay them in betel-nut, or tobacco,

or cotton-cloth, or anything else we may want to get rid of, they have

nothing to do but to take it, or to carry back their commodity as they

brought it. These people, however,—these peelers, have nothing to sell.”

“When we get among the cocoa groves, papa, there are several cottages,

and the people bring out things to sell. I wish you would buy something

this morning; just to see how they will manage, poor things! But who is

this, papa? He looks grander than the modelier, with his gay petticoat

and his blue dress. I do believe this is Captain Cinnamon, as the

peelers call him.”

“It is. He is the chief of the peelers, and he is taking his morning

round, as we are. I will speak to him.”

Captain Cinnamon bent his turbaned head in a profound obeisance to the

little girl, as well as to her father, which the young lady returned as

if she had been the far-famed pearl queen of the olden time. Alice’s

father and mother were more amused than they ought to have been at the

airs of consequence she assumed among the natives, and did not

discourage the haughtiness with which she naturally returned their

homage. Mr. Carr’s own manner, adapted to those he had to deal with, was

a bad example for her.

“I’ll tell you what, captain, you must take more care of your charge. I

am certain there is a great deal of pilfering going on in this garden,

and you are answerable to the Company for it.”

The captain was all humility: but how should there be thefts? For what

purpose, as the peelers could not sell this commodity.

“But others besides peelers may help themselves, and do.”

“The English gentlemen from the fort ride through the garden,” modestly

suggested the captain.

“Nonsense! do you suppose they steal cinnamon? I tell you I saw a head

pop up yonder, and a motion among the shrubs, where neither cutting nor

barking is going on: look there, and you will find a thief, depend upon

it.”

The captain owned that, secure as the Company was of no interference

with their monopoly of the bark while the garden was under his care, it

was difficult to prevent persons from entering to pluck the fruit. It

was so easy to pull and carry away the fruit unobserved, and it was so

precious to the people, and of so little use to the Company, that Mr.

Carr’s predecessor had connived at the practice, and desired Captain

Cinnamon to do so too. As Mr. Carr thought differently, however, the

peasants of the jungle should be humbled beneath his feet. In a trice,

half a score of peelers were called from their work to hunt the thief;

and a grand show of zeal they made in beating among the shrubs, and

uttering cries.

“There, that will do,” said Mr. Carr, when Alice had pointed out the

gradual retreat of the moving thing (as shown by the twitching of the

bushes) towards the ditch which bounded the garden. “This will frighten

him: now let him escape.”

Little Alice now signified her will and pleasure to be informed what was

to become of the quantity of bark which was strewed before her eyes.

Wherever there was a space between the shrubs where the sun could

penetrate to the pure white sand from which the spicy stems sprang, mats

were spread; and on these mats were strewed and heaped rolls of the

bark, the smaller rolls being fitted into the larger, so as to contain a

great quantity of the commodity in a small bulk.—On some open plots

which they had already passed, other such mats, heaped with other such

rolls, had greeted the senses of Alice and her father; and wherever they

caught glimpses through side alleys of the wood, or reached an eminence

whence they could look abroad over the expanse of shrubs, they saw dark

forms squatted on the white sand, or gemmed heads rising amidst the

verdure, while the rich scent which declared their occupation diffused

itself through the still air. Though the hands of the workmen moved

languidly, (like the hands of other workmen who do not labour for

themselves,) though the process of peeling was clumsy, and the waste of

material excessive, yet such quantities of bark fell from innumerable

boughs and twigs that Alice could not imagine what was to be done with

it all.

Captain Cinnamon told her (with obeisances which were imitated and

multiplied by his throng of followers) that all this quantity of spice

awaited the disposal of her puissant father, the agent of the Honourable

Company; and that he would probably inform her that when he had caused

to be packed that which his wisdom should deem the proper quantity to be

vouchsafed for the use of the world, the rest would receive its sentence

of destruction or distribution from his lips. Alice held up her head,

and rode on, not quite understanding the matter of fact about which she

had inquired, but thinking that it would be below the dignity of so

great a man’s daughter to appear to need further information.

The throng of attendants hovered round them as long as they continued

within the verge of the garden—pointing out to the young lady here a

little stack of cinnamon awaiting the hands of the packers; and there

kneeling groups, with each a chest in the centre, a heap of black pepper

lying beside it, to strew between the layers of cinnamon, and pots of

resin wherewith to stop the seams and crevices of the chests. Alice

could not help learning much from what she saw, notwithstanding the

sudden start of pride which made her prefer issuing commands to asking

questions. She felt a sad loss of consequence when her father dismissed

the peelers to their proper business, on reaching the ditch which

divided the garden from the open country. She was now no more than Alice

Carr, riding before her father, as she remembered having done long ago

in a field of grandmama’s in England, where there were no black people

to make bows, and gather round her as if she were a princess.

She complained of the narrowness of the path through the close jungle,

and was sorry that they were leaving the lake farther and farther on one

side of them; but it was not long before she found that there was here

something to admire. Grandmama’s horses had never trod such a path as

that on which her steed was now pacing: they had never entangled their

feet in trails of the blue convolvulus, or bowed their heads to avoid

being garlanded with creepers,—now scarlet, now yellow, now white. They

would have started at the glittering snakes that wound in the grass, and

at the monkeys that hung by one arm from the boughs overhead, gibbering

and chattering in a way that must move all unaccustomed gazers to

perpetual laughter. Instead of one proud peacock, perched upon a wall,

to be gazed at by a populous neighbourhood, here were numbers of those

stately creatures, fanning the long grass as they spread their burnished

tails, or making their rich purple hues gleam from beneath the shades of

the bowery fig-tree. Nothing could be more unlike the cottages of

England than the dwellings which emerged upon the sight, here and there,

from their hiding-places among the verdure. These dwellings looked as if

they were part and parcel of the jungle, being formed of the wood and

leaves that grew there, fenced with shrubs, and decked with creepers,

which twisted themselves over every part, so as scarcely to leave room

for the squirrels to pop in and out from their holes in the leafy

thatch. The enclosed plots (where any cottage could boast such an

acquisition) were as little like the gardens of a civilized country. No

rows of cabbages and peas, no beds of potatoes and onions—no supply of

vegetables on which a family may depend as some security against

starvation. The Cingalese, though blest with a soil and climate in which

every thing will grow, are destitute of any such provision as a tenth of

the toil of an English labourer would secure, and as a single gem from

the necklace of a native would purchase, in almost any land that has not

the misfortune to be a monopolized colony. If any one in Ceylon has a

fancy for potatoes and onions, he must get them from Bombay. If his

ambition extends to peas and cabbages, he must wait till they can be

brought from England.