wrath of the infallible Dr. Darwin, who, in his wonderful scheme of
development by evolution, has stated that the quadrumana are our
immediate progenitors. He has not, it is true, explained from which kind
of monkey man is developed; nor how it happens that there are not as
many kinds of men as there are of monkeys; or whether his friend
'Development' doubles up all the monkeys, great and small, black and
brown, before she makes a man. All this, and much more, it is true he
has not explained, but he has told us that our earliest ancestor or
progenitor is an Ascidian (a cell), and that in a long course of ages,
by the agency of his gossip 'Development,' the cell becomes this, that,
and the other, the penultimate change being into a monkey, and the
ultimate into a man. Harlequin's wand does nothing comparable to this.
To convert a cell (a mere bag) into a man was reserved solely for
'Madame Development.' After effecting such wonders, it would be little
short of high treason towards the man who discovered 'Madame
Development's' powers, ungrateful, insulting, and a _sell_, indeed, had
my brother omitted to take some notice of our immediate progenitors. I
hope, ladies and gentlemen, you are none of you Darwinians; if you are,
what a profane and sacrilegious infidel must my brother appear! Yet even
here I espy some comfort if you, as well as being Darwinians, are also
of the 'advanced platform,' as the phrase is in the wisdom of this
nineteenth century; because then you will have mercy on me, as an insane
person. Almost all murderers are, by the advanced wisdom of this same
century, put down as insane, and are not to be hanged, as they deserve
to be, but are to be maintained at the public expense; _i.e._, at your
and my expense--though we may have wives and a dozen hungry children to
provide for--in order that the murdering gentleman may have time to
repent; in other words, that he may have another opportunity of imbruing
his hands in another victim's blood. 'Oh, by all means abolish capital
punishment!' said the witty Frenchman, 'only let the murderers set the
example.' Well, sir, or madam, I hope now you will not be less merciful
to me, even if you be a Darwinian, than the wise men of the advanced
platform are, or would be, to the murderer. So with renewed hope, having
finished the catalogue of the native inhabitants of Tollicherry, I will
proceed with the promised details respecting the Moplahs.
With such superlative examples of grace and beauty as those constantly
observed among the daughters of the three British Isles, and the almost
irresistible power exercised by these 'Queens of Creation' over the
opposite sex, we need not call in question the effects recorded of this
same irresistible power in ancient days. Jove himself, it is said, could
not resist the exquisite form of Leda. Troy was besieged for ten years,
and destroyed at last, to recover a matchless but naughty Greek lady,
who ran away from her husband with a handsome scapegrace called Paris.
Antony lost the dominion of the world for Cleopatra's smile. And, coming
nearer to our own times, Diana of Poitiers at sixty, so historians tell
us, retained so absolutely the affections of a king of France, that he
simply doted on her ('doted on her simply' would be the better form of
expression). And Ninon de L'Enclos, at seventy, drove all the young
bloods of Paris demented by her beauty, which, it is positively
affirmed, far surpassed that of all the younger ladies who approached
her. One of the greatest of the Mogul Emperors, Jehangire, was so
enchanted by the charms of a Turkoman maiden, who, when she grew up, was
called 'Mhere ul Nissa,' the sun of women, and was afterwards the
far-famed Nour Jehan, that he committed a dreadful crime to obtain her.
This lady, in the early bloom of beauty, had been brought to Delhi, was
seen by Prince Jehangire, and in both bosoms a mutual passion was
kindled. But she had in her infancy been betrothed to Shere Afkun, a
Turkoman of noble birth and distinguished merit. According to Indian
notions nothing should be suffered to interfere with the fulfilment of
such a pledge, and therefore the reigning Emperor (the celebrated
Akbar), from a high sense of what he believed to be right, over-ruled
the wishes of the lovers, and insisted that Mhere ul Nissa should be
married to Shere Afkun. Jehangire bore his despair and disappointment as
he best could, until, by the death of his father Akbar, he became the
Emperor of India. Then power, united with his grief and passion,
overcame his better nature, and he had the unfortunate Shere Afkun
murdered, and at the same time he got possession of the person of Mhere
ul Nissa. But for years the guilty monarch sued in vain. At last the
lady consented to be his wife and the Empress of India.
All this proves that the dominion of beauty is confined to no
hemisphere, and specially serves to introduce the present narrative,
which relates to a part of India which, of all others, from the
debilitating nature of the climate, and the peculiar customs of the
people we are to speak of, would seem to be the least likely to furnish
a tale of love and passion. But however unlooked for or unexpected the
usages or customs on which a story-teller founds his narrative may be,
or however unusual the circumstances arising from them, he cannot be
held responsible for the facts or their results, so long as it can be
proved that the said usages and customs do really exist.
In the present case the Moplah customs and usages referred to
practically obtain over a considerable part of the western coast of
India, _i.e._, from the country of Mangalore, and from some distance
north of it, to Cochin, and some distance south of it. In short, these
customs are known and followed wherever the race has spread. For the
details of the murder committed by these Moplahs my brother's notes are
clear and precise, and for the particulars respecting Aminè after her
return to her own country he declares that he gives the account as it
was given to him by a Mussulman pilgrim, who, many years after the date
of Aminè's death, passed _en route_ to Mecca through her native place.
The Mussulman pilgrim was a merchant of Tollicherry, who, being
naturally interested in her fate, from knowing how barbarously her
husband had been murdered, collected all the information he could from
those who had been about her. He had it written down, and on his return
to India forwarded it to my brother, who was then at Madras. My brother
had it translated from the Persian into English, and has embodied it in
the present narrative.
The Moplahs are, as aforesaid, a sort of cross-breed sprung from the
seafaring Arab traders and the native women of the west coast. The
children of these alliances settled on the coast with their mothers.
Hence the Moplah race. They are men of large frame, and particularly
strong and powerful. They are either cultivators of the soil, or
merchants trading by sea. Some of the headmen among them are possessed
of large estates, employ numbers of servants, and own numerous herds of
cattle, flocks of sheep, and goats, with some horses and donkeys. Others
possess Patamars and Dhonies. All cultivate the soil. Of this class of
wealthy proprietors two individuals, at the time referred to, were
generally regarded as chiefs or headmen. Both were almost equally
wealthy, and equally looked up to by their neighbours. The younger of
the two, although a Moplah, was a remarkably fine handsome man,
retaining something (though not enough to spoil his good looks) of the
Arab or Jewish cast of feature. He was of a disposition more frank and
joyous than is usually met with among Arabs or Moplahs; his name was
Lutchmon Sing. The other, called Saul Jan, was not so tall by four
inches as his neighbour Lutchmon Sing, but he was larger in the body,
broader in the shoulders, and was in all respects an amazingly powerful
man. He exhibited the reserved, morose disposition characteristic of the
race.
Before the occurrences in which these two men were the principal actors
are spoken of, it is necessary to notice, as briefly as possible, the
peculiar customs of the race in reference to women. With respect to
property, or in fact anything they happen to covet, the Moplahs
entertain the most advanced notions, and, with regard to the other sex,
opinions and customs that are, to say the least of them, most singular.
Any Moplah gentleman may visit any other Moplah gentleman's wife
whenever he pleases; all he has to do is to leave his shoes outside the
other gentleman's door. When this signal is made, no husband dare
intrude. The visitor may stay the whole night, or as many hours as he
chooses; it is all one. No person can enter the house, nor is such a
thing ever thought of, till the visitor's shoes disappear. Whatever the
husband may suffer, or however desirous he may be of standing in the
visitor's shoes, it cannot be done, and it is bootless for him to
complain. Under all circumstances he must restrain his feelings until
the visitor removes his shoes. Well, the reader will probably say this
is a very pretty and a very moral custom indeed, but is it really a
fact? It is indeed. The reader will then probably inquire if the man
aggrieved has no redress. Certainly he has, according to Moplah notions,
complete redress. Has he not the right of returning the gentleman's
visit, and of leaving his shoes outside that gentleman's door as long as
he pleases? The Moplahs declare that all visits of this kind are
punctually returned, so you perceive the politeness is mutual, however
widely spread. Moplah notions of politeness and etiquette are very
enlarged, it must be confessed, and thoroughly communistic; they have
nevertheless certain advantages. For instance, the husbands are never
troubled with sons to provide for, as all the children are, in every
sense, the wife's children. In fact, no child knows who his or her
father is or may have been. These are secrets, probably known to the
ladies; but no one has the effrontery to make impertinent inquiries,
consequently Moplahs never think or speak of their fathers, only of
their mothers.
Whence this highly modest and delicate custom has been derived my
brother has been unable to ascertain. 'If,' says he, 'I might offer a
suggestion, I should say that it might be derived from an extended study
of zoology, particularly of that wonderfully intelligent, faithful, and
valuable race designated canine, as well as of that of our immediate
progenitors, the quadrumana, amongst whom very similar usages obtain.'
On this point the opinion of Dr. Darwin would be invaluable. The
suggestion he has offered is to a certain extent confirmed and borne out
by the common remarks of the vulgar, who, besides being ignorant of
zoology, are ill-minded persons, who declare that these Moplahs one and
all are 'dirty dogs,' which it is obvious can only be true of half the
race. But it is wise and safe not to carry the scrutiny too far, lest we
should be led to apply an ill-sounding name to the other half. Of the
dogs of this race it has been already stated that they entertain notions
prejudicial to the general safety of life and property. They never
probably heard the noble axiom of Louis Blanc and his worthy
compatriots--'Proprieté est le vol'--but they certainly acted on it so
thoroughly that to obtain anything they valued and wanted, or that the
headmen whose retainers they were wanted, they plundered or took life
without hesitation. Witness the numerous cases of murder, gang robbery,
etc., etc., which were, at the time referred to, continually occupying
the attention of the courts throughout the Moplah range of country.
In illustration of the various amiable qualities of these Moplahs, my
brother instances a case in which he had to give medical evidence. Early
one morning the body, or more properly the mangled remains, of Lutchmon
Sing, who has been already mentioned as one of the two principal headmen
of the district, was brought to his door to be examined and reported on.
He found that after the poor fellow had been knocked down and stunned by
a blow on the head, proved by the smashing in of his cap, a severe
wound of the scalp at the top and back part of his head, and a fracture
of the skull, his body had been almost cut, transversely, into two
parts. The spine, with some spinal and lumbar muscles, were all that
held the two portions of it together. The muscles of the abdomen, as
well as the lower part of the large lobe of the liver and the colon,
were divided.
It was a piteous sight. Here was a fine young fellow in the prime of
life, who was a favourite with all the Europeans, and with most of his
own countrymen, brutally murdered, without any apparent cause. And what
made everyone sorrow the more was the fact that he had been recently
married to a Persian lady, whom, after a devoted court and worship of
more than two years, he had at last succeeded in winning, and had
brought home and located beyond the Moplah bounds in a stronghold
situated in the hill country, but at no great distance, his holding
being within the Manantoddy district.
It was evident that the division of the chief parts of the trunk had
been effected by some sharp and powerful cutting instrument, most
probably by one of those sharp toddy knives or bill-hooks which all
jungle-men in India carry. The murder, it was supposed, had been
perpetrated at the instigation of the rich Moplah named Saul Jan, whose
lands were situated at no great distance from those of the murdered man,
Lutchmon Sing. These two headmen, it was well known, had been at feud
for a long time, ostensibly on account of some adjacent lands lying
between their respective estates; but it was whispered that the murdered
man's shoes had on one occasion (some two and a half years since) been
found outside Saul Jan's door, and that he (Saul Jan), from
circumstances to be hereafter explained, had not been able to return the
visit. Be this as it may, the visitor's body was, after this
occurrence, at the distance of time specified, found in the condition
described.
A Hercules of a fellow, named Kulmuck, with a most villainous expression
of countenance, who was an outdoor or field servant to Saul Jan, was
with some others brought up before the Zillah Judge on suspicion of
being the actual murderer, or at least of being a principal concerned in
it. Some parts of this man's cloth were stained with blood, as was the
handle and broad blade of his toddy-knife; his right hand was also
stained with blood, and the palmar surface of the index and second
finger of the right hand were slightly torn. It would appear that, even
before he had washed the blood stains from his hand, or knife, or cloth,
he had gone to the hut of a fellow-servant, a constant companion, and
had there indulged himself so largely in drinking arrack that when the
peons found him he was almost insensible, unable to speak, or stand; and
lucky for them that he was in this state, as otherwise his toddy-knife
would probably have been so used as to have saved some of them all
further worldly care. Even without a weapon of any kind, manacled and
pinioned, the peons shrank from him, and actually seemed afraid to touch
him, so well were his strength and ferocity known.
When asked by the Zillah Judge how he accounted for the blood on his
cloth, toddy-knife, and hand, he stated that, just before he had lain
down in his comrade's hut, he had killed a shark, and had at the same
time torn his hand. He further stated that parts of the shark would be
found in his own hut, which was not more than a quarter of a mile
distant from the one in which he had stayed to drink. Certain of the
peons, who had been ordered to go to his hut, there found parts of a
recently killed shark, which they brought into Court. The Judge asked
the prisoner what took him away from his own hut, and for what purpose
he went to the other man's dwelling. He said at once that he had heard
of the chatty of arrack, and had gone there to get his share of it. The
fishermen, who had seen the shark caught and brought home, were called
into Court, and all agreed as to the time (about 6 a.m.) when Kulmuck
had been seen with his prize. The peons had accurately noted the time
when they found him all but insensible from drink, viz., about 5 p.m.
They knew well that such a bullock of a fellow would not require more
than three or four hours to sleep off a debauch, and allowing him to
have been drinking two or three hours, there would remain no less than
four hours to account for. The prisoner admitted having been in the
fields, but he said that, instead of having been in that part of the
jungle where the body was found, he had gone in another direction; and
he mentioned some paddy fields through which he had passed, and others
in which the men were ploughing with their buffaloes. On inquiry all
these circumstances were found to be correct, and they considerably
narrowed the time to be accounted for. Still there was an interval of
some two hours, or at least an hour and a half, of which no sufficient
or satisfactory explanation could be got at. The suspected man merely
said that he was in the jungle, looking for a kind of lizard of which
the native hakims make a certain kind of medicine, which they set great
store by.
The Judge and the whole Court were at fault. The case was adjourned, and
the prisoner remanded. The cloth and the toddy-knife, and the blood
washed off by my brother into a broad-mouthed stoppered vial, with
distilled water, were all placed in a box, and locked by the Judge with
his own hands; then a broad piece of tape was placed round it, having
the Zillah Court seal affixed at either end of it. The Judge then
publicly placed the key of the box in my brother's hands. Finally, a
peon carried the box into his private studio, or temporary laboratory.
My brother then wished Mr. H. good-morning, and went home to set about
the investigation which it was his duty to make.
This he found very laborious, as the modes of examination were
necessarily repeated for the stains on the cloth, the handle of the
knife, the blade, and the blood washed off into the stoppered bottle.
The last named he examined first, being fearful of those changes which
in a tropical climate take place very rapidly, and so greatly alter and
distort the appearance of the blood globules. By his celerity he
prevented any such change, and thus obtained capital specimens, which
dried on the slides, and were available for evidence in Court.
To return to the Court. The things to be examined, having, as aforesaid,
been consigned (under seal) to my brother's charge, and the prisoner
having been placed in strong quarters, under ward changed every eight
hours, while the Judge and his subordinates are seeking for further
evidence, let us look into the history of the feud that, it is not
denied, did exist between Lutchmon Sing and Saul Jan. This, it was said,
arose from the rival claims of the parties to some lands situate between
their respective holdings: their claims had been before the Court on
several occasions, and had passed from the Zillah to the Higher Court.
The case was supposed to be in train for decision, but scarcely for
settlement, as it was known that both litigants were resolved to appeal
to the Supreme Court. Thus the litigation might last for years. All this
was publicly known, and it would satisfactorily account for the feud and
the ill-feeling, but not for the murder; even Moplahs do not usually
murder because they are legal opponents. The acknowledged feud was,
therefore, regarded as insufficient to account for the extreme measure
resorted to, and as a natural consequence suspicion took possession of
the minds of those who were cognizant of the case that there had been
some other unknown cause at work, and that to it the commission of the
crime must be attributed. At the same time that this suspicion began to
manifest itself, a whisper was breathed that there was such a cause.
Spoken very cautiously at first, and in altogether a vague and
indefinite way, after a time the whisper grew into something more
tangible, assuming shape and form; it became at last a direct statement
that the murdered man had violated the laws and usages of the Moplah
race, inasmuch as he had married a wife of another nation, and had kept
her away in a sequestered district of the hill country, where he had
purchased another holding, and a dwelling, or rather fortress, which had
formerly belonged to a Poligar chief, who had been a follower of
Sevagee. This dwelling, it was further stated, he had repaired and
embellished for the lady he had brought from beyond the sea. He had also
furnished his house with all that his wife could wish for, and had
garrisoned it with a number of servants and retainers (almost all of
whom he had armed with firelocks and rifles, as well as with shields and
scimitars), so that, his gates being strong and his walls high, he could
defy any assault except that of heavy artillery.
But why had he taken all these precautions and spent so much money, and
why had he taken his stand so far beyond the Moplah country? This
proceeding was considered by the Moplahs, one and all, as an outrage; an
insult to the men, and a crime of the deepest dye, as opposed to the
recognised custom, for which nothing less than death could be awarded as
sufficient punishment. Several Moplah men stated these opinions
unreservedly in open Court; though all positively denied having
administered the punishment, or having been instigators or accessories
to it. After long-continued denials and evasions, and a most
ingeniously protracted display of fencing, it was at last brought out
in evidence that Lutchmon Sing, some two and a half years ago, had paid
a visit to Saul Jan's house, and that his shoes had been left outside
the door for some hours; this, it may be remembered, has been already
noticed. After this fact had been established the Zillah Judge asked if
Saul Jan, then under examination, had not, according to the Moplah
customs, returned the visit of Lutchmon Sing. At this question Saul Jan
broke out into the most ungovernable rage, cursing and swearing and
wishing he could murder Lutchmon Sing over again. All this surprised the
Judge, but he vainly attempted to obtain from the man, who had exhibited
this paroxysm of rage, the meaning of it. He sullenly refused any
explanation, accompanying his refusal by gross abuse, saying that he
would not eat dirt to please the white Kafirs, the Shitan ka butchey
logue, the heirs of jehanum, etc., and much more to the same purpose, no
less obscene than malicious.
On inquiry from the old men about the Court who had been longest on that
coast, and who best understood the Moplah modes of reasoning and
feeling, it appeared that the rage of Saul Jan was excited by the
knowledge that Lutchmon Sing had married, but had kept his wife beyond
Moplah bounds, and had, moreover, so secured her that no one could gain
access to her dwelling; and therefore Saul Jan considered that he had
been defrauded of his rights in being denied access to the wife of
Lutchmon Sing, after that Kafir (as Saul Jan expressed it) had made his
(Saul Jan's) wife his servant.
In vain it was pointed out that as Lutchmon Sing's wife had come from
beyond sea, she could not be a Moplah, and would not, therefore, be
willing to submit to Moplah customs; this, and other such arguments
intended to bring the savage to a more reasonable state of mind, only
served to elicit fresh bursts of rage and envy, till it was deemed
needful to remove him, and to place fetters on his limbs.
These exhibitions of fury and desire for revenge on account of a
supposed injury not only showed that there was a sufficient cause to
account for such a deed of violence, but pointed to the man who had
committed or instigated it, and strongly confirmed the suspicions
generally entertained. Still, there was nothing that could be regarded
as legal proof. To confine the man, and look for further evidence, was
all that could be done.