SADLER IN SALERATUS. THE GREEN DRAGON PAGODA. THE NARRATIVE GOES ON.
One day I was by the docks, where some people were busy and some were
like me, loafing or looking for a berth; and I came on a neat-looking,
three-masted ship, named the _Good Sister_, which appeared to me a
kindly name. She was being overhauled by the carpenters. I asked one of
them, “Where's the captain?”
“She ain't got any,” he says. “It's the owners are doing it.”
“Maybe you'll remark,” I says, “who they happen to be.”
“Shan and Sadler of Saleratus,” he says.
“I believe you're a liar,” I says, surprised at the name.
“Which there's a little tallow-faced runt in perspective,” he says,
climbing down the stays, “that I can lick,” he says, being misled by my
size. And when that was over, I started for Saleratus.
It was a town to the south, down near the coast. That's not its name
now, because it's reformed and doesn't like to remember the days before
it was regenerated. At that time some of it was Mexican, and more of
it was Chinese, and some of it wasn't connected with anything but
perdition.
Shan and Sadler did a mixed mercantile business, and they seemed to be
prosperous people, but I take it Fu Shan mainly carried on the business,
and Sadler was the reason why the firm's property was respected and let
alone by the Caucasians. There is a big Chinese company in Singapore,
called “Shan Brothers,” whose name is well known on bills of lading, and
Fu Shan was connected with them. But a man wouldn't have thought to find
Sadler a partner in banking, mercantile, and shipping business, with a
Chinaman. He'd been the wildest of us all in the _Hebe Maitland_ days,
and always acted youthful for his years. There were two things in him
that never could get to keep the peace with each other, his conscience
and his sporting instinct. Yet he was a capable man, and forceful, and I
judge he could do 'most anything he set his hand to.
He and Fu Shan lived just outside the town of Saleratus in two
ornamented and expensive houses, side by side, on a hill that was bare
and mostly sand banks, and that hung over the creek which ran past
the town into the bay. Sadler lived alone with Irish, but Fu Shan was
domestic. He was a pleasant Oriental with a mild, squeaking voice, and
had more porcelain jars than you would think a body would need, and fat
yellow cheeks, and a queue down to his knees. He wore cream-coloured
silk, and was a picture of calmness and culture. Irish hadn't changed,
but Sadler was looking older and more melancholy, though I judged that
some of the lines on his face, that simulated care, came from the kind
of life folks led in Saleratus to avoid monotony. We spoke of Craney
among others, but Sadler knew no more of Craney than I did. Likely he
was still in Corazon.
We were sitting one evening on Sadler's porch, that looked over the
creek, waiting for supper. Fu Shan was there, and Sadler said Saleratus
was monotonous. Yet there were going on in Saleratus to my knowledge at
that moment the following entertainments: three-card monte at the Blue
Light Saloon; a cockfight at Pasquarillo's; two alien sheriffs in town
looking for horse thieves, and had one corralled on the roof of the
courthouse; finally some other fellows were trying to drown a Chinaman
in the creek and getting into all kinds of awkwardness on account
of there being no water in the creek to speak of, and other Chinamen
throwing stones. But Sadler said it was monotonous.
“I don't get no satisfaction out of it.”
Over the top of the town you could catch the sunset on the sea, and the
smoke of the chimneys rose up between. There were red roses all over the
pillars and eaves of the porch. Seemed to me it was a good enough place.
Fu Shan smoked scented and sugared tobacco in a porcelain pipe with an
ivory stem. The fellows down by the creek ran away, feeling pretty good
and cracking their revolvers in the air, and the Chinamen got bunched
about their injured countryman.
“Have no water in cleek,” says Fu Shan, aristocratic and peaceful.
“Dlied up.”
“Dried up. Played out,” says Sadler, not understanding him. “Fu Shan's a
dry-rotted Asiatic. Doesn't anything make any difference to him. Got any
nerves? Not one. Got any seethin' emotions? Not a seeth. He's a wornout
race in the numbness of decrepitude.”
Fu Shan chuckled.
“But me, I'm different,” says Sadler, “The uselessness of things bothers
me. Look at 'em. I been in Saleratus five years, partner with Fu Shan.
Sometimes I had a good time. Where is it now? You laugh, or you sigh.
Same amount of wind, nothing left either way.
What's the use?
You chew tobacco and spit out the juice.
What's the use?
If there's anybody with a destiny that's got any assets at all, and he
wants to swap even, bring him along. Look at this town! Is it any sort
of a town? No honesty, for there ain't a man in it that can shuffle a
pack without stackin' it. No ability, for there ain't more'n one or two
can stack it real well. No seriousness, for they start in to drown
a Chinaman in a dry creek, and they cut away as happy as if they'd
succeeded. I sits up here on my porch, and I says, 'What is it but
a dream? Fu Shan,' I says, 'this here life's a shadow!' Then that
forsaken, conceited, blank heathen, he says one of his ancestors
discovered the same three thousand years ago. But, he says, another
ancestor, pretty near as distinguished, he discovered that, if you put
enough curry on your rice, it gives things an appearance of reality.
Which, says he, they discovered the uselessness of things in Asia so
long ago they've forgot when, and then they discovered the uselessness
of the discovery. They discovered gunpowder, he says, long before we
did, but they use it for fireworks in the interests of irony. They've
forgotten more'n we ever knew, says he, the stuck-up little cast-eyed
pig. Go on! I'm disgusted. Haven't I put on curry till it give me a
furred mouth and dyspepsia of the soul? What's the use?”
Fu Shan chuckled again.
“What's the use?” says Sadler. “Things happen, but they don't mean
anything by it. You hustle around the circle. You might as well have
sat down on the circumference. Maybe the trouble is with me, maybe it's
Saleratus. One of us is played out!”
Fu Shan took the ivory pipestem from his mouth, and spoke placid and
squeaking. “My got blother have joss house by Langoon. Velly good joss
house, velly good ploperty. Tlee hundred Buddha joss and gleen dlagons.
My ancestors make him. Gleen dlagon joss house. Velly good.”
“My! You'd think he's an idjit to hear him,” says Sadler, and looked at
Fu Shan, admiring. “But he ain't, not really.”
Fu Shan chuckled a third time.
He took no more stock in the happiness of his countrymen than Sadler did
in the morals of his. They seemed to be a profitable combination, but
I didn't make out to understand Sadler, though I went as far as to see
that he had a variegated way of putting it.
Then I told him I wanted a first mate's berth on the _Good Sister_,
supposing he was willing, either on account of old times or because he
might happen to be convinced I was good enough for it. I told him the
experiences I'd had. What had happened to the _Helen Mar_ I told him,
and about the Mituas business, and the loss of the _Anaconda_, and even
about Kreps and Liebchen.
“My! My! Tommy,” he says, after the last. “That's a lyric poem,” he
says, referring to Kreps and Liebchen.
But he said nothing then about the _Good Sister_, and I decided to hang
around till he did, and one day he brought me a bundle of papers.
“Here's your papers, Tommy,” he says.
“Which?” I says.
“Captain's articles for Tommy Buckingham. Sign 'em,” he says, “and don't
be monotonous,” and I was that scared I signed my name so it looked like
a rail fence. I contracted to be master of the ship _Good Sister_, the
same to go to Hong-Kong Manila, Singapore, and return.
“You go up to 'Frisco and 'list the crew,” he says. “I'm coming myself
by-and-by to look 'em over.”
It was my first ship, and long ago, but the pride of it sticks out of me
yet.
I went back to 'Frisco and hired Stevey Todd for cook, and I recollect
taking for ship's carpenter the man that called me a “tallow little
runt,” which he got misled, there, and he went by the name of
“Mitchigan.” I took Kamelillo too, who wanted to go to sea again, but
Kreps stayed where he was.
On the day the _Good Sister_ sailed, Sadler came aboard with a valise in
his hand, and after him, carrying a valise, was Irish, and after Irish
was an old Burmese servant of Fu Shan's that I used to see sweeping the
porch, whose name was Maya Dala.
“I'm going along,” says Sadler, and Irish says, “Soime here.” But
neither of them said what for, and I thought maybe Sadler was thinking
he'd see me safe through the first trip, or maybe it occurred to him to
go and take a look at Asia. How should I know?
We went through the Golden Gate that afternoon, and we sat that night
in the cabin, while Maya Dala and Irish cleared the table. The oil lamp
swung overhead with the lift and fall of the ship, and Sadler spread
himself six feet and more on the cabin lounge, and unloaded his mind.
“You remember what Fu Shan said of his brother's joss house?” he says.
“It's this way. Why, Fu Shan had a father once, named Lo Tsin Shan,
and he was a sort of mandarin family in China. He went to Singapore and
started in the tea business. He had a large hard head. He went into a
lot of different enterprises, and cut a considerable swath. He died and
left ten or twelve sons, who scattered to look after his enterprises.
That's how Fu Shan came to Saleratus six years ago. Fu Shan was always
some stuck on his own intellect, and at that time he thought he could
play cards, but he couldn't. I cleared him out of two hundred and fifty
one night, and we went into partnership, but that's neither here nor
there. Now, Lo Tsin Shan appears to have been a little fishy as to his
feelings, but he had brains. Fu Shan's opinion is reverential, and he
don't admit the fish. Lo Tsin had an agency at Calcutta, and Burmah
lies on the way, but it wasn't commercial in those days. Now, in Burmah
there's a navigable river that runs the length of the country, and all
along it are cities full of temples, some of 'em deserted, and some of
'em lively. One of the best is at Rangoon on a hill, and it's called the
Shway Dagohn Pagoda. There's a lot of relics in it, and smaller temples
around, and strings of pilgrims coming from as far as Ceylon and China.
Remarkable holy place. Old Lo Tsin, he drops down there one day and
looks around. His fishy feelin's got interested, and he says to himself,
'Guess I'll come into this.' He went sailin' up the river till he found
a king somewhere, who appeared to own the whole country. This one's
pastime was miscellaneous murder, but his taste for tea was cultured and
accurate. Then Lo Tsin got down on the floor and kowtowed to this king
for an hour and a half, the way it comes natural if you have the right
kind of clothes. Then he bought a temple of him. It stands at the foot
of the south stairway of the Shway Dagohn. Fu Shan ain't sure what
the old man's idea was, whether it was pure business or not. Anyway he
worked up the reputation of the temple, till there was none in the place
to equal it, except the Shway Dagohn, which he didn't pretend to compete
with. He advertised it on his tea. 'Shan Brothers' have a brand still
called 'Green Dragon Pagoda Tea.' There wasn't no real doubt but the
income of the temple was large, and yet it didn't appear at Lo Tsin's
death that he'd ever drawn anything out of it. The whole thing was
gold-leafed from top to bottom, and full of bronze and lacquer statues,
and two green dragons at the gate, and ministerin' angels know what
besides. Maybe Fu Shan's information ain't complete on that point, but
this was a fact, that Lo Tsin, by the will he made, instead of going
back to his ancestral cemetery in China, he had himself carried up from
Singapore and buried in that same temple; and there he is under the
stone floor in the temple of the Green Dragon, but that's not to the
point. Now, when they came to split up his enterprises among his sons,
one of 'em took the temple for a living. His name was Lum Shan. But Fu
Shan says, Lum would rather come over to America and go into business in
Saleratus. Lum Shan don't like his temple, but I don't know why. Well,
then, I says, 'Speak up, Fu Shan. Don't be bashful, Asia. If you've got
a medicine for the hopeless, let it come, Asia. What's five thousand
years got to say to a man with an absolute constitution, a stomach
voracious and untroubled, who looks around him and sees no utility
anywhere? Ebb and flow, work and eat, born and dead, rain and shine,
things swashin' around, a heave this way and then that. You write a
figure on the board and wipe it out. What's the use? Speak up, Asia,
but don't recommend no more curry.' 'Hi! Hi!' says Fu Shan, the little
yeller idjit! 'My got blother have joss house by Langoon. All light.
He tlade. You go lun joss house by Langoon. Vely good ploperty.' That's
what he said. Why not? That's the way I looked at it.”
He paused and blew smoke. Maya Dala and Irish were gone. I asked, “Are
you learning Burmese off Maya Dala?” and he nodded.
“Now,” I says, “what I don't see is this temple business. Where was the
profit? Don't temples belong to the priests?”
“Seems not always,” he says. “They're a kind of monks, anyway. It's
where old Lo Tsin Shan was original to begin with and mysterious
afterward. Suppose a Siamese prince brings a pound of gold leaf to gild
things with, and some Ceylon pilgrims leave a few dozen little bronze
images with a ruby in each eye. They've 'acquired merit,' so they say.
It goes to their credit on some celestial record. Their next existence
will be the better to that extent anyway, now. Suppose the temple's
gilded all over, and lumber rooms packed to the roof with bronze images
already. Do they care what becomes of these things? Don't seem to. Why
should they? They're credited on one ledger. You credit the same to
the business on another. Economic, ain't it? That was the old man's
perception, to begin with. But afterwards,--maybe his joss house got to
be a hobby with him. Oh, I don't know! Nor I don't care. Fu Shan says
it's good property. What he says is generally so. Profits! I don't care
about profits. What good would they do me? I'm going to run that temple
if it ain't too monotonous.”
That was the limit of Sadler's knowledge of this thing. Maya
Dala remembered the Shway Dagohn, but as to the other pagodas and
monasteries,--there were many--he didn't know--he thought they belonged
to the monks, or to the caretakers, or to no one at all, or maybe the
government. What became of the offerings? He thought they were kept in
the pagodas. Sometimes they were sold? It might be so. He thought it
made no difference, for it was taught in the monastery schools, that the
“Giver acquires merit only by his action and the spirit of his giving,
wherefore are the merits of the poor and rich equal.” Why should they
care what became of their gifts? From Maya Dala's talk one seemed to
catch a glimpse of the idea, which occurred to old Lo Tsin Shan, that
fishy Oriental, one day forty years before, and sent him up the river to
interview King Tharawady on his gold-lacquer and mosaic throne. Yet he
had let the profits lie there, if there were any, maybe thinking all
along of the handsome tomb he was putting up for himself, when his time
came. You couldn't guess all his Mongolian thoughts, nor those of his
son, Fu Shan, of whom Sadler asked medicine for a dyspeptic soul. Fu
Shan said, “Go lun joss house by Langoon.” Sadler didn't seem to care
about the business part of it either, though it looked interesting. He
only wanted the medicine.
Days and nights we talked it over, and got no further than that, and
drew nearer the East. The East is a muddy sea with no bottom, and it
swallows a man like a fog bank swallows a ship.
Sadler made some verses that he called his “Prayer;”--“Sadler's prayer,”
and he told me them one wet day, when a half gale was blowing, and
he sat smoking with his feet hitched over the rail. He appeared to be
trying to get a bead on infinity across the point of his shoe. It ran
this way, beginning, “Lord God that o'erulest”:
“Lord God that o'er-rulest
The waters, and coolest
The face of the foolish
With the touch of thy death,
I, Sadler, a Yankee,
Lean, leathery, lanky,
Red-livered and cranky,
And weary of breath,
“That hain't no theology
But a sort of doxology,
Here's my apology,
Maker of me,
Here where I'm sittin',
Smooth as a kitten,
Smokin' and spittin'
Into the sea.
“The storm winds come sweepin',
Come widowed and weepin',
Come rippin' and reapin',
The wheat of the loam,
And some says, it's sport, boys,
It's timbrels and hautboys,
And some is the sort, boys,
That's sorry he come.
“Lord God of the motions
Of lumberin' oceans,
There's some of your notions
Is handsome and free,
But what in the brewin'
And sizzlin,' and stewin'
Did you think you was doin'
The time you done me?
“Evil and good
Did ye squirt in my blood?
I stand where I stood
When my runnin' began;
And the start and the goal
Were the same in my soul,
And the damnable whole
Was entitled a man.
“Lord God that o'er-gazest
The waste and wet places,
The faint foolish faces
Turned upward to Thee,
Though Thy sight goeth far
O'er our rabble and war
Yet remember we are
The drift of Thy sea.”
Sadler left the _Good Sister_ at Singapore, and disappeared.
He dropped out of sight. Afterward his name went from the letter heads
of “Sadler and Shan.” They read, “Shan Brothers, Saleratus, Cal. Fu
Shan--Lum Shan.”
He was a singular man was Sadler. He held the opinion that this life was
an idea that occurred to somebody, who was tired of it and would like
to get it off his mind. I took him for one that had got too much
conscience, or too much restlessness, one of the two, and between them
they gave him dyspepsia of the soul. Sometimes that dyspepsia took him
bad, and when he had one of those spells he'd light out into poetry
scandalous. Some folks are built that way, some not. J. R. Craney, for
instance, he was a romantic man, and gifted according to his own line,
and had airy notions ahead of him that he pretty near caught up to; but
as to metres, he couldn't tell metres from cord-wood. Yet the first time
I saw him again, after leaving him at Corazon, he heaved some at me,
but he didn't know it was poetry. It was some years later. I sailed the
_Good Sister_ quite a time, and did pretty well by her.