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Good-bye to Dharwar, we are on the move again, the comparatively
cold-weather tourists take the road south to Bangalore. We jog along at
a respectable rate, not too fast and not too slow, say forty-five miles
an hour top speed, and twenty-five mean, which allows us to see things
to-day and remember what we saw yesterday.
Before leaving, biked down to the Native Town of Dharwar, a place full
of interest, picturesque scenes, and somewhat sinister looking
people--tried to make a picture of women and men at a well-head, a
magnificent subject, but too difficult to do in a few minutes. There
were men pulling up kerosene tins over a wheel, hand over hand, from the
cool looking depths of the wide red sandstone well and filling goats'
skins to sling on cows' backs, and women in sombre reds and blue
wrappings, old and young, and rather monkeyish in appearance; still,
some were not altogether bad looking. One old woman had almost
Savonarola features, and the strip of blue from the sky on her brown
back was telling as she and a young woman leant and pulled hand over
hand at the rope. The water splashed on to the pavement round the well,
reflected the rich colours of cloth and limb and patches of cobalt from
the sky. The women seem to consider this is not a bad part of their
day's work; to come to the well-head and chat with their neighbours and
show off their jewellery, and probably wouldn't thank you for a modern
engine to pump up the water in half the time. They are dirty little
pigs; can you make out a little beast to the right, comparatively a
superior, extra well-dressed beauty, with very polished black hair and a
flower in it? No, I am afraid not; the reduction, or reproduction,
obscures her charm completely. She looks round about her and rubs a
family water pot with a little mud and water off the road, yet by her
religion it would be defiled if my shadow fell on it.
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I came away almost sick with the feeling of inability to remember all
the movements of draperies and colours; this country needs a Philip and
a Velasquez in one, to do it justice.
On the way home I pass a tank with two wide nights of steps down to it,
banyan trees hang over it, and monkeys gambol on the ground, and about
the dusty trunks. Up and down the steps women are passing with stately
steps and slow, they loiter at the water's edge and gossip, then fill
their dark earthenware bowls, lift them on to their heads with the help
of a neighbour, and come slowly up the steps. The little brass bowls
they carry on hip or at arm's length glitter with lights that hit the
eye like electric sparks. One figure alone would make an artist's study
for days. The colour from the red soil reflects under their raised arms
and under their cheeks and into the classic folds of their draperies,
strong blue, and deep red, in their shadows and throw up rich
reflections to the undersides of the wet earthenware bowls; the water
laps over their brims, and the sky reflects like sapphire on their upper
surfaces.... Who will say, that colour is not the most beautiful thing
in the world--the very flower of love and light and fire; the sign of
preponderant katabolism or anabolism as the naturalist might possibly
put it, to be perfectly explicit!
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
People dined with us, and inside we had music of the masters by a
mistress of music; and outside, some of us discussed names of stars; and
dogs and jackals were stirred to the depths of their feelings by the
moon: one especially at the end of the compound howled as if it was in a
steel trap. At the side of the bungalow the guests' white cattle slept
unyoked in the deep shadows of the trees, beside their white covered
dumbies, all soft and blurred in silvery haze except where the light
fell on a splash-board and shone like a jewel. And in front of us
Eucharist lilies and China asters drooped their heads and slept.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Though this is an express train we stop at lots of stations, which, of
course, is just what we want, for there are fascinating groups to study
all the way, and the slight changes in the character of the country are
interesting. We go through first, what I take to be the black cotton
soil, and later red soil again.
At one little station a Government official gets out of the train, a
Deputy-Commissioner possibly, a dapper, fair man and a lady, a nurse, a
fair child, and a fox terrier; in the shadow of some trees I see an
escort of lancers and some foot soldiers waiting. We wonder who they can
be, getting out in such a measureless, monotonous tract of level
country. They seem so fair and isolated in this vast country of dark
people.
... The afternoon passes, and as the sun goes down the shadows of our
carriages spread wider over the plain. The sky becomes faint rose in the
zenith, over the cerulean above the horizon, and the white clothes of
the shepherds become golden, and the reds, yellows, and blues of the
women's draperies become very vivid. We pass herds of cattle as finely
bred as antelopes, all blurred into the glow of the late afternoon and
the red soil. Then comes almost desert, flat as water, red gravel with
bushes with few green leaves, and here and there a tree with its white
stem gleaming against a long-drawn shadow. Over the horizon two hill
tops show purple and red, then for ten minutes all flushes ruddy,
burning gold, and vermilion, and the light goes out; and there follows a
cold blackish violet that almost chills us, till the moon comes in full
strength and glorifies the desert with its frosted silvery illumination.
Little fires begin to burn alongside the railway, and we see groups of
shepherds warming themselves and cooking. The third class passengers at
the stations are tucking their chins between their knees and pulling
their draperies, most of them scarlet, over their heads, and with the
lamplight from above and the smoke of the hubble-bubble that floats over
them they make very warm, soft masses of colour.
We stiffer people spread ourselves out over a space ten natives could
sit in, and get under our blankets and feel uncommonly comfortable, take
one more look at the blurr of moonlight on the silent waste, and address
ourselves to sleep, fondly hoping we will remember a little of the
beauty of the night 'gainst the "dark days made for our searching."
... The night passes, hour after hour--jogging south; at times we hear a
voice calling in the wilderness the name of a station, which we do not
know, and do not care to know; and there's a whiff perhaps of burning, a
little like peat, from the fuel they burn here, which at home the
farmers spread on their fields to make them "bring forth unnatural
fruit."[13]
[13] Josephus.