A TROPICAL THUNDERSTORM
We have really arrived in the East! We are in Colombo, the capital town
of Ceylon, the great island which lies swung like a pendant from the
southernmost point of India. We are sitting in the shady verandah of one
of the largest hotels, the Grand Oriental, called G.O.H. for short, and
as we sip lemon-squash we look out over a scene so full of interest that
it is difficult to take it all in. This is quite different from Port
Said. There it was bright and clear, but there was not the wonderful
smell and sense of being the East that we have here. The air is full of
scent, a kind of spicy smell mingled with a touch of wood-smoke, and
there is a balminess in it that we have never felt till now. The water
in the harbour is a glorious emerald green, and small boys, almost
naked, play about on roughly shaped log canoes called catamarans. They
used to dive for pennies, but the sharks lopped off a leg here and an
arm there and swallowed one up whole now and again, and so the
Government forbade it. The dark wooden wharf forms a frame for gay
figures in pure pinks and greens and yellows, and on the roads there run
past continually the funniest sturdy little men with their loin-cloths
tucked up, pulling light-looking chairs on high wheels with people in
them. These chairs are called rickshaws and are the chief way of getting
about. Very comfortable they are too, and quite cheap; we will go in
them presently. The men who pull them have funny chignons of frizzy
black hair sticking out under their little red caps, and it would be
easy to mistake them for women. That attendant from the hotel at your
elbow is asking you if you'll take another lemon-squash; he is quite a
different sort of man from the runners, isn't he? Much taller and with a
mild expression; his straight hair is adorned by a curved tortoise-shell
comb of considerable size; he wears it round the back of his head, and
how he makes it stay on among his very scanty locks is a miracle. His
flowing white garments are immaculately clean, and he doesn't look as if
he could kill a mosquito! He is a Cingalee, and the little men who run
in the rickshaws are Tamils; these races live side by side in Ceylon,
though there are many more Cingalese than Tamils. They are quite
distinct, though they both originally came over from India, and in the
old days when the Cingalese gave a line of kings to the island they were
always fighting the Tamils; to-day both live together peacefully under
British rule.
This place is a positive bazaar! There is a deep, crafty old merchant
sitting like a spider over his pile of sheeny silks in the corner--he
hopes to get good prices from the unwary tourist; there is another with
a stall of beautiful brass and copper hand-worked things, and others
with jewellery and carved ivory. But more interesting than any is the
snake-charmer, who has just squatted down in front of us, prepared to
give us an entertainment.
That is a cobra he takes out; you know it by its large, flat head. It
seems sleepy and stupid, but its bite is deadly. It is possible, of
course, that he has abstracted the poison-fangs which make its bite
fatal, but even without them I shouldn't care to handle it. It is a huge
beast, seven or eight feet long I should guess. See how he teases it; he
is making it rise up on its coils and swing this way and that, darting
its forked tongue out at him, and yet all the time it fears him. He has
a marvellous power over it; its narrow, wicked light eyes are fixed on
his face; it never looks away. Now he begins to play to it on a little
flute; it is dancing, swaying its lean unlovely body to and fro and up
and down in time with the tune. He puts down his pipe and makes a motion
to it as if he were mesmerising it, passing his hands this way and that,
until it comes to him and puts its flat head on his shoulder, nozzling
into his neck. It makes one shudder to see it! It coils round his body
again and again; he is enveloped in the coils. I should not care for
that profession! It is not every man that can do it, only some of the
natives have a gift for it, and they really have a power over snakes,
even those in a wild state, for they make them come forth out of holes
when called and remain passive at their feet. This man deserves a good
tip. Bakshish they call it here too; that word accompanies you round the
world!
[Illustration: A CINGALEE WAITER.]
I think we'll go for a jaunt, if you're ready, as the light falls
quickly here. There is no difficulty in getting two rickshaws, and how
they spin along. They say the men who drag them don't live many years,
as the constant running wears them out, but they look healthy enough and
show no more exhaustion after running than a horse does after trotting.
Each one has twisted up his dhoti, as the white skirts they wear are
called, showing his bare brown legs; the upper garment is simply a
European cotton vest. We spin along the bright red road by the sea,
seeing the long lines of foam breaking gently on the beach, and then
turn into shady roads where trees with brilliant yellow leaves light the
wayside. Then we pass through a native village with huts of thatch,
while plantains, which at home we call bananas, grow on broad-leaved
plants by each door. There is dust enough here, and mangy-looking pariah
dogs, and cocks and hens, and multitudes of bright beady-eyed children
with hardly any clothing on. There is plenty of foliage and greenery and
a freshness and richness of colouring that is much better than the grey
leafless harshness of an Egyptian village, for this land gets plenty of
rain. Everyone seems good-humoured and happy, and the children look fat
enough; some of them are very black, with woolly heads, of a different
type from the others. These are the children of a race called Moormen.
When we get down near the hotel I want you to come into this jeweller's
shop in the arcade; you'll see a strange sight. A crowd of tourists are
sitting round a table which is covered with little heaps of shining
stones, unset and piled on squares of white paper; some are brilliant
blue, others flashing crimson, others sombre in hue, but showing a
glitter of living light whichever way you turn them. The odd thing is
that the visitors are handling them and turning them over, and examining
them quite freely, while the owner, a wizened old man in horn
spectacles, hardly watches!
"They're not real?"
Indeed they are! Rubies, star-sapphires, opals, and many another
precious stone. That native owner has a queer faith in the honesty of
his customers! Long may it last!
We are only in Colombo for one night, and to-morrow we are going
up-country to stay with a friend of mine, a tea-planter.
As we are undressing you give a sudden start, "What's that?" Only a
lizard scuttling over the dark-washed bedroom wall, first cousin to the
chameleon you saw at Abu Simbel. He is quite harmless and lives on
flies. He runs like a little shadow across the wall and sometimes he
loses his balance and comes down thump on the floor, or breaks his fall
on the mosquito curtains. He is one of the signs that we really are in
the East; here is another. Listen for a moment at the window. There is a
distant barking of dogs, a far-away crow from a defiant cock, a strange
murmurous chant of men, weird cries intermingled, and now and then the
deep beat of a parchment drum. The people of the land are all awake and
stirring though it is late--the East never really sleeps as profoundly
as does the West; there is a restlessness in the blood that stirs too
much, and a pulsating warmth in the air that does not allow of deep
slumber; it is the restlessness of the jungle translated into town life.
Next day at the station we find that the porters, though dressed in neat
blue suits, have pronounced chignons of the same type as their brothers
who draw the rickshaws, and in spite of their European-cut coats and
trousers they run about with bare feet! We might make a museum of the
strange porters we see on our wanderings, collecting a specimen from
each country!
The train is comfortable enough and there is a luncheon-car, so we
shan't starve this time; besides, the journey to Kandy is only a few
hours. There I hope we shall be met, as I haven't the least idea
whereabouts my friend, Mr. Hunter's, tea-plantation is; however, I sent
him a wire yesterday directly we arrived to say we would come by this
train, so he is sure to be there.
The line for the greater part of the way is laid on a terrace or shelf
cut out of a hillside, and it winds along climbing ever up with a
towering wall on one side and a precipice on the other. The little
stations have hardly room to wedge in, but they are very gay with
flowers--indeed the whole line is, for great yellow daisies and the
terra-cotta blossoms of a pretty creeper called lantana climb
everywhere. As we get higher and higher we can look down and see the
country spread out before us like a map; it is cut up into neat little
fields and would be like a draught-board except that the fields are
often on different levels one above the other, made on land cut out from
the hillsides. These people grow rice, which is to them what maize is to
the Egyptian. In the fields, before it has been threshed, it is known as
paddy. They live on rice and very little else, and seem to thrive on it.
Rice pudding if repeated every day for a month at both breakfast and
dinner would grow monotonous, but the man of the East does not find it
so. His rice is not cooked with milk but with water, and is eaten with a
little curry made of fish or vegetables to give it flavour.
Higher yet, and soon we see the hills laid out with rows of a tiny
dark-green bush, planted as neatly as rows of turnips; this is the tea
for which Ceylon is famous, and we shall get a nearer look at it
presently. That and rubber are the staple crops that Englishmen come out
here to raise, but they also grow coffee and other things too.
[Illustration: DOWN IN THE PADDYFIELDS.]
When we arrive at Kandy there is no sign of anything to meet us and no
white man on the platform, so I make inquiries of the stationmaster, who
is a Eurasian, which means that he has some white blood in his veins. He
knows Mr. and Mrs. Hunter perfectly well, he says, though he has not
seen them for a day or two. If, as I say, I wired, they are certain to
send in a trap to meet us; but it may have been delayed or still be in
the town. If we care to go up and look round, and come back again, he
will meantime make inquiries. With many thanks we take his advice. The
town is quite near and we find the main part of it built around a pretty
little lake near which is the famous Temple of the Tooth. This is a
massive building visited by thousands of pilgrims, because it enshrines
a relic of great sanctity, nothing less than the tooth of Buddha! What
Mohammed is to the Mohammedans so Buddha is to the Buddhists, among
whom the greater part of the people of Ceylon may be counted. But Buddha
is more than a prophet; his followers say that he has appeared on earth
many times, and that the last time he came in the form of an Indian
prince who, instead of living in careless luxury, left his home and
wandered forth among the people to discover the meaning of life. When he
found it, after deep meditation, he left certain precepts and rules to
his followers. Some of them are very good, resembling our own
Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not lie," "Thou shalt
not steal," "Thou shalt not drink intoxicating liquor." But, unlike the
Mohammedans, the Buddhists do not believe in God. Their idea of blissful
happiness at the last is to melt away into a kind of nothingness of
perfect peace, with no desires, no worries, and no cares.
All over the East you find temples which are supposed to contain some
part of Buddha's person, hairs, teeth, even a collar-bone! Of course it
is impossible that these things should be genuine, and in any case, if
they were, there is nothing sacred about them. The worshippers always
say they do not look upon Buddha as a god, but only a great spiritual
teacher, yet the poor and ignorant come and worship and bow down in
these temples, and there is no doubt that to them the image itself
stands for a god. The tooth which is here is kept in many caskets, one
within the other, and it is never shown except on very great occasions.
Mr. Hunter saw it once, and says it is not a human tooth at all, but a
great thing like a boar's tusk or possibly an elephant's tooth. He
couldn't get a good look at it, anyway he saw enough to be quite sure
that it is not human at all, and the same may be said without doubt of
all similar relics.
What a lovely scene! The graceful dark-skinned crowd in their softly
flowing garments of the purest pinks you ever saw, with sulphur yellow
and rich red draperies thrown over them, are idling by the hoary grey
steps of the temple and dropping bits of bread into the ponds in front.
They are feeding the tortoises, fat lazy beasts who will hardly move to
snap at the fragments unless they fall before their very noses. These
beasts are supposed to be sacred too, and so they have an uncommonly
good time of it. This massive building, temple and palace in one, was
inhabited by the old line of native kings who made Kandy their capital.
We must get back to the station or we may miss Mr. Hunter. When we
arrive there we find there is no sign of him, whereat the attentive
stationmaster is greatly distressed. He advises us to hire a trap and
drive to some place with an unpronounceable name, where Mr. Hunter is
sure to meet us; visitors often do that, he says. I try to discover why
we can't drive all the way, but his answers are not enlightening; "big
hill," he replies, and I don't see why the trap can't go up a hill!
However, we shall see. He engages a trap for us, anyway; with a
scarecrow horse and a friendly looking driver whose hairy legs protrude
from wrappings of cinnamon-coloured cloth--once white, I suppose--and we
are off. The roads at first are very good; and there is none of the dust
we suffered from so much in Egypt, for Ceylon is a moist land. In fact,
it looks rather like rain now, with heavy clouds gathering up.
After going at a slow trot for a considerable distance the driver pulls
up, and pointing with his whip to a tree-covered mountain says something
unintelligible, which turns out to be "'Unter Tuan," after he has
repeated it about six times. This means Mr. Hunter, "Tuan" being the
same term of respect here that "Sahib" is in India.
There is no sign of a house or any living being; the place is
absolutely deserted. In vain I sign to the man to go ahead; he shakes
his head and remains seated on his box like an image of despair. I get
out and see that the road runs away to nothing in the bushes and scrub
in front, it just ends suddenly for no apparent reason, and while I am
looking I hear a slight crackling in the bushes, and a tall, thin, very
dirty-looking youth appears and salaams respectfully. The driver
immediately begins to converse with him, whereupon the youth takes our
bag unceremoniously out of the carriage and putting it on his head
beckons to us to follow him. There is nothing else for it, so, after
paying the driver, we do so, feeling like two infants in charge of this
fellow.
I try the lean lad in English, asking him if he knows Hunter Tuan's
place, but he swings round, looks at me gravely, and continues his
graceful, elastic walk.
It is pretty warm, and the path is narrow and lined by thorn bushes, so
the going is not easy; but the youth seems to float on ahead with
mysterious ease, and we pant after him feeling as if our lives depended
on not losing sight of him. At last the bushes get so thick that we have
to push our way through, and we suddenly see him a good distance ahead,
half-way across a broad and shallow river which bubbles round his knees.
"Hi!" we shout after him. "Stop!" And he turns, but only to beckon
imperturbably and continue evenly on his way. It is evidently the custom
of this country to walk through rivers when you meet them! Easy enough
for the inhabitants, who are not encumbered with shoes and stockings,
but for us....
Down we go and are soon hard after him with our boots slung round our
necks and our stockings stuffed into them; the cool water splashing
round our legs is rather pleasant. Lucky it is not deep. We have to stop
and re-clothe on the other side. Here our coolie has condescended to
wait for us, and just as you are about to sit down on a convenient
hillock of bare brown earth he waves you away, and you see that big red
ants with a most fierce and warlike appearance are running about it; it
is their home and fortress! Once more booted we struggle on, uphill now,
on a stony path, and very stiff work it is. When we tell our guide to
stop for a moment he looks at us condescendingly and stands with his
burden poised on his head, not even caring to put it down as he waits
until these poor creatures, who are not carrying anything at all, regain
their breath, and that makes us feel so inferior we don't like to stop
often! The clouds gather and blacken, the perspiration is running down
my back, and I am as wet as if I had waded through the river up to my
neck. I should be glad to see the house, for we have been scrambling
upwards for quite an hour now. What a place to live in! Fancy having to
come down here every time you wanted to do a little shopping!
Another hour at least! A few drops, muttering thunder, and then, quicker
than one can say it, a blinding, crashing downpour. Never in my life
have I seen rain like this until that night at sea when we passed
through the edge of the cyclone, and now twice have I met it in a week!
It is simply a water-spout. A brilliant flash of lightning shows us the
youth crouching under a bank some yards ahead, and we dive into the
nearest place, following his example. Luckily the bank is high here and
there is a kind of cave beneath a mass of broad-leaved plants; there is
just room for the two of us huddled close together, and the wall of
water sweeps past the entrance like a curtain. The rain makes a
deafening noise, it literally crashes down; the path is a mountain
torrent; if we had stayed there we should have been swept off our feet;
it seems as if the whole mountain-side must go. We hang on to each
other, avoiding the trickles as best we can. Hullo! this plant is a
cardamom, carrying little seeds rather like spicy pepper; nibble one, it
may keep off the effects of the wetting we have been unable to avoid
altogether. How cold it seems to have grown all of a sudden! Is it the
rain, or because we are so much higher up? I suppose really it is the
latter, because I remember now that the planters always live on the tops
of hills to get the fresh air, which is more healthy there than in the
stifling valleys.
It is a long time before the storm passes, and when at last it dies down
to a few drops and we emerge and shake ourselves, all trace of the
coolie boy has vanished! Yes, it is true! He has gone, and the bag too!
Well, he must have gone upward or we should have seen him pass, so let
us hope he is honest and has taken the bag to the house. There is only
one path, so we can do nothing but follow.
On we climb again, and presently the scene changes; we have got into the
tea-scrub, and wander among rows of bushes about the size of gooseberry
bushes, receiving deluges of cold water against our legs. The path
zigzags this way and that, rising each time so that we can look back and
see it lying below us in fold after fold. At last! There is an opening!
I see a glimpse of green lawn and some poinsettias! This must be the
place! Yes, I can see the bungalow, and here is a mackintosh-clad figure
hastening down the path to greet us.
"My dear fellow! However did you get here? Why on earth didn't you let
us know? We'd have sent to meet you!"
As we grasp hands I explain about the telegram. "Oh, then I shall get it
with the letters to-morrow morning!" he says lightly. "No matter, so
long as you are here and safe. I was afraid you had got lost upon the
mountain-top, and was setting forth to seek you."
"But how did you know?"
"Your coolie arrived with the bag a quarter of an hour ago, and your
name is written on the label very large and clear. Delighted to see you!
The missus is romping round getting your beds aired and pinning up
curtains in your honour!"
[Illustration: RUANVELI DAGOBA AT THE "BURIED CITY."]