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THE MAD PRIEST OF AX<*KoK AN'P I HI-, AtTHUR
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
By JAMES SAXON GUILDERS
DECORATED BY
WILLAR0 BONTSf
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK MCMXXXH J* LONDON
!>J2, y, IX, Ami: if >\ AND COMPACT
tl, Th^ fa'>t t *r futrtt
'(fieri of* r
IK wri or
To
ROBERT C. TURNER
OF SHANGHAI, CHINA,
WHOM I MET ONE DAY AND
HAVE LOVED BVEE SINCE
ILLUSTRATIONS
The mad priest of Angkor and the author . * frontispiece
FACING FAC5K
Siamese boxing .,**..... 24
The Bangkok snake farm ...*.**. 44
Opium , .....,.. 66
Javanese dancers ,..*... 92
Kutus hunting in Bali .,..*,.. XX2
The Balinese high priest **.....,* 128
Thaiptisam ...,. *,,**. 142
The Orient Occidental izcd ..,.., 150
Burmese debutante and her eight-Inch cheroot . . * 166
**The little shepherdesses" **... . * 174
The Taj Mahal .....,,...,. 190
Hindu holy men ,...* + * 206
The burning ghat beside the Holy Ganges . 226
An Indian water-carrier filling his goatskin while his
granddaughter waits to fill her bowl 238
**And tell me, do they still paddle long boats through the
quiet waters? .,*"..,..... 256
[vii]
/t ND so ? Mac, old boy ? Fm writing you this letter
JLJL to share my gloom*
Do you remember that gracious Greek, NIco
Zographos ? and how he served us our first night in
Deauville? Remember how we heard "Neuf a I
banque" until finally Zographos dealt the financial coup
de grace, and we went away from the table with shriv-
eled pockets? And do you remember the year the
bookmakers banqueted at our expense after Sergeant
Murphy beat Shaun Spadah in the Grand National?
And do you recall a certain trip we made third class
from Monte Carlo back to our rooms at Oxford, be-
cause of an absolute famine of fives, seventeens* and
thirty-twos on the Monte Carlo wheels?
Those experiences were trying, but trivial when com-
pared to what happened to-day; for to-day 1 went from
Hongkong to Macao, the Portuguese colony In China,
and lost every cent I had. And while m France and
England* one is among friends; In Macao, one is just
around the corner from the sewers of hell.
Macao* as you know, is called the Monte Carlo of
the Orient. It docs exist almost solely on gambling,
but in other ways It Is not like Monte Carlo; it Is
ragged, dirty* and smelly* In the town are twelve
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
tawdry fan-tan dives, heaven only knows how many
opium houses, and not even heaven has a record of all
the brothels.
The ground floor of the Yeng-Hang gambling house,
where I went to run my thousand dollars to a fund
large enough to finance me around the rest of the
world, is given over to coolies and to the riffraff that
swarm in and out of the place. In the balconies sit
cleaner and wealthier persons. Portuguese ladies.
Tourists. Lordly Chinese gentlemen in silks softly
sibilant. Delicate little Chinese girls who gamble all
day, and at the beginning of night go back to houses
of strange practices. I sat between an elderly Chinese
gentleman and a Portuguese lady, looking down at the
foki, the croupier, a half-naked fellow, stupid, with
rolls of fat at his belly and rolls of fat at his throat,
whose eyelids never lifted. The other attendants, too,
were drowsy with opium. I knew I could win at fan-
tan from a lot of sleepy Chinamen.
Before the foki at one end of the table a bowl is
placed over a small mound of cash, old-fashioned
Chinese coins with holes in the centers. After all bets
have been made, the foki lifts the bowl and counts the
coins four and four and four and four, until the last
four or any part thereof is left. Bets are made on
the number of coins remaining after the count is fin-
ished. In the balcony one bets by giving the money
to an attendant who puts it in a basket and lowers it
to the foki.
For a time I played a combination bet called faan,
[a]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
but I lost at faan, so I tried nim, then kwok, then
Ching. For an hour I listened to the sing-song call of
the attendants as they lowered the basket and placed
the bets, to the drone of the foki as he counted the
coins four and four 1 and four and four and I heard
the quick, excited chirps of the toy women about me,
and the clamor of the coolies announcing the winning
number long before the foki had ended his count. At
the end of an hour I left the gambling house and
walked about the city, humming a bit, whistling a bit,
swearing considerably. I refused to buy lottery
tickets from a degenerate looking European in a green
shirt. I refused offers of rickshaw boys to guide me to
houses of unnatural exhibitions. I stopped in front
of a tea shop and listened to a Chinese girl sing her
little songs of sadness, and there I watched wealthy
Chinese merchants smoke opium and dream heavy-
lidded dreams of Ningpo, and Yunnan, and Wei-Hai-
wei. Finally I went down to the waterfront and asked
about the steamer fare back to Hongkong. I had
seven cents more than enough. I gave them to an old
beggar woman. She mumbled something to me.
"She prays that the Christian gods and all the other
gods will bless you," a man interpreted.
"Some of them will need do something about it," I
said.
Back In Hongkong, I cabled my father, humbly.
Just ten months ago I left Alabama for no reason ex-
cept that I was thirty years old and hadn't seen the
Orient. Besides, I was tired of my two jobs: writing
[3]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
a daily newspaper column and teaching English litera-
ture to college sophomores. I started out to wander
around the world, I've been through Japan, Korea,
Manchuria to the Siberian border, and south through
the rest of China. When I left home, my father as-
sured me that five thousand dollars was not enough
to take me around the world. I was certain he was
mistaken, and told him so. He can now have the
pleasure of smiling at my ignorance, though the smile
will be an expensive one, for I cabled for a heavy loan*
The money should arrive to-morrow morning. In
the afternoon I'll sail for Saigon in Indo-China, and
from there set out through the jungle to hazard the
mystery in stone that men call the ruins of Angkor.
II
irVEAR OCTAVUS ROY COHEN: You asked me to
JL/ write to you about the ruins of Angkor. I'm
sorry you did ; for I've been in Angkor a week, yet can
find out nothing about it. At night I prowl through the
temple and in the day I ride elephants through the
town, but the stones are only stones and I hear nothing.
In Athens I can see Socrates in his ragged old coat,
forever talking, forever making his soul as good as
possible. In Rome I hear the tramp of the legions
and Cato shout, "Delenda est." In Paris I see Vil-
lon staggering, staggering just a little as he searches
for the snows of yesteryear. In the streets of London,
Doctor Johnson shambles along with w Boswell at his
side. I hear him say: "Sir, when a man is tired of
London, he is tired of life." But Angkor is silent.
The lips of the four-faced god are mute; even the
spirit of his devotees has gone into the awful jungle.
I would not have you feel that Angkor prompted me
to ask Cleopatra's famous question: "Is this the mighty
ocean? Is this all?" In a way, I have not been dis-
appointed in Angkor, but the place has not set me on
fire; I have not felt as I did when looking at the
Great Wall of China, or at the Parthenon, or at the
Forum: Genghis Khan never stormed these gates,
[5]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Phidias never worshiped in this temple, Caesar never
walked these streets. . . .
I arrived at Angkor after a week's visit to Saigon,
the real capital of Indo-China, a French city set in a
jungle. The French own Saigon : they dominate it ; one
sees the native only as a servant, or as a soldier in the
troupes coloniales. The architecture of Saigon is
French. The paved boulevards are French. The big
shops are French. There is a Hotel de Ville, a Thea-
tre Municipal, a Musee, a Jardin Botanique. Saigon
in its buildings, parks, and streets is definitely a coun-
terpart of Paris, but the buildings are merely mas-
querade; even a transient detects a noxious decadence
in the lives of the haggard officers of the Foreign
Legion, of the white-faced government employees, of
the red-faced rubber planters Frenchmen forced to
live in daily contact with the jungle and its diseases,
the heat and its diseases, the sullen hatred of the na-
tives, opium, the nostalgic realization of exile, and the
insidious enervation of the Orient.
After a week's visit in Saigon seven days of ghastly
heat and of torment from mosquitoes, seven nights of
tennis and absinthe frappes, of late dinners and cham-
pagnes and brandies, of visits to opium houses and to
other houses where depravity in its most vicious form
is commonplace I was glad to hire an automobile for
the two-hundred-mile ride over the jungle road to the
ruins of Angkor.
[6]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Three times he spoke his name and three times I
tried to repeat it. He laughed as I stumbled through
the confusion of syllables, and when at last I called
him Rollo, he didn't seem to object. He was a white-
haired old man of eighty-four years, and his entire in-
ternational vocabulary was this: "Angkor Thorn,"
"Angkor Vat" (pronounced Anglor Wot), "Buddha,"
"Vishnu," "soldat," "le roi," "madame le roi,"
"Naga," and "all right." For a week we talked with
each other daily, and we used no other words than
these. A stranger might have been puzzled had he
seen us in conversation, for he might not have compre-
hended the gestures of our arms, the contortions of
our bodies, and the significant grimaces by which we
discussed history, art, and curious practices.
I found Rollo late one afternoon squatting on his
haunches, chewing betel nut, and spitting the blood-red
juice upon the stone causeway that leads to the temple
of Angkor.
"You speak English?" I asked.
Rollo stood, bowed to me, raised his arm and swept
it before him, encompassing by his gesture the entire
fagade of the mighty temple.
"Angkor Vat," he said.
"Yes, I know, but do you speak English, and could
you tell me where I could find a guide?"
Again the inclusive gesture and again: "Angkor
Vat?"
"Good, but you speak French peut-etre? Out?
Vous parlez francais?"
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
But the habit was on him : once more I learned that
at the distant limit of the great arc described by his
hand stood the temple of Angkor.
"Righto, old chap." I nodded and smiled to him.
"Merci bien."
I started along the causeway. Rollo trotted beside
me, his little wooden clogs tap-tapping upon the stones.
"Where are you going?" I demanded.
"Angle "
"So I gather, but why are you following me?"
He looked at me and smiled. Absurdly enough I
thought of wrinkled copper.
"All right," he said, and startled me by his linguis-
tic versatility. He struck his chest, touched my arm,
and, clasping his hands, showed that we were friends.
Afterward he pointed ahead at the temple. Crouch-
ing low, peering all about him, he stood on tiptoe, gaz-
ing with keenest interest. Finally, with two fore-
fingers ever moving one before the other, he signaled
our advance.
"But, see here, you don't speak any language I un-
derstand. How can you "
Already he was tap-tapping toward the temple. I
could only follow. And so, led by this venerable Cam-
bodian, this graybearded ancient of infinite gentleness,
of wisdom to leap the barrier of language, I began a
tour of architectural wonders wrought more than a
thousand years ago.
[8]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Cambodia is a kingdom in French Indo-China, and
in the center of Cambodia are the famous ruins of
Angkor, once capital of the most powerful nation of
Asia. Angkor was built by a people called the Khmers
whence they came nobody knows, where they went
nobody knows, but at one time more than a million
men lived in Angkor; and its grandeur shamed the
Rome of Augustus, the Athens of Pericles, and the
Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar. To-day there is nothing
except the shell of the mighty city and a silent temple
of infinite majesty a city and a temple, gray stone
ghosts in a jungle of green.
Some writers have declared that the Khmers were
driven from their capital after a war in which their
enemies combined against them. Others believe the
Khmers were blotted out by a swift plague. French
scholars who have spent years studying the ruins and
their inscriptions contend that in the fourteenth cen-
tury the slaves of Angkor suddenly fell upon their
masters and destroyed them. Chaos followed. Gradu-
ally the slaves reverted to savagery, and gradually
the savages degenerated into the decayed peoples who
live their shabby lives near the ruins to-day.
u Angkor Vat," said Rollo, pausing at the entrance
of the famous temple, then leading me into the outer
corridor. "Vishnu," he said, pointing at a giant figure
with hundreds of arms. Upon the wall was an un-
broken bas-relief depicting wars, battles, and fearful
[9]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
exploits of wondrous men. "Soldats," Rollo ex-
plained.
"And a bloodthirsty lot eh, Rollo?"
"Soldats," he answered, solemnly.
We turned a corner and the subject of the bas-re-
lief changed to tortures used by the Khmers. One
man's eyes were being plucked out by vultures. An-
other writhed between two stones that were slowly
pushed together. A third was hacked in pieces with
great axes. One miserable wretch was surrounded by
a number of ladies who cut tidbits from his body.
Whenever we arrived opposite a particularly grue-
some carving, Rollo demonstrated. I shall always re-
member his graphic depiction of a disemboweled man
whose entrails were used as a skipping rope Rollo
danced about with the happy abandon of a child whirl-
ing a daisy chain. In the middle of his danse macabre
I caught his little white jacket and pulled at it, stop-
ping him. He bowed, and, hurrying past the other
torture scenes, led me around the great square, more
than a mile in length.
Angkor was built with gray sandstone that takes a
polish almost like marble. In the middle of the twelfth
century when the temple was built by the architect
Visvakarman, thousands of tons of this stone were
brought in huge blocks from quarries nineteen miles
away. The outer gallery and inner gallery are con-
nected by a stone .causeway thirty-six feet wide. In
the center of the temple are five huge domes, the mid-
[10]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
die one thrusting its rude splendor six hundred feet into
the air. The walls, columns, entablatures, and pilas-
ters are all marvelously decorated with carvings of the
heavenly dancers, the monkey gods, and the divine
tevadas with lotus flowers in their hands. When the
moon touches them with silver, the carvings look like
lace lying lightly upon stone.
The temple now is deserted save for Buddhist priests
and sightseers, and millions of bats that defile the floor
and pollute the air with the gagging smell of their
bodies besides these, there is nothing alive in a temple
where once a million men bowed before their gods.
"Angkor Thorn," said Rollo on the second morning
of my visit, as he made signs for me to mount one of
the two elephants he had hired to take us to "The
Great Capital," the deserted city that lies one mile
from the temple. We could have gone in automobiles,
but Rollo insisted I ride as rulers had ridden, and be-
cause of his insistence I climbed to the howdah where I
watched the mahout kick the elephant and strike it
with an iron hook until at last the great beast heaved
itself toward Angkor Thorn.
The boundaries of the old city are marked by a wall,
its massive stone gates arching high in primitive splen-
dor above the roadway. Within the boundaries are
the remains of a dozen buildings with enormous square
towers still standing, each side of each tower cut as a
huge Brahmanic face. In all parts of the city are ter-
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
races adorned with figures of startling beauty, treasures
of sculpture.
The time may come when I forget the towers and
the terraces and the carvings, but I shall never forget
the dreadful silence of that dead city. In Angkor
Thorn, "The Great Capital/' one hears only the occa-
sional call of a bird; the awful stillness sings the saga
of departed pomp and power.
A thousands years ago the jungle was cut away and
Angkor Thorn was built. To-day the jungle is taking
back its own, crumbling and swallowing proud build-
ings erected by proud men. Seeds dropped by birds
have grown into trees and their roots have split the
heads of the ancient gods. Other trees send their
roots above ground and over all barriers more
than a hundred feet to wrap about blocks of stone and
tear them from their moorings. Myriads of small
plants, the jungle's infantry, advance in almost solid
formation. A thousand years the jungle has waited,
watching the aspiration of man. Then man died. The
living jungle crawled in to blot out the scar of civili-
zation.
I am writing you this letter, Roy, in the modern
hotel built by the French at Angkor. I have just re-
turned from wandering through the temple alone. Far
back in the inner sanctum, I heard the liquid notes of
the bamboo xylophone, played in the native village,
join with the low chant of the Buddhist priests and
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
come softly over the lake. The great temple stretched
away from me, its stones silver in the moonlight, its
shadows hiding the brooding souls of millions of men
dead for centuries. . . . Long I sat listening to the
xylophone and to the chanting. Long I peered at the
ancient stones. And yet when I left the temple at mid-
night, the souls of the builders were still hidden in
shadows.
Ill
WITH tears in my eyes, Annette, I tell you there
isn't a white elephant in Siam. The tradition
was born with Barnum.
My guide in Bangkok is a Siamese named Tom, a
lovable little fellow of fifty with whom IVe struck
quite a friendship. As each midnight steals away and
the whiskey steals into his head, Tom tells me strange
stories, half of which I discount because half he says
is the whiskey talking; but even after I strip his ex-
ploits they still are worthy to be placed beside the ad-
ventures of Sindbad and Sataspes.
According to Tom, Barnum tried for years to buy a
white elephant from the King of Siam. The king ex-
plained that the elephants were sacred, that Barnum
might as well try to buy Buddha's tooth from the
priests' at Kandy, or Veronica's handkerchief from the
Pope at Rome. But Barnum didn't believe the king.
He sent new agents and offered more money. The
king was infuriated. He hurried the agents out of the
country and forbade others to come in.
u But that didn't worry Barnum," Tom said. "He
wanted a white elephant; if he couldn't buy one, he'd
make one. He chose the smallest elephant he had,
then bought a big brush and a lot of whitewash. Be-
[14]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
fore each performance, the whitewash was put on and
the elephant was covered with robes and trappings.
Only a small part of his body was left uncovered. He
was kept in a square by himself. No one was allowed
near him except his keeper."
"And how do you know all this?" I asked.
"Because I was his keeper. .1 was the man who
whitewashed him. I did it for months. Every day
before each performance I covered that elephant with
whitewash." Tom began to laugh. "That's how I
got fired. That darned elephant got me fired." His
laugh increased. "It was one night in Memphis, Ten-
nessee. I got drunk, mighty drunk. When time came
to whitewash the elephant, I got my buckets and my
brush. I daubed the stuff all over his front legs, but
I forgot his back legs. I left him half white and half
natural color. When the crowd saw him, everybody
howled. The boss elephant man heard of it and came
running. He took one look at that elephant, then
grabbed me. He dragged me out of the tent and
kicked me off the lot."
The story is Tom's and I can't vouch for it ; I don't
know about the white elephants in Barnum's show,
but I do- know about the white elephants in Siam, be-
cause this afternoon I visited the king's palace and saw
the sacred beasts chained in the royal stables.
There Is so little difference between the "white" ele-
phant and the normal elephant that I was forced to ask
the keeper to distinguish one from the other. He ex-
IiSl
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
plained that the Siamese name chanff penak does not
mean white elephant, but albino elephant. He showed
me that the sacred elephants have pinkish toenails,
pink eyebrows, light-colored eyeballs, a few yellow
hairs in the tail, and a half dozen splotches of mangy
pink at the base of the ears. There is nothing white
about them. They are semi-albinos.
In Siam at present are two especially sacred albino
elephants, one forty years old, the other five. The
youngster is kept in a room with his mother, a dignified
old lady normal in every way, and this afternoon he
greeted me by turning half a dozen somersaults, after
which he flung out his little trunk and begged for the
reward of sugar-cane he accepts directly from the
hands of visitors. In a separate room the other sacred
elephant lives and has his stately being. Far beneath
his age and dignity to turn somersaults. Instead, he
looked at me and bowed, bending one knee and nod-
ding with a slow and mighty grace ; then he, too, for-
got his sanctity long enough to eat sugar-cane from my
hand.
In the royal grounds are other elephants whose
markings are not distinct enough to indicate sanctity,
yet which are too holy to be worked. They stand year
after year chained to posts, treading the ground with
no advance, swaying their bodies and tossing their
trunks. Three days ago, two of these elephants went
mad. They snapped their mooring posts and charged
each other. As they fought, their trumpeting could
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
be heard far out in the city; then side by side they
smashed against the corral and like splinters it went
down before them.
The crowd fled. But there was one who hobbled
as he ran: his legs were weak. The first elephant
reached out his trunk and wrapped it about the old
man's body; then body and trunk swirled into the air
and for an instant we all saw the man hang poised,
his arms and legs waving, terror on his face; then
the trunk swept downward. There was a sickening
sound of a terrific impact; the body lay still in the
road.
The elephant, flinging his trunk aloft and bellowing,
raced away until he came to a small wooden bridge
spanning a canal. He started over the bridge. It
broke. The elephant's tusks buried themselves in the
bottom of the canal and he lay helpless ; his legs spread
wide, he could not push himself erect, nor drag his
tusks from the mud ; nor could any man-made machin-
ery help him. Moaning and sobbing, he drowned.
The other elephant, charging over his path of de-
struction, tore up trees, demolished houses, smashed a
motor truck into a mass of twisted steel: he caused a
panic. At last the king, realizing that the elephant
could not be captured, ordered that he be shot.
Armed with special guns, the royal guards rushed to
that part of the city where the maddened beast was
destroying and killing. They drew near him, dis-
mounted, and made ready to fire ; but they couldn't fire
1x7]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
because he was moving and always there was danger of
a glancing bullet's killing a man or a woman.
The captain of the guard sent for the keeper and
told him that he must poison the elephant, the thing
he loved more than his own wife, more than his chil-
dren. The keeper flung himself face downward upon
the ground, imploring the captain ; but the captain said
there was no other way, for no other man could ap-
proach the beast. And so the keeper, sobbing, his
whole body shaking, went forward and offered the
elephant sugar-cane, just as he had done a thousand
times before; and the elephant, trusting the keeper,
ate the cane that had been dosed with strychnine. It
was four hours later that the elephant swayed upon his
mighty legs, then slid to earth. It was the next morn-
ing that they found the keeper hanging from a rafter
in his house.
The educated Siamese of to-day is likely to smile
when asked about the sacredness of the albino ele-
phant; he regards the belief as a superstition from the
past. But such heresy does not obtain among the com-
mon people j they still believe the albino elephant holy
and resent any remark about him not made in quiet
reverence.
Far be it from me, Annette, to discuss lingerie, but
the fact is that Siamese girls adore white cotton cami-
soles, which they wear as the outer and only garment
above the waist. Older Siamese women wrap their
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
breasts in colored cloth, but members of the younger
set promenade in ninety-eight-cent camisoles. I am
told that the camisole fad has only recently struck
Slam, but already it has become an absolute rage, Sia-
mese modistes insisting that no well-dressed woman can
be without one. Ribbon shoulder-straps of light pink
or a delicate shade of blue are preferred.
Siamese girls of the ultra-smart set complete their
costume for street wear by winding a strip of colored
cloth around the hips, tucking in the upper edges at the
waist, and allowing the lower edges to hang one inch
from the ground, thus forming a skirt. Naked feet
add the final touch of naturalness to this simple and
charming ensemble.
The little sisters of Siamese debutantes, little girls
not yet of camisole age, are exceedingly modish, garb-
ing themselves in ear rings, anklets, and a silver cover-
let like a lady's mesh bag. The cords of the coverlet
are wrapped around the waist and tied at the back,
the coverlet itself dangling from the brows of fat
little stomachs as the maidens stride along in tiny
decorum.
A stranger in Siam is somewhat startled by the ap-
pearance of native babies, for at a distance their faces
seem painted white ; ancKhe white face above the brown
body is ghostly, like a Negro baby wearing a white
mask. Tom explained that the marks and streaks are
made by ordinary talcum mixed with water and daubed
[19]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
on by the mother, who believes that this face protec-
tion, if stuck on heavily enough, keeps baby cool.
Siamese builders have one style of architectural
adornment probably unique : they decorate the entire
exterior of temples and palaces with broken bits of
crockery. At a distance, the effect suggests the work
of the della Robbias in fifteenth-century Italy ; nearer,
the decorations prove to be pieces of old plates and
chips from saucers*
There is one pagoda in Bangkok four hundred feet
high and a quarter of a mile in circumference whose en-
tire surface is covered with men and flowers and gods
and demons, all made from fragments of broken crock-
ery. I enjoyed most an old gentleman stroking his
long white beard while he rubbed the throat of a yel-
low cat and the old gentleman and the beard and
the cat were made from handles of tea cups.
The religion of Siam is Buddhism, and with the
Siamese, religion, apparently, is more than a spoken
creed; at some time in his life every Siamese man,
from the coolie to the king, takes the vows of Buddha,
shaves his head, and begs his rice from door to door.
When his monastic service ends, the monk puts off the
yellow robe and quietly returns to the secular life of his
country.
The head of the Buddhist church is the king. One
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
afternoon last week I attended a celebration of Chris-
tian missionaries. The celebration was held in the
royal palace. The king was present and spoke. He,
the head of the Buddhist church, graciously and with in-
finite courtesy spoke to his Christian guests upon the
subject of tolerance.
IV
I DON'T remember, Mac, whether it was in the
fourth or fifth round that Siki smacked Carpentier
the blow that sent Carpentier reeling and served as
prelude to one of the most brutal beatings a boxer ever
took, but I do remember the moan that went up from
the French as they saw their idol crashed about the
ring. "II est battu" they said. "Georges est baltu"
I thought then I should never see another man take
such punishment; but I was mistaken, for in Siam I
have seen Siamese boxers beaten into bloody pulps,
then killed.
This afternoon I went to the fights here in Bangkok.
They were reminiscent of Rome, of days when a vic-
tory less than death to an opponent was effeminate.
Again and again I saw men, like Euryalos, led from the
ring with trailing feet, as they spat out clotted blood,
and their heads drooped awry; and twice I saw a man
carried from the ring dreadfully still.
Instead of leather gloves, Siamese boxers weave
cotton ropes between their fingers, wrapping the ropes
so that all knots are tied just above the striking surface
of the knuckles. Over their trunks they wear a tri-
angular frame of heavy wire padded with straw and
extending from hip bone to hip bone and passing back-
ward between the legs.
[22]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
After both boxers liave knelt and prayed that Bud-
dha will accept their spirits if they are killed in the
fight, the timekeeper strikes an oblong drum and the
fight begins. The boxers circle slowly, bending, twist-
ing, feinting. Suddenly a low left lead Is made. Down
go the hands to guard against it. Like a blurred streak,
the leg of the aggressor swings upward and the de-
fendant is kicked in the throat. Staggering backward,
he is kicked in the face, and falls. As he rises, he is
struck in the groin by the full force of his opponent's
head used as a battering ram. In retaliation he strikes
a nose-smashing jab with the end of his elbow.
The fighters draw back and begin once more to circle.
The crowd quickly shouts for action and the shout is
answered by one boxer kicking at his opponent's face.
He misses; before he can regain his balance he is
struck in the mouth by his opponent's fist, the cotton
ropes carrying away blotches of skin. The fighters
stand toe to toe and pound each other's faces, making
little attempt at self-defense. The crowd doesn't like
it, knowing that the fist is not deadly and that boxers-
kill each other with knee, foot, and head. As the
hand fighting ends, one man drops back and kicks at the
other's throat. His leg is caught and twisted. Fall-
ing, his face is smashed with a jerked-up knee.
After five minutes the drum sounds and the boxers
leave the ring. Two other boxers enter immediately.
Each pair fight five minutes and rest five minutes.
Fighting goes on continually in an open-air arena at
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Bangkok every Sunday and Monday afternoon from
four o'clock until seven.
In Siamese boxing a man may not be bitten, or
kicked when he is on the floor. There are no other
restrictions. A blow from any part of the body to
any part of the body is legal All boxers know that
many of their opponents have had malaria, a fever
that enlarges the spleen, A favorite maneuver is to
force an opponent to expose the spleen, kick it, rupture
it, and cause death. In two days I saw two men kicked
in the spleen. They crashed against the canvas and
lay there quivering until their friends picked them up
and carried them away to die.
All fights in Siam are scheduled for eleven rounds.
They are seldom fought to the finish : some one usually
is hurt or some one quits. Little stigma rests upon
the fighter who gives in and sits down to be counted
out. This afternoon I saw one boxer crashed about the
ring until he willingly took the count. I asked Tom
why the fighter quit. Tom said : "He no quit, he dead.''
The winner of a preliminary receives thirty dollars;
the loser, twenty. Purses are doubled for a cham-
pionship fight.
Cockfighting is the second most popular sport of the
Siamese. In Bangkok, fights are held every day, hun-
dreds of men and women crouching about the pits and
wagering thousands of dollars.
After the cocks have fought for five minutes,
SIAMESE BOXING
Upper left: Beginning of a fight.
Upper right: The aggressor has just kicked at { his opponent's throat.
Center: The protection for the groin is a heavily-padded wire frame.
Lower: Pulling hair.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
they rest five. Slashes upon their heads are sewed
with a needle and silken thread. Cuts are squeezed
and sucked, for clotted blood would make the birds
drowsy. A few drops of water are poured down their
throats and they are rubbed with a wet rag. Their
feathers, those not cut from them in the fight, are
smoothed. They are cooled by the slow waving of a
palmetto fan. At the end of the five-minute rest they
are taken back to the pit. Death usually comes from
a severed throat , . .
In cockfighting a bird can easily lose an eye. His
opponent is continually leaping upward and lashing
out with long sharpened spurs, raking them across the
head. Inevitably eyes' are torn out. In other coun-
tries, birds are sent back into the pit after one eye has
been lost; in Siam, birds are made to fight after they
have been totally blinded.
The Siamese cockfighter ties a string around the
blind cock's head. On the end of the string is a small
weight. The cock has been trained to throw his head
from side to side, and when the weight strikes, to leap
forward and stab with his spurs. It is said that blind
birds sometimes win, but the one I saw fight was slaugh-
tered quickly.
This letter, Mac, is like certain pages from Malory:
there's nothing but fighting in it. I'm sorry, for I'd
far rather write, as blessed old Anacreon said, of the
sweet pain caused by Love's whip of lilies, but since
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
IVe already dipped my pen In blood, I might as well
tell you quickly of the strangest fight I ever saw.
In Bangkok I'm living in an old palace built by a
former Siamese king, that recently has been made into
a hotel where the Occident and the Orient join hands.
From my window I can see the jungle, elephants passing
on the state highway, and monkeys swinging from palm
trees. After I turn from my window, I draw a hot
bath, lay out my dinner clothes, and telephone to the
bar for a gin rickey.
In this hotel I first heard of fighting fish. My room
boy told me about them and said he owned two fine
ones he had trapped In the canals of Bangkok. They
had won many fights. They were worth fifty dollars
each.
The next afternoon he brought them to my room in
separate jars and put them in a bowl upon my table.
Alone, the fishes, each of them the size of my thumb,
were colored like aquamarine, but after they were
placed together, their color changed, their bodies be-
came gloriously iridescent ; then their gills opened, ex-
posing inflated chests of carmine ; their translucent fins
waved like little plumes.
They faced each other and hung poised. One drew
a little to one side. The other moved to check the
advance. One lifted his head to rise, and a crimson
streak struck at him, sinking tiny teeth into his tail.
When they drew apart and faced each other again, one
of them spat out the tail he had bitten off: like a
fragment from a silken veil it settled slowly. Simul-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
taneously the two fishes struck, and their jaws locked
in the death grip. Together they sank to the bottom
of the bowl where for five seconds they lay still, their
breathing labored, their gills heavy. Finally one of
them swirled and broke the hold. Swiftly they both
rose to the surface and breathed. When they had fin-
ished breathing, they sank again, and the fight went on.
Fish fights often last several hours, sometimes all
day. Usually the fight is to the death: one fish drags
the other to the bottom and holds him there until he
is drowned. The Siamese entertain In their homes with
fish fights, invite their friends, and gamble heavily.
After the two fishes had fought in my room for
thirty minutes, their fins and tails were chewed until
they were both very ragged specimens. I told the boy
I had seen enough, and I felt a little better when he
assured me that the fins and tails would grow again,
that no harm had been done. I gave him two dollars,
and he went away.
V
SIAM, as you know, Dad, is at present the only in-
dependent state of tropical Asia, and Siam's in-
dependence has been retained chiefly because during the
World War she made a gesture which temporarily tied
the hands of her neighbors.
To the west of Siam is the Burma of England; to the
east, the Indo-China of France.
The game began in 1893, when France decided that
she wanted the Mekong river, believing that it would
give her a trade route into southern China. She sent
ambassadors to tell the king of Siam that the territory
east of the Mekong river rightfully belonged to Indo-
China, to France : Siam would have to get out.
Siam said she wouldn't get out. France was elated.
A nation of brown men and small guns had refused to
give up its land to white men and large guns a
notable cause for war, accepted by all white nations.
France promptly sent troops into the contested area. In
the fighting that followed, French soldiers were killed ;
everything thereby working out as France had planned.
France next hurried gunboats to Bangkok to punish
the Siamese for killing Frenchmen. But the Siamese
didn't want to be punished: they had merely opposed
armed men who had crossed their national boundary
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
with the avowed intention of making war. They saw
no reason for a punitive expedition. They, therefore,
refused to admit French gunboats to Bangkok.
Such a refusal was exactly what France wanted. She
immediately issued a new set of demands : Siam would
have to give up both banks of the Mekong river, sur-
render a large slice of land, pay a huge indemnity.
France informed the world that until her demands were
met she would blockade Bangkok.
Siam, naturally, called on England, but nobody was
at home in Downing Street: English statesmen knew
that Siam had territory that England wanted; they
knew, too, that if they interfered with France, then
France, in turn, would interfere with them. After ten
days, Siam gave in, granting every demand France
made. That was in 1893.
Eleven years later, France wanted more. Without
troubling to send gunboats, she drew up the papers
and sent them around for Siam to sign. The new
treaty gave France eight thousand square miles. That
was in 1904.
In 1907, the Quai d'Orsay wanted three more prov-
inces, having decided that it would be pleasant for
France to own the ruins of Angkor and the famous
Grand Lac. French ambassadors notified Siam. In
this particular raid, France took another eight thou-
sand miles.
Then it was England's turn. And wise old England
didn't bungle the job by sending gunboats or sticking
cannons in Siam's face. She knew a better way : she
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
gave up extra-territorial rights in Siam that amounted
to virtually nothing, but in return for their abolition
she intimated that she expected Siam to express ap-
preciation. Siam, utterly helpless, did right nobly by
her big, strong friend, giving England fifteen thou-
sand square miles of land, a million people, and natural
resources that to-day pay enormous profits.
In sixteen years, France and England had taken one
third of Siam's total territory, grabbing bit by bit as
they wanted it. The fate of Siam was written, for no
one could doubt that England and France were diplo-
matically racing for the center of the country, each
trying to get there first.
Then came 1917. Siam, with considerable wisdom,
declared war on Germany. France and England ap-
plauded not because Siam sent an expeditionary force
to France, interned alien enemies, and confiscated alien
property, but because a serious blow had been dealt
German commerce in southeastern Asia.
After the war, Siam reorganized her national
finances, built excellent railroads, put through laudable
legislative reforms, and made herself one of the finest
little nations on earth. A visitor can not help praising
the country and its people, nor can he help being sad-
dened by a glance at the map. On the west, England
presses in; on the east, France. A little time and
England and France will forget 1917 but they will
never forget that in Siam are natural resources, ter-
ritory, and people.
[30]
VI
I'M going to the fights this afternoon, Dad, because
Wongkit is fighting. Wongkit is a boy from the
northern hills who is so strong that men even in Bang-
kok heard about him. They heard that in the games
he could throw the teak log farther than any other.
Thinking that he might become a champion boxer, they
sent for him. Six weeks ago he arrived in Bangkok,
bringing his old father.
I first heard about Wongkit from Tom, my guide.
"He will make a great boxer," Tom said, "greater
than any we have seen." Then he cautioned me not to
speak of Wongkit. "Only a few persons know of him
and we want to keep him secret ; we want to bet our
money and get good odds. That's why we brought
him."
Ten days ago Tom came to my room at the hotel.
"What would you like to do this afternoon?" he asked.
"What have you?"
"Would you like to go to the market and see the
silversmiths at work on bowls and boxes?"
"I've seen those silversmiths a dozen times."
"Would you care to see the Siamese infantry drill-
Ing in the park?"
"It's much too hot for that."
I 3i]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"What about a visit to the gambling houses? I
know where "
"No, thank you. And I don't want to see any
temples or monasteries. And I don't want to call and
drink tea with ladies of casual virtue. I'm tired of
all that. You'll have to offer something really inter-
esting to get me out in that sun.' 1
* Tom thought for a moment, then gave up. "There's
nothing else," he said.
"Then take the afternoon off."
"Thank you, sin I'll just go along and see Wong-
kit. He's in his training quarters and -"
I picked up my sun helmet. "Why do you guides
the world over think there's nothing but temples, and
scenery, and brothels ? Why didn't you say something
about Wongkit's training quarters?"
"But, sir, do you mean "
"I mean we're going to see this Wongkit that is,
if he won't object to my coming."
"He would be honored. But do you really mean "
"I mean I'd rather visit a Siamese boxer in his train-
ing quarters than see most of the temples of Bang-
kok."
As we drove across town, Tom told me of an ele-
phant hunt on which he had captured two enormous
bulls. He was working to a glorious climax, and the
story was getting more and more imaginative, when
our car drew up beside a rickety pier.
"We get out here, sir," Tom said.
We hired a small gasoline boat and crossed the
[32]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
river that runs through the heart of Bangkok. Then
we entered one of the innumerable klongs, or canals.
. . . Bangkok often has been called the Venice of the
Orient; the name is partly justifiable, for there are
some sections of the city where the streets are all canals
and one can travel only by boat. . . . Tom and I
passed dozens of small dories, anchored in the klongs,
from which merchants did their trading. We passed
a floating cloth shop where a young man iaggfed with
two ladies on a shopping tour ; they had paddled up in
a crudely built canoe. We passed fish shops, dead
fish hanging by their tails from the top of the sun-
shade over the fishmonger, live fish in wire boxes let
down into the water. We passed crockery shops, hat
shops, and shops where baskets were sold. We passed
a warehouse from which a line of coolies loaded bags
of rice on a great blunt-nosed sampan.
"Where's Wongkit's place?" I asked.
"A little farther on," Tom said, and pointed.
Behind the shops were many private homes, the
backs of the frail houses resting on the ground, the
fronts resting on piles driven into the mud at the bot-
tom of the canal. From our boat Tom and I saw men
and their wives and children, some working, some sleep-
ing, some playing. Many of the smaller children had
pieces of bamboo tied to them so that they would float
if they fell into the water.
"But don't the mosquitoes almost eat them up?" I
asked, remembering that in Bangkok one does not dine
[33]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
without putting feet and legs Into a sack of heavy
cloth and tying the top above the knees.
"The mosquitoes don't bother them," Tom said.
"Little babies, yes; but after they get older, the mos-
quitoes don't trouble them."
Traffic in the canal is made up largely of boats
owned by floating peddlers. Fruit peddlers steer
from house to house. Women peddlers drift along in
boats filled with Siamese skirts, and bright cloths for
children, and cotton camisoles for young ladies. The
canal restaurateur glides about in a boat not much
larger than a canoe, cold food in the bow, a small stove
amidship to heat rice and meat and bits of vegetables.
An entire meal is piled upon a leaf and handed to a cus-
tomer squatting on the bank, or who pulls alongside
in another boat.
Through these canals, Tom and I cruised until at
last we came to a bamboo ladder that rose from the
water. We stepped from our boat and climbed the
ladder. Before us was heavy undergrowth rising from
a soggy marsh. Great palm trees leaned over and
splotched the canal with shadows. Leading away
from the ladder were planks, laid end to end.
"Wongkit lives ahead, sir," Tom said.
We walked over the planks, mud oozing up beside
them, until we came to a clearing where stood three
frame houses, one of them Wongkit's.
"He will be in the back," Tom said.
We found him there, totally naked. I have never
seen such a body. He was tall for a Siamese, almost
[34]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
six feet, and the upper half of his body was a mag-
nificent triangle; then his hips spread, and his legs
rippled down in perfect symmetry. At a glance one
could see his tremendous strength, his muscles live as
young rattan. Wongkit's features looked less like an
Oriental's than those of a Greek from the time of
Praxiteles.
When Tom introduced me, Wongkit put his hands
together and crouched, saluting me as royalty. I took
one of his hands and shook it. He didn't understand
the custom and looked puzzled until Tom explained;
then slowly he shook my hand four times, nodding and
smiling as he did.
In the corner of the room stood an old man with
white hair and wrinkled face. Tom introduced me,
and the old man bowed and spoke. u He says," Tom
interpreted, "that he is Wongkit's father." In the
softest and most musical voice I have ever heard, the
father bade me welcome. "My house," he said, a is the
master's house." Then he added: "It is gracious of
the American to visit my son, Wongkit/'
We sat down and watched the boy at his training.
He shadow-boxed, flexed his legs, slashed backward
with his elbows, rammed forward with his head ; every-
thing he did was poetry of motion. He worked for
an hour and we watched. Afterward we drank tea.
Then Tom and 1 went back to our boat. Wongkit,
still naked, came with his father to see us off.
u What do you think of him?" Tom asked, as we
passed through the canals.
[35]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"I don't know, Torn. I don't know enough about
Siamese boxing, but to me he doesn't seem vicious
enough."
Tom laughed. "That's because he's not fighting
against any one. Wait until he gets in the ring. He
will " Tom flung out one foot and almost lost his
balance "he will win us a lot of money."
Two days later I went to see Wongkit again. The
old father and I helped Tom rig up a sack of sand for
Wongkit to punch and kick, then we withdrew to a
corner and sat there. Neither of us could understand
anything the other said, but that made no difference.
We could smile and bow to each other, and with little
courtesies show our friendship.
Four times I have been to see Wongkit in his train-
ing; I can't decide whether I go to see Wongkit and his
rippling muscles, or the old man with his soft voice and
kindly eyes. I am certain, though, that the father and
I have become fine friends. Truly we have. I take
him small gifts, and always he gives me little presents.
On Friday he saved me some dwarf bananas. Day
before yesterday he served me a double handful of
rice, dipping it up in his hands and dropping it all hot
on a banana leaf. He showed me how to catch it with
my fingers, roll It into a tiny ball, and throw it into my
mouth. At first I couldn't do it properly and he
laughed. When after'a time I didn't spill any, he was
pleased. Then we cleansed our hands and went in to
watch Wongkit at his boxing. We took our place in
a corner; there was a holy prayer in the father's eyes
136]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
as he watched his son, as In stillness and silence the
old man fondled his pride and his glory.
Yesterday Wongkit and his father asked me about
boxing in America. Wongkit wanted to know about
the strange world where boxers never lack rice, and
have beds to sleep on. u My father," Wongkit said,
"approves of my going to America. He will come
with me. He will live as I live. He will have rice
whenever he wants."
This afternoon Wongkit is fighting for the first time.
Tom already has gone, vastly excited: he and his
friends have bet all their money. I haven't bet any
money, but I, too, am excited, for I have come to be
fond of Wongkit, so gentle and tender with his father,
and I have learned truly to love the old man. The
fight is to begin in forty minutes. I must hurry to
get to the ringside; I told them I'd sit in the front
row. I'll finish this letter later. . . .
I promised I'd finish this letter and because of
my promise I shall. Wongkit went into the ring at ten
minutes after four. He wore red tights. They were
a little too short for him. After he had prayed, he
turned and looked at his father. The old man nodded
and held up his hands, gave his blessing to his boy. It
was two minutes later that the other fighter, an ex-
perienced fighter, kicked Wongkit in the spleen, rup-
tured it, and killed him. Wongkit fell to the canvas,
trembled, and lay still.
Some day, Dad, I may forget Wongkit, for he was
a young man, strong, peering over the horizon, his
[37]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
dream bright within him; and he went out in a flash,
before he knew. I may forget him, but I'll never,
never forget the look of the old father as he stared at
that limp thing they carried away in their arms.
VII
DEAR DR. SHUGERMAN: To-day I spent three
hours at a snake farm watching the attendants
tease the King Cobra and the banded krait until the
snakes struck and gave the poison from which the doc-
tors make the life-giving antivenin. Repeatedly I
wished that you, a medical man, could see the really
amazing work done at this Siamese snake farm.
Siam's total population is less than ten million per-
sons three million native Siamese and the rest Chi-
nese, Laos, Malays, Cambodians, Burmese, and a
mixture of them all yet in this little country there is
a Red Cross hospital with an annual budget of half
a million dollars raised each year by public subscrip-
tion. One day last week I visited the main hospital,
of which the snake farm is only a branch, and was
shown through by a Siamese doctor who had taken
his degree at Johns Hopkins and later had served at
Mayo Institute. He introduced me to a dozen other
doctors and to five nurses, all of whom had studied
in the United States or in Europe. In the hospital I
saw waiting rooms filled with out-patients, sick wards
built according to the most modern requirements,
laboratories comparable with the best in America or
Germany, and operating theaters with equipment as
yet unknown in some European countries.
139]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"The surgeon who is about to operate, the one
putting on his rubber gloves, performed a curious op-
eration last week," my guide said. "He successfully
removed a cyst from a woman, who, before the opera-
tion, weighed one hundred and twenty pounds; and,
after the operation, weighed sixty pounds, the cyst
having been exactly half her weight."
The doctor and I left the operating theater and
walked through corridors with large airy rooms on
each side. Against the snowy white pillows of the
hospital beds showed the pale face of an English
woman, the yellow of a Chinese boy, the brown of a
Siamese girl, and the black of an Indian man. We
passed one room with the door partly closed; some
one inside was moaning.
"Dysentery," the doctor said. "They brought him
in last night."
I heard him moan, poor devil, and I remembered
a night I had ridden sprawled flat in a Mongolian
bullock cart. I remembered the ambulance at the
walls of Peiping, a red rose pinned on the white uni-
form of a Chinese nurse, the fever I remembered
nothing more.
"Is there anything I could do for him?" I asked.
"Nothing," the doctor said. "With dysentery it's
rather a case of letting them live or letting them die.
We can't do much about it."
We came to a cross corridor and turned down it.
"There," the doctor said, "is the foundling ward. We
are very proud of it."
[40]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
There were seventeen mites in their seventeen beds.
Some were Siamese, some Chinese, and two were
Hindus. All lay in their little beds, and some kicked
their legs, and some sang, and some lay there and
stared.
"This boy,' 5 the nurse said, putting her hand on
the bed of a sleeping Chinese baby, "was left on the
porch last night. The watchman found him at day-
break. This one, this little Hindu, was brought in
yesterday by a policeman who had found him in front
of a temple."
The children are kept in the hospital until they are
adopted. I was offered my pick of the lot and I
mightily wanted a little Siamese boy two years old
who had pushed himself from the floor and had come
to me, holding up a very ragged rag elephant.
"Chang" he said, and shook his elephant. I touched
it. "Chang" I said. The baby nodded, smiled at
me, then solemnly turned around and went back to
his friends and to his toys on the floor. I mightily
wanted that boy.
The sight of the babies prompted me to ask the
doctor about the celebrated Siamese twins. He
laughed and said: ''That's nothing. Siam can do much
better than that." In the specimen room, he showed
me pictures of triplets born joined together. "Sia-
mese triplets," he said, "though unfortunately for the
curious they died shortly after birth."
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Last week I went to the main hospital. This after-
noon I visited the snake farm as guest of a young
Siamese doctor I had met one evening at dinner. He
has done most of his studying In Europe ; when I called
this afternoon we chatted for a time about Paris and
the Riviera, about cricket at Lord's, and about
Miinchener Hofbrau. He Is particularly keen on ten-
nis and joked me considerably about America's loss
of world domination in that sport.
"Only temporary/ 1 I said. "We'll have it back
before long. 55
"Oh, no, s> he laughed. "No. No. We Siamese
are going In for tennis and in a few years we'll have
the Davis cup in Bangkok." He opened his case and
offered me a cigarette. "Furthermore," he went on,
"we're going to win your golf championships. We
have some fine courses In Bangkok. I'll take you out
some afternoon." He pushed a bell. "Though I
suppose right now IM better take you out to the
snakes."
The door opened and a laboratory attendant in a
long white apron came in. The doctor spoke to him
in Siamese and the man withdrew.
"Come along," the doctor said. "They're quite
ready for us."
We went from his office to the laboratory, and
there passed near a bench on which an attendant was
dissecting a snake.
"We had to kill that cobra," the doctor said. "It
had tuberculosis. We could no longer use its venom."
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Adjoining the laboratory is a room filled with hun-
dreds of cages; there was no sound except the scaly
rustle of a huge green body sliding over some rocks
in a pit built into the wall. I was peering at a silken
looking snake, colored reddish gold, when suddenly
behind me a great metallic hiss caused rne to leap for
the doctor.
"Only a hissing viper," he explained.
"Oh," I said, and my laugh was rather jerky, "that
all?"
We went out of the main building, two attendants
following us, toward the cement ellipse, one hundred
and fifty feet long and fifty feet wide, where the
snakes are kept. Immediately inside the surrounding
cement wall is a three-foot moat enclosing the three
compounds where the snakes live. In each compound
are little cement domes, looking like beehives or minia-
ture snow houses, that have holes in the sides through
which the snakes can crawl in and out.
In the first compound lives the terrible King Cobra,
twelve feet long and a killer at heart; he attacks on
sight, and, if you run, races after you faster than a
horse can race, rearing himself four feet in the air,
and striking with the speed of a whiplash. The King
Cobra's poison is so deadly that an elephant dies
within half an hour after being bitten.
In the second compound live one hundred ordinary
cobras. These fellows are the curse of the Orient,
.[43]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
for there are millions of them and their poison kills
a man within forty minutes. . . . The cobra's poison
acts differently from that of any other snake, killing
by paralysis. The venom of other snakes breaks down
the red blood cells, but the cobra paralyzes the cen-
tral nervous system, stopping breathing.
Three days ago I met an American lady in Bangkok
who had been bitten by a cobra. While walking near
a hedge in her garden, she felt a slight prick in her
ankle, and looking down saw a cobra glide across the
lawn. As quickly as possible she was taken to the
snake farm and there the antivenin was injected. She
told me that before it was given, she felt a general
numbness, prelude to the deadly paralysis.
In the third compound is the banded krait, a bril-
liantly marked snake, friendly, dropping in as dinner
is being served, or as you sip a whisky and soda.
Fortunately he's quite a lazy chap, his poison not kill-
ing for two or three hours.
The doctor and I leaned over the wall and watched
the attendants. They wore boots of extra thickness
and one of them carried a wooden pole with a forked
iron prong on the end; with no other protection they
went down into the compound and handled the King
Cobra as if he were a toy.
They caught the snake and held a saucer before
Its mouth. The black, forked tongue shot out with
the rapidity of an electric spark jumping between two
[44]
THE BANGKOK SNAKE FARM
Top: In this cement ellipse live the deadly cobras and kraits.
Center left: An ordinary coir a.
Center right: The "hood" of the cobra is caused by the rising of the upper
ribs into the throat at times of excitement.
Lower left: Holding the King Cobra before making him bite a saucer and
give up his poison.
Lower right: The attendants have no protection except a long pole and
extra thick boots.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
poles. They waited until the snake opened its jaws;
then they forced the saucer inside. Instantly the fangs
closed upon it and the poison sacs emptied themselves
through the upper teeth that are hollow like hypo-
dermic needles. As the snake drew back, a small
thimbleful of clear, creamy liquid, with the fluidity of
thick gruel, slid down the saucer.
u That poison," said the doctor, "will be injected
into horses that have been rendered immune by re-
peated and increased doses of the venom. The anti-
venin is made from the horse serum." He pointed
across the lawn. "There are the stables. Come over,
and I'll show you the horses."
We started away, but I looked back at the men in
the compound with the King Cobra. The doctor
smiled. "They're all right," he said. "They '11 toss
the snake into the moat and leave the compound.
They're quite accustomed to the work."
In the stable, we saw four horses, sleek and fit,
munching their food.
"They're not troubled by the poison being in-
jected?" I asked.
"Not at all. They're entirely immune. We start
with very small doses and gradually increase until "
The door of the stable was flung open. An at-
tendant rushed in. He spoke rapidly in Siamese, but
before he finished, the doctor was running for the door.
"Nous aliens, vite" he called to me. "Vite. Quickly.
Quickly."
We raced for the laboratory building. Inside, in
[45]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
the treatment room, I saw doctors grouped about a
small girl in a coma. No respiration could be found.
No pulse could be found. She looked dead.
And then the antivenin was made ready. The hy-
podermic sucked it up. The doctors bared her arm.
The needle was plunged in. And I swear to you, doc-
tor, it was a miracle : one instant she was lying as if
dead, her parents muttering prayers for the departed;
then the antivenin was shot into her blood the
needle was hardly out before she was visibly breath-
ing. A moment later she was conscious. An hour
later she walked without assistance. . . . The doctor
told me that the little medical drama is enacted in
Bangkok twenty times each month.
Siamese doctors are no longer satisfied to work in
Bangkok alone. Every morning they hurry forth with
glass tubes filled with fresh antivenin. They hand
them to little Siamese men who finger levers and gaze
at quivering instruments.
There is the roar of a plane *
A blast of dust
A black speck in the heavens
It Is Siam's answer to the King Cobra !
Siam, little Siam, is sending life to her people !
VIII
I'M writing this letter, Mac, on board ship sail-
ing down the Malay peninsula, three hours out
of Singapore. Exactly one week ago I caught the in-
ternational express in Slam and started south on this
journey, one of the most memorable IVe ever made.
While in Bangkok I met a Siamese boxer named
Wongkit. The boy was killed one .day in a fight, and
afterward I did a little favor for his father. The
old man was very grateful and called on me the day
before I left Bangkok, but the hotel clerk told him
I was away visiting a snake farm.
The next morning when I arrived at the station,
Wongkit's father was waiting for me. He spoke in
his soft voice, but I couldn't understand. Tom, my
guide, was inside the coach arranging luggage: there
was no one to translate. Finally the old man bowed
and handed me a round basket the size of a hat box,
making signs that it was a gift. I began to untie the
little grass rope that bound the basket. Wongkit's
father helped me. And when the rope was untied, the
old man lifted the top.
I suppose the persons who came racing up must
have thought me mad. Then they saw what I was
shouting about and they, too, fled; for inside that
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
basket was a six-foot cobra. As the top came off the
basket, the cobra's head and hood came up with it,
his wicked little tongue darting In and out within a
foot of my face. Wondrous things happened to my
insides, and for an instant I was frozen, but for an in-
stant only; then I dropped basket and snake and legged
it for the car. Inside, I grabbed Tom, who had been
penned in by people diving through the entrance, and
told him to get the snake and chop its head off, or do
something else equally final with it.
Tom went out on the platform and I saw him speak-
ing with Wongkit's father, who had picked up the
snake and returned it to the basket, and who stood
there, holding the basket and looking utterly wretched.
A moment later Tom came back inside.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but Wongkit's father is
heartbroken. At the hotel yesterday he heard you
were visiting the snake farm, and he supposed you
were interested in snakes. All last night he searched
and at daybreak this morning caught this fine cobra.
He himself with a bamboo knife cut out the fangs from
the snake and brought it down as a farewell gift to
you. It is entirely harmless, sir, and if you don't
accept it the old man will be forever sad, for it is a
gift from himself and from the spirit of his dead son.
Won't you take it, sir? It would make him very
happy. You could dispose of it after the train leaves
the station."
"I don't care anything about his feelings. What
about mine?" I'm afraid I spoke a little louder than
[48]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
necessary. "Open a basket and have a great snake
shove his head Into my face ! You kill it, I tell you.
You kill it plenty dead."
"But, sir, if"
"But nothing. Kill it."
Tom started away, and as he moved from the door
I could see out on the platform. The old father was
still there, still holding the basket, still gazing toward
me, sorrow and sadness heavy upon him.
"Tom," I called, "are you absolutely certain that
snake is harmless?"
"I'm positive, sir. Wongkit's father opened the
cobra's jaws and showed me that the fangs are gone.
It would be impossible for the snake to harm any
one."
I looked out at the old man. He saw me and held
the basket toward me. "Very well, Tom, I'll take
it; but I want you to tie that rope and tie it tight."
"It's kind of you, sir, very kind of you. And won't
you come out and say good-by?"
As I came near Wongkit's father, he poured out
his apologies for having frightened me, assuring me
that despite the snake's size and fine condition it was
completely harmless.
"He wishes you to carry it as a mascot, as a mem-
ory of your visit to Siam," Tom translated.
"You tell him," I said, "that I promise never to
forget. This snake will always be a memory to me."
Then the whistle blew; Tom took the snake-basket
into my compartment, and hurried out again to tell
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
me good-by. I shook hands with Wongkit's father,
and as he looked at me I forgot the snake. I thought
of his dreams for his boy and how those dreams had
ended, leaving him only the gray vista of a childless
old age. I turned away and went quickly into the
coach. A moment later the train drew out of the
station and I waved. Both Tom and Wongkit's
father bowed.
Inside my compartment, I began to arrange my
luggage, I was looking at that infernal basket and
debating how best to get rid of it when a doctor from
Indiana and a professor of physics from Connecticut,
two lovable men I had met in Bangkok, came in, both
shaking with laughter.
"Hear you had a going-away gift," said the doctor.
"My soul," said the professor, "but you were mar-
velous when you opened that basket. And I've never
seen such grace as when you leapt for the car door."
I said nothing. A man who has just looked a six-
foot cobra in the face is in no mood for pleasantries.
"What did you do with it?" the professor asked.
I pointed under the seat. "There it is."
They stepped back.
"You're not going to keep it!"
I hadn't intended to keep it, heaven knows, but they
had seen my terror on the platform and laughed about
it: I determined to be revenged. "Certainly," I said.
"I'm very much interested in snakes."
"But you can't travel around with a live cobra. Sup-
pose it got loose. It might bite somebody."
[50]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"Not at all." I waved aside the possibility. "Fd
just play to it with my mouth organ. Fd make it
dance. Watch." I opened a traveling bag and took
out the mouth organ I had bought in Korea to play
to little kitchen wenches in my hotel at Seoul. "I'll
show you.' 7 I reached for the snake's basket. "This
cobra has a fine musical ear."
"You won't show me," said the professor, and
darted through the door.
"Nor me," said the doctor, and slammed the door
behind him.
I pulled down the shades of my compartment,
though I left the windows open so that my friends
could hear me serenade the snake, and for half an
hour I played the mouth organ. Then a knock
sounded on the door and the conductor came in,
awfully sorry, but since other passengers had com-
plained, and since there was a law against traveling
with live cobras, even as pets, he would have to ask
me to kill the snake.
"Certainly not," I shouted, so that every one could
hear. "Certainly I won't kill him. He's a fine six-
foot cobra, and I wouldn't think of killing him."
"But, sir, the cobra is a very deadly snake and if
he got out of his basket he might "
"Nonsense, I'd just play to him with my mouth
organ. I won't let him be killed, I tell you. Anyhow,
Fm not going to let the snake out more than five times
each day and night. That's all the exercise he needs."
FROM'SIAM TO SUEZ
"I'm sorry, sir," the conductor started again, "I'm
afraid that "
But I signed to him to keep quiet and I whispered
that the snake's fangs had been pulled, that he was
utterly harmless, and that I was only playing a joke,
paying my friends for laughing at me. The conductor
nodded and put his finger to his lips. He went away
and I continued to play the mouth organ. A few
minutes later the professor and doctor came and stood
outside my door. They knocked and I called for them
to come in.
"We don't want to come in," they said. "See here,
are you totally mad? You can't travel about with a
live cobra. You really can't, you know."
I opened the door. "You should just see him dance
to 'Mighty Lak a Rose.' He's marvelous at that
and"
"If you kill it, we'll pay for having it stuffed in
Singapore."
"Kill this snake! I should say not. I wouldn't
think of killing a snake with such marvelous fangs.
Just look. I'll show you."
Then I made a mistake and overplayed my hand,
for I cut the rope, took the top off the basket, and as
that vicious looking head shot up, I reached out as if
to grasp the snake. I saw the doctor and the pro-
fessor look at each other, then go away.
I sat alone for a long time, then went out into the
train and walked around. In one compartment a
bridge game was going on. Every one talked about
[52]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
bridge. I mentioned snakes. They went on talking
about bridge. Again I mentioned snakes. No one
seemed to hear. I gave up, and went to the compart-
ment where the doctor and the professor were dis-
cussing health conditions in the Orient. They had
nothing to say about snakes. They had no time to
listen about snakes. They weren't interested in snakes.
I supposed my little joke had died its proper death
and I wasn't sorry, for I have no natural affection for
six-foot cobras even if their fangs are gone. I returned
to my compartment, planning to throw the snake out of
the window; but when I got back, the snake and the
basket were gone. I knew, of course, that one of my
friends had slipped in, stolen the basket and the snake,
and thrown them off the train. I was pleased ; I had no
desire to see anything more of the terrifying gift.
That night at dinner I sat with the professor, the
doctor, and the doctor's wife. I ordered a steak.
After the others had been served, the dining-car at-
tendant brought me a big covered platter. He held
it close before me, then lifted the lid. I nearly
fainted; because as the lid went up, the head and hood
of a cobra went up with it. I bounced from my chair
and my whoop sounded loud and clear. The pro-
fessor and the doctor and the doctor's wife didn't
even glance up ; they quietly continued their conversa-
tion. I glared at them, then sat down again.
"Take that snake out of here," I told the attendant,
"and throw it off the train."
The man bowed, covered the snake, and went
153]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
away. I didn't say anything. Neither did the pro-
fessor or the doctor.
After dinner a bridge game was started. We
played until one o'clock before saying good-night. I
went to my compartment and undressed. I was entirely
naked when I raised the lid of the bag that held my
pajamas. As the lid came up, a cobra shot his head
almost into my face, and I didn't even hesitate ; I flung
open the door and dived into the passageway. And in
the passageway stood every American and European
on the train. Men and women, too, they all stood
there. The ladies turned their backs, but there was
no other recognition of my naked presence.
"Boy," I bellowed, "come get this damn snake."
"I beg your pardon, sir," the professor said to the
doctor, a but is it customary for gentlemen on Siamese
trains to travel entirely in the nude?"
"The nude be hanged," I said. "There's a cobra
In my traveling bag."
"Play to him with your mouth organ," said the
professor. "He has a fine musical ear."
I swelled my chest I opened my mouth to express
my fury then one of the ladies laughed, then the
doctor laughed, then everybody laughed. Suddenly
in a window I saw myself standing in the passage, one
hand, raised and all of me naked as Adam. I jumped
back into my compartment, but remembered the cobra
and hurried out again, catching up a towel and wrap-
ping it around me as I stepped back into the corridor.
"He's all dressed," the doctor said.
[54]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"Not quite," the professor said, and brought me
a dressing gown.
I put it on and joined in the laughing. The at-
tendants went into my compartment and got the snake
and carried it before them to the dining car, where
they killed it. Until far into the morning we cele-
brated the funeral rites. We made up dirges of great
sorrow and sang them in full four parts. We poured
out libations into saucers for the dead snake. We
poured out golden and bubbling libations into glasses
for ourselves.
The ceremonies ended with a celebration of the
funeral games. We contrived many curious contests,
and, like Achilles, we ordained noble prizes, and, like
Silenus and his company, we drank them down with
great hilarity. The Siamese attendants thought us
a crowd of completely mad foreigners. They espe-
cially thought so when the professor and the doctor
improvised a cobra dance to my mouth organ.
IX
THE morning I left Birmingham, one year ago
it was, Annette gave me the journal in which
I am now writing.
"I want you to write in it at least twice each week.
You promise me you will?"
"Certainly I promise."
"That's awfully sweet of you, dear," she said.
"Especially since I know you won't."
She was right. I haven't opened it since I left China
two months ago. My negligence is reprehensible, yet
In it I have the fellowship of every traveler I know.
We all begin our great adventure with journals and
notebooks, believing that what we see and record will
be of interest to our friends and of value to learned
societies ; but soon we are cured of that megalomania,
we forget our friends, we lose interest in learned socie-
ties; we just travel, and at times we enjoy it, and at
times we hate it. One day we are all excited about
the ruins of Angkor; the next day we'd give you
Angkor and two-thirds of China for a good steak and
a sliced tomato. I've known the time I'd have traded
the Orient and everything in it for a dish of ice cream
with some marshmallow poured over it, and some
chocolate syrup over the marshmallow, with nuts and
a cherry on top.
[56]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Travelers in far countries yearn mightily for the
little luxuries they enjoyed at home. Furthermore,
they want luxuries which at home they never wanted.
They imagine all kinds of desires. Last week I was
talking with an absolute epicure who said he'd sell
his soul for a pickled pig-foot and a dill pickle. The
inability to satisfy these petty yearnings is irritating,
for it is yet another indication that one is away from
his own land, his own people, his own customs; that
realization is depressing.
In Indo-China, in Siam, in Malay, you are an out-
sider, an auslander. You don't belong. You're merely
on your way to nowhere. How long before the next
ship sails?
You see the Great Wall of China and your soul
trembles. You sail through the Inland Sea of Japan
and are drunk with the vivid beauty. You stand before
the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, and worship. But
what of it? It's men you want to know. Years ago
Lord Essex wrote the Earl of Rutland that he'd rather
go a hundred miles to talk with a wise man than five
miles to see a city. And the wise men of the Orient
are denied you. You can't talk their language. You,
a tourist, a foreigner, can only bow before them, then
go your way in full ignorance of their wisdom.
Neither can you know anything of the ordinary
people who pass you by, and pass you by. They look
straight ahead. There is not even that language of
the turning eyeball which blessed old Walt Whitman
[57]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
understood and celebrated. They Have their jobs and
go about them. You are an auslander. You don't
belong. How do you pay for the air you breathe ? Do
you plant rice? Do you weave cloth?
They don't understand you. You don't understand
them. You and they can't speak with each other, and,
even if you could understand their words, you, an Oc-
cidental, could never know the truths that are theirs
before they are born, the ageless mysteries that give
serenity to their Oriental souls.
At times you get terribly lonely. I suppose that's
why I left off wandering the streets and came to my
room to write in this journal. ,
Singapore is an island twenty-seven miles long and
fourteen miles broad, lying off the tip of the Malay
peninsula and connected with it by a stone causeway
two hundred yards in length. One hundred years ago,
when Britain bought the little island from the Sultan
of Johore, it was all jungle. To-day the town of
Singapore, built at the southernmost part of the island,
is the tenth port of the world. Last year twelve thou-
sand ships stopped there, justifying the boast "Singa-
pore: the Crossroads of the East."
When I first arrived, I was disappointed. The
name Singapore is an alluring song that sings itself
in the blood of every adventurer, whether he sets out
to sail into the afternoon sun, or goes to his office
each morning at- nine. Years ago I knew that some
[58]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
day I should sail to Singapore ; yet as I stepped ashore
two weeks ago the bubble burst. Except for the pres-
ence of brown and yellow faces, I might as well have
gone ashore at New Orleans or Marseilles.
I was met by three friends and their wives who
took me for tiffin to the home of one of them. In the
afternoon we played golf. At six o'clock we went to
a perfectly modern hotel, had tea, and danced to a
very jazz orchestra from Chicago. The trap-drum-
mer sang through a megaphone. He sang "My Baby
Just Cares for Me." That evening, in dinner jackets,
we dined at the hotel, then hurried off to the theater
to see Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman.
At the clubs, at the theaters, on the playing fields,
along the esplanade, at the hotels, Singapore is Lon-
don. But during two weeks I've found other parts
of the town in which Singapore is Singapore. At night
when all alone I wander through side streets, or take a
sampan and sail out into the harbor, I find the Singa-
pore I knew before I saw it. I see faces that tell me
nothing, and lights that forever burn low. I hear the
soft medley of a myriad strange sounds. And I know
that behind colored curtains are strange kisses and
prayers to monstrous gods.
In the harbor of* Singapore one still sees the quin-
quireme of Nineveh, stately Spanish galleons, and
dirty British traders. Last night at dusk I leaned
out of my window and looked down at a thousand
ships riding in the harbor. I saw white yachts and
[59]
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tattered Chinese junks, men-of-war, and trading ves-
sels tired of beating the seven seas. Then darkness
came and riding lights appeared. All night they
burned, and I knew that they burned only for me,
only that I might lean out of my window and peer
at them gleaming there beneath the smudge of the
masts.
The incongruity of the East is indicated by condi-
tions at my hotel in Singapore. Every afternoon there
is a the dansant in a fine ballroom. At night there is
a cabaret. At the bar one can get any of the standard
cocktails. In my room there is electric light There
is a shower bath. There is no other plumbing.
The Chinese of Singapore celebrate weddings by
hiring a troupe of actors who erect a theater and for
a week perform plays near the home of the groom.
The public is invited and tea is served.
One afternoon I entered a wedding theater not
knowing I was a guest at a nuptial celebration. An
old gentleman served me tea and I drank it, then of-
fered to pay. He smiled and courteously refused the
money.
That night at the hotel I learned of my rudeness.
I was sincerely humiliated and next morning hurried
back with an interpreter who explained my ignorance
and protested my apologies. The old Chinaman again
[60]
FROM SIAM'TO SUEZ
smiled, refused my apologies, and asked forgiveness
for himself. "I should have taken the money," he
said. "That would have prevented humiliation." He
invited me into his home, served me tea, and, as I
was leaving, gave me the seven presents a Chinaman
always gives a departing guest. In accordance with
the custom I gave back six presents, keeping one, a
beautiful scroll picture. . . . The next morning I car-
ried out my part of the tradition by sending the old
Chinaman an electric toaster of the same value as the
picture he had given me.
While I was going through the native quarter at
eleven o'clock one night I saw a shop where the shut-
ters were not up, a man sitting in front, smoking. He
was barefooted and wore the white trousers and cot-
ton undershirt of the native, but when I got nearer
to him I saw that he was white.
"Good evening," I said, because I was lonely.
"Good evening," I said again.
The man took his pipe from his mouth. "How
do you do?"
"Is this the road to Raffles Hotel?" I asked, know-
ing full well that it wasn't.
"No. You're walking in the wrong direction."
I lighted a cigarette. "I'm a stranger in Singa-
pore," I said.
Oh" The monosyllable was neither exclama-
tion nor query.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"Yes," I went on, "I came in three days ago on the
mail boat from Penang."
He didn't say anything. I looked beyond him, into
the shop, a little stall like thousands of others in Singa-
pore.
"Do you have any fine silks?" I asked. "I'm keen
on silks."
"We have no silks," he said. "We sell only the
cloth the natives buy."
Without asking me to sit down, without even look-
ing at me, he went on smoking and staring into the
heavy night with its air warm like blood.
Inside, a baby cried. A moment later the curtain
at the back of the shop was raised and a Malay girl
came out with her baby in her arms. As she passed
the lamp I saw that the child was Eurasian. The girl
came out on the pavement and squatted on her
haunches, holding the child in her arms and making
curious crooning sounds.
"That baby can cry, all right," I said.
"Yes," said the man. "Kicks up an awful schemoz-
zle."
"Schemozzle" and I smiled. "Rather strange to
hear that word in Singapore. I haven't heard it since
I left Oxford."
"I thought you were an American," the man said.
"I am, but I took my degree at Oxford ten years
ago."
"Is that so?" He packed his pipe. "I took my
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
degree there eighteen years ago. I read jurispru-
dence."
Singapore is the center of the most important rub-
ber district in the world. In 1877, rubber trees were
first planted in Malay, and since that time rubber has
thrived on the peninsula beyond the dreams of avarice.
The success of the enterprise is due chiefly to perfect
climatic conditions : an annual rainfall of one hundred
inches, an annual mean temperature of eighty degrees
Fahrenheit.
I have visited several plantations and watched the
laborers cut the trees and gather the milk-white sap;
then I've gone to factories and seen the sap washed,
treated chemically, and dried in the sun or smoke-
house. At all these factories English-speaking natives
have said: "After it is smoked it is ready to be shipped
to America." Always it is America they consider the
great market. The more one travels, the more he
realizes that the people of the world expect America,
the United States, to be the great industrial glutton
for raw materials.
I met a salesman for a famous American brand of
safety razor blades. He was seated at a table beside
the ballroom and invited me to have my dinner cock-
tail with him. I sat down and we talked of Malay
and of the islands. He was pleased that there was
[63]
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inter-breeding between the white race and the brown.
"You see," he said, "the brown man has almost no
beard at all, but let a white man take a brown woman,
and their children will have fine, stiff beards. 9 '
Opium is sold in Singapore as openly as ice cream
is sold in New York or tea in London. In most Ori-
ental countries opium is smoked surreptitiously, for
technically it is illegal and there is a pretense of sup-
pressing it; but in Singapore there is no suppression,
only a British government monopoly. In Singapore
are many chandu houses, open to the public and li-
censed by Great Britain. It is said that the revenue
derived from opium, combined with the revenue de-
rived from whisky, is sufficient to pay Britain's ex-
penses in governing Singapore.
Opium is taken from a poppy cultivated In most
countries of Asia. In the spring the flower drops,
leaving the stalk topped with a round pod the size of
a golf ball; this pod is the true treasure house of the
Orient, for It contains the juice from which opium is
made. When the pods are ripe, a man makes a slight
cut in each of them; slowly the juice exudes, at first
milky, then turning brown and gummy. Other work-
ers pass along the row carefully gathering the gummy
juice which afterward Is pressed and dried in the sun
or heated in great caldrons.
Orientals say there is only one way to control the
sale of opium: it must be choked off at its source, the
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poppy put under international supervision and only
enough grown to give the opium needed in medicines.
Then they laugh: Chinese war lords use the opium
tariff to line their pockets, Britain appreciates the tre-
mendous revenue derived from opium grown in India,
Persia and Turkey sell opium, and so long as money
is made, so they say, governments will not curtail the
growth of the poppy; the little scarlet flower will con-
tinue to bloom despite the wise and pious speeches
made regularly at the League of Nations in Ge-
neva. . . .
There has been much nonsense written about opium
and its effects, for opium does not commonly induce
dreams in which the smoker beholds gorgeous women
performing sensual dances. It may affect some per-
sons in that fashion, but the person and not the opium
deserves credit. Intrinsically, opium contains no
amorous stimulant; indeed, its continued use brings
about a lessening of those interests, and eventually, so
a score of confirmed smokers have told me, causes a
total cessation of rapturous enthusiasms.
Three nights ago I smoked my first pipe of opium.
As the servant prepared the gum for me, I babbled
of poppy, mandragora, and all the drowsy syrups. I
thought of golden halls and sweet voices softly singing,
of black-eyed damsels kept in pavilions, whom no man
had enjoyed, not even a Djin. My spirit was pranc-
ing. Then I began to smoke. Ten minutes after I
finished, I was actively nauseated. The next day I
had a dry mouth and a heavy head.
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I have been told that one quickly overcomes these
initial physical discomforts and that within a fort-
night's smoking can contract the habit. And the habit,
some medical authorities of the Orient believe, is not
so pernicious as is commonly supposed; they insist that
two or three pipes each day harm no man, though
they admit that fifty and a hundred injure the, body
and brain, causing bones to push hard against yellowed
skin, dry and tight, and the brain to become foggy
and distraught.
The belief that opium soon drifts one off to sleep
is false. One night in China while a gentleman and
I chatted in his smoking room from nine in the eve-
ning until one in the morning, he continually smoked
opium. Occasionally he sipped hot tea, for opium
quickly dries the throat, but otherwise his opium af-
fected him no more noticeably than my tobacco affected
me. When I was ready to leave, he saw me to my
car, advised with me about the purchase of some jade,
then bade me good night and went quickly back into
his house.
It was on Malay Street, off Orchard Road, that a
brown man spoke to me. "Good evening, master, 55
he said.
I knew what he wanted, what all brown men want
when they speak to white men in Malay Street, but I
was not interested in naked Chinese women who dance
slow dances, neither did I desire "to have nice girl,
[66]
OPIUM
Top: A Chinese smoking.
Center: The little bone box in which opium is carried, a bit of palm
leaf with gum opium on it f the pipe, the lamp, instruments for clean-
ing the pipe, and the tiny scissors for trimming the lamp wick.
Bottom: Two coolies smoking in a Singapore "chandu" house*
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fine girl what color girl you like?", nor did I care
"to have nice boy, fine boy what color boy you like?".
"Good evening, master," he said again, as I passed
him by.
"Good evening," I said, and didn't stop.
"See something, master?"
"No, thank you."
He put his hand to the front of his little white
jacket, patting a bulge there.
"See something you not see before?" he asked.
I stopped. "What is it?"
"You come see," he said, and started back the way
we had come. "You come see."
I followed him to a narrow entrance where he
raised a dirty red curtain and stood aside.
"What have you got?" I asked. "I don't want a
girl. I don't want a boy. I'm not interested. What
have you got?"
"No girl, master. No boy, master. You come see."
I stooped and entered a small room just off the
pavement. The little brown man looked back to see
if any one was watching. No one was. Carefully he
spread the curtain before the entrance, then came over
and stood by the light.
"You see," he said, and took from the front of his
jacket a wrinkled and shriveled thing with coarse
black hair growing from the top. He put it on the
table and stepped back, looking at it with loving ad-
miration. "You see," he said again.
"But what in God's name is it?" I asked.
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"Head," he said simply. Then he added: "Fine
head yon ever see. 5 ' He parted the hair and I saw
dried eyeballs, features hideous and repulsive. "You
buy, master ?" he called to my back, as I pulled aside
the curtain and hurried into the fresh air. "You buy,
master?" he repeated, as he followed me along the
street "Human head make fine paperweight, fine
ash tray."
X
Dutch mail ships that ply between Singapore
JL and Java leave Singapore at four o'clock in
the afternoon. The day I went aboard, a thick mist
was wetting everything. I saw my luggage into my
stateroom, then returned to the deck. I didn't know
any one on board, and I dreaded the forty-hour run
to Java. For ten minutes I refused offers from the
ubiquitous Oriental peddlers of postcards and worth-
less souvenirs; then a steward appeared and sent the
peddlers and all visitors ashore. A moment later the
pilot called an order from the bridge. Barefooted
Javanese sailors cast off the shore lines, and the big
ship swung from her moorings. I was tremendously
lonely as that Dutch ship set out to cross the equator
and sail on to Java.
All afternoon I walked the deck, ignoring the spray
and the mist, until at last the dressing gong sounded
and I went below to change. When I returned to the
smoking room I found that the few passengers there
had already formed little drinking-groups. I drank
alone, peering out at the heavy darkness that clung
like a wet pall about the ship and that blurred our
lights as they quivered over the black mirror that was
the sea. For a time I listened to the salty hiss at the
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bow, and to the groan of the ship as she rode the swell ;
then I went below.
The dining-room steward gave me the last seat at
a table with five other persons, placing me between an
American lady and a Dutchman named Rutgers, mana-
ger of a Javanese cinchona plantation who was re-
turning from a trip to Malaya. The American woman
said she was going to Java on business. With me
she registered a brusk self-satisfaction one of those
women who do things. I had frequently seen her type
in New York offices, sometimes in Chicago, occasion-
ally in Cleveland. We were eating our papaya when
the Dutchman asked what we intended seeing in Java.
"There is so much that is interesting/ 5 he said. "In
Batavia, for instance, you must see the canal where the
women wash their clothes and wash their bodies. You
must see the skull of the eighteenth century traitor
whose head was cut off and preserved as a warning.
You must see an old cannon" the Dutchman smiled
"that old cannon is probably the most curious thing
in Java. Where it came from, no one knows. How
it got where It is, no one knows. Its history is a com-
plete mystery, in fact. It's just an ordinary cannon
made two or three hundred years ago, a rusty old
thing of no use whatever. Even its carriage is gone
and it lies flat upon the ground at the side of the road.
Yet, somehow, the years and superstition have made
It a symbol. Women come to It as pilgrims, implor-
ing the blessing it is supposed to give."
"How do you mean?" I asked.
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He hesitated for a moment, evidently searching his
English vocabulary for the right words. "Well, you
see," he said, "a cannon, any cannon, is a symbol of
death, but the natives of Java have made this old gun
a symbol of life. Women who have no children, who
apparently are barren, go to this cannon, buy orchids
and gardenias, orchids mostly, and offer them as
prayers. Some women scatter paper flowers over it,
others put little lanterns beside it, but mostly they
put orchids, for orchids, they believe, are the most
effective prayers for a child. Silly, isn't It?"
No one else answered him; so I volunteered a polite
agreement. The Dutchman asked if I was traveling
merely to see what I could see. I admitted that I
was.
"And you're going to Java on business?" he asked
the American lady.
"Yes," she told him.
She told me the same thing the next afternoon in
the lounge of the ship. At tea time, coming in from
the starboard side, I saw her alone at a small table.
She nodded and maybe she smiled, though I couldn't
be sure. I said I had not seen her all day.
"Been busy in my stateroom," she said. "Getting
some reports ready. Sit down. Have tea with me."
Isat down and she signaled to the boy. He brought
me tea. She made no offer to pour it. She let me
care for myself.
"Too bad," I said, and said it merely to make con-
versation, "that you have to work on ship."
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"I work all the time. 55 She finished her tea and
pushed the cup aside with an abrupt gesture. "Don't
know anything but work. On board ship, on shore,
it's all the same to me."
"Must be tiresome to work all the time," I guessed.
"I'm not so sure." She lighted a cigarette and
smoked like one accustomed to it. "Good thing to
work all the time."
"To do that you must be in awfully interesting
work."
"I am. I deal in rice."
"Do you own plantations?"
"I'm a buyer and shipper."
"It must be" I repeated myself "awfully inter-
esting."
"It is." She moved the teapot aside and leaned a
little over the table. "Do you know that rice feeds
four-fifths of the world ? In Java, for example, two
and three crops are harvested each year. Each acre
averages two thousand pounds of rough rice. After
the husk, which we sell as fuel, has been removed, the
amount of food to the acre is still six times the food
in the wheat lands of the United States. The annual
rice crop of the world is eighty million tons." She
inhaled quickly. "But the great interest in the rice
game is buying and selling and shipping. Wheat and
cotton and corn dealers have an easy time compared
with the daily gamble of rice buyers. Why, do you
ow=r-r" ,i
"It must be thrilling," I said, because I'd heard
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enough about rice. Furthermore, I'd seen the woman
bare herself and I wasn't interested. She had only
one enthusiasm : rice. She knew nothing but rice and
trading in rice. She wanted nothing but to buy and
sell rice.
"It is thrilling," she said, and turned to look over
the sea.
We were sailing past the island of Sumatra; the
palm trees and bamboo trees could be plainly seen
from the lounge of our ship. The woman looked at
them. I saw that she wasn't such a big woman, after
all. I decided that she gave that impression because
she salt erect and because she carried herself well. I
decided, too, that she was somewhat defensively ag-
gressive, though why I decided that I couldn't say. She
was probably forty years old, yet her hair was not
gray at all. Her hands, too, were noticeable:
smooth, shaped like a sculptor's dream of rhythm.
And her voice was not the voice of a hurried business
woman : it was tender, tired.
For several minutes we didn't speak; then I said:
"You are going to Java to buy rice?"
"Yes; to buy rice and to meet my husband."
"Your husband?"
"Yes. He travels. I stay in Shanghai and care
for the office. We meet once every six months to plan
our work."
"It will be awfully nice to see him," I said. "Will
he meet you in Batavia?"
"He'll not arrive until two days after we land."
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"Then you'll have to come sightseeing with me."
But she said she couldn't: she wouldn't have time;
there would be papers and cables and reports and a
thousand duties. I told her I was sorry, and I really
was. Despite her pride in her business ability, I liked
her. Indeed, I liked her so much that on the morn-
ing we docked I again asked her to go sightseeing
with me.
"Can't do It," she said. "I've work to do worlds
of it."
After a bath at the hotel, I started out to make my
official connections, to carry out the little courtesies
expected of travelers in the East: I left cards with
the Dutch authorities and called on the American
Consul-General. At the bank I got my mail and Dutch
money.
In the afternoon I slept and read until after the
air had been cooled by the daily rain; then I called a
taxi and drove by the canal to see the women washing
their clothes and their bodies in the muddy water;
visited the famous skull of the eighteenth century
traitor, a ghastly monument which I left quickly; and
at dusk told the chauffeur to drive me to the cannon
where prayers are offered by women apparently barren.
He did, but I didn't get out of the car, for as we
stopped near the cannon, I saw a woman pointing with
a hand like a sculptor's dream of rhythm. "Please,"
she said to a flower vendor, "I want a dozen orchids."
[74]
XI
YOUR history book, Dad, will tell you that Java
now belongs to the Dutch, that once it belonged
to France, then to England. But don't you believe
it. Java belongs to God! Through the ages the
island has served as his chief laboratory for botanical
experiments, and the results of his labors have sur-
passed his dreams, for in Java he has achieved such
fragile and fantastic beauty In both form and color that
undoubtedly he marvels at his own handiwork.
In the savannahs, in the forests, beside the road-
way, I have seen the hibiscus flower with its furry
red pistil, and the frangipani, and the pale green petal
of the ylang-ylang tree. I have seen the orchid, a
bubble from God's own blowpipe, floating upon the
tropic air. I have snielled the spicy fragrance of the
kanaga flower and tasted the mangosteen. I have
lived: I have been to Java. , , .
Into the natural color of the island blends the bril-
liance of the native dress, for men, women, and chil-
dren wear sarongs upon which fanciful designs are
dyed in colors like the soft splendor of Javanese birds
and trees and flowers. Besides their sarongs, the men
wear white jackets and wrap their heads with cloth of
the same color and design as their skirts; the women
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wear tight-fitting shirt waists of white or pink organdy,
elaborately embroidered, and crown their doll-like
beauty with yellow and sweet-smelling temple flowers
woven into the finely spun jet of their hain
While the favorite color of the sarong is a deep,
rich brown, one sees them of every color, sometimes
with the predominant motif a bird of blue with a tail
of orange, sometimes decked with flowers that grew on
the rainbow. Three days ago I saw a sarong with a
background of dark brown rectangles locked one into
the other; against that background, peacocks of dull
purple tilted their scarlet heads.
In Java one is supposed to sleep without top cover-
ing, but as yet I haven't learned to do it; I always
insist upon having a second sheet. Three nights ago I
was stopping at a hotel where the manager spoke only
Malay and Dutch. I speak neither and could not tell
him of my wish for a top sheet. I decided, therefore,
to wait until I got to my room and sign to the
boy. In the room, I pulled back the mosquito netting
and rubbed the one sheet.
"Dua" I said, and thus used one of my half dozen
Malay words.
The boy shook his head.
"Dua" I repeated, and held up two fingers.
Again he shook his head.
"Dua" I insisted. "Two sheets. Go get them."
176]
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He stared, then went out of the room. A few min-
utes later he came back.
"Tidak," he said.
I knew enough Malay to understand that he had
reported unfavorably, but I believed he hadn't under-
stood, so I beckoned him to the bed, touched it,
smoothed the sheet, and said, "Dua, dua" holding up
two fingers. He shook his head and went
rowfully.
Ten minutes later I heard a most awful
side my room. I opened the door and saw four boys^
straining and sweating as they hoisted a second bed-
stead.
"Tidak," I shouted. "Tidak. Come here." I beck-
oned the head boy to me again. "Dua" I said, catch-
ing hold of the sheet. "Dua"
Again he stared, and shook his head, then in a flash
his expression changed. "Ah!" he said. "Ah I" He
bowed low and hurried from the room.
And a quarter of an hour later came a gentle knock
at my door. I opened to see that the boy had erred
a second time a demure error with temple flowers
coyly woven Into hair.
During the entire time I have been in Java I have
not seen a bathtub. Instead, in each bathing room is
a great earthen jar or stone vat filled with water.
Beside the vat hangs a half-gallon tin bucket. One
stands upon the cement floor of the bathroom, dips
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up buckets of water, and sloshes It upon himself. At
first encounter such bathing appears entirely inade-
quate, but after some experience one becomes enamored
of the scheme ; indeed, I now splutter and gasp almost
as loud as the fat Dutchman in the room next to mine.
house, indeed no room, in Java is complete with-
out it$ bevy of barking lizards, each four inches long,
halfjtn inch wide, and colored a delicate pink. Usu-
^fly they appear at twilight, scurrying about the ceiling
and the upper part of the walls. Often in their rush-
ing they stop to utter a series of quick, chirping barks,
a sound admirably suggested by tjitjak, their name.
One gets accustomed to them, for they are friendly
enough and cause no trouble, except when from the
ceiling they shed their tails upon the dinner table*
A traveler in the East gets rather blase about fly-
ing, crawling things. In a hotel where I stopped not
long ago I had the table boy begin each meal by sweep-
ing away the insects that had died or were in the
process of dying upon the tablecloth, silver, or bread
and butter plate. As a meal progresses, one casually
separates an Arthropoda from the hors d'&uvres, ex-
tracts a diving daddy-long-legs from the creamed
spinach, and deftly defeats the boring activities of a
black mite's assault upon the blanc-mange.
Last week I dined at the home of an American lady
who has lived in Java for three years. During the
meal, an insect with black body, striped red, tumbled
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into the lady's claret. "Poor little chap," she said,
fishing him out with a spoon. Later she finished the
wine, paying no more attention to the bug than if he
had been Cleopatra's pearl.
At a street fair I saw a native doctor make up a
prescription for a patient who crouched beside jijjn.
The medicine was chiefly cinnamon, ground pepper,
and dust collected from the middle of the street,
though over the pile the doctor scraped the backbone
of a fish, a tiger's claw, the tusk of a boar, the skull
of a cat, and the bone from the foreleg of a dog.
Throughout the preparation the doctor chanted an
unbroken series of charms, then wrapped the panacea
in a newspaper and gave it to the patient, who paid
four cents, his wages for half a day, and went away
to take the medicine and enjoy the benefits therefrom.
The Javanese greatly distrust the white doctor and
his treatments, preferring the methods and the magic
of their fathers. They burn an open wound, heat a
mother and newborn babe on a bench over a smol-
dering fire, cure leprosy by giving water in which the
tail of Tjitjak the Lizard has been soaked, and
combat impotency by hanging the genitals of a tiger
above the bed.
The most popular doctors of Java are peinter
women, wizened old dames celebrated for their dark
wisdom, who haunt the public markets and pretend to
know the cure for any ailment. They prescribe and
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give pills, use salves, apply poultices; they know the
power in charms, in certain precious stones, and in the
urine and feces of man and of animals: white doc-
tors are unable to compete with their sorcery, the na-
tive preferring their thaumaturgy and their vile pre-
scriptions. . . .
One of the most interesting practices of the old
women is to assist young ladies who pine for love.
The t^dy approaches the doctor secretly, bringing with
Ixeya lock of the loved one's hair. Runes are recited
over it and weakening drugs prepared. And yet some-
times, it is said, a man of Java is able to withstand
both the lure of the lady and the effect of the drug.
After this eccentric fact has been proved, the lady
goes back to the old woman and reports failure.
Straightway the wise one declares that only the mighty
liquid drawn from the glands of the sea cow killed
by harpoons off the island of BilKton can conquer such
an unnatural man. She sells one drop of the seductive
fluid ; she charges one dollar.
But the next morning the lady returns, admitting
that all night she tossed on her couch, unanswered.
The wrinkled witch and the woman spurned then set
about their mystic business. They make an image of
the virtuous man and thrust pins into those parts of
the body of which the lady is most jealous, most wants
destroyed. This particular form of magic is not so
effective as it was once, for the Dutch government no
longer allows the old women and their helpers to He
18o]
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in wait and with sharp knives carry out the commis-
sion suggested by the incantations of their necromancy*
Another form of magic, long practiced in Java, is
still entirely effective. Guna guna begins with the usual
exorcisms and use of love potions, but if these fail,
the conjuror prepares a slow death and sells it to
the woman whose lover is more virtuous, or more
weary, than wise. The woman administers it in small
doses perfectly calculated to give prolonged and fasci-
nating agonies. Usually the death is made up chiefly
of ground glass, shredded bamboo fibers, or whiskers
cut from a tiger and chopped fine.
Long before I came to Java I heard travelers tell
of rijst-tafel, the rice-table served only in Java. I was
told I would have to try it. I did try it. I'll never
do it again, for I felt as if I'd dined with Trimalchio.
The foundation is rice. It is shoveled into a bowl
considerably larger than a soup plate. Over the rice
one scatters a bit of mincemeat and vegetable curry.
This is mushed about until it is sufficiently gummy.
The serious business of serving the meal then gets
under way. Forty boys stand in a line that curls across
the room, and each boy carries a plate containing an
ingredient supposed to play its succulent part in this
glutton's delight.
There is chicken prepared in every known way.
There are hen eggs and duck eggs, fresh eggs and cen-
tury old eggs from China. There are nuts: whole,
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chopped, salted, grated. Hunks of beef. Lumps of
potatoes. Fried bananas. Fresh bananas. Cucum-
bers athwart cubes of bamboo shoots. Livers and
gizzards spiced with fiery chilies. Shredded coconut.
Flaked coconut. Fragments of sharks. Whole min-
nows. Fishes caught yesterday. Fishes from the nets
of the Carthaginians.
The deluge continues until one's bowl becomes an
esculent ark into which, two by two, have gone speci-
mens of the flora and fauna of all places and all ages.
When the serving is finally ended, one imitates the
Dutch, and with audible and perspiratory evidence of
enjoyment eats the rijst-tafeL Personally I was de-
feated by the world famous dish, for when only half
through I bethought me of my bed with warring
sighs and groans I sought it.
In Batavia, the large port at the western extremity
of the island, is a hellish monument the Dutch think
best not to remove, desiring it forever to preach its
gruesome sermon and play its part in changing the
mind of any Javanese contemplating rebellion.
In 1722, the Dutch caught a half-caste conspiring
to overthrow the government. They impaled him
alive, broke him on the wheel, cut his head and hands
off, quartered his body, smeared the head with plas-
ter, and stuck It on a wall where it has remained to
the present, this inscription beneath it: "As a reminder
of the executed traitor, Pieter Elberfeld, none shall
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be permitted to build in this spot in wood or stone,
or to plant here, from this day forevermore."
Young Javanese whisper that the inscription is a
lie, that some day they will build monuments to Java-
nese freedom upon the spot where Elberfeld's skull
now goads them.
In Java the Number One boy, a combination butler,
major-domo, and head waiter, is paid eight dollars a
month. Cook receives a similar sum. The chauffeur
receives top salary of twenty dollars a month, with
ten cents a day added for food. Footmen, laun-
dresses, and second cooks get what they can, usually
from three to five dollars a month. Out of these sala-
ries the servants feed and clothe themselves, and still
save enough to go on an occasional palm-wine drunk.
Last week in Djocjakarta a Javanese girl gave me
a manicure. I asked about native ladies calling upon
her. She said she worked for no Javanese except
princes and their children, for she disliked to shampoo
the ordinary native's head. The Javanese are a
cleanly people, bathing every day; but unfortunately
they bathe in public canals where the water is dirty,
sleep in rooms without ventilation, and on beds that
are ancient mats: most natives are afflicted with lice.
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I know a lot of people I 3 d like to have visit a certain
barber shop in Java. I found the place yesterday.
The sign over the door read: HAIR CUT SHAVE
FACE MASSACRED.
XII
PAKAE BOEWONO SENOPATI INGALOGO
ABDUR RACHMAN SADJIDIN PANOTO-
GOMO the Tenth, Susuhunan of Surakarta, was my
host at dinner last night. Perhaps you have dined at
Buckingham Palace, or, before the great debacle,
feasted with Kaiser, Emperor, or Czar, but I am
not jealous, for last night I revelled with Pakae Boe-
wono Senopati Ingalogo Abdur Rachman Sajldin
Panotogomo the Tenth, Susuhunan of Surakarta. . . .
Many years ago, so Javanese children are told,
lived a ruler named Kyahi Ageng Mataram, whose
wealth could not be counted. One day a prophet came
and prophesied before him, saying: "Your kingdom,
O king, shall become the most powerful In all Java
and you shall rule the realm." Straightway Kyahi
Ageng Mataram forsook his garments of gold, his
throne of ivory, and went into the forest to live as
a hermit and to pray for the speedy fulfillment of the
words of the seer. In the forest he met a man who
spent his days tapping coconut trees and making sugar
from the sap. The ruler slept his first night away
from the palace at the home of this man.
Next morning the laborer set forth with his bam-
boo jars to collect the sap of the coconut trees. For
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a time all his work was as usual; then, as he was tak-
ing down a full jar and putting an empty one In Its
place, a voice spoke to him, saying: "Whoever shall
drink my milk to the last drop shall sire the princes
destined to rule all Java." The laborer doubted his
ability to drink all the milk; so he hastened home with
the jar, left it and its dynastic fluid in the custody of
his wife, then returned to his work in the forest.
In the middle of the morning Kyahi Ageng Ma-
taram awakened from his sleep, declared his great
thirst, and drank the coconut milk to the last drop.
Thus it was destined that from his loins should come
the rulers of Java. In 1622 the prophecy was ful-
filled, for in that year his successor was declared Sul-
tan of all Java.
Fifty-five years later a group of discontented Chi-
nese rebelled. Dutch soldiers helped the sultan put
down the uprising and as payment for their help they
demanded and took such privileges that the power of
Kyahi Ageng Mataram's successors became identical
with that of Indian chiefs living to-day on American
reservations. Immediately the Dutch took control,
they set about making themselves masters of Java,
At present their rule of the island is absolute. The
more fateful Javanese declare the famous coconut milk
was slightly curdled.
Yet the Dutch have governed so cleverly that the
Sultan of Djocjakarta still calls himself "The Ruler
of the World." The Susuhunan with whom I dined
last night is saluted as "Axis of the Universe/' and
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the town of Surakarta, over which he rules, is known
as "Most Excellent Town of Heroes in the World/'
When the Susuhunan heard of the Kaiser's flight he
sorrowfully remarked: "Alas, alas the Emperor of
Austria is dead, the Czar of the Russians has been
murdered, the Kaiser has abdicated; only I am left"
In the center of Java are two native states with
nominal absolute-rulers. The Sultan of Djocjakarta
and the Susuhunan of Surakarta have, on paper, the
combined powers of Ghenghis Khan, the Pope of
Rome, and the chief of a tribe in the Australian bush.
The Dutch, in public, encourage this illusion, and they
have been so subtle in their usurpation of power that
most natives still believe themselves ruled by their sul-
tans. Even the sultans, so shrewd are their overlords,
are duped into believing that they actually govern*
The Dutch, great colonizers as they are, know that
children are kept quiet by toys and baubles and bril-
liant colors and the blast of trumpets : the native rulers
are allowed, even encouraged, to maintain courts
which in splendor and pomp and ceremony shame the
courts of Europe.
Three days ago the Susuhunan of Surakarta had a
birthday. He was sixty-four years old, and, according
to custom, he ordered that an elaborate fete be held ;
especially elaborate this year, because at thirty-two,
sixty-four, and ninety-six is not a man especially
blessed? Then, too, for these festivities were coming
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the Crown Prince and Princess of the Belgians, who
were visiting the island while on a tour of the world.
Furthermore, though at the Susuhunan's original plan-
ning he had been unaware of this, there was coming
Childers of Birmingham, Alabama.
Exactly how I obtained invitations to the various
functions, I have no desire to confess it is not my wish
to make Capone jealous but the invitations were ob-
tained, and with them came the unsettling announce-
ment: "You will present yourself in evening dress."
I couldn't present myself in evening dress, for I had
left my tail coat in Singapore, not dreaming of need-
ing it in Java. I hurried to the tailor. He had none
to rent. I went to the pawnshops. They had none.
The hotel waiters were of no use to me, because they
are natives and wear native costumes. Early in the
afternoon I had an inspiration. I went back to the
tailor and asked him to rig out some false tails and
attach them to the rear of my dinner jacket. The
tailor was a Dutchman. He said it couldn't be done.
I went to the hotel, got my dinner jacket, and bought
four quarts of whisky. I returned to the tailor and for
one hour we argued and drank. Then he saw the
light. For two hours we drank and sewed tails on my
dinner jacket. One tail was longer than the other and
both were lopsided. But I had tails. I was ready to
dine with the assembled kings of history, and the tailor
swore he could sew a tail on a Manx cat.
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At seven-fifteen, exactly to the minute, an American-
made automobile entered the kraton, the palace of the
Susuhunan of Surakarta. Within the car sat an of-
ficial of the Dutch government, a Javanese regent, a
tiny yellow umbrella on top of the radiator cap pro-
claiming his rank, and an American gentleman whose
coat-tails were slightly askew.
Inside the outer square, we stepped from the car
and climbed five broad steps of marble. At the end
of a long winding passage, brilliantly lighted, we en-
tered the resplendent throne room of the Susuhunan.
This inner sanctum, in the center of a great open air
court, is one hundred feet square. Four steps lead up
to its solid marble floor. The ceiling, from which
hang twenty golden candelabra, is supported by teak
columns thirty feet high. There are no walls.
On three sides of the great dais stood the Susu-
hunan's army, sixty soldiers arrayed in coats of red
and gold, gaudy batik trousers, and no shoes. Their
guns were muzzle loaders. In front of each company
stood a small ten-year-old boy in a black uniform
streaked with gold, a white plume waving atop his
hat, his little spine stiff as the sword he held erect be-
fore him. The boys were three of the Susuhunan's
sons.
Strolling about the throne room were hundreds of
Javanese noblemen and gentlemen. Each man wore a
highly polished hat of black leather that had no brim;
it looked like a flowerpot resting upon the long hair
knotted at the back of the head. Their jackets of red
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and black were adorned with gold and hung with
medals. At the left hip swung the short Javanese
sword and in the belt at the back was thrust the kris,
the native dagger. Gorgeous skirts of brightly col-
ored cloth were caught up at the waist and draped
from there in three loops, partly covering the loose
silken trousers of brilliant designs. Every man was
barefooted, for no native is allowed to wear shoes in
the presence of the Susuhunan. These men who
strolled about the throne room, smoking and chatting,
were sons, ministers, courtiers, retainers. They are
a few of the five thousand males living within the pal-
ace. One does not see the royal goldsmiths and silver-
smiths, the armorers, carpenters, masons, priests,
wood-carvers, and serving men.
To one side, within a great enclosure, a solid mass
of women squatted shoulder to shoulder and knees to
small of back, covering the ground like a swarm of
yellow grasshoppers. They are the female attendants,
a few of the ten thousand women living within the
palace.
A fanfare !
The guard swings its muskets upward in the royal
salute 1
The Javanese crouch upon their heels 1
His Highness, the Susuhunan, enters!
He is short and fat. His black velvet coat blazes
with its covering of diamond-studded decorations. His
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scarlet hose show between the bottom of his purple
sarong and his pumps of black satin. He walks slowly
and with great dignity. The Emperor of Austria is
dead. The Czar of the Russians has been murdered.
The Kaiser has abdicated. Only he is left.
With her hand through his arm walks a woman of
startling beauty, small, delicate, fragile: Titania in
topaz. Her silken sarong is cream colored, and has a
conventional design of minute brown squares; her
linen shirt waist is white. Into her ears are thrust
cone-shaped Javanese earrings, their bases flashing
solid with diamonds; into her ebony hair are twined
two temple flowers of yellow. She is the Number One
wife.
Immediately behind the Susuhunan marches a female
dwarf, distorted and hideous, bearing the royal spit-
toon, of gold and wondrously carved. Behind her
marches the bearer of the royal sword. Then the
bearer of the golden duck. The bearer of the golden
spear. The bearer of the golden shield. Then come
the princesses, marching in a long line, two by two.
They are unnumbered, for if you ask the Susuhunan
the number of his children he replies that he is the
father of sixty-eight sons.
The guests at the birthday party advance along the
royal carpet of red stretching from the steps to the
throne. They are presented to the Susuhunan. He
grants his hand, a palm with five pegs of jewels jutting
from it; even in a momentary grip one feels the two-
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Inch nails. The Susuhunan expresses his greetings in
Malay.
Her Highness smiles graciously. She, too, grants
her hand. She murmurs softly, speaking in Javanese,
the most musical of all Oriental languages.
A fanfare!
The guard swings its muskets upward in the royal
salute 1
The Susuhunan leaves his throne and alone marches
slowly forward!
Their Highnesses, the Crown Prince and Princess of
the Belgians, and His Excellency, the Dutch governor,
enter !
The lesser play begins
To one side of the throne room is the Javanese
orchestra, the gamelan. It is composed of gongs, bam-
boo xylophones, hand-drums, and the rabab, the two-
string viol with shrill, piercing tone. The music is
especially strange to western ears, for it lacks the
fourth and the seventh and all semitones. Three na-
tive women sing in high-pitched, nasal voices,
At opposite sides of the throne room two green vel-
vet curtains are parted and the actors enter. They
salute the Susuhunan, then advance to the center of
the space reserved for them. There the two columns
face each other, thus designating the opposing forces
in the drama. Once the separation is completed, the
[92]
p
JAVANESE DANCERS
Top: In the dramas of Java, the actors unfold the story by dancing slowly,
with elaborate balance and counterpoise.
Lower left: Son of one of the native rulers, this man is reputed to be the
finest dancer in Java.
Lower right: A Javanese hero makes ready to slay the villain!
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
actors strike poses and stare before them. The play-
ers have their bodies smeared with ochre. What little
clothing they wear is of batik. Their many ornaments
are of gold and fine gems. The headdress of one is a
cupola woven from golden fibers; of another, polished
buffalo horns; a third wears a white skullcap that
drops a repulsive mask*
The music softens. A man seated cross-legged be-
fore the orchestra strikes a sharp blow upon a wooden
gong at his feet. He chants the story of the play, tell-
ing what is to happen. When he has finished, the
music quickens. The actors begin to dance the drama.
With amazing slowness, with elaborate and involved
balance and counterpoise, they unfold the story.
During the intermission a buffet supper was served.
The first course was Heinz canned spaghetti. The
drinks ranged from Johnny Walker, Red and Black
label, to champagne. After coffee, the guests wan-
dered about the grounds of the palace. But I didn't
wander far, because I was fascinated by the charming
way the little barefooted princesses chewed tobacco.
Javanese tobacco is shredded and the royal maidens
roll it into six-inch lengths, putting one inch between
their teeth and their lower lip, allowing the other five
inches to protrude. Slowly they chew it in.
Immediately after supper, the ten thousand female
attendants left The Presence. They are virtuous
1 93]
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women, all of them. Whenever the royal physician in-
forms the Susuhunan that one of the court ladies is to
become a mother, the Susuhunan divorces one of his
four legal wives, marries the lady, and the child is born
in holy wedlock. The Susuhunan hears of the event,
sends the baby a toy, divorces the mother, and takes
back the wife he prefers.
At the end of the intermission, the Susuhunan once
more mounted his throne of gold. Stolidly he gazed
out at his guests and at his people. Around him were
his sons, his daughters, his retainers. Behind him
squatted the dwarf of the twisted body, holding the
royal spittoon. In other parts of the palace waited
his wives and his concubines.
That morning one of the Dutch overlords had ap-
proached the Susuhunan. "Your Highness," the
Dutchman said, "a pair of slippers has been ordered
for Her Highness."
"Well?"
"All but a few inches of the satin has been stolen by
your retainers."
u Well?"
"True, Your Highness, your income from your rice
fields and your sugar plantations is a million and a half
gold dollars a year, but this stealing, Your Highness,
is"
"Enough ! They are my people. If not from me,
then from whom must they steal?"
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It is two o'clock !
The lesser play is ended!
A fanfare!
The guard swings its muskets upward in the royal
salute 1
The Javanese crouch upon their heels !
The Susuhunan leaves the throne, and, accompanied
by his royal guests, marches slowly forward.
Their Highnesses, the Crown Prince and Princess of
the Belgians, and His Excellency, the Dutch Governor
of Surakarta, are departing.
Pakae Boewono Senopati Ingalogo Abdur Rachman
Sajidin Panotogomo the Tenth, Susuhunan of Sura-
karta, has celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday.
XIII
FROM Canton in China, my dear Mac, through
Indo-China, Siam, the Malay peninsula, and Java,
are great splotches like blood upon pavement and
stone; they are the spittle of areca-nut chewers.
In the Andes the Indians chew cocoa, in West Africa
the blacks have their chewing stick, the Arabs of Ye-
men are addicts of ghat-chewing, in Europe and in
America men and women chew tobacco, and in the
United States unfortunate neurotics chew gum. The
Oriental satisfies the ecumenical craving by chewing
the areca-nut wrapped in a leaf of the betel-vine.
Everywhere in the East one sees the colorful mas-
tication, the natives forever mouthing the nut and spit-
ting the red saliva. Priests at Angkor splatter the
causeway with their crimson spitting. Attendants at
the royal palace in Cambodia have left old splashes,
now colored maroon, upon the ancient stairway. Sia-
mese soldiers splotch the pavements of Bangkok. The
scarlet spots are everywhere upon stone, cement, and
asphalt; they freckle the East.
An areca-nut addict begins his chewing by taking
into his mouth a mixture of equal parts of lime and
gambler, a vegetable astringent, which tastes like
green persimmon and sets up a burning best allayed
by the slow crunching of the areca-nut. The nut has
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a musty, soothing, rather pleasant taste which is made
even more pleasant by the burning induced by the lime
and gambler. After the chewer has tired of the nut,
he spits out the fragments, then chews shredded to-
bacco to clean his teeth.
Every Oriental host south of China offers areca-nut
to his guests, passing it as cigars are passed in the
West. And as the nut is given out, a servant places
a brass spittoon for each person. The individual spit-
toon is as common in the Orient as the individual ash
tray in the Occident.
Doctors of the East differ in their opinions about
areca-nut chewing, some believing that the introduction
of lime into the mouth preserves the teeth, others in-
sisting that the nut is conducive to Rigg's disease,
eventually causing cancer of the mouth. About the
relative merits of these medical opinions I know
nothing, but I do know that the mouth of the betel-
chewer is a thing of horror. Both men and women
begin the habit in their teens ; in a short time their teeth
turn crimson, and, as they chew, which is most of the
time, their red saliva sloshes out over their chins and
slides slowly down. The teeth of old chewers are
black; and black teeth, with thick red juice oozing
around them, are not pretty.
In the zoo at Sourabaya I saw a bird of paradise.
He sat high above me and his plumage dreamed upon
the air like golden shadows.
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In the spring, when his thoughts turn to love, the
bird of paradise goes forth to display himself. He
and fifteen or twenty of his comrades assemble. They
strut upon the branch of a large tree, raising the
resplendent plumes that grow from their shoulders,
and each bird from out an aura of gold casts an amor-
ous eye. But like man, like bird; while the mating
dance goes on, the ultimate jest is played.
The natives discover the tree chosen for the love
rites. They hide beneath it. With blunt arrows, so
that no blood may stain the plumes, they shoot the
prancing male. The doomed bird falls. And so sweet
is the power of love that the birds who dance pay no
heed to the birds that fall. One by one they are all
shot down from the branch of love into the serene
oblivion of death. And their blind bow-boy is a naked
man with blunt arrows.
What a death ! How glorious to go to one's death
when one Is young, with plumage spread, astrut upon
the path of love. What a death! For me, I think
the natives do the birds a mighty favor.
In the Sourabaya zoo are dwarf deer, smallest of
all creatures with the split hoof, marked as the ordinary
spotted-tail deer, yet with a body no larger than a
house cat's and legs the length and diameter of a lead
pencil; giant lizards, hideous brutes six and seven feet
long, weighing three to four hundred pounds; and a
monster bat, a filthy looking fellow as large as a month-
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old puppy. There are, I believe, other strange crea-
tures in this zoo, but the keeper caught me flipping
pebbles In the crocodile's mouth.
One of the most laudable services the Dutch are
rendering the Javanese is to control the pawnshops of
the island.
The money lender is probably the greatest economic
curse of the East. Thousands of Chinese and Hindus
have grown fat and fabulously wealthy by lending
money at robbery rates, some of them charging as high
as fifty per cent a month. There is no possible way
for authorities to curb such thieving, though the Dutch
have tried to lessen the evil by themselves lending
money at a fair rate, catering especially to the poor
man, the native afraid to attempt negotiating a petty
loan at a bank, even if he understood the Western sys-
tem of borrowing.
A few nights ago I was in a cabaret in Sourabaya.
At two o'clock in the morning a Dutch gentleman
rolled in, announcing that he would give an exhibition
of juggling. He would begin, he declared, by jug-
gling a table, the snare drum, and a dancing girl. He
had collected the table and the girl, and was raising a
row about the drum, when his friends finally quieted
him.
They led him from his ambition and put him in a
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corner where he soon relapsed into a heavy-headed
comatose prelude of drunken slumber; then they left
him and went about their dancing. They were across
the room when suddenly he reared himself and in a
voice like Thor's hammer proclaimed his intention of
whipping nine men. He bellowed his defiance, shook
off his friends, and began to swing 1 wildly.
A little Dutch lady who had received her training in
Paris and who was managing the cabaret walked up to
him. One instant the drunk's face was an ordinary
face; then madame stroked It, a downward slashing
stroke his left cheek, speaking mildly, was divided.
His friends caught him as he staggered back. They
dragged him out, a gory spectacle.
The little lady in green went back to her table,
sipped her wine, and casually cut another notch in
her Scoreboard. I was told that with that particular
diamond ring she had rid her place of seventeen
brawlers*
When a Javanese bride first goes to the home of her
husband, she is accompanied by an older woman who
foretells events, offers advice and gives suggestions,
then leads the bride into the bridal chamber, and from
there retires quickly to hurry to waiting friends and tell
them the exact minute the bride went to her husband.
The friends wait for one hour, then storm the room
of the married couple, smashing doors, breaking win-
dows, and rushing in with torches, thus driving away
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evil spirits that have assembled and jealously watched
the endearments of the young couple.
Pigs in the East are shipped in individual containers,
cylindrical baskets of woven bamboo, that fit the pig's
body. He is shoved in head first, then the back end of
the basket is fastened behind him. On top is a handle ;
a man carries a pig as he would carry a traveling bag.
It is my honest belief that Eastern pigs are more
acutely odoriferous than their American cousins,
though this belief may have been inspired by a recent
trip on a freight boat carrying a cargo of pigs. The
porkers in their baskets were loaded forward, stacked
one upon the other like logs, while for three days and
three nights the ship sailed slowly into a warm and
gentle head wind.
&
The trip on this particular freighter ended in excite-
ment. On board were an English army officer and his
wife. When we were four hours from port the lady
suddenly collapsed with intense pain. There was no
doctor on board. There was no wireless.
At eleven o'clock one morning we sailed Into a Jav-
anese harbor and were met by the harbor pilot in his
launch. The pilot lent me the launch, and the ship's
captain gave me permission to go ashore. I was car-
ried full speed to the office of the harbor master and
there telephoned the British consul, telling him that
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a ship carrying a British lady dangerously ill would be
docked in fifteen minutes, I requested that he meet the
ship with an ambulance and a doctor. He said he
would do his best, but the day was a holiday and he
couldn't tell how quickly assistance could be brought.
One hour and twenty minutes after the ship docked,
a Dutch doctor and an ambulance arrived at the pier.
The lady, fortunately, was still living.
There is something, Mac, a little holy about the part
of the world in which I'm traveling now. For years
Conrad traded in these islands; many of his stories
are laid here. I shall always remember my feeling
when the first native called me Tuan. They called Jim
by that name Tuan Jim, which means "Lord Jim."
In the middle of every bed in Java is a Dutch widow,
a bolster three feet long and ten inches wide, over
which one is supposed to cast a leg and thus allow the
air to circulate more freely. Since coming to the
island I've repeatedly pushed the thing out of bed, but
last night was so beastly hot that I was willing to try
anything, even a sawdust widow. And, credit where
credit is due, the bolster is certainly cooling, though
one has to be something of a contortionist to sleep
with it.
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Last week I met an old Dutchman who for years has
lived in Java : I asked him about the native's running
amok, the homicidal mania which suddenly comes over
a Javanese or a Malay and sends him forth to kill.
The old man told me that the occurrence was far less
common than Imaginative* writers have made the West-
ern world believe.
"Though," he said, "it sometimes happens. I have
seen it once. I saw one man run amok, and I never
want to see another. This wretched fellow raced
along the village street, his naked kris in his hand,
and before the police could overcome him he stabbed
one man and almost cut the head off another.
"Few persons," the old Dutchman went on, "un-
derstand why a Javanese runs amok. The popular be-
lief is that the native suddenly, and for no reason, goes
completely wild, draws his kris and stabs every one
within reach. This is not true. Running amok is not
a lightning decision to commit murder, but is a sudden
and uncontrollable expression of prolonged hatred.
"The Javanese are an exceedingly courteous and
kindly people, polite, ceremonious, and strictly observ-
ant of their adat, their unwritten laws of behavior.
They are, too, excessively sensitive, and they never
forget. If a Javanese has been insulted, even though
the insult was offered by one who unknowingly broke
some law of adat, the Javanese may instantly bare his
kris and immediately seek to avenge the affront ; or -he
may wait, go his way for weeks, months, even years,
and forever brood. He has been dishonored. His
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dignity has been despised. His manhood has been dis-
regarded. All these things he tells himself, day and
night musing over them, until inevitably they drive
him mad, and when they do he draws his kris and goes
forth to kill
"Yet It should be understood that a native running
amok is seeking only the person who insulted him, de-
siring to kill only this person, though unhesitatingly he
will kill any one intentionally or accidentally crossing
his path. Most villages sound a special gong when a
man is running amok; sensible people then get indoors
and stay there, leaving the killer to the police."
It is decreed by ancient custom that a Javanese ruler
shall sleep at night with his Number One wife; all
night and every night it is her privilege to lie beside
him.
The day is different, for the day belongs entirely to
the ruler ; he may disport himself as he wills. When-
ever he desires diurnal companionship, he sends for
his Number One wife and notifies her of his wishes.
Instantly the good woman hies her to the harem and
there summons the thrice-blessed lady named by the
sacred lips of the master.
Quickly the chosen one is surrounded by her envious
sisterhood, each of whom twits the lady, yet assists in
dressing her in garments conducive to love. The Num-
ber One wife is especially diligent in preparing the
lady-about-to-be-exalted, weaving temple flowers,
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anointing with perfumes and sweet oils, placing rare
jewels, and, so 'tis said, frequently bending over to
whisper cunning counsel, giving freely of her knowl-
edge of the ways and whims of their lord.
XIV
AND if I never get home, Dad, address my mail
/JL to Bali, a small island lying an overnight sail
from the eastern tip of Java.
It was to Bali that Shelley set out to sail in his
little boat. Byron was looking for Bali when he went
to Greece. Keats stopped too soon: in Bali he would
have found his fairyland forlorn. Plato wrote of
Bali and called it "The Republic" ; Sir Thomas More
called it "Utopia"; Bacon called it "New Atlantis."
Southey and Coleridge were thinking of Bali when they
planned their settlement on the Susquehanna. The
Transcendentalists and Robert Owen and William
Morris all envisioned Ball.
The dream of all dreamers has been of a fertile land
tilled by a contented people, a society of primitive sim-
plicity in which the individual and the group are spirit-
ually and economically benefited. Such a dream is a
reality in Bali. In Bali, man carries on the business
of living with just enough work to remain economically
independent, physically and mentally sturdy. The rest
of the time he is dancing under the trees, or playing in
the village orchestra, or bathing in a clear pool, or mak-
ing love to some pretty girl who lives exactly the same
life as he. I have found in Bali that even a traveler
can fill Ms lungs and stretch himself.
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Bali is only a speck of an island, a hundred miles
long and fifty miles across, but a million men and
women live there, and I envy them the simplicity of
their lives and the serenity of their souls ; there is no
neurasthenia in Bali. Wealth is so equally divided
that there is no poverty and no man is the servant of
another. There is little illness, no political jealousy,
no committee to care for public and private morals,
no Sunday. Each man has his own bit of soil and
works it with his own hands, raising enough rice to feed
his family and to barter for the few essentials he can
not make for himself. He wears only a piece of cloth,
and sometimes he forgets to put it on. He is ignorant
of the laws of convention and free from stultifying
mental and spiritual domination: he is his own priest,
taking his turn in serving before the altar.
At times, even while I am here, I believe there is no
Bali. It doesn't exist. It can't exist. Surely there
is no place where one still sees the cloven footprint of
the greatest of all the gods, of him whom steeples and
machines and dollars have banished. And then at
night, when I sit and listen, I know there is a place
called Bali. And I know that on this little island in
the Pacific the Great God Pan has found his home. I
know, because on the mountain tops, beside the streams,
above the tones of the village orchestra, I hear the
quick melody of his reed pipe.
[107]
XV
ytNNETTE, dear, come live with me and be my
jfjL love in Bali. In Bali we can all the pleasures
prove. Here are dancing and singing, and men and
women with flowers in their hair. On this island
grows the lotus* Here one learns what songs the
sirens sang; he hears them every night sung by girls
whose uncovered breasts gleam in the light of the
lamps like little golden domes. For the first time I
have found the potentiality of contentment. Why
should I give it up to come back to alarm clocks and
telephones?
For an instant I am serious, and yet even as I ask the
question, I know the answer : I am a white man. The
blessed life of these island people is not for me; my
color and my heritage forbid. In another year I shall
be twelve thousand miles from the serenity of Bali,
back in the roar and the rush of my own country, a
country truly fine, but that is restless and fatiguing.
My first sight of Bali was from the deck of a little
ship. We anchored in the roadstead off shore from
the town of Boeleleng. Town! There are hundreds
of coconut palms, and a dozen houses with thatched
roofs where the natives live, and a dozen houses with
corrugated iron where the Dutchmen trade.
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A prahu, paddled by six Ballnese and swaying up
and down with the sea, drew alongside the ship. I
stepped into it. The prahu turned and went slowly
toward the shore. For a hundred yards we rose and
fell with the breathing of the sea, then the men saw a
breaker coming in; shouting, they drove their paddles
deep, carrying us in upon the swell.
The wave receded. The keel of the prahu struck
upon the sand. The little brown men sprang into the
water. Four of them braced themselves and swung on
the bow. Two of them crossed their wrists. They
made a pack-saddle level with the gunwale. With
the breakers beating and crashing about the boat, I
was told to face the sea and blindly drop backward. I
did. The two Balinese caught me. They staggered
through the breakers and let me down upon the beach.
Bali's original inhabitants were Polynesians, but In
the fifteenth century Hindus came from Java because
the sword of Islam was obeying the precept of the
Prophet and driving all unbelievers before it. The
Hindus of Java, fleeing before the wrath of Moham-
medanism, invaded Bali and established their religion,
customs, and government upon the island. The Hindu
influence is still paramount.
In the sixteenth century the Portuguese visited Bali,
and late in the same century Cornelius Van Houtman
stopped there for supplies. After he returned home he
told about the place ; the Dutch became interested. For
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two hundred and fifty years they watched It; in 1855
they took it, establishing a government and decreeing
that all native rulers must submit. One ruler would
not. His refusal began a war that could have only one
end, but that end is a magnificent chapter in the book
not yet written about the white man's politely-called
"colonization" of the East
In the year 1908 Holland decided definitely to end
the petty war. She sent her battleships through the
coral reefs guarding the harbor of Den Pasar, and she
told the captain of ships, and the captain of gunners
that the Rajah of Badoeng must bow to the might of
Holland of little Holland.
In his throne room the Rajah received word that
the white man had landed, that his cannon were mak-
ing ready to attack. The echo of the message was the
bursting of shells above the palace. The Rajah looked
up at the sky. He saw smoke that dirtied the heavens.
He heard the big noises that disturbed his peace ; and he
smiled.
An hour later the gates of the palace swung open
and the Dutchmen saw the entry of those actors who
had well learned their parts in the epic of poepoetan.
High upon the shoulders of chosen bearers sat the
gilded chair, and within the chair, his arms folded, his
festive robes turning the brilliance of the tropic sun,
sat the Rajah. About him marched his people, his
soldiers, courtiers, priests. With the men, marched the
women. Erect and glorious, the people of the Rajah
marched toward the Dutch soldiers, and in their hair
[no]
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were bright flowers, and in their hands were bright
knives with blades that gleamed like gold.
The captain of the Dutch gunners gave the com-
mand, and again the heavens were sullied; again the
man-thunder rolled. The Rajah smiled. The festival
was about to begin. He unfolded his arms, reached
behind him, and drew his golden kris. His wives
looked up to him, pleading; and he answered their
prayer. Like the tongue of a golden serpent, the kris
struck and struck and struck one little slit of red in
each huddled brown body with festive garments bright
in the sun, and flowers still fresh.
As the Rajah struck, so struck his people. His
soldiers cut down their women, and with his holy kris
the priest administered the last service. When all
others were dead, the Rajah, and the soldiers, and the
priests, looked at each other, smiled, and then there
was nothing only limp hands upon hilts of buried kris.
Nobly, little Holland was bearing her portion of the
white man's burden.
At present Bali is governed exactly as the states of
Surakarta and Djocjakarta are governed: a native
ruler has a Dutchman as "father," and while the ruler
has all the pomp and ceremony and wives he wants, the
Dutchman has all the power.
Holland is probably the smartest colonizer of all
peoples who have plundered the more unenlightened
parts of the earth, those parts not blessed with the
I in]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
machine gun; for Holland, as much as she possibly
can, leaves Bali to the Balinese, knowing that such
treatment makes for contentment, lessens the possibil-
ity of rebellion and fighting, and, most important of all,
assures good dividends. There are other reasons why
Bali is still the land of its native people ; the chief of
them is that the Dutch have been so busy with their in-
tense exploitation of Java that they haven't got around
to the smaller island. Soon, though, Dutch business men
will call for new lands. Bali lies in the path of their
trade. Undoubtedly it will be gobbled by commerce.
But until that maw is opened, I should like to live
in Bali. Here with the sound of the village orchestra
in my ears and the sight of the village dancers in my
eyes, here for the first time I have not laughed when
thinking of man as captain of his soul.
The first person to greet me in Bali was Patimah.
The Balinese have always burned their dead, and,
until the Dutch stopped the practice, the body of the
man was followed into the fire by his living wives.
Less than a century ago seventy-two women flung them-
selves into the flames that burned the body of a rajah.
This supreme proof of grief is now forbidden. To-day
a Balinese widow attends the funeral of her husband,
then returns to her home or to the home of her parents.
But Patimah is older than the island's freedom from
suttee. When she was a little child she was seen by a
rajah: he took her and made her one of a hundred
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wives, keeping her in his palace where she, a queen,
danced for him and answered his every want. Then
the rajah sickened and died. His people moaned; his
widows made ready to give themselves to the flames.
Patimah looked at the sun, smelled the frangipani
that lay in her hair, felt the ripple of muscles in her
strong young body why should she die? Why should
she give all her gifts to the fire ? At midnight she stole
from the palace. Alone, she fled across the island and
put herself under the protection of the Dutch.
The next day the body of the rajah was cremated.
His queens fulfilled their duties and cast themselves
upon the pyre. And after the flames had finished,
men gathered the ashes and carried them out to sea and
scattered them upon the restless waters that surround
the island.
Patimah, alive in the Dutch fort, heard that her
sister queens had died nobly, true to the royal custom*
She looked at the sun. She drew the frangipani from
her hair and smelled it.
That was twenty-five years ago.
To-day Patimah is a wealthy woman. She has made
money by trading in cloth and beaten silver. She owns
her home. Barefooted, she drives a Buick automobile.
I have sat with her on the veranda of her house, drink-
ing the thick coffee of the island and talking with her
about Bali and its people. But always we talked of
the present. Patimah has forgotten the past. I have
hinted at happenings in other years, suggesting an
eagerness to know of Patimah the Queen, Patimah be-
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
fore she became a trader in cloth and silver, but
Patimah, never understanding, looks away and says
nothing, refusing to tell her thoughts as she drives her
automobile over old ashes brought back by the sea.
The Balinese soul is very chary and does not rush
into the body of a baby the instant the baby is born.
Instead, it waits and watches. If the baby behaves,
and is properly baptized, the soul moves in; It gives
baby a trial.
All Balinese mothers know these facts about souls,
and they know, too, that the unsettled soul can be easily
offended; so they take infinite care to placate it. They
enertain their babies and keep them happy, for that,
as every one should know, is the way to make the soul
happy. They feed baby on finest food, because the soul
is excessively fond of fruits and white meat of chicken
and sweetened rice cakes. Furthermore, Balinese
mothers know that baby must be treated with absolute
respect. Such an indignity as a spanking would be
certain to offend the soul; then the soul would with-
draw and go elsewhere.
For hours I have watched the babies of Bali. They
come forth, gloriously attired in a bracelet or two,
riding astride sister's hip. After they are put down,
they race about and play; no one pays any attention to
them. They never cry. They never fight. They
never make filthy squally little beasts of themselves.
Even a bachelor can love them.
[114]
XVI
I HEARD the throb, throb of drums. I heard the
trembling, golden overtone of gongs struck in
harmony. It was the gamelan. The men of Den
Pasar were playing in their banjar, their club house,
a thatched roof resting upon four corner poles.
I heard the gamelan and I left the veranda of the
rest house and went out into the soft rain of the tropic
night; I went to the banjar. High caste men were
playing. Coolies were playing. Women and children
and little babies squatted at the shadow's edge. They
made me welcome, passing me the areca-nut and the
betel leaf. I took my place and listened as the men of
Den Pasar played upon strange instruments, as rever-
ently they reared a palace of manifold music.
Bronze gongs, as tall as a boy, swung between sup-
ports of teakwood carved like buffalo horns curving
outward. Smaller gongs, and smaller gongs, swung
between their uprights. Gongs like inverted bowls,
with a nipple in the middle, sat upon racks. Bronze
bars rested upon bamboo sounding chambers. Alto
bells hung downward. Double-headed drums lay
across the drummers' folded knees.
Upon the ground the musicians formed the side of
a twelve-foot square. Dreamy-eyed they sat, and
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chewed the areca-nut, and played music no one had
taught them, music never written down. That day
they had worked knee-deep in the mud of the rice
fields. That night they had come to their banjar to
play the music of their fathers. Boys of ten played
beside withered old men of eighty. Occasionally some
one tired and went away; immediately some one else
took his place.
The players struck the gangsas. They struck the
trompong, the reyong, the jejog, the joblag, the
jalung. The music murmured and was no more ; then
softly it came back and sang its song of yearning. It
sank to a whisper of love and in dream tones told the
ancient story. And suddenly it laughed in triumph. In
quick melodies it went dancing over the fields of Den
Pasar.
Then the bars of bronze were stilled, the alto bells
were silenced, and there was only a giant gong trem-
bling out its lingering death; a small boy leaned his
naked shoulder against it. All was still, save the soft
symphony of the tropic rain melting through the palm
trees. Their eyes fixed upon the center of the square,
the musicians were figures molded in heavy bronze, sit-
ting In a silence that pressed against my eardrums.
The crash of the orchestra shattered the stillness.
And in the center of the square was a boy, slow plumes
from the bird of paradise floating from his purple
turban, his shirt and scarf green like young grass, his
sarong trailing behind him, red, like a cloth of blood
with molten gold dropped on it. He crouched upon his
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knees and his left arm was rigid behind him, his right
arm rigid before him, while his right hand, quivering
ceaselessly, held a silken fan. . . .
The gamelan Is playing. Surely something is wrong.
There are only five notes in this octave. The second
and the sixth are missing. The octave is not an octave.
It is flat. It is sharp. My ears cringe from it. I
cry out inwardly that the pitch is wrong. The sound
lashes my ear. Silently I plead for them to stop. Yet
they play on.
There is no passion, no sustained theme ; only phrases
woven together, and unwoven, and subtly woven to-
gether again. This music is Bach. Bach at his organ
weaving his intricate fugues. It is not Bach. There
is something lacking. There is something added.
They play on, little hammers flying over bars of
bronze, little sticks rapping the nipples of the gangsas,
drummers fluttering their fingers against double-headed
drums. I listen, and there are no gangsas, no trom-
pong, no reyong. I hear only an ensemble. My ears
no longer cringe. And the men of Den Pasar play on.
Arabesques of tone they make, curious patterns that
take shape, then melt away, and other patterns take
their place, and other patterns. It is a theme! A
theme ! I clutch for it, and it is gone only another
phrase coming out of the tropic night and quickly re-
turning whence it came.
The song of the gamelan is all in a minor key. It
passes before me like a musical shadow. How could I
have thought it sharp or flat? I drag myself back. I
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
tell myself I am beneath a thatched roof in Den Pasar.
I listen again. It is sharp. It is flat. My ear swears
it is flat.
The music swells: there is neither sharp nor flat.
There is only tone. I float on tone. The grandeur of
it. The glory of it. The eternal choir Is singing in a
minor key, and I am drunk with tone and with rhythm
driving through my head, hammering in my blood. Is
that why my head is throbbing?
Always the fan of the boy dancer quivers and al-
ways he crouches upon folded legs. Only the upper
part of his body moves. Like green snakes his arms
writhe their sinuous way, their motion never begin-
ning and never ending. His hands dream through the
air. His hands dart.
The music crashes ; full the trompongs, full the job-
lags, full the jalungs. Arms are still. Shoulders still.
Only the head is motion. It jerks from side to side ;
jerks where the spinal column enters the skull. I see
it, jerking there before me.
The gamelan breaks into a diapason. The boy
writhes in rhythm. His hands dream. His hands dart.
Ceaselessly the fan quivers. . . .
Cracked a mighty chord 1 It was strangled at birth.
The music ended. The boy was a boy once more. My
fingers tried to open. There was a fleck of red on
my lower lip. I got up. I went out. Rain was
falling.
[118]
XVII
IN marriage, the Balinese prove their consummate
wisdom. What a delightful farce-comedy they
play every time they marry! The chief actors enjoy
it, the audience of village folk enjoys it, and I suspect
that the Balinese god of love enjoys it in his own
godly way. How charmingly the married ones live
together I How pleasantly they divorce !
A boy and a girl meet each other at the temple.
Their eyes bridge the chasm. Later they meet at work
in the rice field. Perhaps their hands may touch. It
is enough; it is the beginning of the play.
The boy waits until he is ready; then one day he
seizes the girl and flees through the village with her.
She puts up a mighty fight, screams, kicks, pounds the
head of the man carrying her. But the young lover
knows his part well; it has been played by his father
and his father's father, and he will not be denied. He
takes the girl to his own home or to a house in a village
nearby.
While the abduction is going on, the father of the
girl carefully looks the other way, hearing nothing,
seeing nothing; but once he is sure that his daughter is
safely stolen, he makes his entrance with a howl.
Where is she? Who has dared take her from him?
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He will see the blood of the man who has touched his
daughter. Oh, he knows his part! He has learned it
from thousands of fathers. He struts about, and en-
joys the strutting. He swears his kris is hungry for
the flesh of the man who has taken his daughter. He
summons his neighbors. They go through the village
and to distant villages, making a fine noise, searching
everywhere except where they know the lovers are
hiding.
And all this time the boy and the girl whisper the
secret that only lovers know. Her blows become en-
dearments ; her screams, murmurs ; she confesses there
is naught but love.
After the third day, the relatives of the bridegroom
visit the father. Their entrance is the cue for his big
scene. He rises and out-Herods Herod, vowing
that he has pondered the offense and that only venge-
ance will appease him. But, say the relatives, your
daughter is well; she loves and is loved, and she
wishes to return to her father's house, to bring with
her the man of her choice. They speak words of
solace, but the father is deaf. At last they go away.
Next day they return. At this second visit they in-
timate that a monetary consolation might assist the
father in forgiving the wrong done him. Would
money soothe the paternal anger ? How much money ?
Gradually the father ceases to be histrionic, becomes
practical, and eventually names a sum he knows the
bridegroom can pay: twenty-five dollars, fifty dollars,
a hundred dollars. The relatives pay it and hurry
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away to tell the groom that the father has been pla-
cated. Straightway the young couple come from their
hiding. They go to the house of the bride. And
soon the feasting begins. Fine pigs are served, pigs
beautifully roasted, and with them little cakes. The
village orchestra plays glad music. The priest pours
the holy water and scatters the petals of sweet flowers:
he tells the boy and girl that they are married.
The young Balinese who told me the story of the
marriage custom said that occasionally the father's
objections were sincere; the father then refused to sell
his daughter. But somebody had to sell her, else she
was not legally married. To prevent illegality and
illegitimacy, the Dutch government in such cases plays
the part of the father and sells the girl for a set fee
of six dollars and a quarter. These marriages are
often failures, the wife brooding because she was sold
for only six; dollars and a quarter, while women about
her fetched as high as a hundred dollars. Naturally
she is miserable.
Divorce laws of Bali decree that a woman who runs
away from her husband shall be fined twenty-six dol-
lars; ten dollars to the husband, sixteen dollars to the
government. If the husband keeps the wife five years
and then proves cruel, she can gain her freedom and
demand one third of his property; but if he divorces
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her before a year has passed, he can send her back to
her father and get a rebate.
In pools and waterfalls of Bali I have seen the
native women bathing and massaging their nude bodies.
They rub their skin with pumice stones, with oil, and
with rice powder. They tint their fingernails and
toenails with henna. They are not shy. They un-
derstand no reason why they should be. They are
merely caring for their bodies.
A Balinese man condemned to death in olden days
was first dressed all in white and his head adorned
with flowers. With his friends he went to the temple
of the dead and there he prayed. Afterward he walked
to the cremation field.
A counselor of the court read the judgment, de-
claring that for incendiarism, running amok, accusa-
tion of a regent, or abducting a regent's wife, any one
must die. He named the offense of the condemned man,
folded the palm leaf, upon which the judgment was
written, and thrust it into the girdle of the guilty one.
An executioner, named by the regent or chosen by lot
from all the men of the village, stepped forward and
said : "I am about to kill you, but I kill you not because
I hate you, but because it is the judgment that has been
spoken. And yet before I kill you I must ask your per-
mission. If you do not give me permission I shall not
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kill you. Grant me your permission, for what I do Is
only a just deed."
The condemned man Invariably answered : "Do your
duty. 5 '
The executioner then stepped back, drew a kris from
his girdle, leapt forward, and buried the kris in the
breast bared to receive it.
An old Balinese gentleman told me about the execu-
tion custom in the island. An American lady who
heard him, shuddered as he finished his story. "How
horrible!" she said.
And I thought of men I have seen writhing at the
end of taut ropes, of men and women whose bodies I
have seen rigid as the current raced through them. I
thought of newspaper stories I have written that the
lady and her friends might know exactly how an
American state collected the life debt and exactly how
the prisoner died.
u How horrible!" she said.
I never saw an American walk to his death with
flowers in his hair. I never heard an American warden
ask permission to kill. But I have heard men cry out
as the straps were tightened about them. I have heard
them swear and bellow, only to be hurled back into the
chair and trussed for the slaughter.
"How horrible !" she said.
1 123 ]
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In the early days of Bali all books were made from
the leaves of the lontar palm, the author cutting the
characters in the leaf with a kris. A book was made
by sewing the leaves together. ... It is said that
some of the tales of the Arabian Nights were written in
Bali and that the palm leaf books were carried back
to Arabia by Moslem traders. I hope it is true. It
would be fine to think that Scheherazade drew some of
her exquisite wisdom from this little island.
In the district of Bali where there was a great
drought, rice dying, fields cracking open with the
heat, the priests and elders met and promised temple
offerings if the gods would send rain. Rain came, and
the offerings were given.
But the next year there was a drought, and the next,
and the next. Offerings of all kinds were given, but
no rain would come. Finally a desperate priest prom-
ised the highest offering, a human sacrifice. Straight-
way springs burst forth on the hillside and the people
saw their rice flourish : there would be food and feast-
ing.
With plenty, came sorrow, for the people knew that
some one must be laid upon the altar. In council they
debated how to avoid the sacrifice ; far into the night
they talked, but their talk was futile, until at last an
old man asked to be heard. He reminded his friends
that the offerings were not due until after all crops had
been harvested, and all crops, he said, had not been
[M4]
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harvested. Why should they be? If from year to
year a part of the old rice was left standing, then the
harvest would never be made, the sacrifice never due.
The people of the district laugh at the way they
tricked the gods. And the gods, they say, join in the
laugh; they like to be gods of such clever people.
XVIII
WOMEN and tall straight girls brought their
gifts to the temple. Baskets of sweetmeats
and melons and mangosteens, baskets of hibiscus and
oleanders they brought balanced upon their heads. The
fruits and the flowers rose above the baskets and tow-
ered upward, arranged in layers of contrasting colors.
The road was filled with women and tall straight girls
bringing their gifts to the temple, each girl with one
soft arm raised, supporting the load upon her head.
Beneath the baskets the full bodies of the women and
girls, naked from the waist up, gleamed firm in the sun-
light. From the waist down sarongs of green and
orange and violet, drawn tight, molded curved hips
that swung rhythmically. Naked feet showed beneath
the sarongs. Blue shadows of the lontar palm fondled
the bodies, sliding slowly over the strong young bodies
of the girls.
Men with bright flowers in their hair brought suck-
ling pigs, well roasted, pigs with flowers in their nos-
trils and in their ears. They brought roasted chickens
and palm wine and mats to sleep on. They came to be
guests of the god, in the temple of the god. The men
of the gamelan came. They brought the trompongs
and the joblags and the jalungs.
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In the temple courtyard flags were flying, fed flags
and black flags and white flags; all were silk and all
were flying. Men and women and children squatted;
chattering, they ate nuts and durians.
High above the courtyard rose the scaffold on which
sat the pedanda, the holy priest whose blessing was to
sanctify the assemblage, make sacred the ceremonies;
he sat upon the scaffold awaiting the golden bell to
summon him to his washing, and when the bell sounded
he washed his body, and his wife washed his feet, and
after the body was cleansed, that the spirit of Siva
might enter into it, he washed his teeth with pulver-
ized ashes. Facing the east, he chanted a prayer and
rang a golden bell with a golden tone, then sat down,
for the spirit of Siva had entered Into him.
'Upon the fingers of his left hand were spikes of
gold three inches long. He made patterns with his
hands, an infinite number of patterns, each more beauti-
ful than the last I had never known that human
hands could be altars of rhythm and after he wor-
shiped with his hands he blessed the offerings of the
people as they filed past. All afternoon he blessed the
gifts, while the lesser priests cast the holy water and
scattered flower petals.
That night the gamelan played. In the moon-
drenched night the music surged through me. I lis-
tened to the gamelan and I watched the feasting.
I feasted with them, eating roasted suckling pig and
melons and mangosteens. I saw the lesser priests
serve the meat and pour the palm wine. And when
t M7 ]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
all had finished feasting, the gamelans ceased their soft
dreaming, ended their murmurs of tone, and whirled
into a throb like the beat of an excited heart.
Girls came into the courtyard, dancing with flowers
in their hair. They danced for a moment, then went
away. Younger girls came, girls ten years old, wear-
ing sarongs of brocade, green and gold; and their
headdresses, larger than their heads, were heavy with
gold. The gold of the sarongs and the gold of the
headdresses flickered dully in the light of the palm
torches. Long the girls danced, but I did not tire of
their dancing. I heard the gamelan grow harsh. It
beat in my wrists and temples. I saw the little dancers
weave strange figures upon the ground, marking them
by the path of their naked feet. Long they danced,
then went away.
The gamelan crashed into a new pulsation, faster,
like the quick breathing of passion. An old man with
staring eyes raced about the courtyard waving a sword,
leaping, shouting. Once he stopped and howled. His
white hair was rich with flowers from which petals
shattered. His sword -hissed as he swirled it through
the air. Pounding his sunken chest, he flung himself
high and landed upon lean old legs, then ran away
howling.
I heard men and women breathing to the quick
beat of the gamelan. I breathed with them.
Five girls in sarongs of dull red marched from a
corner of the courtyard, marched to the dictates of the
gamelan. In the right hand of each girl gleamed a
[128]
THE BALINESE HIGH PRIEST
"lie worshiped with Ms hands; his hands were altars of rhythm!'
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
golden kris. Round and round In a circle marched the
tall, the full-molded girls, their muscles sliding softly
beneath smooth skin, quivering bodies rising and ebb-
ing to the beat of the gamelan, breasts heaving, sink-
ing, heaving, sinking, until suddenly one of the girls
stopped. Her feet spread, her eyes closed, her hips
swayed and jerked as slowly she rose upon tiptoe, re-
mained for a moment rigid, then melted to the earth
and lay there, limp.
The other dancers marched the feverish circle;
round and round and round they marched to the
driving beat of the gamelan. Their eyes staring, per-
spiration bright upon them, they marched their rap-
turous way until at last the leader stopped and flung
her arm upward. Her face drawn in ecstasy, her ribs
showing as her breath sucked in and out, her tortured
gasps sounded above even the bombilation of the gam-
elan. For an instant she stood all rigid; then she struck
with the kris. With a great ripping blow she slashed
her breast. Again she struck, and again and again.
Then all the girls were striking with the kris. All were
slashing at their breasts. Their bodies streaming red,
they still slashed.
Old men hopped about the circle. Old men shut
their eyes and clasped their fists until knuckles shone
white like pearls set in bronze. Old men strove vio-
lently to awaken dead embers. Women shrilled their
frenzy, rose, trembled, fell, and lay gasping. Young
men plunged into the circle and fought with the dancers
for the knives, grasping the wet blades and gashing
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
their hands ; their teeth set, they fought for the knives,
got them, and slashed their bodies until their blood
mingled upon the ground with the blood of the dancers.
And then one of the dancers collapsed. And an-
other. And another. Moaning, they lay upon the
ground.
And then the pedanda, the holy priest, high upon his
scaffold, lifted his hand with the golden spikes and .
rang the golden bell. Priests entered the circle and car-
ried away the bleeding bodies of the dancers. They
carried them away. All of them. These new brides
of the god.
130
XIX
IN the Orient, Mac, one misses humor more than he
misses bathtubs. The Japanese, Chinese, and Sia-
mese undoubtedly have their little jokes, but you never
know anything about them. Among the Orientals, so
far as I know, the Balinese alone see the humor in
their daily lives and are gracious enough to let me see
it, too. They carve jokes on temple walls and permit
me to look at them. They are a lot of Peter Arnos
depicting their merry humor in the sandstone of their
churches. I go to the temple to pray, and stay to laugh,
which is finer. Oh, I love these Balinese. They have
taught me subtleties in the art of living.
If you will remember, Mac, the lesser gods were not
famous for their enjoyment of humor. It was Jove
who rocked Olympus with his laughter, seeing and un-
derstanding the cosmic humor in the pettiness, intol-
erance, arrogance, and hypocrisy about him, beholding
both the celestial and terrestial absurdities and finding
them tremendously amusing. Imagine a whole people
blessed with that understanding! What couldn't the
American nation be if the senators would suddenly
break out in laughter, forget their ponderous declama-
tions, leave their desks, and go carve light and far-
cical love scenes on the walls of the capitol? And
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think, too, how jolly it would be if the ecclesiastic fa-
ades along Fifth Avenue were embellished with nudes
so grotesque that they made you laugh 1 Balinese solons
decorate their capital with such carvings; Balinese
priests cut their gay humor into the temple walls. . . .
The art of Bali is born to-day, lives its life span of a
few years, is destroyed, and other creations take its
place. After the exquisite carvings are finished, they
are polished and colored until they look like Persian
enamel; then the rain and the moss come and the carv-
ings soon turn green and crumble away. The temples
themselves are made of a soft sandstone that quickly
erodes and is easily shaken down by the periodic earth-
quakes. But what of that? The fathers built the first
temple ; the sons will build another. Only a small part
of the day is given to labor in the rice fields and to
cockfighting; the rest of the day must be spent in prac-
ticing the arts, else the soul dies. And so the temple
walls and gateposts are covered by intricate and fan-
tastic carvings, whimsical, spontaneous, springing from
the life of the people, from the souls of farmers who
cut stones because they must express the artistry born
within them. The farmers know that soon their work
will be marred by the rain, that soon it will be gone ;
but so will they.
The Balinese know nothing of immortality through
art. They carve because It is their wish, their love
for the moment. No one signs his work. Perhaps
that glorious design of flowers intertwining was carved
by the sailor who brought you ashore on his naked
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back. That terrifying figure of the god may have been
carved by the old man who sells little pigs in the mar-
ket-place. Possibly that face of haunting beauty was
carved by the boy who plows with his water buffalo in
the rice field. The Balinese don't know. They have
forgotten. It doesn't matter. One man carves the
stones. Another plays the trompong. Another ham-
mers miracles in silver. Sometimes they all change.
Understand, Mac, that these temple carvings are
definitely religious. They are Balinese prayers, expres-
sions of the blessed union of art and religion, the most
glorious of all unions. The grotesques of Bali are the
gargoyles of Notre Dame, and they are being carved
to-day; this minute, Balinese men are cutting their
sermons in stones, holy sermons, yet not smug, or
boastful.
With the sacred figures are carved Balinese jokes:
beside Siva-of-the-many-hands rides an Arab trader on
a bicycle, his nose very big and his money bag swollen.
Not far from Vishnu, a stone automobile is held up
by a stone bandit whose pistol is enormous; the scene
is direct from a Hollywood lot, for a Balinese had
been to a movie and later laughed about it in stone. A
short time ago some one carved a realistic depiction of
European soldiers staggering with their bottles. The
scene was too realistic and the government issued an
order. The Balinese cut away the drunken soldiers
and carved a design of holy flowers.
In Bali are many stone expressions of sex. Phallic
symbols are common, for the Balinese are Hindus in
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their religion and honest In their art. Yet they know
to take even love lightly, and in their carvings is a
grotesque cunning which proves their gayety In sex. A
traveler may be disgusted by the obscenities of Pompeii ;
he can only laugh at the drolleries of Bali.
The one disappointment in Bali is the coffee. Bali-
nese coffee may be excellent enough, but neither the
natives nor the Dutch give it a chance. They roast it
until it is black, then grind it into a powder looking like
coal dust, and at night filter it with hot water. In the
morning they draw it off and serve the black goo cold
in one pitcher, hot canned milk in another. One is
supposed to pour the two liquids into a cup, stir them
together, and call it coffee. And don't ask me why
they do it. I asked them why. They said they liked it
that way.
When Balinese girls call on each other, or when they
crouch at the side of the road to chat, they take turns
searching each others* heads for kutus. In former days
this search was suggested by a desire for mutual corn-
fort, but at present the girls' heads are comparatively
free from the little pests and the search now goes on
as a ritual of friendship, indicating that the partici-
pants are fairly intimate.
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The Hindu religion, the religion of the Balinese, de-
crees that the body of man shall be burned. It Is an
easy and sanitary way of disposing of the dead; but
there is an infinitely more important reason, for only
by burning can the soul be released and get back to
Indraloka, Hindu heaven.
No ordinary burning, no common cremation, would
suffice the Balinese; the ceremonies must be elaborate
and costly, indeed so costly that a single family can-
not afford them, and for that reason the Balinese
temporarily preserve or bury their dead, waiting until
a number of bodies are ready for the fire ; then they as-
semble them, pool the money offered by the families of
the dead, and give the souls a glorious farewell.
In preserving a body, the Balinese first spread it
thick with lime, then wrap it tightly and put it in a
coffin with three holes cut In the bottom. Beneath
these holes, pans are placed, and periodically emptied.
When there is no further drip from the first treat-
ment, the body is unwrapped and fresh lime put on,
then wrapped again and put back in the coffin. This
continues for months, until only the bones remain.
Two days ago I was a guest at a house where a body
was being preserved; the host, son of the dead man,
and his friends ate rice cakes and drank palm wine,
laughed and told little stories as they stood beside the
coffin with its occasional drip.
The more common method of temporarily disposing
of a body is to bury it. In preparing the body for
burial it is first washed in fresh water brought from
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a sacred fountain; then a gold ring is placed on the
tongue, a piece of iron thrust between the teeth, a
tuberose put in each nostril, wax in the ears, and the
eyes are covered with little mirrors. Afterward the
body is anointed, dried with the flowers of the silka
plant, wrapped in white linen, and buried.
But the soul must not be buried, for it doesn't like
to live under ground. A hollow bamboo pipe is there-
fore driven down until it rests upon the body, acting
as a chimney into the grave and giving a passageway
for the soul to come up and get a little fresh air oc-
casionally. No one worries about the soul running
away. It can't leave the earth until the body is
burned.
Shortly before a cremation, the undertaker notifies
the families that are preserving bodies, then goes to
the graveyard and digs up those that have been buried.
The bodies that he digs up he washes, at least what
is left of them, wraps in tissue paper and delivers to
the homes of relatives where they are laid out in state.
And now is the time for fine feasting. There must
be days and nights of gayety. Everywhere the gam-
elans play. Everywhere there is dancing, ringing of
priestly bells, smell of sweet incense. Every one eats
well-roasted pigs and drinks palm wine. Every one
wishes the souls a merry journey, a happy visit to
Indraloka, and a pleasant reincarnation.
Early on the morning of the third day chosen men
go to the streams where the bodies have been as-
sembled. They lift the coffins. The signal is given.
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The death parade begins. At the head of the pro-
cession march the gamelans, six or eight or ten gam-
elans, booming out the gay music of the dead. Be-
hind the gamelans, bearers hold aloft coffins carved
to represent all the animals of the land and all the
fishes of the sea, for by the shape of the coffin one may
tell the rank of the body inside : a rajah is carried in a
serpent coffin, a man of lesser rank in a bull coffin, his
wife in a wooden cow. Behind the coffins march the
women and children wearing sarongs of red and gold
and green, their hair bright with flowers.
At the cremation ground the bearers divide, half
against half, good against evil, then open the coffins,
take out the remains and throw them about, tossing
them through the air as the forces of good and evil
contend for the possession of the body. In the sym-
bolic struggle the wrappings may become loosened and
an arm suddenly stick forth, a leg slip from its binding,
a head fall out. Whatever drops to the ground is
picked up. An arm or a leg is particularly easy to
brandish in the race across the cremation ground.
After the struggle has ended, and the forces of good
have won, the body is carried to the funeral pyre.
Friends and relatives cry out for the fire to take the
body and release the soul. Then a torch is lighted
and the flames surge up. In the black smoke that bil-
lows heavenward the souls of the dead race away to
Indraloka and the Balinese are very happy.
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To-morrow, Mac, Pm going away from Ball. I'm
going back to Singapore, to clothes and motor trucks
and adding machines. Here in Bali I walked erect,
laughed with the stars and trees, caught a glimpse of
an earthly Indraloka; I kept a tryst with beauty. And
to-morrow Pm going away. I shall be stripped of my
coat of gold. I shall lose the flowers from my hair.
Once more I shall wear a Manhattan shirt and a Stet-
son hat. And I am sad, even though I know that in
the long years ahead my memories of Bali will partially
lullaby my discontents.
XX
IN the month of Thai, which Christians call Janu-
ary, the Hindus of the world celebrate the festival
of Thaipusam, at which time they pay vows to the God
Subramaniam.
I was in Singapore In the month of Thai. I saw the
Hindus pay their vows. . . .
At the foundation of all, says the Hindu, is Tapas,
which is penance or self-mortification. Through Tapas
the soul can be freed from the senses, from the affecta-
tions and desires of earthly life; to gain this soul
freedom the Hindu will endure tortures and agonies.
He will stare into the sun until his eyes are burned
out. He will hold his arms above him until they
wither and he must be fed like a baby. He will bury
himself, only his head above ground, and remain
buried for weeks. He will sleep upon a bed of thorns
or nails; or hang head downward, a smoldering fire
beneath him; or swing in mid-air, held by flesh-hooks
buried in his back; or pierce his tongue with steel
needles, his body with innumerable darts; or sit be-
neath the blistering Indian sun, five fires at his back;
or sit beside a clear stream, bowls of cool water upon
his head, and die of thirst.
In India to-day are five million Sadhus, professional
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holy men, producing nothing and living entirely on the
bounty of their lay fellows. Many Sadhus voluntarily
mutilate themselves. Many of them assume one pos-
ture which they never change, declaring it best suited
for calm reasoning with the soul, for teaching the soul
that the ways of the body cannot lead to happiness,
since the body is only temporal. Many of them be-
come viraffha mount, men who spend their lives in
speechless silence and in watching their finger-nails
grow to extreme lengths, sometimes growing to such
length, and curving as they grow, that they pierce the
palm, causing infection and death. . . .
The practice of self-torture is so widespread and so
common among Hindus that at the festival of Thai-
pusam the devotees who mortify the flesh are usually
not professional holy men; they are ordinary Hindus
who have asked a favor of the God Subramaniam and
have promised him something in return. Subramaniam
has granted the favor. The Hindu must pay. It is
simply a quid pro quo.
During a serious illness a Hindu may seek health by
making a contract with his god. If there is divine in-
tercession, if the body is cured, then at Thaipusam the
contract must be fulfilled; the man must pay his vow
or be stricken with the original disease, its ravages
greatly increased.
Three days before the beginning of Thaipusam,
those who are to participate, whether because of a
desire to gain celestial credit or because of a necessity
to pay a vow, go apart and begin their fast. For three
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days and three nights they eat nothing and only occa-
sionally sip water. Their wives are forbidden them;
the touch of a woman during the fasting period would
bring horrible disease. The devotee sleeps and medi-
tates. Often he remains for hours Intent upon only
the serene and detached consideration of his umbilicus.
On the morning of the ordeal the zealot bathes his
body, knots a fresh cloth about his loins, and, accom-
panied by. his friends, goes to the temple. There he
sits upon a small stool contemplating his kavadi, a
heavy wooden frame covered with sweet smelling
flowers which he must carry on his shoulder while
making his pilgrimage from one temple to another.
As the man sits in contemplation, a brass bowl filled
with burning cow dung at his feet, his friends gather
about him, one of them chanting from the Theveram,
the sacred book of the Hindus. The pungent smoke
rises and the chant goes on until the zealot stirs, his
muscles become taut, then relaxed, then taut again.
Slowly his eyes take on the blank stare of one in a
trance. Suddenly they become set. The man raises
his arms. He is ready. . . .
I saw one man with twenty-four lemons fastened to
hooks buried in the flesh of his breast. A silver spear,
as large as a knitting needle, was thrust through one
cheek, through the tongue, and four inches beyond
the other cheek.
I saw one man with a hundred spears stuck into
his abdomen and a hundred spears stuck into the small
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
of his back. Upon the upper end of these spears rested
an iron frame weighing twenty-five pounds.
I saw one man carrying an earthen pot of fire. The
flames rose directly before his face.
I saw one man, virtually naked, roll over and over :
he rolled for a distance of five miles.
I saw one man with three hundred darts in his chest,
one hundred darts in each arm, one hundred in each
leg, and five hundred in his back. Across the flesh
of his forehead, silver needles were sewed in and out.
His tongue, pierced by four spears, protruded two
inches beyond his lips. This man weighed two hun-
dred and thirty pounds and he walked on wooden
sandals with a hundred nails, their points filed to a
needle sharpness, driven into them. In the small of
his back six hooks like ice tongs were clamped, then
a rope was fastened to the hooks and to a car weigh-
ing two hundred pounds; the man dragged the car by
the hooks driven into his flesh. At noon, without any
protection from the tropic sun, he made a four-mile
pilgrimage, walking upon nail sandals, dragging the
cart, and carrying a heavy kavadi.
The darts, needles, and spears were at no time
treated with an antiseptic. They were thrust into
the flesh by the ungloved hands of priests. I handled
some of the needles immediately before they were in-
serted and was allowed to drive two of them through
the cheeks and the tongue of a devotee.
At the end of the pilgrimage the priests jerked out
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THAIPUSAM
Upper left: With spears through his cheeks and tongue, and lemons
hooked in his breast, he pays his <vow to the god.
"Upper right: On these nail-sandals one devotee walked four miles.
Lower left: Five hundred darts in his back, and six iron 'hooks in
his flesh! '
Lower right: A seventy- five pound frame resting upon the ends of
spears the other ends resting 1 in his back and abdomen!
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
the needles and darts, applied wood ashes and cow
dung, and gave each zealot, a few drops of water.
After an hour's rest, the pilgrims broke their fast.
At this time no scars or marks could be found upon
any of them. I carefully inspected the cheeks and
back of the man who dragged the cart, but could see
no sign of punctures made by spears or tongs.
As the needles and darts were thrust into the flesh,
there was no bleeding. During the pilgrimage and,
later, as the darts were jerked from the flesh, there
was no bleeding. Throughout the ceremony I did not
see one drop of blood.
During Thaipusam, thousands of worshipers, eager
to attend the ceremonies, come from afar. The
crowds around the shrines are so dense that to advance
a hundred yards requires half an hour. Packed in the
temples, the pilgrims sprinkle holy water and chant
prayers. Upon the terrible heat floats the heavy smell
of flowers and of sweat-pores only half clogged with
sweetish talcum powder.
In the sand courtyard outside the temple, brightly
dressed dancers ceaselessly whirl, flinging themselves
into strained contortions.
Cobras, lifting their heads from baskets in the sand,
sway to the shrill music played by their masters.
The Hindu, ordinarily the whimpering recipient of
kicks and blows, goes wild. As I was photographing
a man with spears in his cheeks and knives in his
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breast, he whirled and crashed his kavadi upon me,
splitting my sun helmet and opening a gash in my head.
Less than a minute before the blow was delivered he
had given me permission to photograph him.
The British government unofficially opposes the fes-
tival of Thaipusam, but because of the essential policy
of religious toleration can not issue an edict against
it, though Britain now forbids Hindus to swing from
poles by the muscles of the back, or to seek holy death
by casting their bodies beneath Subramaniam's silver
chariot as the god rides from one temple to another.
The day after Thaipusam I called upon the leading
European doctors of Singapore. They could not ex-
plain what I had seen. One of them said that he had
lived in Singapore nineteen years and that the Thai-
pusam contradiction of Western medical knowledge,
at least the apparent contradiction, became more mys-
terious to him each time he saw it.
I called on the man who had walked on nails and
dragged the cart. He had merely paid his vow to
Subramaniam. Subramaniam had cured him of fever.
I visited the Hindu priests. They smiled kindly and
told me not to be puzzled: Subramaniam always cares
for his children.
For a week I asked questions and got no answers.
I learned nothing. Apparently neither the science of
the West nor the mysticism of the East can explain
the seeming miracles I had seen.
[ H4]
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Perhaps It is all a form of catalepsy.
Perhaps it is a bodily control about which we of the
Occident know nothing.
Perhaps Subrarnaniam does care for his children.
XXI
MY DEAR DAB: At present I'm stuck on an old
sea cradle rocking along the coast of Malaya.
Ten days from Singapore to Rangoon! I'd get
wretchedly lonely If it weren't for Mr. Finch of
Kansas.
We met as the ship cast off from Singapore. He
offered me a cigar and told me he'd made a million
out of wheat, "Then," he said, "I decided to see the
world. And I tell you, son, it's all the same : the palm
trees of Cambodia, of Slam, and of Java are just
like the palm trees of Florida and New Orleans."
He drew deeply on his cigar, then whiffed the smoke
into the night. "I've been in the Orient four months
and I haven't found any Oriental palm trees growing
ostrich feathers."
Mr. Finch is right. The palm trees of the Orient
are like the palm trees of America; the cities of the
Orient are like the cities of America: they have all
become Americanized. Beyond the city limits one
would be in the forest primeval, among men not gradu-
ated from cannibalism, but a tourist doesn't go into
the forest; he sees no more of cannibals and head-
hunters than a guest at the Blackstone sees of gangsters
down in Little Sicily. The head-hunter is in the jun-
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gle ; the tourist is In the city in the city the heathen
Chinee and the wild man from Borneo both sleep in
iron bedsteads, eat CampbelFs soup, and wear derby
hats.
On a corner in Tokyo stands a department store,
one show-window filled with natty business suits. The
next window displays shoes and neckties; a silver-
topped walking stick lies jauntily across a pair of silk
socks. In the next, three wax mannikins wear gowns
from Paris and New York. The fourth window is
filled with children's wear : little sailor suits, rompers,
corduroy trousers for small boys, printed voile dresses
for small girls. The corner window Is triangular,
the floor covered with sand; beneath a striped um-
brella a lady and gentleman, both wearing beach cos-
tumes from Miami and Biarritz, make frog houses
with a little boy and girl. . . . Inside the entrance, a
floorwalker bows, his hands unctuous: "Evening
shirts? Very good, sir. Second floor, third aisle.
Please take the elevator at your right."
Across the street Is a six-story office building made
of American steel and white marble. One enters
through swinging glass doors. At the right is a wall
directory printed in both Japanese and English. A
signal light announces the arrival of an elevator; the
door is opened by a uniformed attendant. In the of-
fices are flat American desks with glass on top. Beside
1 147]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
each desk Is a metal waste basket. There is a steady
click of typewriters.
After leaving the office building, one goes next door
to a drug store. Upon the glass counters are Amer-
ican soaps and pastes and powders. Signs announce
a special Saturday sale: thirty-five cent soap, thirty-
two cents; twenty cent paste, seventeen cents. "B&y
to-day and save your money." Behind the marble-top
soda fountain stands a young Japanese in white apron
and white coat, a brimless hat cocked at exactly the
correct international angle for soda jerkers. And he,
too, flings the shaved ice into the air, skids the glass
along the counter, and says, "Please pay the cashier."
Tokyo is indicative of other large Oriental cities;
they all have department stores, office buildings, soda
jerkers. Soon the flowered kimono of the geisha will
be completely smothered by creations from Marshall
Field, the silken robe of the mandarin vanish beneath
Kuppenheimer's best.
In making a budget for Eastern travel you can take
this rule as certain and safe: draw up a generous esti-
mate, double it, add some extras, tack on a few hun-
dred dollars for incidentals, and you still won't have
enough.
I have talked with men of great wealth who spend
lavishly, with persons of ordinary means, and with
college professors. The average cost of travel in the
Orient seems to be twenty-five dollars a day, an
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amount that allows first-class travel on steamers and
trains, living at best hotels, seeing recommended sights,
and buying a reasonable number of curios.
The other day in Singapore I hired a guide for six
dollars and an automobile for eight dollars. That
night I rented a sampan for four dollars. My room
and meals at the hotel were ten dollars. The expen-
diture for the day was twenty-eight dollars.
The next day I bought two packs for my movie
camera for fifteen dollars and some Malacca walking
sticks for eight dollars. My laundry came back, the
bill two dollars. In the evening I paid three dollars
to see a Russian troupe dance at the municipal theater.
Taxis for the day were two dollars. Cocktails,
cigarettes, and other incidentals : three dollars. Hotel
bill: ten dollars. Total for the second day: forty-
three dollars.
And this goes on day after day.
There was a time, back in Birmingham, when things
happened as I wanted or a l did something about it,"
but now, here in the Orient, I let Time's withered old
finger scrawl away at its own pace and I do nothing
about it. When I first arrived in the Orient I spent
most of my time kicking against the pricks, demanding
that milk be brought in sealed containers and that
trains leave when scheduled; but after a time my heels
became all bloody and my head very bowed : I learned
the beauty of passiveness.
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"There's no boat sailing this week," says the ship's
agent.
"That's all right What about next week?"
"All passages booked for next week."
"That's all right. Next month perhaps?"
"Perhaps just a minute. I can fix you up for
week after next. WeVe got a freighter going out at
that time. She'll be carrying a cargo of onions, hides,
and live pigs. You'll have to sleep next to the boilers
and eat below deck. What about it?"
"Swell."
In the Orient one soon learns that the native, be
he shopkeeper, taxi-driver, or house servant, has his
own ideas and nothing can change them.
At the best hotel in Tokyo my room-boy closed the
shutters every evening, I told him I wanted them
left open. "Sank you very much," he said. The next
night the shutters were closed. I said I wanted them
left open. "Sank you very much." For five nights
the game went on. He won.
In Peiping I spent a week explaining that I loathed
lemon in my tea. At the end of a week I decided that
lemon in tea didn't taste half bad.
Eight mornings in Siam I tried to teach the cook
to boil an egg to my liking. On the ninth morning
I ordered scrambled eggs.
At a hotel in Java I ordered a second bed sheet,
and, after various adventures, got it. The next morn-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
ing the room-boy took it away. That evening I made
him bring it back. The next morning, while I was at
breakfast, he slipped into my room and stole it again.
If that celebrated philanthropist wished to be a still
greater friend of man, he'd leave the side of the road
and open a travel bureau in the Orient.
In America and Europe, travel bureaus are of some
value; but in the East, apparently, their collective
value is to give incorrect information, misdirect your
extra luggage, and casually lose your letters. Their
greatest service is to lure tourists into spending money,
particularly to see sights of no possible interest.
"Have you seen 'The Hill of a Thousand Dia-
monds'?" asks the clerk at the travel bureau.
"No," you admit, "I haven't seen that."
"What! Not seen The Hill of a Thousand Dia-
monds'! What, what!" he gasps. After he recovers
he calls out: "Here, boy, bring me a ticket and get
me a guide. Be quick."
But you shake your head and go away, leaving the
clerk very desole. Later you wonder. You may never
be in the Orient again. Perhaps you should see "The
Hill of a Thousand Diamonds," though you have no
idea what it is. So back you go, pay quantities of
money, and start on the expedition. For hours you
race along in an expensive automobile. Then you
mount a horse. Afterward you get off and walk.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Finally the guide stops, and, with a great flourish,
waves his hand.
" The Hill of a Thousand Diamonds 9 !" he whis-
pers, somewhat as Moses murmured: a The burning
bush!" You look about you. You are on top of a
little hummock. Below you lie a dozen mud puddles
from which the sun in a half-hearted manner glints
wearily.
At the next stopping place, it's the same story.
Have you seen "The Golden Finger of God"? No,
you haven't seen it, but you'll go. It proves to be
a mangy old rock sitting on some other rocks. And
the sight of the divine digit costs you twenty-five dol-
lars.
So it is with "The Sea of a Thousand Skulls," a
field with a hundred round stones scattered about it;
and "The Valley of the Veils of the Angels," a ravine
where at sunrise one sees a tepid mist oozing along
the ground; and "The Camel of Mohammed," a hill
which a man bleary-eyed drunk couldn't possibly imag-
ine was shaped like a camel.
It's all very annoying, but there's really nothing one
can do about it. We are what we are, and Barnum
found it out long ago.
You may say, Dad, that this letter is a peculiar one
for a traveler to write home. Perhaps it is. Perhaps
I should tell you of only Oriental customs ; but to-night
I don't feel so Oriental. As I sail through the quiet
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
waters off the coast of Malaya, I'm just a little home-
sick; to-night I almost agree with Dr. Johnson: "The
famous sights of the world are all worth seeing, but
none of them is worth going to see."
XXI!
MR. RUDYARD KIPLING, my dear Annette,
is not at his best in his poems of raging trum-
pets, booming drums, and the Union Jack fluttering
high above the Empire. One can applaud a few of
his unquestionably fine pieces; but when Britannia is
his inspiration, Mr. Kipling Is a trifle boisterous. And
of all the Fuzzy- Wuzzies, Danny Deevers, and Gunga
Dins, there's none I so earnestly dislike as "Manda-
lay." We used to sing it in the Oberlin Glee Club:
hundreds of times I've heard the dawn thunder out
of China 'crost the bay. I didn't like it then. I don't
like it now. And I've suffered poetic misery with it
during the last ten days.
Ten days ago I set out to sail from Singapore to
Rangoon. On the way north we put in at Penang,
then sailed from there late one afternoon, steering
for Burma. From that minute a new fire came into
the eyes of the passengers. Their steps quickened.
Their gestures became more abrupt. Daily, nay,
hourly they greeted each other with a poetic quota-
tion. Such a versified voyage would have been alto-
gether charming, except that the quotation always
came from the same poem and was always recited in
exactly the same manner.
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Two women would be walking the deck and would
meet two other women. All four would look at each
other and grin the same grin. Then, in unison, with
increasing speed, and with an ever-rising inflection,
they would repeat, "On the road to Mandalay." After
which, they would pass each other. A few minutes
later in their circle of the deck they would meet again,
and again they would grin and say, "On the road to
Mandalay." Soon that dreaded line became an eagle
tearing at my liven
An old man on board, who has lived in the East
for years, told me that Kipling's poem has brought
more tourists to Burma than all the advertisements
executed by tourist agencies and steamship companies.
He said that men and women of both England and
America eagerly cross ocean and desert to see the little
girl whose petticoat was yaller and whose little cap
was green.
"But you'll find that you made a mistake to come
so far out of your way to see Burma," he said. "Ran-
goon, the chief city of the country, is frightfully dull;
the interior, too, is comparatively uninteresting."
The chief show place of Rangoon is a great page/da
containing relics of Shin Gautama and of three
Buddhas who preceded him ; there are eight hairs from
the head of Gautama, a drinking cup of another
Buddha, a robe of a third, and a staff of a fourth*
With such treasures, the Shwe Dagon naturally is con-
1 155 I
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
sidcred one of the most holy pagodas of the Burmese
world. I'm afraid, though, that Its holiness was a
total loss for me: the guards forced me to take off
rny shoes and socks, leaving me barefooted, hopping
about upon marble blistering hot.
The Shwe Dagon is an enormous bell-shaped pagoda
covered with gold leaf. It is three hundred and sev-
enty feet high, higher than the dome of St. Paul's in
London, and the circumference of the base is one thou-
sand, three hundred and fifty-five feet; each foot of
the base is taken up by four beggars and six other per-
sons trying to sell you flowers, curios, and the usual
gimcracks offered at every tourist center.
Near the bottom of the pagoda is a circular plat-
form upon which shrines have been built; the most
popular contains a golden image of the Buddha, though
my favorite was a tiny one guarded by three little
girls and two little boys who crouched on the floor
behind the images and played "put and take." Peri-
odically it was necessary for one of them to leave the
game, go bang on the sacred gong, and shout for the
faithful to worship. Each little gambler took his turn
inciting the pilgrims to pray. And each little gam-
bler combined a wise faith in his god with a wise dis-
trust of his fellowman, for as he beat on the gong
and bellowed the need for prayer, he carefully peered
around the images to see that none of his playmates
moved the counters in the game.
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The pagoda is reputed the most interesting sight
in Rangoon, but I disagree; far more interesting to
me is a little Burmese girl sauntering along the street,
smoking a cheroot as thick as her wrist. The cheroot
preferred by the Rangoon debutante Is eight inches
long and two inches in diameter. It is good for all
day, and, I'm told, at night is hung on the bedpost as
a mosquito smudge.
At puberty every Burmese girl has her ear-lobes
bored; afterward increasingly large ear plugs are
thrust into the openings until eventually the lobes are
loops of flesh hanging downward. Whenever a girl
wants to rest her cheroot, to save it for another time,
she extinguishes it, then thrusts it through the loop in
the lobe of her ear.
A few days ago I rather annoyed an old Burmese
by telling him that his people permitted their babies
to begin smoking even before they were weaned. He
assured me that babies were not allowed to smoke
regularly until after they could stand alone, though he
admitted that mothers sometimes gave a nursing child
a whiS from the maternal cheroot.
After a stillbirth in Burma, the body of the child
is wrapped in a cloth and put in a coffin; a relative
of the mother then puts a piece of iron beside the
body, leans over the coffin, and whispers: "Thou art
not to return into thy mother's womb until this piece
of iron has become as soft as a young bird's down,"
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One of the most attractive arts of the Burmese is
their painting of delicate designs upon parchment sun-
shades. My first morning in Rangoon I saw a little
Burmese girl tripping along beneath such a parasol
The top had been painted a quiet mauve; upon the
mauve, in soft greens and pinks, ladies walked In
pleasant gardens, an old man read a book, and a child
played with a puppy. Later In the day I saw a painted
parasol upon which men rode forth to battle, swords
were drawn, and mighty buffets struck. I have found
a sunshade much to my liking which I bought for you,
cherie: a young man dreams through space toward a
curved moon of crystal and sings beneath an open
window and bows before the woman he loves.
In the bazaar I bought some honey, beautifully
clear and golden, and took it back to the hotel where
I gave it to one of the servants, telling him to serve
it with my tea. Later when I returned to the lobby
I saw an English lady whose husband is back in the
interior for a month; I asked her to take tea with me.
When the boy brought the honey I held it up to the
light and boasted of its color.
"I bought it myself/' I said.
The lady looked up quickly. "Where?" she asked.
"In the bazaar-' 5
u Then take it away, take it away." She spoke rap-
idly in Burmese to the boy. He took it and hurried
off. "And eat it yourself," she called after him.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"But, why? The honey was "
"The honey sold in the bazaars, my dear old stupid,
has been used to embalm the body of a dead priest*
When the time comes for the body to be cremated, the
honey is drained off and sold."
XXIII
A MAN traveling slowly around the world meets
many other men white men, I mean. Most of
them quickly expose themselves. This man's soul is
mean, and sly, and selfish. This man's soul is rotten
with arrogant vanity inspired by tangible wealth.
This man's soul is honest, and clean, and fine : sturdily
he gets on with the work of the world, feeds the world,
clothes it, keeps it warm.
When men get away from home, from cities and
faces they know, they like to talk about themselves.
Each man wants to parade himself, to make you, a
stranger, understand that he is a man of importance:
in his town he is president of a big corporation, chair-
man of the annual charity campaign, superintendent
of the Sunday school. Most men tell you all this.
Occasionally, though, one meets a man who says
nothing. Silent not because he is stupid, but silent
because there is nothing to say; lonely, forlorn, heart-
broken, he goes his way, wherever that unreasoning
way may lead him. Sensitive he is, suffering, helpless,
knowing that he is helpless, and yet never whimpering,
never raising his hands to ask mercy. Occasionally
one meets such a man, touches his shoulder, perhaps,
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and goes on, saying nothing. I met such a man in
Burma. He was a river pilot.
I first saw him at three o'clock one morning. I was
on board a ship sailing from the Bay of Bengal to
Rangoon. A voice outside the porthole of my cabin
woke me. I lay and listened. It was a quiet voice,
a little tired, perhaps. I got out of bed and poked my
head through the porthole.
The searchlight on the bridge shot down a great
beam; in the profound blackness that gulfed us it
looked like a cylinder of light, like something you
could carry on your shoulder. It stamped out a circle
upon the muddy water of the river. In the circle
six Burmese sailors rowed a small boat. They sat
In couples, lashing out with clumsy oars. I could
see their ribs swell beneath their brown skins, then
collapse as they breathed. I could see the sweat slide
toward the gulley of their breastbones, and disappear
there.
Hunched in the bow was a white man wearing a
cork helmet and a jacket of white duck. His back was
to the light and his face was shadowed. A yellow
raincoat covered his knees. He called his orders in
Burmese and in English.
I saw the sailors in the cylinder of light pass beneath
my porthole. I could hear them breathing. Then a
rope ladder was thrown down from the deck. It
thudded against the side of the ship. The sailors
rowed for it, snorting as their oars sank beneath the
yellow foam of the river and came- up dripping. The
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boat drew even with the ladder. The white man
reached with his left hand, swung himself up, and dis-
appeared into the darkness.
I went back to sleep.
The next morning the pilot was on the bridge. He
was wearing the cork helmet. The yellow raincoat
was folded on the rail before him. His eyes were
set on the river ahead.
To the starboard showed the pier at which we were
to dock. We swung out of the current toward it.
The pilot's orders were few, given in quiet monosylla-
bles. He never looked to see if his orders were car-
ried out; he merely spoke. The great ship, under her
own power, glided up to the pier, hesitated, then
touched the bumpers as lightly as a man putting his
hands together. The mooring lines were cast ashore ;
a moment later they were fast.
"All fast," called the mate.
The pilot turned to the captain and bowed slightly ;
he may have spoken, though I couldn't be sure of that.
Immediately afterward, he left the bridge, crossed the
deck, and descended by the forward gangway. . . .
That afternoon, when I went into the hotel lobby
for tea, I saw the ship's pilot seated alone in a corner.
He wore white ducks, clean and fresh. . . * u ln the
East," an old Dutchman in Java had told me, "when
a man's ducks are soiled, or when he goes unshaved,
he has given up. He has completely stopped fighting
back." "Fighting back against what?" I asked. The
old Dutchman, half owner of a little hotel in
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
Semarang, peered at me ; he seemed to seek in my face
the true meaning of my question. "Against what?"
he repeated, more to himself than aloud. "Against
what is he fighting?" he said again, then looked at me
sharply. . . *
I went across to the pilot's table. "I was on the
ship you brought in this morning," I said.
"Oh?"
He didn't ask me to sit down, but I did. I don't
know why ordinarily I could not have been so in-
trusive but I pulled back a chair and sat down. Fur-
thermore, I made no apologies for doing it. At the
time it seemed natural that I should speak to an abso-
lute stranger, then sit at his table.
"You docked the ship marvelously. IVe never seen
it done so well."
He nodded, that was all. I noticed that there was
no gray in his hair, and I was surprised. I judged
him to be thirty-eight, though for some reason he
seemed older. And regardless of his years he was
older. Birthdays mean nothing to men who have felt
the skewer go through their souls, who for a time
struggled to free themselves, then understood, and,
as best they could, set about the impossible task of
adjusting themselves to the impalement.
A waiter came. I ordered tea.
"Whisky," said the pilot; "bring the bottle."
"Whisky!" I exclaimed, as the waiter went away.
"I thought no man in the East dare drink whisky
during the day. I heard it was dangerous."
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"Fve heard that/' said the pilot
His hair was black and parted on the side. His
eyes were blue and seemed unusually large : he had a
trick of staring without seeing. Despite his apparent
age, there was something almost boyish about his lined
and tired face, something, somewhere, that hadn't
been stifled, that insisted on coming to the surface
and showing itself.
"Do you live in Rangoon?" I asked, after the waiter
had served us.
"Yes."
"It must get terribly lonely here."
"Yes," he said, without looking up from the foot
swinging loosely at the end of one long leg thrown
over the other, "yes, it's almost as lonely as London."
He didn't smile. There was nothing flippant about
what he said. As a matter of fact he wasn't answer-
ing my remark, he wasn't talking to me at all: he
was talking to that foot hanging there talking to It,
but not sure whether it was part of him.
"So you're English," I said.
"Yes."
"I couldn't tell. I heard you last night when you
came aboard. I couldn't tell what you were, your
accent it's all mixed up."
"Is it?"
"Very. At times you spoke almost like an Amer-
ican. Have you ever been in the States?"
"Yes."
"Were you visiting, or were you working there?"
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"I was there for a while, 55 he said.
"You came over on a war commission, or some-
thing?' 5 I suggested.
"I wasn 5 t in the war. 59 He lifted the glass and fin-
ished the drink. "I was too young. 55
"Too 55 I stopped my words, but I saw that he no-
ticed my look of amazement. "Sorry, 55 I dwindled off,
lamely.
"It 5 s quite all right. I understand. 55 He took down
his sun helmet from the hat tree. "Though as a mat-
ter of fact I 5 m not old, I 5 m still young. 55 He bowed
slightly, as I had seen him bow to the captain that
morning. "Thanks a lot for having tea with me, 55 he
said; then with long even strides he left the lobby,
crossed the pavement in front, and walked out into the
road that was changing the yellow heat of the sun into
the white heat of the ground.
I don 5 t know, perhaps two minutes, perhaps five
minutes passed before I got up. I started upstairs,,
but stopped when I saw the assistant manager stand-
Ing by the desk. I went to him.
"See here, 55 1 said, "who was that man I was having
tea with? 55
"His name's WelIston, JJ the manager said.
"Yes, but who is he? 55
"So you wonder, too? 55 The managers right shoul-
der rose, then dropped. "His name ? s Wellston.
That 5 s all I know. That 5 s all any of us know. 55
"He 5 s a river pilot, 55 I said. "He brought the
ship"
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"Oh, I don't mean that. We all know he's a pilot."
The manager, a little man, his face red and pinched
like a young baby's, opened his hands. "But that's all
we know." He glanced behind him. No one was
near. "Except" he dropped his voice "except that
they say he's wealthy. Some even say he's a Baron.
They say he is, though I don't know he may be."
The manager looked up suddenly, as if rather startled
that he had talked so much, then hurried away to his
office and pulled the door shut behind him. . .
For ten days I saw Wellston, Frequently I saw
him in the hotel, a bottle of whisky on the table beside
him. There he sat, and yet one could see that he was
not in the hotel, not in Burma ; God only knows where
he was. I saw him one morning in the bank. Another
day I saw him outside a shipping office leaning against
a post, waiting. Once I saw him at the waterfront.
He had just docked a ship.
"Hello," I said.
"Hello," he answered, and started to stop, but
didn't. He hurried away from me and turned a
corner.
One day we lunched together. I came downstairs
and saw Wellston reading a newspaper. I didn't dis-
turb him. A moment later he came into the dining-
room.
"Thought I'd join you. Do you mind?"
He didn't eat much; and when the waiter brought
the curries, he shuddered. "Can't eat that," he mum-
bled. "Burn you up. Burn you up what's left of
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you." He sat at the table a moment longer, then
got up. "Thanks," he said, and went away, hurrying
as if devils were after him. And devils were after
him, so far as I could tell.
I had talked with him a few minutes one afternoon
at tea. I had asked him some questions about himself,
and I had been thoughtless, unkind, for I had used
the word "Why." Why did he stay in Burma? Why
didn't he go back to England? Why did he work as
a river pilot? In the midst of my questioning I had
suddenly looked at him. He was gazing at me, and
his eyes pleaded for mercy. They said : You wouldn't
ask a man about a hump on his back, a hump endlessly
throbbing with pain ; you wouldn't do that, would you ?
Yet you calmly ask me about the hump on my scul.
And suppose I could tell you about it, tell exactly
when it began its endless growing; suppose there had
been something definite that started it; suppose I had
killed a man, or stolen, or dishonored myself; sup-
pose there had been something definite I could tell
you would that make you understand? Could
you then understand the pain that racks me, tears at
me I who am lonely, wretched, denied the peace that
other men boast of, I who wander over the earth bit-
terly searching for that which I know I can never find.
And suppose I told you everything if there were any-
thing to tell suppose I told you, you'd not understand,
unless you understood before I told you.
I saw him late on the afternoon he lunched with me.
I was walking through the town, visiting strange little
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shops, when I saw Wellston turn a corner and come
toward me. He was staring at the ground, his hands
in his pockets, his shoulders stooped, his tall figure
even more loose than usual. I knew he didn't see me
and I waited until he was almost on rne before I
spoke. He looked up in a hazy sort of way. I saw
him gather himself from all parts of the world, shake
himself free from something.
"I'm out shopping. Won't you come along?" My
question was prompted entirely by politeness, for I
knew he wouldn't come.
"Good of you," he said.
u You mean you will! 55
"Glad to come."
For an hour we visited shops. At the end of that
time, Wellston said that he had to go away. He
would need to hurry. He had to pilot a ship down
the river. . . .
For four days I didn't see him. Then he came into
the hotel one night when I was smoking in the lobby
after dinner. He came straight to me.
"Hear you're going away to-morrow, !S he said.
"Yes" and I wondered who had told him "I'm
going to-morrow, to Calcutta."
Wellston picked up a magazine lying on the table,
but didn't open it. He put it down again. "Thought
you might enjoy a walk," he said.
"I'd love one."
We went out of the hotel and walked toward the
heart of town, I asked about his last trip.
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"Three minutes late," he said. "I misjudged the
current."
We turned a corner and there, at the far end of the
street, hanging just above a palm tree, was a worn-
out moon, heavy, like a nibbled slice from a golden
melon. Both of us stopped.
a The moon," I said, after a moment, "the moon
more indolently dreams to-night than a fair woman on
her couch at rest "
"God!" Wellston broke in. "Baudelaire! Bau-
delaire in this damned place!" For an instant he was
silent, motionless, his arms stiff beside him, his face
toward the sky; then he picked up the quotation:
"Caressing, with hand distraught and light, before she
sleeps, the contour of her breast. Upon her silken
avalanche of " He broke off abruptly. "Sorry,"
he said, and set off down the road, his long swinging
strides moving him quickly away from me.
I hurried after him, and until midnight we walked,
We didn't talk much, though somehow I didn't think of
it at the time. As we were going back to the hotel, we
passed an entrance with a dim light above it. A native
spoke in English, asking if we should like to come in.
"Pretty girls," he said.
We walked on.
"But, sahib, pretty girls. Young girls."
Wellston stopped. In an instant he grew inches
taller. He spat out some words in Burmese. The
fellow drew back: "Sahib," he said. Wellston and I
went on to the hotel We went upstairs to the ve-
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randa. For a time we sat there, drinking, talking oc-
casionally. Finally, we didn't talk; we stared out at
the bay, and at the billions of stars hanging so low
that we could have touched them had we but gone to
the top of the hotel. It was three o'clock when
Wellston got up.
"I'll see you off to-morrow,' 5 he said. "I'll be down
at the pier to see you off. You sail at four?"
"At four.' 5
He started away and had gone half across the
veranda when he turned and came slowly back. He
leaned over the table, his 'hands resting on it. His
face, rather vague in the soft light from the hallway,
was close to mine. For a minute he didn't speak. He
wasn't looking at me. He was looking beyond me,
though he wasn't -seeing anything at all. I could tell
that. "I wonder if ' 5 then he stopped and looked
straight at me. His eyes told of an endless yearning
for release from pain that knows no words and knows
no end. He made a little gesture with his hand.
"I wonder if if " He braced himself. "Four
o'clock?" he said.
"Four."
"I'll be there."
But he wasn't there. The last I saw of him was as
he left the hotel, his long body stooped, his swinging
strides carrying him out into the night. Alone he
went, alone except for the wretchedness of his sensitive
soul, a wretchedness leading him, driving him, silently
submissive, to its obscure purpose.
[170]
XXIV
James Saxon Chllders,
c/o American Express,
Calcutta,
India.
DEAR JIMMY:
I want you to do some work for me. During the
three years you wrote for this newspaper I learned
your attitude toward anything approximating work;
yet I hope you are willing to do a little casual labor.
I have read a number of books on India. Some of
them are word spasms on art. Some are theological
rhapsodies. Some deal solely with political condi-
tions. Others discuss sexual eccentricities. Still others
specialize in dirt and filth. Any one of these subjects
is interesting enough within itself, but I want none of
them from you. You are going through India for
the first time. You know nothing about it. From
your virginal point of view, so far as India is con-
cerned, I want you to write some stories for the Bir-
mingham News.
Don't bother about politics. Don't tell me about
the Taj Mahal. I'm not interested in cow dung. In
other words, get rid of your prejudices, your previous
ideas about the country. Write in a light and intimate
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style. Don ? t stress the sewer motif. Three days ago
I read a book on India. After I finished reading it,
I took a bath. I thought about what I had read: I
took another bath. Don't send me stuff like that.
Sincerely,
C. A. FELL
C. A. Fell, Managing Editor,
The Birmingham News,
Birmingham, Alabama ?
U. S. A.
DEAR CHARLEY:
This morning I was sitting, as Jane Carlyle used to
say, "very half-awake over my coffee," when a servant
brought your letter. Merci!
I landed in Calcutta last night. This afternoon, as
soon as the heat abates, I shall go spy out the country
for you ; though, of course, I shall write nothing until
I have traveled considerably and learned something
about India. I'll probably send my first story from
Benares.
Cheerio
JIMMY
XXV
BENARES, INDIA. I walked on to the platform
of the railway station in Calcutta and showed my
ticket to a uniformed attendant His hands went up,
"Sahib!" he said, and I was a little puzzled, for I
detected anxiety, annoyance, and helpless compassion
in his tone. He motioned, and another attendant
came hurrying. They spoke in their native tongue,
then turned to me. Would the sahib forgive? But
what could they do? They, mere train masters, could
do nothing when the gods willed otherwise.
"What could we do, sahib? We explained that
there was only one compartment not already occupied
by two persons. We explained that you, sahib, one
week ago had taken the entire compartment. You had
bought It. It was yours, totally yours. But mem-
sahib said there was no other way. What could we
do?"
I moved a little closer to them, leaned forward, and
rather snapped my words. "And what did you do?"
I demanded.
They made great gestures of resignation. "A thou-
sand thousand pardons, but there was no other way.
We were forced to put mem-sahib in the sahib's com-
partment."
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"But you can't do that. You can't put a strange
woman in my compartment."
"But she will have a berth on one side of the com-
partment. Sahib will have the berth opposite, on the
other side. It is well, sahib ? Say that it is well. 5 '
It had to be well, for the whistle blew and the train
began to move. My servant and the train master
shoved me into the compartment. They slammed the
door and locked it. I heard the definite click of the
bolt behind me.
She was standing on the far side of the compart-
ment taking off her hat. Her hair was black and her
eyes were blue. And she said: "I must apologize for
intruding."
I didn't answer ; I couldn't.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"And I must apologize" I caught myself, pulled
myself back "for staring. It's very rude."
She laughed, and I thought of a child I once heard
laugh as it rolled a hoop in the Tiergarten of Berlin.
"Naturally," she said, "one would stare at a per-
fectly strange woman who : "
"I don't mean that. I mean well, you see, I was
expecting some elderly person: Judy O'Grady or the
colonel's lady, you know."
"Oh, heavens! I'm far from either. I was born in
Erie, Pennsylvania."
"An American !"
"Yes, I'm in India with my father on business. A
week ago he left rne in Calcutta and went to Benares.
THE LITTLE SHEPHERDESSES
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
This afternoon he came down with fever. I must go
to him."
"Of course you must. And I hope you'll consider
this compartment all yours; I hope my being here
doesn't embarrass you."
"Not at all. In the East we're sensible about these
things."
We talked for an hour. Then she took her travel-
ing bag and went into the shower-room. She came
back in her kimono. Then I took my traveling bag
and went into the shower-room. I came back in my
kimono. In the East we are sensible about these
things. We told each other good night. I read myself
to sleep. Very sensible about these things, . . .
The next morning we arrived In Benares and the
girl andT hurried to the hospital where we found her
father shaking with fever. I asked if I could help,
but she said I couldn't; so I went out to see the city.
Benares is the holy city of the Hindus. Fifteen
thousand temples in the town! And swarms of wor-
shipers in every temple. There is the monkey temple
where a man beats a gong and shouts, and monkeys
come running. One feeds them corn. There is the
temple of the bull-god and the temple of the elephant-
god, a lopsided idol with a huge eye In the middle of
his chest, looking like an illustration from the original
edition of Sir John Mandeville's travels.
The pageantry of Benares is like a fantastic Holly-
wood production. This morning I saw a holy man
with his face painted like a circus clown. I saw a
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young woman with rings on her fingers and rings on
her toes, rings in her ears, and rings in her nose. I
saw cows everywhere, and, following them, dainty
girls, little shepherdesses. They were
With all proper respect for you, Charley, and for
your position as managing editor, I humbly, but sin-
cerely, say I won't. A dozen times I've started a
story, trying to write of India in "a light and intimate
vein," but every time the story dwindles out to noth-
' ing and I never get beyond the first page.
" Write about India and ignore the dirt and filth,"
you say. Perhaps some one else can do it, but I can't,
for in me, as in Montaigne, smells cause an alteration
and work upon my spirits according to their several
virtues. Next, you tell me "to ignore the sex motif."
How can I? Everywhere I go I bump into gigantic
lingrhams, realistically painted, ladies adorning them
with marigold and white jessamine, with hibiscus flow-
ers and forget-me-nots. You, are not interested in
cow dung, you say. Well, it's no hobby of mine, but
in India I see it stuck on the sides of houses, little
cakes of it drying in the sun, and the dainty maidens,
the demure shepherdesses, follow the cow to gather
with their naked hands whatever the cow may happen
to bequeath,
I do not say that the entire country is peopled by
men sexually depraved and physically unwashed; un-
doubtedly there are as many brilliant minds in India
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as in America, as much fine blood in India as in Eng-
land; but, unfortunately, a true understanding is not
for me, or for any other white man. Doubtless
beneath the seething and contradictory surface of In-
dian civilization is a mighty harmony, but the Occi-
dental ear is not attuned to it; and to me it Is only
discord, cacophony.
I'm going to beg off, Charley. I can't write for you.
India terrifies me. I mean that. India so utterly con-
fuses me. I reach for this and I reach for that and
I grasp nothing. I shall give up trying to understand.
God knows I can't understand why Hindus sleep on
cement pavements when they could sleep in beds, why
their priests eat the heads off living goats, why their
holy men squat over fires until they are all blistered
behind.
XXVI
THE Indian snake charmer is an utterly shame-
less rascal. A pariah both socially and
spiritually, he knows no caste, worships no deity, and
laughs at the ignorance of those superstitious ones
who give him money as he goes his fraudulent way.
Cursed by the everliving gods, he swaggers in defiance;
and the gods damn him and his brotherhood,
Vishnu, the second of the Hindu trinity, particu-
larly hates him, for Vishnu once was forced to do his
bidding. It happened one day as a snake charmer
played upon his gourd flute that all the snakes of the
forest heard the compelling melody. They came forth
and danced, obeying the shrill flute. And one of them
had a thousand heads. He, too, danced because his
temporary snake nature forced him, but his god-heart
was black with hate ; for the cobra of a thousand heads
was Vishnu the Preserver, who that day had taken
the form of a snake. And Vishnu cursed the snake
charmer and the snake charmer's sons to all genera-
tions.
Wanderers and outcasts, these men roam the earth,
their baskets of snakes and their gourd flutes ever with
them. They go until they find an assemblage, then
place their snake baskets upon the ground, and play
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the beguiling music which Naga, the holy snake, has
declared pleasing to his spirit. Through centuries,
tens of centuries, the snake charmer has played upon
the punji, the hollow gourd with two reeds inserted
in the stem, one reed drilled with finger holes, the
other a drone. The uninterrupted tonic note and the
rude variation of the jungle theme blend into tones
plaintive, like those of an oboe played softly.
The ghostly melody mounts to the dwelling of
Naga. Pleased, he descends to wake his sleeping chil-
dren that they, too, may hear. For a time they lie
quiet, listening to the strange melody; then its might
comes full upon them, and they raise their heads and
push off the tops of the baskets. Erect, their hoods
widely distended, they stare at the little gourd flute
and sway slowly in endless undulations.
Every snake charmer in India will swear that his
snake has the death fangs; usually he is lying, for
usually the fangs are removed soon after the snake is
caught. They may be cut out by the quick twist of a
bamboo knife. They may be knocked out with a stick.
They may be jerked out by allowing the snake to sink
his fangs, which are turned backward like a cat's
claws, into a silken cloth that is quickly snatched. But
no snake charmer will admit any of this. He knows
nothing about extracting fangs. He never heard of it.
"Is it really done?" he asks, then devoutly swears that
all his snakes have their fangs, that a bite from one of
them would bring quick and horrible death.
The snake charmer's favorite swindle is to stage a
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fight between a cobra and a mongoose. He tells the
tourist that the cobra and the mongoose will fight to
the death: two dollars for a small snake, five dollars
for a large snake. He forgets to tell that all the
snakes, regardless of size, have had their fangs pulled,
or have been bountifully doped with an opiate.
I saw three of these fights, and I lost my respect
for the cobra. I thought that, after all, "Rickey-
Tickey-Tavey" wasn't such a brave fellow. When I
confessed these doubts to my servant he seemed hurt,
but said nothing. Two days later he appeared with
a five-foot cobra. He forced it to open its mouth and
show the death fangs. He swore that it had not been
doped. Then he asked that I go with him to the
bazaar where there was a man who owned a mon-
goose.
We found the old man, the mongoose, a weasel-like
little animal colored brown, sitting on his shoulder.
For a fee he agreed to fight his pet against the snake.
I paid him, and he put his mongoose on the ground.
Its mouth open and dripping, its teeth gleaming
like tiny spikes of ivory, the mongoose rushed about
until suddenly my servant overturned the basket and
the cobra's hood flashed up. Then, save for the
tongue of the snake like a stabbing prong, and the
heart of the mongoose battering against little ribs, all
was still as stone, the snake and the mongoose glaring
at each other.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," crooned the old
man,
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The mongoose moved almost imperceptibly. The
head of the snake turned upon its up-reared body.
The mongoose moved again. The head of the snake
moved. Then once again they were still.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose' 9 and his voice
was soft and low.
The mongoose moved slowly, one step, two steps,
the little body all tense. The head of the snake
turned; the cobra offered only the threat of its bite
and poison.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose. 35 The tempo
was quicker. The tone of the old man's voice had
risen. "Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," he called.
The mongoose thrust forward its head. The cobra
struck. The mongoose drew to one side, then leapt
for the harmless back of the swaying hood. But the
cobra spun upon its own body. And again the mon-
goose was held at bay by that living black rapier.
The mongoose bared his teeth. The cobra struck,
fangs parted; but they closed on nothing, and the cobra
jerked back. The mongoose seemed to step forward.
Again the cobra struck. Again he missed. Again the
mongoose seemed to step forward. Again and again
and again the cobra struck. Always he missed. And
always his striking was weaker, his recovery slower.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," urged the old
man. "Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," he pleaded.
But the mongoose didn't move, except to bare his
teeth and snarl. The cobra struck. He missed.
Slowly the tired head went back. It had not fully
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
reached its resting place when again the mongoose
snarled. The cobra struck. His head wavered as it
went back. The mongoose, giving him no second to
rest, moved forward. Again the cobra struck.
And then there was a brown flash, a gleam of white
teeth, and the cobra was writhing in fine agony. He
whipped his long body. He lashed with his tail. He
lifted his head and jerked. He shuddered in great
convulsions. But the little spikes of ivory held fast.
They held until the struggles of the snake were stilled,
until the convulsions of his magnificent body were
feeble and spasmodic.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," sang the old
man. "Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose," sounded
the soft song of triumph.
The mongoose lifted his head and shook. The body
in his jaw was only a bit of black silken rope severed
from its vital mooring.
"Mongoose, mongoose, mongoose "
This morning I visited a school. As I passed along
a hall I glanced into a classroom, then stopped and
looked, yearning for the educators of America.
A venerable teacher, his beard white and the ivory
baldness of his head crowned by a black skullcap,
gripped the ears of a small boy. Periodically he
jerked the ears forward and periodically he jerked
them backward. In the intervals he clouted the lad on
the jaw.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"Now do you know?" the old man asked, just as the
blow struck home.
"No, sir, 5 ' whined the ignorant one.
'Then" jerk jerk wallop "perhaps this will
help you to learn."
How I longed for the educators of the United
States ! A little of the old Indian's method of teach-
ing, and considerable less nonsense about "play peri-
ods," and our land would bloom and blossom with a
great learning.
At the entrance of an Indian hotel are dozens of
beggars, peddlers, and conjurors, waiting to prey upon
white travelers. At the sight of a tourist they begin
their discordant symphony, and the uproar ceases only
after the traveler has shoved his way through the mob.
One of the most persistent of these rogues is the
man who offers plumes and feathers. As he ap-
proaches, he draws forth a single plume, a saber of
gold, and marks its languorous beauty through the
air. Then the soft and spectral crest of a heron floats
over his hand. And then, like a shower of ivory darts,
an egret feather bursts from its little imprisoning tube,
drawn out quickly by the man who twists it slowly be-
tween thumb and forefinger, causing white sparks to
fly in a confined circle.
"Buy. Buy," insists the peddler. "Chip. Very
chip."
The hotel peddlers, the most unabashed thieves in
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
the world, sell a heron's crest for two dollars, an
egret's for three dollars.
To increase the speed of either bull or buffalo, one
breaks the tail of the animal, then catches the lower
part of the tail and jerks. This method of accelera-
tion is effectual until a particular breakage becomes
immune to pain, though the immunity doesn't seriously
trouble the Hindu, who through the centuries has
worshiped the bull, for he merely breaks another place
and thus begins a new center of torture. The tails of
these wretched brutes are lumped and crooked*
Many persons refer to all Indians as Hindus. The
error is keenly resented, for the Hindu is a member
of the Hindu religion, and the classification is entirely
ecclesiastic, not at all geographic or national. A per-
son who speaks of all Indians as Hindus might as well
speak of all Americans as Episcopalians or Catholics
or Methodists. The Indian refers to himself as an
Indian, and calls the North American Indian a Red
Indian.
A very little jewelry is sufficient, and too much is
essentially vulgar. An American or European woman
who loads her head and hands with jewels thereby
classifies herself: one can be reasonably certain that
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she bullies her servants and invariably serves cham-
pagne. Unfortunately the beauty of a single rope of
pearls, of one jade dinner ring, is not recognized in
India. Indian men and women burden themselves with
jewelry, and the gewgaws of an Indian child are count-
less.
The coolie who carries your luggage, and his
brother who pulls your rickshaw, will have their ears
pierced with several holes, a loop of metal, preferably
telegraph wire, swinging from each of them. Be-
sides, they will wear two or three bracelets of tele-
graph wire and half a dozen anklets of the same
material.
Many women puncture the cartilage dividing the
nostrils and hang rings through the openings; some
of the rings are so large that they dangle below the
lips and rest upon the chin. Another favorite method
of decorating the nose is to cut a small hole in the
side of it and sink a diamond or ruby in the flesh.
In Benares I saw a girl with four rings looped from
the cartilage of each ear, two pendants swinging from
each lobe. The sides of her nose were studded with
gems, and three gradated pendants hung from the
nostril cartilage. Her fingers were stiff with rings;
twenty-four bracelets were on each arm, four anklets
on each leg, rings on each toe, and a curious little silver
mesh bag on each big toe. She was just a little Indian
girl on her way to church.
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At night one sees hundreds of coolies asleep upon
the cement pavement. Occasionally they have a
blanket beneath them; usually, though, there is nothing
to ease the rigor of their slumber. On cold nights
they lie wrapped from head to foot in white sheeting.
They look like corpses.
White prestige must be maintained in India. The
native must never learn the truth, nevef know that the
white man, too, can become ragged and hungry and
sink to extending the palm. As soon as a European
gives evidence of financial or moral disintegration, his
passage home is paid and he is persuaded to leave.
XXVII
DEAR Richebourg McWilliams: The dining-room
of the hotel at Agra was crowded; a rush party
of tourists was hesitating for the night. I sat alone
at one side of the room. Two tables away sat three
men and two women. One of the men dominated the
dining-room. He was a big man with a loud voice,
reddish-blond hair, freckles on his neck, and two upper
front teeth of gold.
"I don't see no sense in goin' out to this graveyard,"
he said.
The synthetic blonde beside him looked up quickly.
"Aw, don't say that, Noisy. We got to see the Taj
Mahal: it cost fifteen million dollars."
Noisy sucked in a whistle. "That's a lot of dough,"
he said. "Ain't it a lot of dough?" he asked the table.
For a moment no one answered. Then a man po-
litely said: "Yes."
The reticence of the rest of the table in no wise
dampened Noisy' s rhetoric. He discussed India, mak-
ing it plain that he disapproved of many practices in
the country. He argued that India should be liberated,
then answered his arguments himself. He announced
that the steak was lousy. He insisted that stopping
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a whole night just to see a graveyard was plain crazy.
"Ain't it crazy?" he demanded.
Again the blonde defended the Taj Mahal. The
place cost fifteen million dollars ! Any place that cost
that much was worth taking a look at.
After dinner I was drinking coffee on the veranda
of the hotel; two men asked if they might sit down.
For a time we chatted. But even above our conversa-
tion we could hear Noisy at the far end of the ve-
randa telling his opinion of a guy who'd washed one
of Noisy' s shirts and busted three buttons off'n it.
One of the men at my table glared. "I'm going to
shoot him before the cruise is over,' 5 he said.
'Til buy you a gun to do it with," said the other.
"Who is he?" I asked.
One of the men opened his hand, then closed it.
"Just a tough from somewhere," he said. "He and
his blonde are on the cruise that's all we know."
"Except that he makes an infernal nuisance of him-
self," added the other man. "He knows everything
and talks incessantly."
After I finished my cigarette and coffee, I hired a
cart and started on the mile drive from the hotel to
the Taj. The little pony had jogged about half the
distance when a stream of cars swept by me. From
one of them a man leaned out. "Hey, bud," he
shouted, "this right for the graveyard?" I recognized
Noisy's voice and told my driver to go slowly, for
I wanted Noisy and his blonde to lose themselves in
the grounds of the Taj before I arrived. I had never
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been there before and I wanted nothing to mar my
first visit.
Three centuries ago lived a woman named Mutaz-i-
Mahal. The Emperor Shah Jahan loved her and took
her for his wife. She bore him thirteen children, then
died. Straightway Shah Jahan called for the artists
of his own country and sent messengers into distant
lands, requesting that designers and builders come to
his court. They came, bringing with them their
dreams in stone and marble ; among them came Master
Isa Afandi, the Persian. He showed the emperor a
little wooden model with which Shah Jahan was
pleased. Twenty-two years later the tomb was com-
pleted, and Mutaz-i-Mahal laid in her vault.
Shah Jahan went about the business of state, caring
for his people, caring for their property. Without
warning, his son fell upon him, took the throne and the
crown, and imprisoned Shah Jahan.
On moonlight nights the old man sat on the balcony
of his prison, looking out at the sacred Jumma flowing
its silver path through the valley, and at the Taj rising
milk-white into the heavens. And Shah Jahan dreamed
of old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago.
He dreamed, too, of youth and love, of a voice and
words in the night. Then one day he ceased to dream.
They came and tenderly lifted him. They carried him
across the sacred Jumma, over the marble way, and
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down the marble stairs. They laid him beside Mutaz-1-
Mahal.
There was darkness : not merely the darkness of or-
dinary night, there was a velvet invisibility. Then the
moon, a pale lady wrapped in a gauzy veil, parted the
jet curtains and shyly entered the sky. And straight-
way the trees loosed their sable cloaks and stood forth
In silver. And from the shadows there rose, its out-
line uncertain, an alabaster wraith.
Men say the Taj Mahal is a building made of
marble then the paintings of Giorgione are only pig-
ments smeared on canvas with a brush, and Beethoven's
Fifth is merely notes played on the tuba and the bas-
soon and the violin. For me the Taj Mahal is not a
building that can be touched and photographed ; it is a
partial answer to man's eternal longing for the ex-
quisite rapture attendant upon transcendent beauty*
I feel this divine overtone despite a belief that archi-
tecturally the Taj is not a perfect building. There is,
perhaps, too great concentration of mass ; and this im-
pression of central heaviness, is increased by four
minarets that rise like needles and contrast too vividly
with the great domes. Besides this doubt about the
perfection of proportion, there is a feeling that the
Taj is too cold, too impersonal in its classic reticence;
nor is this coldness overcome by the abundance of
carvings, filigrees, and precious stones placed in pat-
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terns that, unfortunately, do not merge and throb with
the life that one feels in the cathedrals of England
and old France.
And yet, as one sits in the moonlight, gazing
through the lacy veils that rise from the fountains be-
fore the Taj, as one sees the dome all washed in silver,
one forgets trivial technicalities of mass and propor-
tion, one forgets that this is a tomb built for a woman
by a man, one even forgets that the hands of man
made it.
A fat and barefooted Indian swung aloft a shutter-
lantern that shadowed silhouettes upon the wall: we
were climbing upward from the lower vaults, leaving
the Emperor Shah Jahan to sleep beside Mutaz-i-
Mahal. A great quietness was about me, within me
a great peace.
At the entrance of the tomb I turned and looked
back, listening for a moment to the song of the cen-
turies, then I descended the outer stairs. I walked be-
side the fountains that lie between the dual rows of
cypress trees. I walked away from the Taj Mahal
slowly, for one does not hurry away from a benedic-
tion.
As I walked I heard a woman speaking. "Come
on," the woman said. "Let's go home."
There was no answer.
"Let's go home, Noisy. We been out here three
hours."
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The voices came from beneath a peepul tree that
stretched its shadow toward the silver domes.
"Aw, Noisy, come on. I'm tired and sleepy and "
"You shut your God damn mouth " I recognized
Noisy's voice "I want to look. This place wel! 5 I
want to look, that's all"
XXVIII
I WISH, Annette, that you could see my native
servant. He is twenty-five years old, his skin is a
glowing sepia, his smile is endless, his legs are superbly
bowed, his old coat has never been pressed, and his
invariable matutinal salutation is "Damn fine morning,
sahib, damn fine morning."
In other parts of the Orient a traveler can care for
himself, but the surprising Indian standards of clean-
liness, comfort, and sanitation, virtually force one to
employ a native servant, or "bearer," as he is called.
My servant first appears each morning with early tea.
After putting the tray on the night-table beside the
bed, he draws a bath and lays out linen, places my
shoes, which he has shined during the night, beside
the dressing stand, then leaves the room to squat out-
side the bedroom door and wait until summoned. If I
desire him to accompany me sightseeing or shopping,
he silently salaams; if I ask him about places to visit,
he speaks respectfully, never forgetting to salute; if
I don't want him, he waits until I depart, then
straightens the room. Afterward, he once more takes
his place in the hallway and stays there all day.
At night he spreads his thin blanket on the marble
floor.
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The bearer is most needed when the European
travels, for Indian trains are different from those of
other countries; there is no extra provision for night
travel During the day one sits upon the wretchedly
hard benches covered with polished leather. At night
the bearer spreads over them blankets and sheets he has
rented from a travel bureau; there is no other bed.
All night the train sweeps across the barren plains
of India, and all night the sand drifts into the com-
partment, getting into one's ears, one's hair, between
one's teeth. At the first morning stop, the bearer
comes in and brushes away the top layer, then goes
Into the shower-room, with which every first-class com-
partment is equipped, and lays out towels and other
requisites, absolutely none of which is supplied by the
railway company.
In rather an impersonal sort of way I have become
a little fond of my bearer. I don't love him as I love
my old darky In Alabama, or Wu, the Chinese rickshaw
boy in Peiping who told the doctors: "Master here:
Wu here." I don't love him because I don't know,
Annette, I can't explain, but one simply does not get
en rapport with these Indians.
In Japan I made a number of friends I shall always
hold dear. There are a score of Chinese I love. In
Siam, in Malay, in Java, In Bali, I felt at ease with
men born to be coolies and men born to be kings. I
have sat with them and smoked; we made gestures,,
and parted friends. I can't do that in India ; probably
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it is my fault, but to me there seems a heaven-high
wall between Indians and all white men s a wall that
began to rise a hundred centuries ago.
I came to India with a particular desire to see
the Indian rope trick. For years I had read of
Indian conjurors throwing a rope into the air and
causing it to remain taut while a small boy climbed
up and disappeared into the cloud. The first con-
juror I asked about the rope trick smiled at me, the
second laughed, the third swore that the trick could
not be done, had never been done, and that only
the amazing credulity of the Occident nurtures the
rumor.
Last night beneath my hotel window a dozen In-
dians sat in a circle and listened to a native expositor
chant the news of the day. For a time I tried to
sleep, but the rise and fall of that falsetto chant pre-
vented me. I went to the window and asked the na-
tives to adjourn or to chant more quietly. The
chanting went on fortissimo. Thirty minutes later I
again asked courteously for an adjournment. I was
ignored. Finally I threw some water. It didn't
reach them. Again I tried to sleep, but couldn't.
For another thirty minutes I endured it; then I made
silent apologies to advocates of international friend-
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ships, and went to the window once more. Two golf
balls missed him, but a soda syphon laid him low.
An American traveler starts out as "Mister." In
Japan he becomes "San. 55 In China he is "Master";
in Indo-China, "Monsieur"; in Malaya, "Tuan"; in
the .Dutch East Indies, "Den Herr"; and in India,
"Sahib."
Since I have been in India I have seen a number of
American tourist parties, and I wonder, Annette, why
some Americans go absolutely barbarian once they
step upon foreign soil.
Once I saw a lady from Kansas go into a private
garden in London and pull roses. I saw a gentleman
from Ohio cut a splinter from a beam in Burns's cot-
tage at Ayr. I saw a man from Missouri get up in the
middle of Hans Sachs's "Prize Song" and walk out
of the Dresden opera house. One afternoon just at
sunset I saw a group of men and women on the
Acropolis. Two of the men, handkerchiefs laid across
their arms, pretended to be Greek waiters and solicited
orders for eggs straight-up. One Sunday morning in
Rome I saw a carriage dash up to the wall that sur-
rounds the Protestant cemetery, that holy place, and
a lady and her daughter step out, peep through the slit
in the wall, glancing at the spot where Keats lies, and
beside him Severn. "Now," said the daughter, "now
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that we have done Keats's grave, where do we go?"
One hears a Frenchman or an Italian or a German
or an Englishman say: "American." That Is all they
say and all they need to say. But what can one do?
One can not go up and tell them that they are mis-
taken. "This vandal who pulled flowers In your gar-
den, this barbarian who left the opera house, this
bejeweled little wench busy 'doing 5 the sacred places
of the world they are not Americans as Americans
really are. There are one hundred and twenty mil-
lion Americans back in the United States who wouldn't
pull your flowers or leave your opera house. Can't
you understand? And I want you to understand; be-
cause If you did, America and Europe would be more
friendly, and the world would be better off; you
yourself, provincial and a trifle humorous in your
arrogance, would be tremendously benefited.' 5 The
European, still provincial and still arrogant, politely
accedes, but in his heart he repeats the cherished op-
probrium: " American."
In Europe one undoubtedly sees occasional evidence
of boorishness In an individual American, exactly as
one sees similar evidence in Englishmen or Frenchmen
or Germans. In Europe this boorishness Is compara-
tively trivial. In India it is serious, for it shows itself
in ridicule of religious practices.
In Bombay last week I saw an American grab the
hand of a Hindu child and hold her while another
American photographed the sacred vessel she carried.
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In Lahore 1 saw an American make the holy caste
marks on his forehead with a lip stick, then exhibit
himself to his laughing companions and to the hor-
rified priests. In Peshawar I saw an American stop
a Mohammedan and ask him to have his wife unveil
so that her picture could be taken. In Benares I saw
an American stand beside the Ganges, turn up his nose,
then spit into the water. ... I wonder what would
happen to a Hindu who came to Birmingham, Ala-
bama, and, in a church, with everybody looking on,
turned up his nose, and spat into the baptismal font.
And I wonder what was in the hearts of those Hindus
who saw my countryman defile the holy Ganges.
In China one learns to speak pidgin-English, a jar-
gon made up of English words with Chinese syntax,
which, after it is once used, forever pollutes the speech,
particularly when one addresses an Oriental. One for-
gets that only the Chinaman of the lower social classes
can understand pidgin-English, and one speaks it to
any Oriental from the Sultan of Djocjakarta to a
Burmese dancing girl. Most of them merely shake
their heads, but the Indian, who speaks the best English
of all Orientals, usually bows, puts the pidgin-English
into good English, then answers the question.
One morning, while my bearer was out on an er-
rand, I rang for the hotel room-boy.
"Sahib?" he queried.
I wanted to know the distance to the Kalighat, the
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famous Hindu temple, "You savee how far number
one Kalighat joss house ?" I asked in perfectly simple
pidgin-English.
The man's eyebrows snapped together. f 'Sahib ?"
he repeated.
"How far joss house? Pagoda Kalighat you
savee?"
"Oh" his face cleared "you wish to know how
far is the Kalighat from this hotel? I should say it
is about three miles, Sahib." He bowed. "Is that all,
sahib?"
"Quite," I said.
Most Indians paint mystical symbols upon their
foreheads to indicate the sect to which they belong.
The followers of Siva draw three horizontal lines,
one above the other; the lines are made by clay from
the banks of the Ganges, by sandalwood ashes, or by
ashes of human bodies. The followers of Vishnu
draw three lines at such angles as suggest the footstep
of the god. Followers of other gods mark their fore-
heads with a single black line running from the hair
to the top of the nose. Others have one or more red
or yellow dots. Still others have markings unmistak-
ably phallic. Holy men paint their faces in amazing
fashions, besides smearing their almost naked bodies
with ashes and cow dung.
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, before you lies the
famous palace of Agra* Those sandstone walls are
forty feet thick, seventy feet high, and a mile long.
Within them once lived the famous Shah Jahan and
his beloved Mutaz-i-Mahal. Within them died the
emperor as he sat gazing at the Taj Mahal, the tomb
he had built for his favorite wife. Come this way,
please.
"You are now passing over a bridge that spans a
moat thirty feet wide and thirty-five feet deep. Just
follow me, please. We'll go up this incline. Hurry
along: we want to see everything. It's all part of the
tour.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are entering
the actual palace of Shah Jahan himself. Here the em-
peror lived. Here Mutaz-i-Mahal lived and here she
was loved by the emperor. At your left are the ruins of
the private baths. At your right is the famous prome-
nade. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the great
marble courtyard. See the balcony at that side. There
sat the emperor. See the balcony at this side. There
sat honored guests. They looked down at dancers
and musicians, and from those balconies they played
the game of chess.
"A strange game it was when the emperor played
chess. At his signal, slave girls came forth. They
wore cloths of gold, and cloths of silver, and silks of
brilliant hue. There a girl with a black miter upon
her head. There a girl with headdress of ivory carved
like the head of a horse. Eunuchs led them forth.
2O
THE ORIENT OCCIDENTALIZED
Top: A school in Shanghai.
Center left: My bedroom in a Japanese hotel.
Center right: Theater in Singapore.
Lower left: Singapore traffic policeman.
Lower center: A Chinese tailor's advertisement outside a shop in
Peiping.
Lower right: A Siamese bell boy.
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"Sixteen girls were placed on the marble squares be-
fore the emperor, sixteen before the guest. The em-
peror called his move. The guest called his move. The
strange game went on. As each piece was lost, the
little slave girl salaamed until her forehead touched
the marble floor, then withdrew to that part of the
courtyard over there right over there, lady.
"After many moves had been made, the guest called :
'Queen's Bishop's pawn takes.' The emperor leaned
back, and laughed, and patted his sides. 'King's
Bishop to the Queen's Knight's fifth and check/ he
called. The guest studied the board. Long he looked
down, but, at last, he rose and bowed to the emperor.
'It is check,' he said.
"The emperor laughed and demanded another game.
'Perhaps,' he said, 'my pretty slave girls troubled you.
Perhaps you saw them, and their symmetry and their
beauty, and you forgot the game. Perhaps they caused
you to think of more pleasant pastimes than a game
of chess. If they did, we will change the pieces.' The
emperor turned to his chamberlain and spoke. The
man salaamed and withdrew.
"Slaves brought sherbets and sweetmeats. Musi-
cians played softly. The emperor and his guest sat
in silence, planning their attacks. And the sun beat
down on the courtyard. And there was no stirring of
air except from the fans of peacock feathers waved
by giant slaves.
"Then the doors of the dungeons opened, and there
sounded the clank of chains. Naked men with chains
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about their ankles struggled into the courtyard. Thin
whips curled through the air and bit the naked flesh.
"Quickly the chamberlain placed the prisoners upon
the squares where you, ladles and gentlemen, are now
standing. Sixteen prisoners he placed before the em-
peror, sixteen before the guest. Each man was cos-
tumed for his part : upon the head of one was a black
miter; upon the head of another, a piece of ivory
carved like the head of a horse. The chamberlain
retired. Soldiers passed before the chained men, giv-
ing each a short sword. And straightway the em-
peror leaned over the balcony.
" 'Pawn to the Queen's fourth, 9 he called.
"The guest called his move; the emperor called his.
Then the guest called: 'Queen's Bishop takes pawn.'
Immediately the prisoner who wore the insignia of
the Queen's Bishop began to drag his chained feet
toward the square of the waiting pawn. The square
there, lady that one yes, that's right. The pawn
turned to face him. The Queen's Bishop drew nearer,
came this way, directly by where you are standing, sir.
He held his sword before him. Nearer he came, and
his sword rose. And the sword of the pawn rose.
Then they crashed together. Two naked men with
chains about their ankles were fighting for a square
in a game of chess.
"With a quick jab the Queen's Bishop thrust. The
pawn warded the blow. He tried to leap forward,
but the chains weighted him, held him. He tried to
balance himself. His throat became exposed, and
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
then his throat and chest were scarlet. For an in-
stant he stood, then his legs were limp; he settled
slowly to the chains and to the crimson flow that wid-
ened there upon the square where you are standing,
lady.
" Tawn to the Queen's fifth/ called the emperor,
"And that, ladies and gentlemen," said the guide,
as he took out a handkerchief and wiped his face, "was
how they played chess in this marble courtyard;
though I don't see how it's too hot. Goodness
knows to-day is certainly a burner. And how, if you
please, just follow me. Come this way. I'll show
you a room with golden walls and precious stones in
the ceiling and come along, sir, come along. You'll
hold us back."
I realized he was addressing me. "If you don't
mind," I said, "I'll just stay here."
"But you won't see the room with the golden walls
and precious stones in "
"I'll wait, if you don't mind, here in this marble
courtyard. It is a hot day."
XXIX
THEY were two drunken American sailors ashore
in Calcutta. I met them coming out of the
marketplace. They were carrying a chicken coop full
of monkeys that they had bought for their girls in
Hoboken, New Jersey.
"Hey, buddie you an American?" asked one.
"Sure," I said.
"Then come have a drink," said the other, dropping
his side of the coop. "What the hell's the use in not
having a drink?"
I didn't have anything else to do, and the idea of
having a drink with two sailors rather appealed to me.
We started from the marketplace. One sailor said his
name was McClung; the other said his was Sandgreen.
"What about the monkeys?" I asked, as we walked
away.
"What monkeys?" Sandgreen asked.
McClung slowly turned around and steered a
wavering course back to the chicken coop. He pulled
open the little door and watched the monkeys race
out and scurry away; then he started toward Sand-
green and me, his knees rising high and his heels hitting
hard. "Wait till they grow up to be baboons," he
said. "Then we'll come back and get 'ern."
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We hired a taxi, and Sandgreen got in first. He
had on dungarees, a white shirt, blue tie, and a khaki
helmet. McClung wore white trousers, a white shirt
open at the throat, and a cap. They were as powerful
men as I had ever seen, particularly Sandgreen: he
was a Swede of five feet, ten inches, weighing two
hundred pounds.
We went to the Nagasaki Tea House, a dive run
by a Japanese and patronized by British troopers and
sailors of all nations. McClung and Sandgreen bought
drinks for everybody inside, then went to the door
and called out invitations to the public. They drank
quantities of beer spiked with two quarts of whisky.
Suddenly Sandgreen decided he wanted to see the city.
He tacked for the door, and by devious routes made
it. McClung and I followed. Outside we climbed
into a taxi and for three hours we rode, touring Cal-
cutta. Several times the driver stopped, pointed at
the meter, and said: "Pay, sahib. Pay money, 51 but
Sandgreen would wave him on, telling him not to
worry about money: "Buy you a new taxi, if you don't
like this one, you squint-eyed walrus."
At ten o'clock at night the driver turned to the side
of the road and stopped. He pointed to the meter.
I leaned over and saw that it registered exactly fifty
roupees.
"Pay, sahib," the man said. "Money."
"Aw, go on," Sandgreen said. "Go on before I
bust you one."
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
The driver mumbled something I couldn't under-
stand.
"If we Swedes had this country we'd chop your
bloody heads off," Sandgreen announced. "Go on, I
tell you."
"White man no good, 5 ' said the driver.
I reached for my purse. "Let's pay him; then we
can get another taxi. If he wants "
"Don't pay him nothin'. We'll pay him when we
get through ridin'. We'll buy him a new taxi."
And then the driver signed his death warrant.
"Englishman no good," he said.
McClung shot from the back seat as if springs had
thrown him. "Who the hell you callin' an English-
man?" he said. "I'm an Irishman and I'll beat your
no-good brains out." McClung dragged the man from
the car, held him by the throat with his left hand,
and smashed his face with his right fist. "Call me a
bloody Englishman, will you?" he said, as the driver
crumpled to the pavement.
Where they came from I'll never know, but that
Hindu taxi-driver had no sooner hit the pavement
than we were surrounded by a mob of jabbering, ges-
ticulating natives. They shouted and waved their
arms, and over their heads I could see scores of other
natives running toward us.
"We better get out of this," I said to Sandgreen.
"We better get out of it fast."
"Hell, no," he said. "I like it. I like it lots."
A Hindu darted forward and stuck his face close
[206]
HINDU HOLY MEN
Upper left: The longer the hair, the nearer he is to heaven.
Upper right: He has held Ms arms over his head so long that he
can never tower them: thus he attains salvation.
Lower left: In India there are five million Others just like him.
Lower right: This holy man has a peculiar idea about the physio-
logical location of the soul.
PROM SIAM TO SUEZ
to Sandgreen, speaking rapidly. Sandgreen stared at
him, glassy-eyed. The man kept on talking and point-
ing at the Hindu sprawled on the pavement. The
Swede seemed rather puzzled; then slowly his face
cleared and he began to laugh. And as he laughed he
shot out his great fist and hit the Hindu in the mouth.
I heard a squashing sound, and I pledge you the Hindu
traveled six feet before he collapsed to the pavement.
The crowd roared its fury. Sandgreen laughed and
shouted for them to come on. A man got too near
McClung, and McClung hit him below the left ear.
The Hindu sank to the pavement as if his legs had
suddenly turned to water. The crowd closed in on
us. I saw one man with a knife and I called out to
Sandgreen. He leapt upon the Hindu, caught his arm,
and jerked it backward* The knife fell to the pave-
ment. Another Hindu stooped for it. McClung
kicked him in the face and the fellow sprawled. Sand-
green still was laughing as he forced the Hindu's arm
up his back until something cracked; then Sandgreen
gave the man a shove and he fell with his arm lying
at a grotesque angle beside him. McClung slugged
three Hindus who kicked at his groin. Sandgreen
laughed, crashing his fists about.
Six native policemen fought their way through to
us, and a moment later two English police clubbed
their way through. Then a siren sounded and a riot
car carrying eight English policemen armed with au-
tomatics swirled to a stop at the edge of the mob.
With guns drawn, the Englishmen joined the circle
[207]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
of native police guarding us, and the mob fell back
But Sandgreen was not satisfied. Still laughing, he
struggled to break through the police and get at the
Hindus. The police tried to quiet him. He wouldn't
be quieted ; he struck at the police. Finally the signal
was given and one of the native officers raised his club
to knock Sandgreen out. McClung saw the club go
back; with his left hand he caught the policeman's
beard, and with his right hand he broke the policeman's
nose. Instantly the other officers leapt upon us and
held us until the patrol came and carried us away.
Sandgreen's shirt was completely torn from him.
McClung was bleeding from the mouth ; one of his
knuckles was split. My left arm was numb from a
blow above the elbow and blood was running from a
cut in my left leg.
"McClung," said Sandgreen, "they were too damned
easy. All we did was tap 'em."
u Too damned easy," agreed McClung.
During the remainder of the ride, Sandgreen and
McClung bemoaned the Hindus' failure to fight, de-
plored the interference of the police. They were still
grumbling when the car stopped, the door opened,
and a squad of native police escorted us through the
outer gate of a prison. We were led along a stone
passage and down a long flight of worn steps that
took us fifty feet underground. There was no light
except the rude flare of kerosene torches that the
guards held above their heads and that splotched heavy
shadows upon the walls.
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
"I'm McClung," announced the Irishman, as we
entered the receiving room and were met by an Eng-
lish officer of police. "NlcCIung, seaman from The
Far Ranger docked at Kittapour docks with a cargo
of Manchurian nuts from Darien and tin from Singa-
pore. I want to get out of here."
"And I'm Sandgreen," announced the Swede. "And
I want to get out of here."
The English officer looked at me. u And who are
you?" he asked.
"Never mind," I said. "But I'd dashed well like
to get out of here, too,"
"We'll see about that to-morrow," he said. "You've
already caused enough trouble for one night."
The native sergeant of police finished searching us.
"Come along," he said. "Come this way."
The prison was built six hundred years ago by an
old Mohammedan ruler. I saw dozens of cells filled
with prisoners, some of them in chains. Near the end
of the corridor the guard unlocked a huge door and
put us all in the same cell.
"Now I know how them monkeys felt," said Mc-
Clung, as the door shut behind him.
"What monkeys?" Sandgreen asked.
The cell was eight feet square, totally unlighted,
and with only some straw scattered in one corner.
There was a stifling stench, for there was no sanitation
of any kind; yet within ten minutes Sandgreen and
McClung were snoring in lusty sleep. I made the
best I could of it, and at daybreak I saw that the
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
stone walls of the cell were thirty feet high. Twenty
feet from the cell floor was a small opening, heavily
barred, through which came a little light and a little
air.
At seven o'clock the guards passed along the cor-
ridor. They opened a trap in the door of each cell,
poured some dry yellow meal into a trough and handed
in some fresh water. That was our breakfast. At
lunch they gave us more meal, more water, and a hor-
rible shriveled fish that stank to heaven. At four
o'clock in the afternoon the captain of The Far
Ranger came to the jail and offered bail for Sand-
green and McClung. The English captain of police
was kind enough to allow me to make bail for myself.
At the door of the prison I shook hands with the two-
seamen and bade them good-by.
Three days later we met in court. Sandgreen was
fined one hundred roupees. McClung was fined fifty
roupees. I was fined ten roupees. "I am fining you,"
said the native magistrate, "according to the relative
damage each of you did."
" What's that?" said McClung.
"I'm fining you according to the damage each of you
did. Sandgreen I fine one hundred roupees. Mc-
Clung I fine fifty roupees."
Four native policemen caught McClung just in time.
u You can't insult me, you bloody banshee," McClung
shouted.
"Court is adjourned," said the magistrate, and re-
tired.
[210]
XXX
REMBHA the dancer was born as the gods stirred
the waters, searching for immortality. Born of
the foarn of the waters, as light as foam she dances
before Indra, god of the firmament; queen of the
Apsarases, heavenly dancers of Mount Meru, she is
goddess of the Indian nautch girl.
Ages ago Rembha came down from Mount Meru,
and with her came the other Apsarases. They were
cared for by Chandra, god of the moon, and Kama,
god of love. As the Apsarases journey over the
land, teaching mortals to dance, the Gandharvas, the
sixty million sons of Brahma, heavenly singers born
imbibing melody, saw them and loved them. And the
heavenly dancers married the heavenly singers, and
their children married demigods, and their grand-
children married mortals, and so the nautch girl was
born.
"It's a good story, old boy," I said to my host in
Bombay, "but there is a similar one about Aphrodite,
the Greek goddess of love, at whose touch flowers
spring forth, and for whom the Graces weave sweet-
smelling garlands, and in whose girdle lurks that lov-
ing converse that steals the wit of even the wise. The
story is dear enough, but the modern maid of Athens
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Is n ot speaking frankly so compelling. By any
chance has this same moldiness crept over the mod-
ern daughter of Rembha?"
My host put his glass aside. "Do you know, 5 ' he
said, "I've never seen a real nautch girl, and I've been
In India five years.' 5
"I can't understand it," I said. "I left home with
a keen desire to see the geisha girl of Japan and the
nautch girl of India; there is almost as much poetry
in dreaming of one as in dreaming of the other. In
Japan the little geisha, adorable creature, is every-
where, but in India the nautch girl is almost legendary ;
one never sees her."
"The tourist seldom does," my host agreed, "but
they are here, plenty of them. The maharajahs have
them around their palaces to dance and sing and an-
swer their various wants. In southern India there are
dancing girls in the temples, deva-dasis they are called,
who are servants of the gods, who dance twice each
day, fan the idol with Tibetan ox tails, and carry the
holy light in the temple procession ; besides these, they
have other sacramental duties: they answer the
amorous urge of the god whenever it is manifested by
one of the priests; they are, in reality, harlots and
little more. The institution of temple prostitution is
a thoroughly rotten one, but it is limited to a very
small part of India and enlightened Indians are mak-
ing noticeable headway in their efforts to abolish it."
"But," I said, "I can't become a maharajah, and
I have no desire to become a priest, not even an Indian
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
priest, yet I sincerely want to see a nautch girl dance.
How do I go about it?"
s Tve no idea/ 9 my host replied.
Three days later I asked another friend. He had
no idea. A third and a fourth person were unable to
tell me how to find a nautch dancer. So I called my
servant and set out on a pilgrimage to that part of
Bombay given over to ladies of no virtue, reasoning
that among them should be one who could dance me
a nautch.
At the end of a long street my servant and I stepped
from our taxi. We were greeted in nineteen different
languages, none of which I understood, and by nine-
teen different gestures, all of which I understood. I
passed on. Before one house sat a little girl whose
skin was tinted like the blossom of the wild straw-
berry; she spoke to me in Arabic. Across the way,
and from a balcony, sang a woman of Ethiopia, her
hair coarse and untamed, her skin like sable, and two
pearls swung from her ears. From the mouth of an
alley a brown woman motioned to me; her silken
trousers were blue and her bolero was scarlet. A Chi-
nese woman in a lighted doorway beckoned and called
out: "Can do. Can do."
I walked along the middle of the narrow street and
my servant walked from group to group, always ask-
ing for a woman who could dance the nautch. For
half an hour he searched, then found a man who knew
such a woman. We followed him through dark streets
and alleys until he stopped before a doorway and mo-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
tioned us to go inside. We climbed three flights of
smelly stairs and came to a balcony. Beyond an open
door was a room in which sat nine men and one woman.
Her hair, blue in its blackness beneath the light,
shone with a heavy gloss. The nails of her fingers
and the nails of her toes had been touched with henna.
Her lips were red, and her eyelids were lustrous with
kohl. Saffron made golden her skin. Mingled with
scented oils of olives and coco-palms and sandalwood,
there rose from her body the heavy scent of ambergris
and musk, of frangipani and attar of roses. Her
silken sari was blue, silver threads woven into it, small
mirrors sewed upon it. There were bracelets upon
her arms, jewels in her ears, and from her nose hung
a loop of gold.
A man rose and bowed to me. He pointed to a
place on the floor. I sat down and he passed me a
carved box in which was betel, areca-nut, and lime;
he passed me cigarettes.
At one side of the room sat the orchestra : one man
played the tabla, the hand-drum; another, the Indian
flute; a third played the sitar, a stringed instrument.
There was a second sitar, played by an old man whose
beard was white arid plentiful; just above the soft
beauty of his beard, two empty sockets showed in his
gaunt skull. The head of the old man wavered cease-
lessly, except when he played; then it lay upon his
sitar like a venerable caress.
The primitive melody was untroubled by contra-
puntal harmonies. With a slow cadence the theme
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evolved, dissolved, repeated itself. And as the flute
and sitar sang the songs of ancient India, and the
drums sounded their insistent beat, the woman bound
her ankles with ropes from which hung scores of bells;
and when she had fastened the ropes, she stood erect.
Looking at no one, she raised her arms slowly until
they were above her shoulders; and all in an instant
she was no longer a woman, but a statue in bronze.
Her body tense, her eyes locked, there was no motion
except that periodically one finger-tip quivered, one
eyebrow tilted. Long she stood like an Image from
the temple, then gently she tapped one foot, and
sounded her ankle bells. At first the bells murmured
like fairy chimes in far-off chorus; then the set chord
swelled and swelled and swelled until, like endless
thunder, it closed in and pressed. And suddenly the
woman was all motion, all a furious whirl. Her naked
feet struck the floor in quick explosions, her arms were
circles of grace, her body a pivot of passion. But only
an instant she danced in ecstatic torment; then once
more she was tense, her eyes locked, one finger-tip
quivering.
The flute and the sitar sang softly and the drum
was a faint pulsation. Motionless the woman stood,
until the flute and the sitar drifted into a dream mel-
>dy, slow, like an old man praying. Then the bells
[sounded softly and the body of the woman swayed
and sank in rapturous circles until at last she knelt.
Kneeling, her body rigid, no muscles moved; then her
eyebrows moved, dancing in exciting languor. And
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
then her eyebrows were still and her hips dreamed with
the sitar and the flute and the drum ; they dreamed a
voluptuous reverie, pleaded In amorous eloquence.
From the body of the woman rose the perfume
of ambergris and musk, of frangipani and attar of
roses. The room was close and I was rising with
Renibha from the foam; like foam I was floating with
her to Mount Meru. I saw the Apsarases dancing
before the god Indra. I knew the heavy drug of
sensual beauty. *. . * My servant touched me. The
dance was ended.
In the passage outside the room, an old woman,
her face all wrinkled and skin limp at her throat, ap-
peared with a candle. She held it above her head and
led us along the balcony. Twice she turned to speak,
and twice she said nothing. We descended the stairs.
At the outer door she put her hand on my arm, her
old withered face close to mine.
"Once, sahib, me nautch. Me dance, sahib, like "
She broke off into Hindustani. And as she babbled,
she tried a dance step. She began it, but it ended
grotesquely, for the joints were full of pain; the aged
legs refused the rhythm that beat in her burning mem-
ory. She fell back against the door. "Money, sahib,"
she pleaded. "Money, money."
XXXI
DEAR CLIFF PATON : I wonder if you remember a
certain afternoon back in the summer of 1922.
We were very quiet as we dressed in the tent beside
the Thames at Henley. And later we all grinned
rather sickly as we swung the little Worcester College
racing shell high overhead, then put her in the water.
I shall never forget the cries from the punts packed
beside the booms, nor the long row down to the start-
ing point, nor Number 3 in the Clare College boat
from Cambridge, who smiled and nodded and said,
"Good luck" just before the referee called us forward
to row, asked if we were ready, then fired his gun.
After that I can remember the slow, steady crouch
over the stretcher, the drop of the oar into the water,
and the drive back. I remember our coxswain, little
Peppin, huddled in the stern, calling the numbers. I
remember the roar from far up the river,, how it grew
louder, then lulled as we swept in between the booms, i
and suddenly disappeared altogether and there were
only two crews giving stroke for stroke.
But most of all, Cliff, I remember, and I suspect
that you remember, the last two hundred yards. Clare
was winning back the few feet we had won early in
the race, winning them back by inches. One could
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
hear the thump of their oars in the locks, the silken
swish of their boat as it cut through the water, the
shrill cry of their coxswain calling the numbers. We
got excited. We tried to quicken the stroke. We
lashed out with our oars, and chopped the water*
Clare came up faster; she was almost level, and still
she gained*
Yet never did Billy Barton change his long even
swing. Never did he change his rate of striking.
Coolly he held his stroke. And suddenly we all set-
tled to the rhythm he demanded. We crouched
steadily over the stretcher, dropped our oars, drove
back; steadily out, drop, hard back; steadily and
then we were over the line, and were trying to sit
erect long enough to see whose number went up ; and
our number went up.
To-day in my library back in Alabama there hangs
an oar with a black cross on a pink blade. Sometimes
I look at it, and at the names painted on it, and I re-
member how one boy whipped not only the enemy
crew, but the seven men behind him, who tried to get
out of control.
"I tell you," said Billy Barton, "that you're insane
to want to see Kalighat."
"And I tell you I'm going," I answered. "I've been
in Calcutta a week. All you've done is give rne mar-
velous meals, take me to clubs, and drive me around
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the city. So far as I know, so far as I've seen, Cal-
cutta is very little different from London."
"But Kallghat is 5 '
"Very well, it is but take me there."
Long years ago Kali was killed by order of the gods.
She was chopped exceedingly fine by the discs of Vishnu
and nothing escaped the destroying knives except one
of her fingers that slipped through the discs and fell
into a jungle where for ages it lay unnoticed. When
it was discovered, a wealthy man built a temple over
it, honoring Kali and her finger: that's how Kalighat
came to be.
Barton and I arrived at the place at eleven o'clock
in the morning. The sun melted and dripped slowly
upon us. Sacred cows and sacred bulls shifted about
the stone yard of the temple; proof of their presence
through the years rose pungently. Blind beggars, beg-
gars without noses, beggars with running sores, rubbed
themselves against us and pleaded for alms.
A priest saw us and charged through the crowd of
worshipers kneeling before the image of Kali. He
scattered devotees on the right hand and on the left,
clearing a passage that we might get a good glimpse
of the holy image; which, after I got, I didn't want.
He showed other images that reminded me of Parisian
postcards. He pointed out a group of men squatting
about a small brazier upon which a wood fire burned.
Repeatedly they put their fingers to the flame, then
touched themselves,
"Fire worshipers," said the priest.
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
He led us into a small courtyard in time to see a
man grab a goat by the hind leg, swirl it into the air,
and drop its neck into the forks of a wooden post.
Another man shoved a peg through two holes in the
post, thus locking in the bleating head. A priest
tossed some holy water on the neck, lifted a great meat
cleaver, and brought it down a soft murmur, and the
eyelids of the goat were slowly closing. The body
was thrown aside. An old woman grabbed up the
head and began to gnaw it. . . , Since I had eaten
only coffee and toast for breakfast, I might have made
it all right if I hadn't seen a beautiful young woman
drop upon her knees, brush away green flies, and wipe
her lips and tongue in the blood.
After Billy and I once started, we did rather well,
visiting the Eden Gardens, the Indian Museum, Vic-
toria's Museum, a perfect mate for that architectural
scarecrow of her consort's in London, and the cele-
brated Jain Temples, which, like many other temples
in India, are so monstrously decorated and elaborately
adorned that unity, essential to beauty, is shattered
into a thousand fragments of stone and color.
Through the centuries India has been influenced by
Aryan, Dravidian, Turk, Iranian, Scyth, Mongol, and
by cross breedings of them all. These national and
political influences have corrupted the purity of In-
dian art and show horribly in scores of mongrel tem-
ples and palaces. The cathedrals of Europe are made
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
up of nave and transept, of colored glass and carved
figures, of columns and towers- and a hundred com-
ponent parts; but each cathedral is a precious unity
and each part is but a note that rose from the devout
throat of medieval churchmen who worshiped partly
in stone; each cathedral, as Goethe remarked, is a
frozen symphony. Because Indian art lacks this unity
it frequently impresses one as a mosaic of contradic-
tory pieces that do not make a picture. In a room of
red-and-gold ceiling the lower part of the wall is deco-
rated with a conventional flower design done in green;
above is a frieze of pederastic monkeys. The bronze
statue of a god, its belly spotted yellow, stands be-
tween a carving of a white elephant and a row of
phallic symbols; the god has forty arms, the elephant
ten trunks, and each phallic symbol is a mighty boast.
After three days of tourist life, Billy and I gave up.
In the morning he carried on with his duties, and I
wandered through side streets and little shops. In
the afternoons we went for drives, or took tea with
some one, or visited the rowing club, where we changed
into shorts and rowed leisurely down the river, Billy
keeping the stroke long and even.
The night I left Calcutta I had dinner at Barton's
home. At the table were three of his friends, two of
them army men. Four Mohammedans, great bulky
fellows with fierce beards, waited on us; Barton con-
versed with them in Hindustani. After dinner the
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FROM SI AM TO SUEZ
punkahs waved slowly over our heads, and we smoked,
drank our "brandy, and talked.
a One of my men snuffed it this afternoon with
cholera," Billy said.
"There's cholera down our way," another man said.
"Dysentery is doing for us," said one of the army
men. "Five good lads in my company are down with
it."
"Do they get over it?" I asked.
"Sometimes they do, though it's not unusual for
them to snuff it."
I remember that I straightened in my chair, sat
more erect. "But doesn't all this sudden sickness, this
sudden death, get your nerves?"
No one was quick to answer. One man smiled, and
another spread his hands. Barton finished his brandy.
"I don't know," he said. "Probably it does, but
there's nothing you can do about it. A man does his
job, that's all."
It's a long way, Cliff, from an English lad in a
racing shell holding the stroke steady at Henley, to an
Englishman doing his job in India. It's an awfully
long way, but it's the fine way so many of you men
travel. And that night in Calcutta I believed I partly
understood Wellington's remark about Waterloo be-
ing won on the playing fields of Eton; I almost be-
lieved that I understood what you chaps mean by "The
British Empire."
XXXII
MY DEAR JIM CHAPPELL: The bazaars of smaller
Indian cities are the most fascinating market-
places in the world. In them one sees men from the
hills and from the plains, with turbaned heads and
shaved heads, tattooed faces and painted faces,
dressed in robes of scarlet and no robes at all. Veiled
women in white walk beside women in saris of green
and red and yellow; the skin of one woman is like a
lily when it is young, of another like a magnolia blos-
som after it has been touched. The swarming buyers
in their bright costumes look like the rainbow all
broken up and boiling.
Tradesmen and craftsmen, their goods spread be-
fore them, tirelessly urge the purchase of silks, brass-
ware, cloths, jewels, spices, grains, flowers, carvings,
birds, fruits, tapestries, shawls, dried foods. Dust
from the feet of men rises upward and mingles with
dust from the feet of elephants and camels. Bracelets
and anklets clink and clatter and the cries of dealers,
buyers, and animal-drivers, blend into the rude sym-
phony of Oriental commerce. And the sun swings low
and burns with a cruel force.
The bazaars in larger cities are less picturesque, for
they are merely collections of small shops all under one
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
roof, like a municipal market in an American city.
The cement floors and aisles are frequently sprinkled
and swept There is only an occasional uproar, and
no elephants at all.
In these bazaars are roving salesmen working on
commission for all shops. Immediately a European
appears, the commission agents fight each other and
sometimes fight the European in an effort to act as
escort and thus earn a few pennies. Besides the peri-
patetic salesmen, there are barkers in front of each
shop who likewise specialize on Europeans. When-
ever they see one, they hurry to him, salaam, and ask
him into the shop, promising him a present. I have
been offered everything from a golden turban to a
brightly decorated bit of bedroom crockery, for the
barkers figure it is worth anything to get a European
inside, knowing that the angel had more chance with
Jacob than the European has with them.
Public porters, almost as persistent as Indian beg-
gars, combine with the commission salesmen and bark-
ers to make the European's visit to the bazaar an
ordeal. Whenever a European appears, the porters
rush to him and implore his patronage. If he waves
them aside they drop back; then each man in turn ad-
vances and exhibits a numbered brass check upon his
sleeve which indicates that he has been licensed and
that, so long as you are watching him closely, he can
be trusted.
A foreigner who buys nothing can keep the porters
at a distance, but once he has bought even a package
[224]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
of pins, they swarm about him and will not be denied,
They get in his way and he has to walk around them.
They push and whine and snatch until finally he sur-
renders and hands over his package of pins. The
nearest man grabs it, solemnly places It in the center
of a huge basket, puts the basket on top of his head,
and, at a distance of three paces, follows the European
back to the hotel.
An Indian and I were joking about cleanliness in
each other's country. I brought my favorite accusa-
tions and for each of them he had a countercharge.
Finally I cited what I thought a most unpleasant habit
of the Indians.
"Yes," he admitted, "but you Occidentals have a
habit even more unpleasant. You carry handkerchiefs,
use them once, then use them again." He shuddered.
"It is horrible."
Burning ghats are places where bodies of orthodox
Hindus are cremated. The most holy ones are beside
the Ganges at Benares; they are recesses cut into the
bank of the river and floored with stone.
A body is first dipped into the river, then placed
upon a pile of wood, sacred butter thrown over it,
and the wood lighted. If the body doesn't burn fast
enough, young men pry it up with poles so that the
flames can do their work more easily. While the cre-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
mation goes on, the death band plays its wild discords,
holy men crouch and stare, beggars besiege tourists,
and small lads skip about in hilarious games of tag.
Three mornings ago I almost missed an early train :
I had ordered my servant to bring me breakfast at
seven o'clock and it was not brought until seven-thirty,
and then by a strange man. When I arrived at the
station my servant was waiting for me; I'm afraid my
remarks were a little unkind, though after I had
spoken I was sorry.
The next day I was still more sorry, for after tell-
ing the story to a friend I learned that my servant
should not have been censured. He is a Hindu and
could not have defiled himself by touching the food I
was to eat. It was necessary for him to search until
he could find a Mohammedan and send him in with my
food.
When I arrived in Bombay, Jim, I found several
letters from you. In all of them you asked about the
political unrest in India. I'm sorry, but I can answer
none of your questions. I should be impertinent were
I to try, for I know very little about Indian history,
virtually nothing about Indian people, and absolutely
nothing about the actual, the unpublished, dealings be-
tween Indian leaders and their English overlords. Nor
can I recommend any book that will tell actual condi-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
tions. The volume recently written by a woman which
has furnished most Americans with their ideas of
Mother India is as unkind, as unfair, as prejudicial as
any book I ever read. Virtually every other book
about India is partisan, either pro-British or pro-
Indian. Furthermore, almost none of the stories that
get into American newspapers can be fully believed:
they have passed over entirely too much water not to
have been craftily diluted.
Yet even if you could believe all the books and all
the newspapers, you still couldn't understand. In In-
dia there are great beauty from the past, a fine de-
termination in the present, and a noble dream for the
future; at the same time there are starvation, de-
pravity, and decay. In India divine beauty springs
from a foundation of filth like a flower from a dung-
hill; the most noble chastity exists in the same temple
with professional immorality. Added to these be-
wildering contradictions are all the group hatreds,
religious, racial, national, class, and their petty sub-
divisions, flourishing throughout the country.
In the face of such confusion, no Indian or English-
man dares indicate how best to solve the mighty riddle ;
none of them knows what is best for India, England,
and the world. You will, therefore, appreciate my
absolute sincerity when I say that it would be imper-
tinent for me, or any other transient, to attempt to dis-
cuss India and her political problems.
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
You have asked me, too, about Gandhi. I can tell
you nothing: he Is as much an Individual puzzle as
India Is a national perplexity. Yet I am willing 1 to
risk a prophecy: I believe that within one hundred
years Gandhi will be the God of the East. As you
know, he claims no greater divinity than he concedes
to other men; but if one considers his life, one sees
that Gandhi has all the qualities required for a god.
There are needed only a few disciples to come after
his death, pick up his teachings, add to them, misin-
terpret them, read dogma into them, endow the dogma
with divinity, then Heclare that he is the one for whom
all mankind has been waiting: thus men create their
gods.
Notice the symbol that Gandhi has given. In India
the great curse of the country is unemployment.
Gandhi is giving employment : he is giving the spinning
wheeL In place of the militant crescent and the sub-
missive cross, in place of the Inarticulate prayer-wheel
and the disjunctive caste marks, Gandhi is giving a
spinning wheel, a symbol of industrialism, the new
world-religion that has been waiting for a symbol.
One morning in Delhi I wanted to photograph a
magnificent holy bull. This fellow, after the manner
of his kind, was casually wandering along the pave-
ment, shoving his head Into shops to pick up whatever
food he could reach. When I first saw him he was
stretched so far into a doorway that I couldn't focus
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
him in my lens. The shopkeeper saw my difficulty
and very accommodatingly cracked the sacred bull
across the face with a two-inch plank. The animal
moved his head. I got my picture. The shopkeeper
invited me to buy some holy beads.
The picturesque turban of the Indian is regarded by
most Occidentals as merely a headdress corresponding
to the Western hat. The turban does serve to soften
the power of the sun, but it has even more important
duties, for by its color, shape, and the way It is
wrapped, it announces the rank and profession of the
wearer.
In the early days of white settlement in India, no
man was rebuked for extra-legal marital relations with
a native woman; but now that has changed, and no
European who desires to maintain social standing dare
openly keep a native mistress; though he may, of
course, marry a native woman without official stigma.
Eurasians in India call themselves Anglo-Indians.
I have been told that they prefer to live apart, and
that they are not contented, hating both the European,
whom they ape, and the native, whom they pretend to
despise.
[229]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
A thousand times on this trip I have wished for you,
Jim: in Japan where men pray to kindly Shinto gods
and priests wear robes of brocade and satin; in China
where gracious old men with thin beards tell the great
wisdom of Confucius, and where, across the way, other
old men tell of Lao-tse; in India where Brahmins dis-
cuss the Vedic gospels and Parsees speak of Zara-
thustra. In all parts of the Orient I have wished that
you could talk with the yellow-robed followers of the
Buddha, and see the Faithful kneel at sunset, touching
prayer-rugs with their foreheads and acclaiming Allah
the only God and Mohammed his prophet.
In Japan I met a young Japanese priest, no older
than I, yet with learning born before man was born,
and all one afternoon we talked, eating little sacra-
mental cakes, colored green. In Peiping I came to
know the wisest man I have ever known, an old, old
man whose hands were thin and trembling, and who
smiled, and who only asked questions. In Siam I
spent a night, then another, with a priest, a fatherly
old man of seventy, who talked in quiet tones of Gua-
tama and of freedom won through self-analysis and
good deeds. In Singapore I walked beneath the green
lace of the palm trees and heard a venerable man talk
of Allah, Lord of creation, the merciful, the compas-
sionate. In India I have listened to ancient wisdom
spoken by reverent lips.
All this wisdom, all this understanding, is confusing
to me. It has upset me. I came to the Orient to see
heathen: I have been told about them all my life. I
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
came to see barbarians and savages, Buddhists seeking
self-extinction through inaction, and Mohammedans
swinging the sword of Islam. Instead I find men
of infinite learning, quiet philosophy, and a serene ap-
preciation of the universe and its guiding forces.
In the Orient much rottenness is cloaked by re-
ligion. Millions of men are oppressed and rendered
mentally sterile in the name of religion. Millions of
men never see the evening star, because their eyes are
ever lowered in prayer. In the name of religion, men
mortify the flesh to enfranchise the spirit; they en-
feeble themselves and become as useless as the stone
idols whose poses they imitate. And in the name of
religion, we of the Occident send men and women mis-
sionaries to teach that which we know, because we
know, because our fathers knew before us.
At present in the Orient are three groups of mis-
sionaries : those who teach and practice medicine, those
who teach Occidental science and Occidental literature,
and those who teach the creeds of their individual
churches.
In the East I have talked with kings and rickshaw
boys, dancing girls and wives of American millionaires
long resident in the Orient, and I have heard only
praise for the medical missionary; he with his work is
acclaimed by every one.
Missionaries who serve as teachers are not unani-
mously applauded. It is said that many of these mis-
sionaries teach dogma under the cloak of science, creed
disguised as literature. It is said, too, that the native
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
goes to the mission school, picks up some or none of
the facts taught there, takes unto himself some or
none of the spirit of the place, then returns to his
home and continues his life exactly after the manner
of his fathers.
American residents in the Orient have told me that
the spiritual missionary sent into the East is, in most
cases, not so learned as the men who serve as priests
and teachers in Oriental religions. They further say
that missionaries live in a comfort and ease which their
abilities could in no wise give them if they dared match
themselves against American competition in America.
And they greatly deplore the International complica-
tions that follow the advance of those super-fanatics
who march out into uncivilized areas seeking the mar-
tyr's glory.
Many natives of the East are bitter in their resent-
ment of America's invasion of their spiritual life.
Many of them have traveled in America and have
heard evangelists speak of the universal God in base-
ball slang, have attended revivals in the mountains of
Tennessee. The speech of these Orientals is mingled
with gall when they talk of missionaries coming from
such sources to enlighten nations of timeless wisdom,
"to save" nations of absolute spirituality. They insist
that the chief success of the missionary is to cause the
Oriental to hate; the missionary, his country, and his
God.
XXXIII
of us were drinking Cinzanos on the
JL balcony of the hotel in Bombay.
"There's too much Angostura in this thing," com-
plained Cynthia.
"Before long your London palate will become ac-
customed to the libations of the East," Ted declared.
"Out here, a drink is merely a drink and not a sacra-
ment; cocktails are not mixed with that touch of genius
essential to true liquid benevolence; ports are poor,
sherries are impossible, clarets "
"Pardon" ^Cynthia touched his arm "who is that
girl?"
"Gad!" Ted spoke softly, fervor in his lowered
voice. "I never saw her before. Isn't she exquisite?"
"She is," Cynthia vowed. "Just what is she, Ted?"
"A Parsee." The girl crossed the room with an
elderly man and a woman of middle age. "They're
all Parsees," he said.
"And who, or what," Cynthia asked, "are Parsees?"
Ted told the waiter to serve more cocktails. He
passed his cigarette case. "Parsees," he said, "are
followers of Zarathustra who were chased out of Per-
sia by the Mohammedan invasion of the seventh cen-
tury. They came to India, wandered all over the
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
place, then settled in Bombay about three hundred
years ago; they've teen here ever since. You see a
lot of them on the street, the men in those shiny black
hats and the women wearing saris with borders of
heavy gold."
The waiter brought our drinks. We lifted the
glasses and nodded to each other.
"By the by," Ted said, "if you're interested in Par-
sees, I'll take you out to the Tower of Silence.' 5
"What's that?"
"You tell her," Ted said.
"But I don't know either," I admitted.
"You haven't seen the Tower of Silence! Good
Lord, man, I'll take you both there to-morrow."
On top of Malabar Hill, the highest in Bombay,
are five circular towers in a garden where palm trees
rise from beds of brilliant flowers. All is silent, all
is still, save that occasionally a fearful black shadow,
made by a vulture, fat and well-fed, floats slowly over
the ground.
"The towers have been standing for three cen-
turies," explained the caretaker, as Cynthia and Ted
and I walked in the garden on Malabar Hill. "No
one ever enters them except two Parsees of low
caste."
In a room he showed us a model, a little tower
three feet high and two feet across, in the center of
which was a hole, three tiers of uncovered metal grat-
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
ings, each shaped to receive a human body, encircling
it and rising upward at a gradual slant.
"All the towers are exactly like this model," the
caretaker explained. "The body is carried inside by
the two low castes, undressed, and exposed in one of
these gratings."
The caretaker bowed and went away. None of
us spoke. We left the room quietly. Outside in the
garden we saw, far down at the base of the hill, the
sapphire sea, half-set in its semicircle of golden sand.
And we saw those five great towers crowned by sleek
vultures sitting in ghoulish circles, waiting.
Cynthia turned to Ted. "I can't stand it," she
said.
"Buck up. After all, it's only a cemetery."
A shadow of a fat body with wings extended
drifted across the grass at our feet.
"It's ghastly," Cynthia said, half aloud.
It was five o'clock. The sapphire sea crawled to
the shore and cast its foamy lace upon the sand. The
trees of Malabar Hill danced the saraband with the
slow winds and whispered as they danced. Silently
up the path came a procession of mourning men, their
heads bowed, their hands linip beside them. Four
men dressed in white bore the body, slowly, silently.
"But why, for God's sake, why do they do it?"
Cynthia demanded.
"It's part of their religion," Ted said. "They wor-
ship the elements, earth, air, fire, and water; they
could not defile the earth by burying a body, nor the
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
air by allowing it to decompose, nor fire by burning
it, nor water by casting it into the sea."
"It's ghastly.' 5
"Hush they'll hear."
Slowly the procession mounted Malabar Hill. The
women and the men wore the sacred shirt and the
sacred girdle. They knocked upon the gate of the
outer wall. The gatekeeper asked in ancient formula
why they had come. "To dispose of our dead," they
answered. The gatekeeper admitted them. And as
the body was brought into the garden, the shadows
upon the ground grew blacker.
Low caste Parsees took the burden from the men
in white and carried it to a stone incline. Up this
they went, the bier swaying to their steps. They
opened the door of a tower and disappeared inside.
They were gone for the time necessary to strip a human
body of all clothing. Then the door opened and they
came out. Behind them was a great rush of wings,
a clacking of dreadful beaks.
Three of us were drinking Clover Clubs on the bal-
cony of the hotel in Bombay.
u lt was horrible." Cynthia pushed her glass aside.
"Horrible," she said.
"What becomes of the body afterward?" I asked.
"What finally happens to it?"
"There isn't any body," Ted said. "Within thirty
minutes after the birds begin, they have finished and
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
only a skeleton is left. Every eight days the low
castes go into the tower, break up the bones and throw
them into the central hole where the sun burns them
Into dust and the rain comes and washes the dust down
to the sea."
"But, Ted, do all the Parsees, all of them, give
their bodies to those birds?"
"All of them, absolutely every one must be "
"Look," Cynthia interrupted. "Look," she said
again.
Crossing the room was the Parsee girl we had seen
the night before. I saw that her eyes were black, her
lips red and full, her cheeks tinted like pale amber.
XXXIV
GOOD-BY, Matri-bhumi! Good-by, Mother
India! From the deck of this ship I say,
good-by. Good-by, old mother you veiled, you sin-
ister, you dwelling in purdah among the nations, I say,
good-by.
Good-by, Mother India, and good-by to a million
golden phials brimming with perfume, and a million
Standard Oil tins brimming with cow dung. Good-by
to Hanuman, the Monkey God, and to Gandhi, the
god in the making. Good-by to Ramayana and to
Rabindranath Tagore. Good-by to brown women with
eyes like doves and with temples like pieces of pome-
granate, and good-by to the vultures that eat them.
Good-by, Mother India.
I came to you at the end of my pilgrimage. I came
to learn the wisdom of the Hitapodesa and the Rig-
Veda. I came to learn the wisdom of Kalidasa, of
Toru Dutt, and of Ramakrishna. I came for you to
teach me. Instead, I, Occidental and conventional, I
could not learn. I saw scorched entrails in your burn-
ing ghats, your baby girls big with child, and harlots
in your temples : how could I learn ?
And yet, old mother, I do not complain. The secret
is yours. And yours it was before Hammurabi was
[238]
AN INDIAN WATER-CARRIER FILLING HIS GOAT-
SKIN WHILE HIS GRANDDAUGHTER WAITS TO
FILL HER BOWL
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
born; before Queen Hatasu was carved in masculine
attire it was yours. Guard it well, old mother. I
am not jealous. I have learned that your secrets are
not for me, not for men of my skin. And I know,
too, that in the fullness of your time, after all the
centuries of patient labor, you will bring forth the
golden fruit; I know you will give my children's chil-
dren to eat thereof.
So I leave you, Mother India. I leave you to the
tasks that are yours, to tasks more arduous than those
of Hercules, more disheartening than the trials of
Thor in the palace of Utgard-Loki, more dangerous
than the venture of Jason, son of ^Eson. And as the
smallest whisper out of infinity, I wish you well.
And I wish you well, Great Britain. You who
have built a golf course beside the Taj Mahal, and
who play the sacred Jumna as a hazard. You who
use India as a dumping ground for your excess in popu-
lation and your excess in industrial production. You
who deplore the white man's burden, and sell cotton
goods at a profit. You whose statesmen talk of friend-
ship, and whose soldiers grease machine guns: they
keep them ready. You have done more for India
than she has done for herself: you have given her a
national discontent.
I wish you well, Great Britain. I wish your sales-
men well in marketing your cotton cloth : I have heard
your mills hum in Lancashire. I wish your soldiers
well in keeping peace between Mussulman and Hindu.
I wish your statesmen well in smoothing the ruffled
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
feathers of Garuda the half-man, the half-bird with
golden body and wings of carmine, whose talons even
now are being sharpened, whose beak drops molten
fire.
I wish you well, Great Britain; I love you next to
my own country; I wish you well. And I would that
all other countries might learn from you. I would
that when they go forth to plunder the brown man
and the black man and the yellow man I would that
they might plunder with the gentlemanly grace that is
yours. I would that they, too, might rear buildings
such as you have reared at New Delhi. I would that
they, too, might strive to serve as well as to rule. And
so I wish you well, Great Britain; I love you next to
my own country.
And I tell you both, good-by. Good-by, Mother
India ! Good-by, richest outpost of the Empire !
From the deck of this ship I say good-by. From the
deck of this ship I watch the slow roll of the waves.
I watch them lave the purple shore line into the hori-
zon. I watch the blue bosom of the water. I watch,
and there is no shore line. I see a golden fog. India
was there India, richest outpost of the Empire, was
there. And I say, good-by. Good-by, Mother
India! Good-by, Matri-bhumif
XXXV
I AM sailing, my dear Mac, through the Suez
Canal. We entered at ten o'clock this morning;
we get out at eleven to-night. Most of the afternoon
I've been on the upper deck enjoying cool breezes,
heavenly after the hellish heat of the Red Sea.
I boarded this ship when she put in at Aden, a little
town on the edge of the Arabian desert, where for no
reason I went after I left India. There has been no
rain in Aden for two years and I walked in sand, slept
in sand, ate food gritty with it. In the town are only
squatty little dwellings, helpless beneath the brutal
sun; in one of them I lay all day half-naked under a
punkah and tried to read. In the late afternoon I
took my daily exercise: I mounted a camel and rode
out into the desert, and, though I found no statue of
Ozymandius, the lone and level sand stretched far
away.
My only real pleasure in Aden was a friendship
with three small boys I invited into a tavern one night
to drink with me. After our first meeting, the boys
frequently came to my room to smoke, and tell of
raids on caravans, and amaze me by talking, small as
they were, of beautiful women who fiercely worshiped
strange gods of love,
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
The day I left Aden, my young friends came to the
boat to say good-by. They gave me a farewell gift,
a worn-out camel bridle. I assured them I would have
great need for it in Birmingham, Alabama. . . .
Almost as soon as a western-bound ship leaves Aden,
she heads into the Red Sea. On the first day there
is no especial suffering, but on the second day one
is definitely uncomfortable, and on the third that
damnable wet heat wraps itself about the ship like a
moist blanket. The night is torture. Men and women
walk the deck in thinnest pajamas; some of them go
forward and throw buckets of water on each other.
On the third day in the Red Sea our thermometer
registered a high of one hundred and eight degrees.
Thirty-six hours later the thermometer stood at fifty-
two degrees. This tremendous drop is caused by the
ship's passing from a sea area swept by hot winds
from the Arabian desert into an area of cool breezes
from the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
To celebrate the arrival in the cool area, a fancy-
dress ball was given on board last night. It started
gently enough; but as the evening waxed, all dignities
and inhibitions waned. About midnight a Hindu holy
man danced the Charleston with Mother Goose. A
little later a student from Yale was caught throwing
deck chairs overboard so that Pharaoh's army could
sit down. And the party was finally ended by a very
realistic little Salome chasing around the deck with
a cricket bat, murderously pursuing an elderly John
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
the Baptist who repeatedly called out that he was really
Marcus Aurelius.
There Is a thrill, Mac, in the Suez Canal. A trav-
eler may be a little tired of strange countries and fa-
mous sights, but his pulse is certain to quicken when
he sees the canal and recalls the part played in history
by this "ditch dug in sand."
The water of the canal is sapphire blue: a thread
of blue on a cloth of gold. At times as I sat on deck
this afternoon I saw other ships approaching. When-
ever they came from around a curve in the canal, I
could not see the water beneath them : they seemed to
be sailing across the desert. There was something
eerie about it, as if a painted ship had sailed into
the wrong frame.
The canal is eighty-seven miles long and varies from
seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five yards in
width. Its average depth is thirty-five feet. In It no
ship can steam faster than eight miles an hour; the
average passage is twelve to fifteen hours. I am going
through on a royal mail ship flying the privilege flag,
which means that all other ships must stand aside for
us, and yet our passage from Port Twefik on the Red
Sea to Port Said on the Mediterranean will require
thirteen hours.
The canal is maintained by tolls. The charge is
one dollar and eighty-eight cents for each net ton;
two dollars and a half for each adult passenger, one
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
dollar and twenty-five cents for each child. The ship
I am on is paying twenty thousand dollars.
To-night I shall sleep in Port Said. To-morrow I
shall take the train across the desert to Cairo, to the
land of ancient kings. There I shall listen to the mur-
mured mysteries of the ages, climb the Pyramids, dab-
ble in the Nile, and play QEdipus to the haughty
Sphinx,
XXXVI
veranda of Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo
JL is one of the world's most noted centers of
travel. There one may sit in the morning and see men
and women of all nations come for coffee. There I
sat two mornings ago, my body aching from a day-
break camel ride out into the desert to see the Pyra-
mids and the Sphinx. In my pocket was a railway
ticket to Luxor, "The Valley of the Kings," where I
was going that night.
At the table next to mine sat a lanky individual
whose speech was redolent of pine trees after they
have been cut for turpentine, soft with the fragrance
of honeysuckle wild on Southern mountains, and
dreamful like the mocking bird singing in a water oak
at midnight. "And then," the voice was saying, "I'm
goin' to the Cafe de la Paix. I'm gonna hang my legs
over a chair and call out, 'Garsong, a bock.' Then
I'm gonna sit there, and as the mamzelles go by I'm
gonna wave at 'em and say, 'Jamais. Pas jamais.' "
His French was atrocious, but his ideas were attrac-
tive.
"When I get tired of that," he went on, "I'm goin'
round to Pruniere's and devastate a lobster. After
that, I'm goin' to the races."
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
The veranda of Shepheard's slowly faded. The
procession of the nations changed to that chic parade
which is Paris.
"At night I'm gonna have dinner at the Red Don-
key, out at the Place Blanche, There'll be a pigeon
cooked with little green peas, there'll be dusty bottles,
lots of 'em, and that violin fellow will come play be-
side my table. After that "
"Excuse me," I said, leaning toward him, "but what
boat are you sailing on, and when?"
"On the Mauretama, from Alexandria this after-
noon."
"When is the last boat train from Cairo ? n
"Ten forty-five this morning."
I looked at my watch. "That gives me twenty-
eight minutes/' I said.
In my room I telephoned the steamship company.
An Egyptian chambermaid and I packed. After my
traveling bags were filled, there was a lot left over. I
put what I could in my pockets and gave the rest to
the chambermaid. With a sun helmet on my head, a
cap and a hat in my hand, an overcoat over my arm,
and neckties oozing from my pockets, I raced down-
stairs and dived into a taxi.
When the driver saw the five dollar bill, he grinned,
rasped his gears, and crossed Cairo faster than Joseph
fleeing Mrs. Potiphar. He ignored traffic signals,
laughed at policemen, and apologized to me when he
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
rounded a corner on more than two wheels, leaning
back and chatting over his shoulder as he drove sixty
miles an hour.
Before the railway station he skidded around the
arresting arm of a policeman, shrieked his brakesf to a
jerking halt, and bellowed for porters. He and two
porters snatched my luggage and the four of us
plunged for the train. As we neared it, it began to
move. I jumped into a compartment, the porters
threw my bags after me, and the taxi driver flung my
victrola and a bundle of evening shirts on to the back
platform.
I leaned out of the window and waved at them.
Stout fellows, they were : I liked them. And suddenly
I remembered. I reached into my pocket, drew out a
long strip of green paper, and tossed it back to the
taxi driver. "Have a good time," I shouted. It was
the railway ticket to Luxor, u The Valley of the Kings."
I sat down and leaned back, slapped my hands and
rubbed them, whistled a merry melody; my spirit blos-
somed like Aaron's rod, for I was on my way to Paris
suave, whimsical, glorious Paris.
And now that I am sailing through the straits of
Messina, literally passing between Scylla and Charyb-
dis, with Aetna fading into the blueness of the dis-
tance and Stromboli rearing himself from the waters
ahead, I can't help wondering why I chucked it all and
struck out for Paris. What about Luxor? What
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
about the voyage up the Nile ? What about Palestine
and all the other trips I had planned?
And the answer comes clear and unmistakable : what
about a pigeon with little green peas? What about
that violin fellow playing beside my table in the Red
Donkey? And the fat Madame at the little bar just
above the Bal Tabarin, and Louis le Grand, and Louis
le Petit, and old Monsieur de Cocques at his bookstall
beside the Seine what about them ? And what about
the Parisian memories that will come? Memories of
hair black like strands of darkness spun on the wheel
of Night, eyes like dew-wet violets murmuring prayers
at morning, and a voice I'll hurry to Madame
Ninon's and drink little drinks in little glasses; they'll
soften the hammering at the door of my heart
Yet I didn't tip my hat to Egypt and race away
merely because I wanted to see Paris; I did it be-
cause I'm tired of traveling; my impression valve is
clogged. The other morning when I looked at the
Pyramids and at the Sphinx, they seemed to me to be
mere piles of stone and nothing more. When I visited
the museum in Cairo I was blind to the marvels taken
from the tomb of Tutankhamen. I then realized that
too much travel had temporarily closed the vista of the
ages to me ; so I packed my grip and sailed away.
And I'm not sorry I did. At the present minute I
have no desire to see the Valley of the Kings, nor any-
thing else that is strange ; but I am keenly looking for-
ward to my arrival in Naples to-morrow. I'll stand
on deck and watch the sun set far out beyond the bay,
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
pouring its gold upon the houses of the old city as they
rise tier upon tier, then, sullen and red, sink Into the
distant blue waters, while Vesuvius stands massive and
broken, its eternal plume of white smoke slowly wav-
ing. And I'll go ashore and wander along streets I
know, see men whose skin Is colored like mine, whose
speech isn't all darkness to my ears. I'll feel that I'm
home again, and I'll be happy. Ill know, too, that
my trip around the world Is ended.
And I'll ask myself: What of it? What of all this
time I've spent wandering around the world, poking
into strange places what of it ?
Perhaps the most notable result is that I have
learned a great tolerance. The person who remains at
home, who never looks over the rim of the mountain,
Is prone to believe that he and his friends live in the
only manner God intended man to live ; all other ways
are certainly foolish, probably sinful. If a man's eyes
are set In his skull at an angle, if he wears a kimono
on the street, or eats with wooden sticks instead of
silver tines, or calls upon Allah instead of God the
Father, or shakes his own hand instead of yours, then,
surely, he is a "foreigner," and, therefore, "queer";
to be recognized as an inferior, slightly distrusted, and
denied full opportunity of living his own life after his
own fashion. That he is unobtrusive and does not in-
terfere with the privileges of others makes no differ-
ence he is a foreigner.
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
After a journey among strange people, one comes to
know that externals cloak merely a mortal sameness :
we all want the sun, and clean air, and healthy bodies,
and companionship ; some of us, the very, very young,
want and expect to find even love ; and that's as true in
Tokyo as in Topeka, in Batavia as in Birmingham*
Since I left America I have dealt in Japanese yen,
Mexican dollars, Harbin, Peiping, Shanghai and Hong-
kong dollars, the Cochin-China piaster, Siamese tical,
Straits dollar, Dutch guilder, Indian roupee, Egyptian
pound, Italian lira, French franc, English pound, and
American dollar. I have learned not only the confu-
sion of money, I have learned its power. In America,
money buys a hat, or a fountain pen, or a pair of roller
skates ; in the Orient money has more subtle attributes.
The Orient is flooded with guides and pimps who
cater especially to Americans. For money they offer
anything from their countries' most sacred relics to
their wives' most sacred favors. For two dollars I
was sold a holy picture cut from a frame In a temple
of Tibet. For three dollars I was taken by priests into
Indian temples of monstrous passions. For ten dollars
I could have bought the wife and two daughters of a
gentleman who followed me along the streets of
Rangoon.
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
A palate of nice perception is an annoyance In the
Orient, A person accustomed to dine quantitatively
need worry only about the number of disease germs he
is taking into his body, but one who has eaten Henri's
flats de sole a la Venltlenne and Jules' vol-au-vent
financiere desires more than mere food: he desires a
perfect blending of all the sensuous delights. And in
the Orient he can't get it, because the height of subtlety
for the ordinary Oriental chef preparing a Western
dinner is a thick steak served with boiled potatoes in
cream.
Only the poorer European wines are shipped to the
Orient, and they are withered by the long journey and
the heat. Wines made in the Orient, rice wines and
palm wines, possess none of the subtle glory of deli-
cate clarets or fine burgundies. The favorite beer of
the Orient is brewed there. One day I visited the
brewery where it is made; I saw green scum at the
edges of the vats.
Until the theories of Monsieur d'Astarac are proved
practicable and cooking is done by alchemists in re-
torts and alembics, a traveler in the East must content
himself with food that merely fills the body and in no
wise delights the soul.
The white man has built fine hospitals in almost
every Eastern country, but he has been unable to scat-
ter the millions of men in Oriental cities who live like
pigs penned in a crowded sty; nor has he been able to
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
drain swamps, nor interest natives in any sanitation ex-
cept the most primitive. In the East, Death and his
little brother, Disease, are only slightly hampered:
swift and cruel, the pale horse and its rider ever hurry
over the land; even a traveler sometimes hears the
quick beating of ghostly hoofs.
In Oriental countries I have seen woman roped in
harness and tied to a cart. I have seen her, a mass of
sores and rags, lie whining beside a dunghill, and lie
there completely ignored. I have seen her take her
place with ten thousand other women to await the nod
of one man. I have seen her sold as we in America
sell a walking stick or a plum pudding. And I won-
der what I'll think when next I hear an American girl
complaining because she has only twenty evening
dresses, or an automobile with only six cylinders.
Children in the East are so delightfully dignified.
Even in their wildest play, as jolly as the play of chil-
dren anywhere, they show a definite respect for each
other and for themselves. They are not selfish In
games or rude to elders. And I don't remember even
one Oriental child who cried; certainly I never heard
one whine.
[2 5 2]
FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
There are a thousand other things I remember when
I think back over my Oriental Odyssey, but I can't tell
them all. Besides, they will wait, they are in no
hurry. They know that so long as I am, they are.
They know that they are my thinking, my beliefs. And
they are satisfied, for through them I have proved
that all experience is an arch where through gleams
that Untraveled World, whose margin fades forever
and forever when I move.
XXXVII
MY BEAR ROBERT TURNER : Just one year ago we
sat together in your garden in Shanghai, listen-
ing to a Chinese boy sing his lonely soul through the
strings of his fiddle. One year ago ! To-night I sit in
my home in Birmingham. I listen, and I hear the
whistle of the Pan-American leaving the L. & N. sta-
tion on its run to New Orleans.
I'm home again.
All that day In Shanghai we talked of little geisha
girls, and looked at maps in old Atlases, and you
played slow melodies on your clarinet. This morning
I lectured at Birmingham-Southern College to little
American girls who chewed Wrigley's Spearmint gum;
who opened their vanities and powdered their noses.
This afternoon I drove by Sloss furnace* I saw them
making pig iron. I saw Negroes with knotty muscles
carrying armfuls of pig iron. When I drove back to
Twentieth Street I heard steam hammers staccato
against steel girders. A new skyscraper is going up :
we build 'em in ten months in Birmingham. A cop
told me to drive on and stop gawking. "Can't you see
you're blocking traffic?" he said.
I'm home again.
Three weeks ago at the Terminal Station I stepped
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off the Birmingham Special from New York. My
friends were there to meet me. They said: "Hel/o/
How's the boy? 5 They slapped me on the back and
shook hands with me, hard. It was fine. The smoky
air of Birmingham tasted good to my palate.
That night I went to dinner with my friends. As I
dressed I was excited. I was back among my own
people. They were waiting for me. I knew they were.
They wanted to hear me tell of where I had been, what
1 had seen and done. I knew they did.
We sat down to dinner. My hostess asked about
uncommon sights- "What was the most uncommon
sight you saw?" she asked. I waited until every one
quieted. It was my moment. I had dreamed of it
while sailing through the Yellow Sea, while crawling
through the Bat Cave of Bali. I sat a little more
erect.
"Frankly," I said, "I hardly know. There were the
white elephants of Siam, and the dancing snakes of
India, and "
"But you haven't seen any snakes," broke in a friend
from across the table. a Billy Kincaid is the boy who
has seen them. The other night at the club he saw
pink ones and green ones."
"I'll say," Juliette Morgan agreed. "He was so
far gone that he slipped and tore the straps off Kath-
leen's dress."
I heard how Billy Kincaid got lit, and how he flamed.
Then I heard about the county golf championship. I
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FROM SIAM TO SUEZ
heard how little Walter Gresham beat a field- of
veterans.
"He did ft on the seventeenth. His approach was in
that grass trap off to the right^ lying low In that dip
at the side next to the green; but he took his seven
Iron and chipped out dead, then dropped his putt.
That finished everything except the banquet that
night."
"I don't suppose youVe been to many banquets since
you left," said our hostess.
"Not many/ 5 1 admitted, "though I've been to some.
There was one in Japan that was marvelous. Some
little geisha girls taught me to play jankempo and "
"To play what ? Or can you tell ?"
didn't you play contract? It's a much better
game."
"Do they play backgammon in the Orient? And
how do you like it?"
"I'm afraid I don't play," I said.
"You poor dear! Come along, I'll show you."
She led me into the library and taught me to play
backgammon. We played for two hours. It's a good
game. I enjoyed it. They put my name down for the
tournament next week.
About eleven o'clock some one turned on the radio.
We danced until midnight. Then we all told our host-
ess what a fine evening we had had. "Thank you so
much," we said, and got into our automobiles and drove
away.
I'm home again.
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Q
FROM SIAM TO' SUEZ
But tell me : does the moon like a white jade cresc'ent
still hang over Fujiyama, holy mountain? And tell
me : do little girls of Korea still thrust tiny hands be-
tween bamboo rods and in shrill voices peddle them-
selves? And tell me: does the Great Wall of China
still stand? Does Wu drag his rickshaw through the
dusty hutungs of Peiping? Does he still call his deep-
throated, " 'Shaw, 'shaw"? Does the executioner at
Canton still reap the heads of pirates with that Ameri-
can meat cleaver? Do the croupiers at Macao call
four and four and four and four as they count the
coins? And is there such a place as Angkor?
Tell me : does the father of Wongkit still moan his
son? Are there ships in the harbor at Singapore? Do
their riding-lights nod to the passing waves ? And tell
me : do the girls of Java weave temple flowers into
their hair? And do the men of Bali play in the tropic
night? Does the music sing itself like a god in love,
yearn like a god in pain? And what of Matri-bhuml?
Tell me, what of Matri-bhuml, old mother, veiled,
sinister, dwelling in purdah among the nations?
Tell me these things. Tell them to me, Turner, else
Til forget they are. Even now I ask myself if they
are, if they could have been ; and I am not certain.
I am certain only that I must stop this letter and
write a newspaper story about Alabama's cotton crop.
To-morrow 1 must lecture at Birmingham-Southern
College about Chaucer and Lyly and old Ben Jonson :
I must teach the boys and girls of Alabama. And,
Turner, I know that the cotton crop of Alabama is
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FROM SIAM TO S"UEZ
good, and that the boys and girls, the men and women,
of Alabama are good. The cotton is the fleece of the
fields of my fathers : the people are my people. It Is-
fine once more to.be among my own.
And so, good-night; I must write my newspaper
story, I must get on with my job. Nobody will know
when they read my story about Alabama's cotton crop
that at times I left my typewriter, that once 1 went to
the east window and looked out and saw little yellow
and brown women veiled in silks like woven air, heard
the soft tinkle of camel bells*
THE BNJ>
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