The Pearl of India, Maturin Murray Ballou [best english books to read for beginners .TXT] 📗

Ceylon public roads would delight Colonel Pope, of bicycle fame; he who so eloquently and none too earnestly advocates the great importance of good common roads, especially in New England, where we are, when the truth is fairly spoken, sadly deficient in them. The new States of the West and Southwest far excel us in this respect. The road on which we have just embarked, aside from its excellence in point of usefulness (the railway from Colombo to Galle was not completed when the author traveled over the route), is one of ideal beauty, passing through a forest and shore region combined. This turnpike abounds in unique effects and a succession of charming surprises. One is never quite prepared for the natural tableaux which constantly present themselves. An experienced traveler in the low latitudes is apt to anticipate the probabilities when starting forth on a new tropical route, but one must behold in order to properly understand the nature of Ceylon forest scenery. The Colombo and Galle road forms an almost continuous avenue through overarching cocoanut palms, with frequent glimpses of the Indian Ocean on one side and of fresh-water ponds and small lakes on the other, the latter all alive with aquatic birds, such as water-pheasants, plovers, teal, sandlarks, and the like. The "painted snipe," as it is called, is very common, having a chocolate-colored head and a white collar, with back and wings of green, the tail feathers being spotted with yellow like a butterfly's wings. It is a very active bird and is never quiet for a single moment, constantly teetering when upon its feet while seeking for red worms in the sand. A very similar bird is often seen on the salt-water beaches of New England, which resembles this Ceylon example in shape, size, and habits, but not in the texture of its feathers. The American bird also called snipe is of a uniform pale lavender color. It is shy enough on our coast, but its tropical brother is as tame as a pigeon. These places are teeming with blossoms,—pink lilies, bearing broad, floating, heart-shaped leaves whose roots are securely anchored to the bottom. Some of the plants resting so serenely on the glass-like surface have short, delicate white roots, and receive their nutriment only from the air and water, not coming in contact with the earth at all. Others, with insect-inviting petals, close promptly upon the victims allured to their embrace and digest them at leisure, thriving marvelously upon this animal nourishment. Any agency which tends to diminish the myriads of flies and mosquitoes is an assured blessing.

When a native hut is seen, it is found scarcely to equal the ant-hills in neatness and solidity of construction. Close by the cabin the always interesting bread-fruit-tree rears its tall head, abounding in its large pale green product, which forms a never-failing natural food supply. It is a notable member of the fruit-bearing trees of these latitudes, and is next in importance to the cocoa palm, with its serrated, feathery leaves, and its melon-shaped product. The bread-fruit weighs on an average ten pounds each, and often attains double that weight. It is as fattening to cattle as the best Indian meal, and the natives relish it, but to a European the bread-fruit is not palatable. The tree grows about fifty feet in height, and requires but very little attention to insure its welfare. Plenty of bananas, the big jack fruit, mangoes, and plantains give altogether the appearance of an abundance for the support of life. As regards the valuable and, to the native, indispensable jack-tree, it is strongly individualized, not only because it yields the largest of all edible fruit, but also in the fact that the massive product grows out of the body of the tree, and not, after the fashion of other fruits, upon the small limbs and branches. Nature has made a special provision in behalf of this tree. As it grows older and the fruit increases in size, it is produced lower and lower on the trunk each year, until from being grown near the top, it springs out close to the ground. Though the short, rope-like stalk which holds the rough, green-coated fruit is of strong fiber, still, when in ripe condition, it is apt to fall to the earth. As the product increases in size, it would be broken to pieces if it fell from any considerable height. The natives apply themselves to its consumption with unlimited capacities. The wood of the jack is much used for lumber, being easily worked, and presenting a good surface even for common house furniture as well as for lighter bungalow framework. Supporting timbers, however, must be made from harder wood, so as to resist the inroads of the vicious ants. The humble native tenement has a frame made from the tough, golden-stemmed bamboo, which is to a casual observer apparently very frail, but is nevertheless found to be extremely flexible, tenacious, and lasting. Where the bamboo branches intersect each other, they are securely bound together with thongs made from palm-tree fibre; this is to secure them in position.

For a long time the luscious mangosteen was thought to be peculiar to the islands of the Malacca Straits, but it is now found thriving in this garden-land of Ceylon, having been long since introduced from Penang. Attempts to domesticate it in southern India have proved unsuccessful. The same may be said of the fragrant nutmeg, which has become an article of profitable export from the island, though it is not indigenous here. Along this turnpike road we occasionally pass small cinnamon plantations, where the process of cutting and peeling the bark is going on, considerable quantities being exposed and spread out in the sun, whose intense heat dries it most rapidly. When labor of any sort is in progress, even in the wet rice-fields, it will be seen that the women perform the hardest tasks. In fact, this is to be observed in town and country, both in domestic affairs and in the open field, especially in the transportation of heavy burdens, which they carry on their heads.

Making beasts of burden of women is not alone practiced in Ceylon. It is also shamefully obvious in many European centres, where civilization is supposed to have reached its acme. Americans who have traveled in Germany, for instance, have often experienced disgust at the debasing services required of the sex in that country. The author has seen women, in Munich, carrying hods of bricks and mortar up long ladders, where new buildings were being constructed, while hard by their lords and masters were drinking huge "schooners" of lager beer in taprooms, and lazily smoking foul tobacco.

Loitering beneath the shade of the trees contiguous to their cabins, queer family groups of Singhalese natives watch the passing stranger with curious, questioning eyes. Clothes are of little consideration in a climate like this, and consequently nudity is the rule. The preparation of food is intrusted mainly to Nature, whose bountiful hand hangs ripe and tempting nourishment ever ready upon the trees, where all are free to pluck and to eat. It is curious to see how easily a native man or boy, with a rope of vegetable fibre passed round his thighs and thence about the trunk of a palm, will, with feet and hands thus supplemented, ascend a cocoanut-tree eighty feet or more, to reach the ripe fruit. He moves upwards as rapidly as one might go up a tall ladder. It is true, the rope sometimes fails, a broken neck follows, and a fresh grave is required to decently inter the remains. This is said to be one of the most "fruitful" causes of fatal accidents in Ceylon. This sort of catastrophe, and poisonous cobra bites, are almost as frequent and deadly in the island as electric car accidents are in Boston or New York.

As one regards these lazy, betel-chewing, irresponsible children of the tropics, idling in the shade of the palms, it does not seem strange that they should lead a sensuous life, the chief occupations of which are eating and sleeping. All humanity here appears to be more or less torpid. There is no necessity to arouse man to action,—effort is superfluous. The very bounty of Nature makes the recipients lazy, dirty, and heedless. They live from hand to mouth, exercising no forecast, making no provision for the morrow. It is the paradise of birds, butterflies, and flowers, but man seems to be out of place; he adds nothing to the beauty of the surroundings; he does nothing to improve such wealth of possibilities as Providence spreads broadcast only in equatorial regions. Bishop Heber's lines alluding to Ceylon were certainly both pertinent and true: "Where only man is vile."

We were just now speaking of native family groups observed on the route between Galle and Colombo, which is a thoroughly typical region, and may well serve as a truthful picture of such scenes all over the southern district of Ceylon. They would form admirable subjects for photographic delineation,—a gratuitous suggestion for the modern Kodak enthusiast.

The children of eight or nine years, who form a portion of these groups, are as naked as when they were born, while their parents are as scantily clad as decency will permit. The boys and girls have large, brilliant, and intensely black eyes, with a strong promise of a good degree of intelligence, but their possibilities are doomed to remain unfulfilled amid such associations as they are born to. A few more years and they will subside into languid, sensuous beings, like their progenitors. They do but obey their polarity,—the "cherubim" of destiny ought to be designated by a harsher name. The men wear a white cotton cloth wound about their loins. The women have a similar covering, sometimes adding a short, cotton, jacket-like waist. The children have monstrously protruding stomachs, like the little darkies of our Southern States, but yet as a rule they seem to be well and hearty. The women of the Tamil race, especially, are of good form and features, much handsomer than the Singhalese of the same sex. It is a notable fact in this connection that there are fewer women in Ceylon than men, a circumstance which has furnished a weak argument for some native writers in favor of polyandry, which is still sanctioned in the central districts. In the island of Malta, this relative position of the sexes is entirely reversed.

The Tamil men are of good height, slim, with small limbs yet well formed, and have pleasing features and bronzed skins, very similar in hue to our North American Indians. The Singhalese are of a darker complexion, not so light in figure; they affect European dress, adding much ornamentation. They hold themselves of a superior class to the Tamils, engaging only in what they consider a higher line of occupation. The Tamils form the humbler and laboring population of the country. They fully recognize the distinction between themselves and the Singhalese proper, and they are universally called coolies. Caste is never disregarded among them, its infinite ramifications extending through all degrees and classes of the people, regulated by universally accepted ideas. This peculiar system was early introduced into the country from India, but was previously unknown here. It is difficult for the uninitiated to understand its real import. There are twenty or more castes rigidly adhered to, which may be rendered in numerical order of importance as follows: The husbandman's occupation comes first in dignity, followed by that of the fisherman; goldsmiths rank as third, blacksmiths as fourth caste, and so on in the following order: braziers, cinnamon peelers, washermen, barbers, potters, tom-tom-beaters in the temples, etc. Domestic intercourse between persons of different castes is inadmissible, and to marry below one's caste is considered to be disgraceful. Feelings of intolerable pride on the