The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, Arthur Conan Doyle [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

Now, I understand, it is a very doddering old trunk, with withered limbs which are supported by crutches, but may yet hang on for some centuries to come. On the whole, we employed our time very well, but Ceylon will always remain to each of us as an earthly paradise, and I could imagine no greater pleasure than to have a clear month to wander over its beauties. Monsieur Clemenceau was clearly of the same opinion, for he was doing it very thoroughly whilst we were there.

From Colombo to Bombay was a dream of blue skies and blue seas. Half way up the Malabar coast, we saw the old Portuguese settlement of Goa, glimmering white on a distant hillside. Even more interesting to us was a squat battleship making its way up the coast. As we came abreast of it we recognised the Malaya, one of that famous little squadron of Evan Thomas', which staved off the annihilation of Beatty's cruisers upon that day of doom on the Jutland coast. We gazed upon it with the reverence that it deserved. We had, in my opinion, a mighty close shave upon that occasion. If Jellicoe had gambled with the British fleet he might have won a shattering victory, but surely he was wise to play safety with such tremendous interests at stake. There is an account of the action, given by a German officer, at the end of Freeman's book "With the Hercules to Kiel," which shows clearly that the enemy desired Jellicoe to close with them, as giving them their only chance for that torpedo barrage which they had thoroughly practised, and on which they relied to cripple a number of our vessels. In every form of foresight and preparation, the brains seem to have been with them—but that was not the fault of the fighting seamen. Surely an amateur could have foreseen that, in a night action, a star shell is better than a searchlight, that a dropping shell at a high trajectory is far more likely to hit the deck than the side, and that the powder magazine should be cut off from the turret, as, otherwise, a shell crushing the one will explode the other. This last error in construction seems to have been the cause of half our losses, and the Lion herself would have been a victim, but for the self-sacrifice of brave Major Harvey of the Marines. All's well that ends well, but it was stout hearts, and not clear heads, which pulled us through.

It is all very well to say let bygones be bygones, but we have no guarantee that the old faults are corrected, and certainly no one has been censured. It looks as if the younger officers had no means of bringing their views before those in authority, while the seniors were so occupied with actual administration that they had no time for thinking outside their routine. Take the really monstrous fact that, at the outset of a war of torpedoes and mines, when ships might be expected to sink like kettles with a hole in them, no least provision had been made for saving the crew! Boats were discarded before action, nothing wooden or inflammable was permitted, and the consideration that life-saving apparatus might be non-inflammable does not seem to have presented itself. When I wrote to the Press, pointing this out with all the emphasis of which I was capable—I was ready to face the charge of hysteria in such a cause—I was gravely rebuked by a leading naval authority, and cautioned not to meddle with mysteries of which I knew nothing. None the less, within a week there was a rush order for swimming collars of india rubber. Post hoc non propter, perhaps, but at least it verified the view of the layman. That was in the days when not one harbour had been boomed and netted, though surely a shark in a bathing pool would be innocuous compared to a submarine in an anchorage. The swimmers could get out, but the ships could not.

But all this comes of seeing the white Malaya, steaming slowly upon deep blue summer seas, with the olive-green coast of Malabar on the horizon behind her.

I had an interesting conversation on psychic matters with Lady Dyer, whose husband was killed in the war. It has been urged that it is singular and unnatural that our friends from the other side so seldom allude to the former occasions on which they have manifested. There is, I think, force in the objection. Lady Dyer had an excellent case to the contrary—and, indeed, they are not rare when one makes inquiry. She was most anxious to clear up some point which was left open between her husband and herself, and for this purpose consulted three mediums in London, Mr. Vout Peters, Mrs. Brittain, and another. In each case she had some success. Finally, she consulted Mrs. Leonard, and her husband, speaking through Feda, under control, began a long conversation by saying, "I have already spoken to you through three mediums, two women and a man." Lady Dyer had not given her name upon any occasion, so there was no question of passing on information. I may add that the intimate point at issue was entirely cleared up by the husband, who rejoiced greatly that he had the chance to do so.

Bombay is not an interesting place for the casual visitor, and was in a state of uproar and decoration on account of the visit of the Duke of Connaught. My wife and I did a little shopping, which gave us a glimpse of the patient pertinacity of the Oriental. The sum being 150 rupees, I asked the Indian's leave to pay by cheque, as money was running low. He consented. When we reached the ship by steam-launch, we found that he, in some strange way, had got there already, and was squatting with the goods outside our cabin door. He looked askance at Lloyd's Bank, of which he had never heard, but none the less he took the cheque under protest. Next evening he was back at our cabin door, squatting as before, with a sweat-stained cheque in his hand which, he declared, that he was unable to cash. This time I paid in English pound notes, but he looked upon them with considerable suspicion. As our ship was lying a good three miles from the shore, the poor chap had certainly earned his money, for his goods, in the first instance, were both good and cheap.

We have seen the Island of Elephanta, and may the curse of Ernulphus, which comprises all other curses, be upon that old Portuguese Governor who desecrated it, and turned his guns upon the wonderful stone carvings. It reminds me of Abou Simbel in Nubia, and the whole place has an Egyptian flavour. In a vast hollow in the hill, a series of very elaborate bas reliefs have been carved, showing Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, the old Hindoo trinity, with all those strange satellites, the bulls, the kites, the dwarfs, the elephant-headed giants with which Hindoo mythology has so grotesquely endowed them. Surely a visitor from some wiser planet, examining our traces, would judge that the human race, though sane in all else, was mad the moment that it touched religion, whether he judged it by such examples as these, or by the wearisome iteration of expressionless Buddhas, the sacred crocodiles and hawk-headed gods of Egypt, the monstrosities of Central America, or the lambs and doves which adorn our own churches. It is only in the Mohammedan faith that such an observer would find nothing which could offend, since all mortal symbolism is there forbidden. And yet if these strange conceptions did indeed help these poor people through their journey of life—and even now they come from far with their offerings—then we should morally be as the Portuguese governor, if we were to say or do that which might leave them prostrate and mutilated in their minds. It was a pleasant break to our long voyage, and we were grateful to our commander, who made everything easy for us. He takes the humane view that a passenger is not merely an article of cargo, to be conveyed from port to port, but that his recreation should, in reason, be considered as well.

Elephanta was a little bit of the old India, but the men who conveyed us there from the launch to the shore in their ancient dhows were of a far greater antiquity. These were Kolis, small, dark men, who held the country before the original Aryan invasion, and may still be plying their boats when India has become Turanian or Slavonic, or whatever its next avatar may be. They seem to have the art of commerce well developed, for they held us up cleverly until they had extracted a rupee each, counting us over and over with great care and assiduity.

At Bombay we took over 200 more travellers.

We had expected that the new-comers, who were mostly Anglo-Indians whose leave had been long overdue, would show signs of strain and climate, but we were agreeably surprised to find that they were a remarkably healthy and alert set of people. This may be due to the fact that it is now the end of the cold weather. Our new companions included many native gentlemen, one of whom, the Rajah of Kapurthala, brought with him his Spanish wife, a regal-looking lady, whose position must be a difficult one. Hearne and Murrell, the cricketers, old playmates and friends, were also among the new-comers. All of them seemed perturbed as to the unrest in India, though some were inclined to think that the worst was past, and that the situation was well in hand. When we think how splendidly India helped us in the war, it would indeed be sad if a serious rift came between us now. One thing I am very sure of, that if Great Britain should ever be forced to separate from India, it is India, and not Britain, which will be the chief sufferer.

We passed over hundreds of miles of absolute calm in the Indian Ocean. There is a wonderful passage in Frank Bullen's "Sea Idylls," in which he describes how, after a long-continued tropical calm, all manner of noxious scum and vague evil shapes come flickering to the surface. Coleridge has done the same idea, for all time, in "The Ancient Mariner," when "the very sea did rot." In our case we saw nothing so dramatic, but the ship passed through one area where there was a great number of what appeared to be sea-snakes, creatures of various hues, from two to ten feet long, festooned or slowly writhing some feet below the surface. I cannot recollect seeing anything of the kind in any museum. These, and a couple of Arab dhows, furnished our only break in a thousand miles. Certainly, as an entertainment the ocean needs cutting.

In the extreme south, like a cloud upon the water, we caught a glimpse of the Island of Socotra, one of the least visited places upon earth, though so near to the main line of commerce. What a base for submarines, should it fall into wrong hands! It has a comic-opera Sultan of its own, with 15,000 subjects, and a subsidy from the British Government of 200 dollars a year, which has been increased lately to 360, presumably on account of the higher cost of living. It is a curious fact that, though it is a great place of hill and plain, seventy miles by eighteen, there is only one wild animal known, namely the civet cat. A traveller, Mr. Jacob, who examined the place, put forward the theory that one of Alexander the Great's ships was wrecked there, the crew remaining, for he found certain Greek vestiges, but what they