Part 13 (1/2)
The native life spread round three sides of the course, six deep. The horses were mostly small, uncommonly nice-looking beasts, with a good deal of Arab blood. Of course G. and I selected winners and had nothing on; but I have known of others who have met with similar misfortune at meetings nearer home.
Back to the Connemara, through a moving population of native men returning from the races. They mostly wore Delhi caps (like ”smoking caps”), long hair in a knot and long light tweed coats, round their thin bare legs, floppy linen shaded from white to rose-red, at the lower edge a bad red and a dirty white; there was red dust in the air, and a hot sunset in front--rather sickening colour. The whole population seems to have had a holiday to see the Sahibs run some fifteen to twenty horses.
They seem rather an unmanly looking crowd. The pink that predominates is what you see in an unfortunate hybrid white and red poppy, an a.n.a.line colour, as unpleasant as that of red ink--Give me back--give me back Bangalore and its colour, our life on the line, a quiet siding beneath the bough, the table laid on the track, and the moon looking down through the branches.
28th December.--There is a thing I cannot understand how the farther we wander from home the more people we meet whom we know or know about, or who know us or our kith and kin. And how do we so often run up against people we met on the s.h.i.+p coming out? You'd have thought India big enough to swallow up a s.h.i.+pload of pa.s.sengers for ever and aye, without their ever meeting again, but even since yesterday we have met quite a number of the pa.s.sengers of the _Egypt_--three regular ”pied poudre”
wanderers, as the French called the Scots long ago, and a lady just out, full of interest in everything. She actually wants to see native bazaars and museums! to the horror of her hosts, who have been out here for long and whose thoughts are only of the tented field, and pay, and going home.
... A long trail to s.h.i.+pping people again--former visit resulted only in a protracted interview with a polite native clerk, so the toil had to be done twice! Then to the post office at the docks; borrowed a rusty pen there from another native clerk and did a home letter. What a fine building it is, and what a motley slack lot of people you see there!
Near me a group of half-naked natives were concocting and scratching off a wire between them, others squatted on the floor and beat up their friends black hair for small game. One man made netting attached to the rail round the ticket office, seated of course, another knitted, and everyone chewed betel nut. The walls of this very handsome building were encrusted with dried red expectoration, and scored with splashes of lime from fingers--the lime is chewed with the betel nut. These nasty sort of natives might be improved or got rid of, and say, Burmese introduced.
What is the good of having a country or a forest if you don't breed a good stock, be it either deer or people?
Changed to airier rooms on our second evening here; got everything s.h.i.+fted in pretty short time. We thus lost a pretty view and, the smell of the river, ”the Silvery Cooum.”
It was warm and damp last night, and many mosquitoes were inside our curtains--didn't feel up to painting much, but took out a sketch book and our hired victoria; the horse jibbed and tied itself and the traces and the victoria into a knot and kicked up a racket generally in the hotel porch, and we got it extracted in time, then it insisted on taking the victoria along the pavement till I was glad G. was not with me--a fool would have stayed in it--I found I needed a shave, and left as it pranced past a barber's shop. The barber, an Italian, spoke six languages; I should think he felt Madras deadly dull.
After the breakdown of my prancing steed--rickshawed from the barber's to the Marina. The Marina is only an empty sweep of sand, and beyond that a strip of blue sea and a pale blue sky and a few fleecy clouds, simple enough material for a picture; but by my faith! could I only have put down the colour of that mid-day glow from the sand, and the feeling of s.p.a.ce, and the two blues, of the sea and sky, and the flick of colour from a sc.r.a.p or two of drapery on sunny brown figures tailing on to the long ropes of a Seine net! Out beyond the surf mere dots in the blue swell, were more figures swimming about the ends of the net splas.h.i.+ng to keep in the fish, and in the edge of the white surf the fishermen's children were sporting--in with a header through the gla.s.sy curve of a wave, and out again on their feet on the sand and away with a scamper.
Some matrons sat near me, and the smallest naked kids played round me as I sketched, and two, really pretty girls, the first I've seen in India, with short skirts and their black hair still wringing wet, came up from the sea and looked on. Barring these fisher-people, the miles of beach were empty as could be. What light and heat there was, a crow pa.s.sing cast a darker shadow on the sand than its own sunlit back, and a pale pink convolvulus that grew here and there on the inner sand cast a shadow of deepest purple. The brown naked men, sweating at every pore, pulled the drag rope of the net very slowly up the soft dry sand step by step, their damp, brown muscles sparkling with vivid blue lights. I think this was the best bit of India I had seen so far, and after a stuffy night in town to get into the blaze of light and watch these fellows fis.h.i.+ng on the wide blue ocean from such a southern strand was worth a month on Loch Leven or an hour with a fifty pounder. I think the nets must be over a hundred fathoms; they were being pulled in for two hours after I came, and must have been hauled for hours before that, seven men to each rope! As the ends came near sh.o.r.e, the boys plunged in and joined their seniors, and all looked like a herd of seals gambolling. I saw a father drubbing his boy beyond the surf; the boy had evidently gone out too soon, and got exhausted coming back. It must have relieved the father's feelings, each thump sent the lad under water. As the bag of the net came towards the hard sand the silver fish showed; very few I thought for all the trouble and hands employed; not more than twenty lbs. weight I'd think, all silvery and sky blue and emerald green; bream and sand-launces and silver fish like whitebait and herring, all fresh and s.h.i.+ning from the beautiful sea mint--the colour beyond words--green breakers, white surf, blue swell beyond, and brown figures with red and variously coloured turbans; young and old, all with such deep shadows on the sand, a scene Sarolea, the Spaniard, might make a show of painting. A few outsiders, men with clothes, two policemen and a satellite appeared as the bag came ash.o.r.e. Scenting plunder they sailed down and nailed four of the biggest and best fish--horrid shame, I thought it, these miserable imps in uniform of our Government, to steal from my naked fisher friends. I hope someone in authority will read this and have them tied heel and neck.
... In the afternoon G. and I went again to the Marina; I don't think anything more unfas.h.i.+onable could have been dreamed of. It was again exquisite--all changed to evening colours, and the wide drive along the sh.o.r.e had a few promenaders, and a few carriages were drawn up at the side with ladies and children eating the air. They appeared to be unofficial people, white traders, I'd fancy, the rest Eurasians and a few Europeanised natives. There are pretty drives to the Marina, through park-like roads beautifully bordered with flowering trees, such a pleasing place that I wonder the official cla.s.s does not drive there.
Through the outskirts home; the light fading and forms becoming blurred in the warm evening twilight, past lines of neat little houses, mostly open towards the street, belonging to Eurasians. In one a children's party--pretty children in white, girls with great tails of dark hair--they were pulling crackers and all wore coloured paper hats--next door in a room with chintz covered European furniture and photographs, a pretty girl--just a little dark, played a concertina to an immaculately dressed youth, who twirled the latest thing in straw hats.
Then to dinner at The Fort to dine with Major B. C.--a tiresome long drive in the dark with a slow horse; at the end of it we crossed a drawbridge over a moat--full of water we could see, from the faint reflection of a white angle of a bastion on the dark surface--rumbled through subterranean arches, white-washed and lamplit, and felt as we came into the square that we had left modern India outside in the darkness and had got back to the old India of the Company days. A pale crescent moon lit up part of a building here and there, old formal Georgian buildings and old-fas.h.i.+oned gun-embrasures and a church like St. Martin in the Fields. One half expected to meet someone in knee breeches and wig, perhaps a Governor, Elihu Yale, or M'Crae, the seaman, Clive, or Hastings coming round some dusky corner or across the moonlit square. There were a few soldiers here and there, taking their rest with grey s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled up. We had to mark time a little, as we had started half-an-hour too soon, so I went on to the parapet and looked from the flagstaff east into the night, and heard the Bay of Bengal surf pounding on the sands. I spoke for a little to two soldiers lounging there on the parapet edge; they told me they were Suffolks and felt it warm. What interesting talks one could have had with these men, as a stranger, and with no impending dinner and no white waistcoat. I am not surprised Kipling made some of his best tales about privates; they are of the interesting mean in life, between the rulers and the ruled. These private soldiers, or fishermen and sailors can tell you stories better than any other cla.s.s of men, but you must not show the least sign of gold braid if you would draw them out. I remember one night, I went round the dockyard bars at a northern seaport with a retired naval officer to get first hand information about a trip we planned to Davis Straits for musk oxen--with the artist's modest manner and the suggestion of a drink thrown in, I'd have got any number of yarns from them till ”Eleven o'clock, Gentlemen, and the Police outside!” But my friend in mufti was spotted at once; for he marched up to the middle of the bar, looked right and left and snapped out his order; but before he opened his mouth the whaling men were shouldering into little tongue-tied groups--the quarter deck air came in like a draught and took them all slightly aback, and we got never a bit of information.
There was a Canon at dinner, and two engineers and ladies. We talked of India and home, and these kind people's children over seas, and we talked art too. One engineer and his wife were both excellent artists; and we talked of the Burmese and the religion of Buddah, not very loud, of course, considering the company, and, of course, of the ”Soul of the People,” a book at least three of the party had read and I had just dipped into; and we arranged to go and see the church and the records and plate therein, dating from the Company days, and amongst other interesting things the record of Clive's marriage, with Wellesley's signature as witness appended. The house we dined in is supposed to be that in which Clive twice attempted his own life, and twice his pistol misfired. Then we tore ourselves away, with belated sympathy for our host and his next day's work.
I have mentioned preparations for the Prince in Bangalore; here, too our host had many arrangements to make, to forward the Imperial train north to Mysore after their return from Burmah.
As we leave the house the lamplight from the windows s.h.i.+nes on purple blooms of creepers on the fort wall a few yards from the front door, and over it comes the low boom of the surf and the scent of the sea and flowers--Through the sleeping soldier town, the Syce running in front gives some pa.s.s-word to the sentry as we rattle over the cobbles under the archway and rumble over the drawbridge; and we are out into the dusty darkness again. And so home, to bed and mosquito curtains in the Connemara.
Sleep we would fain have till later than the time of rising for the crows, and sparrows, and hotel servants, but to sleep after sunrise is almost impossible; these abominable hoody crows and sparrows sit on the jalousies and verandah and caw and chirp most harshly. ”If I were viceroy,” I'd put forth a word to have the whole lot exterminated. It could be done in two seasons, then the harmless, and game birds, would have a chance. It was once done in our country in the reign of James the IV. The tree in which a crow built for three successive years was forfeited to the Crown, and went of course to our Fleet, _Eh Mihi_; We had a proper fleet in those days before the great Union, and proper Commanders--read Pitscottie's description of the s.h.i.+ps, _e.g._ _The Yellow Carvel_, _The Lion_, and _The Great Michael_, the envy of Europe, for which the forests of Fife were depleted, which carried ”thirty-five guns and three hundred smaller artillery, culverins, batter-falcons, myands, double-dogs, hagbuts, and three hundred sailors, a hundred and twenty gunners, and one thousand soldiers besides officers”--and of the sea fights with the Portuguese and English. Our coasts were defended then! James IV. could _put 120,000 mounted troops in the field in nine days_, and every able-bodied man learned the use of arms; this was before The Union with our so often successfully invaded neighbour--now, we have left to defend ourselves, one regiment of cavalry!
_P.S._--As this goes to print the Scots Greys follow our kings to England; and we are left with _one mounted soldier_ in our capital, in bronze, in Princes Street: and to add to our glorious portion in this Union, it has lately been tactfully decreed that in future English n.o.bility will take precedence of Scottish n.o.bility IN SCOTLAND! It will be curious to observe what the populace will say to this when they come to hear of it. I wonder if our n.o.bility will take it lying down--and if I may be forgiven, this extra wide digression?
CHAPTER XXI
I have had a delightful fis.h.i.+ng day; at an early hour found myself again at the sh.o.r.e, nominally to paint, but in truth because it was hot and stuffy in town, and the thought of the surf and clear air made the beach irresistible. A rickshaw man used his legs to take me to the sands edge; and they were empty as yesterday of all but the few fishermen and their families. The colour effect, however, was not so brilliant, but was pleasant enough--the sky soft grey and the water grey too, but colourful--the heat enough to cook one!
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I watched the young idea learning surf rafting--a study fascinating enough for a whole day--a tiny imp with a great pointed log, and the white breakers for playthings. He sat on its stern, his knees and toes on the sand, and held its stem seawards till the inrush of shallow white-laced water was deep enough to float it and take his little anatomy a voyage of a few yards on the sloping outrush, then he jumped off and waited till the surf brought his black s.h.i.+p back. With what quickness he noted the exact moment to run in and catch its stem, and slew it round so that it would broach ash.o.r.e on its side, and how neatly he avoided being caught between it and the sand. The fishermen's boats, or catamarans as they are called here, though they have no resemblance to the Colombo catamaran, are made of four of these pointed logs tied side by side. I suppose this little chap was playing at his future work.
He had made a little collection on the dry sand of two or three sh.e.l.l-fish and beasts that burrow in the sand, and whenever he went to sea, three crows stalked up to these, when he would leave the log and scamper after them, then run back all over dry sand and tumble into the surf again, to come up laughing and wet and s.h.i.+ning like copper--I should say it was nicer than being at school.
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