Part 4 (1/2)
We now come to the crown of the animal kingdom--man. And in the Sikkim Himalaya are to be found men of all the stages of civilisation from the most primitive to the most advanced. Inhabiting the forests at the foot of the mountains are certain jungle peoples of extreme interest simply by reason of their primitiveness. They represent the very early stages of man, and in observing them in their own haunts, we shall understand something of the immensity and the delicacy of man's task in gaining his ascendancy in the animal world and acquiring a greater mastery over his surroundings.
In these forests teeming with animal life of all kinds man had to hold his own against dangerous and stronger animals, and to supply himself with food in the face of many rivals. He had to be as alert as the sharpest-witted and as cunning as the most crafty, and to have physical fitness and endurance to stand the strain of incessant rivalry.
This is what these jungle people have. Their alertness, their capacity to glide through the forest almost as stealthily as an animal, their keenness of sight, their acute sense of hearing, their knowledge of jungle lore and of the habits of animals, and their ability to stand long and hard physical strain, are the envy of us civilised men when we find ourselves among them. Particularly is this shown when tracking. They will note the slightest indication of the pa.s.sage of the animal they are after--the faintest footprint, a stone overturned and showing the moisture on its under surface, a broken twig, a bitten leaf, the bark rubbed--and they will be able to judge from the exact appearance of these signs how long it is since the animal made them.
They will, too, detect sounds which we civilised men would certainly never hear, and from a note of alarm in these sounds, or from excitement among birds, infer the presence of a dangerous animal.
When seen outside the forests these jungle men look wild and unkempt, but seen in their natural surroundings and compared _there_ with the white man, they have a Beauty which is wanting in the white man. In _these_ surroundings they have a dignity and composure and a.s.surance which the European lacks. They are on their own ground, and there they are beautiful.
And these primitive men are worthy of being painted by the very greatest of painters, and of having their praises sung by the very first of poets. For it is they and their like who, with only such weapons as the forest affords and their own ingenuity devised, won the way through for us civilised men, won the battle against the fierce and much more powerful beasts around them, and by great daring and through sheer skill, courage, and endurance led the way to the light.
It was a marvellous feat. For all the privileges and immunities which we men of to-day enjoy we have to thank these primitive forest men, and our grat.i.tude could never be too great. They are deserving of the closest attention and the warmest appreciation.
Not many of these really primitive peoples are nowadays left in the jungles. But the tea-gardens have attracted a primitive people, the Santals, who are typical of the true Dravidian stock of India--a jolly, cheerful, easy-going, and, on the whole, law-abiding, truthful, and honest people who love a roaming life, with plenty of hunting and fis.h.i.+ng.
The Lepchas of Sikkim have risen above the first primitive stage.
They clothe themselves well and dwell in well-built houses. They do not possess for us the same essential interest as belongs to truly primitive people. But on account of their intimate knowledge of the forest and its denizens, and by reason also of their being a remarkably simple, gentle, and likeable people, they have an unusual attraction for travellers. Hooker, who was one of the first to live among them, and Claude White, who lived among them for many years, both write of them in affectionate terms. They are child-like and engaging, good-humoured, cheery and amiable, free and unrestrained. They have, too, a reputation for honesty and truthfulness.
More vigorous, capable, and virile than the Lepchas are the Nepalese, who, migrating from Nepal, are found in great numbers in this region. They are more given to agriculture than the Lepchas, and are thrifty, industrious, and resourceful. Though excitable and aggressive, they are also law-abiding.
Less numerous but prominent inhabitants of this region are the Bhutias, who consist of four cla.s.ses; Bhutias, who are a mixed race of Tibetans and Lepchas; Sherpa Bhutias, who come from the east of Nepal, the word _sher_ merely meaning ”east”; the Drukpa or Dharma Bhutias, whose home is Bhutan; and the Tibetan Bhutias from Tibet. They are strong, st.u.r.dy men, merry and cheerful.
These Lepchas, Nepalese, and Bhutias are all of Mongolian origin, and therefore have the distinctively Mongolian appearance. But besides these, in Darjiling and on the tea-gardens are to be found Bengali clerks, Marwari merchants from Rajputana, Punjabi traders, Hindustani mechanics, and Chinese carpenters. And in addition to all these are British Government officials, tea-planters, and a continual stream of visitors from all parts of Europe and America, who come to Darjiling to view the snowy range.
So that in this small region may be found representatives of every grade of civilisation and a great variety of types. And what an amount of Beauty--as distinct from mere prettiness--there is to discover in even the rough local people may be seen from the pictures of the Russian painter Verestchagin, engravings from which are given in his autobiographical sketches ent.i.tled ”Va.s.sili Verestchagin.” This great painter evidently succeeded in getting inside the wild peoples he loved; and his pictures reveal to us beauties we might without them never have known. In these people's gait, their att.i.tudes, their grouping, as well as in their features, he was able to discern the hardihood, the patience, the impetuosity, the gentleness of their character, and portray it for us.
Putting aside the obvious differences between us and them, we are able to detect our fundamental ident.i.ty of nature, have a fellow-feeling with them, recognise sameness between us and so see their beauty.
CHAPTER V
THE SUM IMPRESSION
The Artist has now to stand back and view the forest as a whole.
And he must test his view in the light of reason--bring Truth to bear upon Beauty. The forest with its mult.i.tudinous and varied life, ranging from simplest to most cultured man, is an epitome of Nature so far as she is manifested on this planet. And he will from this epitome try to get a view of the real character of Nature. As he takes stock of the impressions which have been made upon him, he will have to form a conclusion of absolutely fundamental importance for the enjoyment of Natural Beauty.
Men's hearts instinctively go out to Nature, and in consequence they see Beauty in her. As children they love flowers and love animals.
And the most primitive races have the same feeling though they are just as callous in their treatment of animals as children are in their treatment of one another. In the more cultured races this instinctive love of Nature and appreciation of Natural Beauty has enormously developed. But if men ever came to hold the idea--as so many since the doctrine of the survival of the fittest has come into prominence are inclined to do--that Nature is at heart cold and hard, and recks nothing of human joys and sorrows, then love of Nature would fade away from men's hearts. Being out of sympathy and repelled from entering into deep communion with her, men would never again see Beauty in her. The enjoyment of Natural Beauty would pa.s.s from them for ever.
So the Artist will try to get at the true Heart of Nature. If the Naturalist part of him tells him that at bottom Nature is merciless and unrelenting, utterly regardless of the things of most worth in life; that Nature is indeed ”red in tooth and claw”; that all she cares for--all she selects as the fittest to survive--are the merely strongest, the most pus.h.i.+ng and aggressive, the individuals who will simply trample down their neighbours in order that they themselves may ”survive”; or if, again, the Naturalist convinces him that all he has seen in the forest has come about by pure chance; that it is by a mere fluke that we find orchids and not mushrooms, men and not monkeys, at the head of plant and animal life; and that Nature herself is wholly indifferent as to which of the two establishes its preeminence--then he will feel the chill upon his soul, he will shrivel up within himself, the very fountain-spring of Beauty will be frozen up, and never again will he see Beauty in any single one of Nature's manifestations.
But if, on the other hand, the Naturalist is able to convince the Artist that in spite of the very evident struggle for existence Nature does not care twopence whether the ”fittest” survive or not so long as what is best in the end prevails; that far from things coming about by mere chance Nature has a distinct end in view, and that end the accomplishment of what he himself most prizes, then the heart of the Artist will warm to the heart of Nature with a fervour it had never known before; his heart will throb with her heart, and every beauty he has seen in plain or mountain, in flower, bird, or man, will be a hundredfold increased.
Which of these two views of Nature, so far as Nature can be judged from what we see of her on this planet, is correct, he has now to determine. The profound mystery which everywhere prevails in the forest and which exerts such a compelling spell upon us he will want to probe to the bottom. He will not be content with the outward prettiness of b.u.t.terfly and orchid, or with the mere profusion and variety of life, or with the colossal size of animals and trees. He will want to burrow down and get at the very root and mainspring of this forest life. He will want to reach the very Heart of Nature here manifested in such manifold variety. He will want to arrive at the inner significance of all this variety of life. Then only will he understand Nature and be able to decide whether Nature is cruel and therefore to be feared, or kind and gracious and therefore to be loved.
Now, when we go into the forest and look into it in detail, the profusion is even greater than we expected. In this damp tropical region where there is ample heat and moisture, plant life comes springing out of the earth with a prolificness which seems inexhaustible. And when plant life is abundant, animal and insect life is abundant also. So profuse, indeed, is the output of living things that it seems simply wasteful. A single tree may produce thousands of flowers. Each flower may have dozens of seeds. The tree may go on flowering for a hundred or two hundred years. So a single tree may produce millions of seeds, each capable of growing into a forest giant like its parent.