Part 15

A series of earthquakes alarmed Nicaragua in January, 1866, and the municipality of the capital asked us to explore Mombacho, an ancient crater from which the disturbance was supposed to come. My companion and I rode out, with guides, and at nightfall reached Dirioma, an Indian village. A superb avenue of organo cactus leads to that secluded settlement; the trunks, ten feet high, looked like fluted pillars of marble in the pale glow of starlight. Dirioma is much the same now, probably, as the Conquistadores found it, a marvel of color, softness, and grace of form. Each dwelling, framed of bamboos and sticks, like a bird-cage, stands in its own compound; the road runs straight and broad and smooth in front; palms droop over the cactus hedge, black against the night sky as ostrich plumes, and behind them lies a dusky mass of foliage, gleaming red in the glow of the hearth. All day and all night the place is still, for Indian children, if they play, are silent.

Our billet assigned was such a hut, hung round with hollow logs used as beehives; in dismounting we upset one, but the insects were familiar with disasters of the sort, and they took it kindly. We asked about “Carib Stones,” as usual—all antiquities are called Carib Stones in Nicaragua—and the guide led us into another compound, where a very old man crouched beside an enormous fire, with three or four Indians about him. When our inquiries were explained, with difficulty, the veteran brightened and began talking like a machine. Some feathers of the quetzal bird lay beside him; these he snatched up, waved, and shook to emphasise his statements. We could understand very little of the patois, more than half Indian; but the naked old man’s shadow played grotesquely on the lattice wall behind, the brandished plumes flashed emerald and sapphire, the elders sat round like wrinkled effigies in bronze, their small eyes fixed upon us with never a wink. The ancient hero did not tell much—he spoke of the golden temple which, as everybody knows, is hid somewhere in the neighboring woods; but gave no precise information. Afterwards we learned that this was a lineal descendant of the old caciques of Dirioma, who gave four thousand axes of gold—or whatever the number may have been—to Gil Gonzalez de Avila. Though he worked as a slave before the emancipation, the Indians revere and obey him to such degree that a Secretary of State thought worth while to ask of us what his remarks had been.

Many odd quarters we knew on the West Coast, where men and circumstances have a character all their own. Quisa recurs to my mind just now; I could not tell why, for we saw places as strange under more exciting conditions. This is the first town, or was, within the Ashanti realm proper. It looked almost civilized to us, marching from the coast—for refinement is comparative—and decidedly picturesque. Quisa might be called a town, its ways streets, its dwellings cottages of unusual form. A row of fine shade-trees in the middle of the chief thoroughfare had earthen benches at their feet, where the elders sat for council and gossip. The king’s house stood at the intersection of the main streets. It had not the alcove or box in the outer wall, so conspicuous in the architecture of Coomassie, but the façade, of polished stucco, was broken by niches, and moulded arabesques, two inches in relief, covered it all over. What they represented or signified we could not make out with confidence, so thoroughly had the style been “conventionalized” by generations of artists; but in the original idea they were human figures probably, engaged in war and ceremonies of state. The wall was colored in Venetian red, with a pleasing gloss upon it, and it stretched twenty yards or so on either side the doorway. This was a Moorish arch, of wood, the same in type as those we are familiar with at Sydenham, and gaily painted. Inside and out all was clean and perfect.

Through this doorway a passage, smoothly coated with chunam, and tinted red, opened into the _cour d’honneur_. On the right hand, just inside the door, stood a fetich niche, very like an exaggerated font for holy water. It contained the usual medley of rubbish—bones and sticks and teeth and roots and tangles of string; a lot of eggshells also, pierced and tied together. Opposite to this niche was a hollow in the wall, two steps above the ground, just long enough and broad enough for a man to lie; the quarters, doubtless, of a slave who kept the door. What I have termed the _cour d’honneur_ was a small quadrangle, unroofed, with alcoves much like boxes at a theatre on three of its sides. The middle one, that fronting the entrance, occupied the full breadth of the wall, saving a doorway that led through to the next court; the others were smaller. These boxes stood on a level, perhaps five feet above the floor of the yard. They had no way in from the back, but access was gained by steps from below, and the parapet, of mud and chunam, was cut away at that point. Wooden columns and arches, of Moorish design and color, marked the king’s box—that in the middle. They had hangings apparently, for pegs were there, and I found a silk “cloth” on the ground.

It was not difficult, with our experience, to refill this courtyard with the pride and pomp and circumstance of Quisa royalty. There sat the king on his earthen bench, wrapped in a spotless robe of cotton, home-spun, and home-dyed in graceful patterns. His sandals, with a golden sole and little, solid, golden figures for ornament, rested on a patchwork carpet of silk. His arms were bare, but loaded with bracelets; some of the costly Aggry bead, some a bristling string of nuggets unworked. Arab charms, wrapped in small leather cases, sewn with gold, encircled his wrists and elbows and knees, and they dangled from the arch above. On the floor at either hand crouched a page, one holding his pipe, silver-bound, one his drinking calabash, mounted in gold and carved. Behind these favorites squatted the bearer of the toddy jar, Dutch earthenware, set in silver, and the drinking calabash, carved and bound in gold; of the silver-mounted stool and gun, the silver spittoon, and knives with silver hafts in a belt of leopard-skin—in short, the retinue essential to his majesty’s comfort. Nearest of all stood the executioner, with his four-handled sword of office, looking like a toy-stool of gold with a clumsy blade thrust through the seat. The royal councillors sat upon the cross-benches, and the smaller alcoves were occupied by wives and slaves, handsome enough, many of them, their lips full but not thick, their noses straight, their skins brown with a shade of gold. A mass of ornaments, in bullion or filagree, decked the long wool of these ladies, combed to all manner of fantastic shapes: eccentricity has no bounds in dealing with that stiff and elastic material, which grows to a surprising length amongst Ashantis and Fantis. I have seen it drawn out, kinkles and all, eighteen inches from the skull, and thus remain stark on end, until the lady had time to get it arranged in, for instance, the exact similitude of a pine-apple, divided into lozenges, with a neat curl in the centre of each.

So the king of Quisa sat to display his magnificence daily, and to administer justice. It is the inclination of us superior beings to imagine that “off with his head,” is the monotonous refrain of every judgment pronounced by negro royalty. The notion is gathered perhaps rather from burlesques and comic songs than from inquiry, and I suspect that shrewd comment and patient debate were often heard in that pretty court. The general effect of it, even empty, astonished us all, from Sir Garnet to Tommy Atkins. But we showed our emotion in various ways. I entered with two young doctors, who had their billet at the palace. After going through and surveying it in silence, one of them hurriedly unpacked a trunk, produced his everlasting banjo, and sang an air of the day: “You know it all depends upon the way in which it’s done!” This exercise finished, he was equal to discussion.

A natural halting-place, as one may say, at the end of the first march from Jellalabad is the castle of a great Ghilzai chief, whose name I forget. He had been an active enemy in the late war; but for reasons unknown the political department long refused to let us take possession of this building, which is called Rosarbad, though it was empty; nor would they even permit us to encamp in the fields and groves about it. Accordingly a very small post was established on a bleak hillside in the neighborhood, a spot so stony and barren that pegs would not hold in the soil. Two nights I passed there are scored in the blackest of chalk among my experiences of mere wretchedness; for a gale was always blowing and tents were always collapsing: if one’s own escaped, the yelling and roaring of other sufferers made life almost as miserable. As for the horses, they enjoyed a battle scarcely interrupted, and the squealing all night, with the shouting of furious troopers, banished sleep. A detachment which had three weeks’ duty at that outpost lost a quarter of its strength by invaliding, the result of sheer fatigue. When I add that a night attack was always probable, and often threatened, the least fanciful of readers may conceive that existence at Boulé camp was not happy.

It was an aggravation and a mockery for these unfortunates to see the great tower of Rosarbad above the cypresses and planes but a thousand yards away, to know that it was confiscated by the laws of war, and that no human being dwelt in those comfortable quarters. The state of things became unbearable at last, the Politicals were overruled, and when I came down country from Gandamuck I found the castle occupied. It was late in the month of April. Quitting the barren, rocky highway, we rode across a bridge, rough but neat, through a screen of trees, and found ourselves in a landscape thoroughly and charmingly English. The crops were strange, no doubt, but they looked familiar. The stalwart peasantry who toiled there had dark faces and outlandish dress; but, buried to the waist in green, stooping above their work, they passed, at a glance, for English husbandmen. And the trees that bordered these pleasant fields, full-leaved, deepshadowed, resembled our native elm. Even the atmosphere was English, the still golden haze of a midsummer evening. We pulled up, each struck with thoughts not lightly to be breathed. The foreign landscape, the parched hills and dusty road behind, were all shut out. One might fondly dream for an instant that war and exile had come to an end, that these ruddy turrets peeping above the trees marked the ancient, hospitable home where we were eagerly expected. Our orderly looked and stared, and gazed and muttered—the stupid exclamation does not signify; it was meant to suggest wonder and delight and feeling beyond an honest trooper’s power of expression.

Envious fancy had done its utmost among those poor fellows camped at Boulé, in picturing the spot they were forbidden to approach. But it surpassed anticipation. I am not going to describe the scene, for I made no sketch, and some who will read this did, whilst every one who halted there keeps a recollection of Rosarbad. Nothing like it did we see in any part of Afghanistan. Though built of mud, its lofty walls, brand new, had almost the sharpness of granite, and they were thick enough to stand some pounding of solid shot. Frosts have tried them now, doubtless, rains have channeled them, the battlements are ruinous, and not one right angle remains; but it was mighty handsome in our day, looking like a feudal fortress, with a gate-tower almost majestic overlooking a grove of cypresses on the other side the moat: so dense was the foliage of this copse that daylight could not pierce it. A miscellaneous throng of bunniahs had converted its twilight arcades into a bazaar, hanging bright cottons from trunk to trunk, and establishing booths full of cheap glitter. Sowars and sepoys, in flowing, picturesque undress, strolled hand in hand through the chiaroscuro. Giant Pathans prowled up and down, all beard and eyes and dirt, gazing with rapt, vulture-like expression at the luxury displayed. Sometimes a yell arose, a sound of scuffling, a rush of frightened traders and of sepoys to the rescue; then from the struggling mass a prisoner was dragged, and perhaps a groaning comrade was borne to the gate.

Within the portcullis and the vaulted approach lay a garden, actually a garden, bordered on one side by the durbar hall, on another by a row of small latticed chambers. In the hall, which was raised several feet above the level, stood an enormous tub, into which a column of water fell by a shoot. It was forced to the upper story, and thence descended. Of all surprises that befell a visitor to Rosarbad, none equalled this. A soothing cataract, a shower-bath, and a fish-pond all in one make a convenience for the drawing-room hardly known in Europe. After the first enthusiasm, however, certain disadvantages betrayed themselves. The middle of the hall was a quagmire, and if in the zeal of admiration one approached too near, the mud held one fast while the shower wet one through. But this made part of the day’s fun. The officers of the little garrison cherished their odd quarters, and they applied their leisure to gardening, with such success that visitors were sometimes presented with a rose. I need scarcely say that the name of the castle has no connection with botany. The Pathan seems to be acquainted with five flowers only—jasmine, rose, chrysanthemum, iris, and narcissus. Painful to an enthusiast is the most successful of Oriental gardens. Though they bear a mass of flowers so that Peshawur, for instance, has an air laden with scents, the individual bloom is mean and the tree pitiful.

In contrast to the glories of Rosarbad, I recall a billet on the other side of Afghanistan. We had been snowed up in the Kojak pass—a miserable time, and when a thaw released us I pushed on with a comrade towards Quetta—a ride to try one’s good humor; for with the thaw came rain, which made that bare desert as slippery as ice—a peculiar condition dreaded under the name of ‘put.’ We got off the track somehow beyond Abdallah Karez, and very glad were we to find an empty village, where a Baboo go-master was posted to collect stores of forage and grain. He had three sepoys to protect him—a guard much less formidable than a score of Pathan dogs, left by their masters, I suppose, which fed upon the carcasses of camels lying all around. This Baboo was an ingenious man. The mud huts had been dismantled perhaps; anyhow, they were roofless and badly gapped. In the long frost our go-master had a bad time; the thermometer below zero at night, or always close upon it, and no better protection than a tent for his southern limbs. Moreover, there was some chance that the enemy might swoop down, or he thought so. Superstition loses its awful power in the extremity of wretchedness. The Baboo, who was forbidden to touch a dead insect or even to look at it, employed sepoys and muleteers, and anyone he could catch, in building a fortification of dead camels all round his store-house; and he lived therein, shuddering with remorse, but warm and secure. While the frost lasted it was mighty comfortable, but the thaw had reduced that Baboo to sore distress. His wall was decaying visibly under conditions which I need not suggest, and to enter the enclosure needed more heroism and more cotton wool than the average mortal is provided with. A camel’s is a heavy and unwieldy carcass when frozen hard: a regiment of scavengers could not have cleared away those scores of bodies when loosed by the thaw. The Government stores were protected after a fashion hitherto thought peculiar to Chinese warfare, by “stink-pot” torpedos in effect, and neither friend nor foe dared approach. I do not know the end of that story. If it is the traveller’s privilege to see queer incidents, it is too often his ill-luck to miss the explanation and the catastrophe.

A scene I cherish with especial tenderness is that passed at Changhi, behind Singapore. A Malay fishing village lay beneath our bungalow, upon a broad and snowy beach. In barbarous regions of the North men live underground, but these dwellings were suspended in the sunny air amongst plumes of cocoanut and betel; behind them rose the shadowy jungle. There was no cultivated land in sight, for the Malay finds his harvest and his garden in the sea. The smooth sand below high-water mark was a parterre of sponges, green and red, and purple blue, intermixed with coral. Old-fashioned people in Europe cherish certain round masses of limestone, daintily fluted, and put them under a glass case for ornament. Imagine their beauty in the spot where nature places them, every lip and hollow on the cream-white surface traced out in vividest pencilling of green, with the seaflowers of sponge around them.

But after the first impulse of delight, one almost comes to overlook this charming foreground; for beneath the water lies a tangle and a maze of all things lovely for shape and color and growth and motion. Coral takes a hundred flowery forms, weeds branch like trees or wave like serpents, sponges are cups of amethyst and ruby. When waves lie still, one sees just as clearly into the depths below as into the air above, and almost as far, as it seems. The vegetation is gigantic in its loveliness. There are coral growths shaped like an Egyptian lily and as white, but three feet in diameter, wherein a mermaid might take her bath. Others break into a thicket, each twig covered with snowy rosettes which bear a morsel of green velvet in their bosoms. Others are great round hillocks diapered with emerald, with here and there a bush of scarlet thorn springing from their sides. Through and over the garden, long silvery weeds tremble and quiver in a net. Small fish as quick as humming-birds, and almost as gay, dart to and fro. Water snakes float past in coils like Indian enamel of every shade, in red and brown and yellow and purple. I am grateful that fate allowed me three weeks of life at Changhi.

But I have dwelt also, too long, with those northern people referred to who burrow in the earth, and with those southerners, not half long enough, who inhabit the trees. Not to be forgotten are our quarters before Plevna, in the compound of a Bulgar farm-house. The floor of its single room lay perhaps two feet beneath the soil, and one entered by a steep incline—that is to say, the inhabitants entered. The ends of the roof descended just so low as to give room for a foot-square window at the level of the earth; but on the incline mentioned, it rose. One of my comrades in this hostelry was poor MacGahan, who lay on his back and sang the whole day through when at home. He had laid some hay upon the “stoop” beside the entrance, and from amongst it his bright eyes watched and his voice resounded. I lived in a waggon. One day the gudewife interviewed my dragoman. She expressed her belief that it was MacGahan’s songs that brought the rain, which, indeed, was perennial. She clung to her point with vehemence. Her husband arrived, and so did some Cossacks. They listened with great interest for a while, understanding not a word, and then, with a happy impulse, hustled the Bulgar head first into his den. The motive of this proceeding lay beyond our comprehension, and theirs also, no doubt; but the Cossack is an irresponsible being. When we laughed they roared, crinkling their jolly, ugly faces until the eyes vanished altogether. I gave them a drink, but not a many-bladed knife, which was lost to human sight in that hour.

The dirtiest experience to which mankind may be subjected is a campaign; but when Russ meets Turk on Bulgarian fields you have a conjuncture of men and circumstances not to be realised elsewhere. The country was sodden at that time, the camps mid-leg deep in puddled clay. General Zortoff, who had the command, occupied a hut much like ours, a couple of hundred yards away; but we always mounted to pay a call, for the space round head-quarters was an actual bog. Officers waiting on the general sat perched upon fences round his yard, in a manner very drolly miserable. The staff had their office in a cowshed which had not been cleaned for years.

A month in a Dyak house is another pleasing recollection. For that space of time, barring nights camped out, my quarters lay besides the council fire. A hoop of human heads hung above it, within arm’s length of my own. Ugly were they as valued—precious ugly, one might say with literal truth—but the ghosts never visited my dreams. All the inhabitants of a Dyak village dwell under one roof, more than a thousand feet in length sometimes. The whole building stands twenty to sixty feet in air on massive posts. Every family has its single apartment side by side, the chief’s in the middle, and every door opens on a clear, sheltered space running from end to end, which we call the inner verandah, for there is a second beyond the eave. Opposite the chief’s door lie the big stones of the council hearth, the heads, belonging to the clan, strung on hoops, and details of common property. That month spent with savages, living their life, noting the thousand small events of every day, about which the most thoughtful of men would hardly think of asking speculative questions—the experience of that time taught me much that has been useful since: for the naked barbarian and the æsthetic philosopher are one. He who knows by practice the instincts of human nature understands a thousand mysteries inscrutable to one who has only its acquired customs to guide him.

Pleasant was the teaching. Fog alone was visible from the top of the ladder when the house began to stir—a sea of mist from which arose, with no trunks perceptible, the crowns of fruit trees and feathered crests of palms. First the married men turned out, and then the bachelors appeared from their separate quarter; shivering under his bark blanket, each cut a plug of betel and chewed it. Then graceful girls came out with long shovel baskets, some leisurely and composed, others bustling; these had not winnowed the paddy over night, and certain of the youths knew why. After a while the housewife opened her door, and in that defiant voice which belongs to hard-working mothers everywhere, summoned her family to breakfast. When they reappeared the fog was lifting, the sky dappled like an opal. Cheered by the growing warmth men moved briskly, arranging their tools and arms and gear. The young women and maidens followed, a pleasing bevy, with loads strapped to their backs, and all the villagers descended to the lower earth.