Part 11

I observed the moth had a large, dark, cigar-shaped body, with two longish _antennæ_, much stouter than the proboscis, and infinitely shorter. After pursuing its researches into the internal economy of several lilies, the thing flew into my face, and I ought to have caught and examined it, for then the feeler had disappeared; but I was surprised and rather alarmed, and I thought it would return to the flowers, and I could again watch, and, if necessary, catch it. It made, however, for a dark corner, and then buzzed about the wooden ceiling till it came to an iron hook from which hung a basket of ferns. I was carefully watching it all the time, and at the hook it disappeared, the buzzing ceased, and I concluded the creature had gone into a hole where it probably lived. To-day, in daylight, I examined the ceiling all round the hook, but there was no hole anywhere.

Now is this the beginning of the dog business, and am I to be haunted by those fiery eyes, by the ceaseless clatter of those buzzing wings, and the long supple feeler that suggests the tortures of dentistry, and may probe deep into the recesses of my brain? It can’t, I think, be liver, for I have not yet learnt on which side of me that useful organ lies, and it is not drink. If it is only a moth of a rather uncommon kind, I suppose the fire in its eyes is to light it through the darkness; but I never before saw a moth going into raptures over flowers, and I can’t yet understand where it puts away that instrument of torture, unless it winds it round a bobbin, inside its head or its body, when not using it. It reminds me of a man I saw swallowing swords at the Aquarium. I was quite willing to admire and believe, until he took up a sword, the blade of which, by outside measurement, stretched from his mouth nearly to his knee, and swallowed it to the hilt at one gulp. Then I doubted; and the knotty sticks, umbrellas, and bayonets, which he afterwards disposed of with consummate ease, only increased my dislike for him. Still this proboscis is not an umbrella, and though it is about twice as long as the moth itself, and seems to come out of the end of its nose, I know so little of the internal arrangements of these creatures that I dare say this one can, by winding the instrument up like the spring of a watch, find room for it in its head. Why the thing won’t keep its wings still, and sit quietly on the petals of the flower while it thrusts that probe into the lily’s nerve-centres, I can’t imagine. Then one could examine it quietly, and not go to bed in fear of a deadly nightmare.

Perhaps, after all, it is the result of reading about that “Thing too much,” that starving, murderous cur, at 1 A.M.; if it is, I had better go to bed now, for it has just struck the hour. Am I wrong about the message of the rose? You see how hard I try to do your bidding.

XXVI

A LOVE-PHILTRE

There is, to me, something strangely attractive about Muhammadan prayers, especially those fixed for the hour of sunset. Time and again I have gone in with the Faithful, when the priest chants the _mu’azzin_, and I have sat by and been deeply impressed by the extraordinary reverence of the worshippers, while eye and ear have been captivated by the picturesque figures against their colourful background, the wonderfully musical intoning of the priest, and the not less harmonious responses. I do not pretend that this oft-repeated laudation of God’s name, this adoration by deep sonorous words and by every bodily attitude that can convey profound worship, would appeal to others as it does to me, even when I have to guess at the exact meaning of prayers whose general import needs no interpretation.

The fifth hour of prayer follows closely on that fixed for sundown, and the interval is filled up by singing hymns of praise led by the priest, or by telling, and listening to, stories of olden times. Of Eastern places the Malay Peninsula had special attractions for me, and the few European travellers I met there, and who, like myself, were not bound to a programme, seemed equally fascinated. Most of them either prolonged their stay, or determined to return for a longer visit.

It is difficult to say exactly wherein lies the spell, but there are beauties of scenery, the undoubted charm of the people (as distinguished from other Easterns), and the sense of mystery, of exclusiveness, of unspoilt nature and undescribed life, that arouse a new interest in the wearied children of the West. It is pleasant to get at something which is not to be found in any encyclopædia, and it is, above all, gratifying to obtain knowledge direct and at the fountain-head. This is why I often return, in thought, to the narrow land that lies between two storm-swept seas, itself more free from violent convulsions than almost any other. There, is perpetual summer; no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no cyclones. Even the violence of the monsoons, that lash the China Sea and the Indian Ocean into periodical fury, is largely spent before it reaches the unprotected seaboards of the richly dowered peninsula.

Forgive this digression. I was sitting with the Faithful, and the first evening prayer was over. The brief twilight was fast deepening into night. The teacher excused himself, and the disciples pushed themselves across the floor till they could sit with their backs against the wall, leaving two rows of prayer-carpets to occupy the middle of the room. I had asked some question which, in a roundabout way, led to the telling of this tale.

“I remember all about it,” said a man, sitting in the corner; “he was a stranger, a man of Sumatra, called Nakhôdah Ma’win, and he gave the girl a love-potion that drove her mad. He was a trader from Bâtu Bâra, and he had been selling the famous silks of his country in the villages up our river. Having exhausted his stock and collected his money, he embarked in his boat and made his way to the mouth of the river. Every boat going to sea had to take water on board, and there were two places where you could get it; one was at Teluk Bâtu on our coast, and the other was on an island hard by. But, in those days, the strait between the coast and the island was a favourite haunt of pirates, and Nakhôdah Ma’win made for Teluk Bâtu to get his supply of fresh water. He was in no hurry, a week or a month then made no difference; so he first called on the chief of the place, a man of importance, styled Toh Permâtang, and then he began to think about getting the water. Now it happened that Toh Permâtang had four daughters, and the youngest but one, a girl called Ra’ûnah, was very beautiful. When there is a girl of uncommon beauty in a place, people talk about it, and no doubt the Nakhôdah, idling about, heard the report and managed to get sight of Ra’ûnah. At once he fell in love with her, and set about thinking how he could win her, though she was already promised in marriage to another. These Sumatra people know other things besides making silks and daggers, and Nakhôdah Ma’win had a love-philtre of the most potent kind. It was made from the tears of the sea-woman whom we call _dûyong_. I know the creature. I have seen it. It is bigger than a man, and something like a porpoise. It comes out of the sea to eat grass, and, if you lie in wait for it, you can catch it and take the tears. Some people eat the flesh, it is red like the flesh of a buffalo; and the tears are red, and if you mix them with rice they make the rice red; at least, people say so. Anyhow, Nakhôdah Ma’win had the philtre, and he got an old woman to needle the way for him, as one always does, and she managed to mix the dûyong’s tears with Ra’ûnah’s rice, and, when the girl had eaten it, she was mad with love for the Nakhôdah. He stayed at Teluk Bâtu for a month, making excuses, but all to be with Ra’ûnah; and he saw her every day--with the help of the old woman, of course. You can’t go on like that for long without some one suspecting something, and, though I never heard for certain that there was anything really wrong, the girl was mad and reckless, and the Nakhôdah took fright. She was a chief’s daughter, while he was a trader and a stranger, and he knew they would kill him without an instant’s hesitation if Toh Permâtang so much as suspected what was going on. Therefore, having got the water on board, the Nakhôdah put to sea, saying nothing to any one. In a little place people talk of little things, and some one said, in the hearing of Ra’ûnah, that the Bâtu Bâra trader had sailed away. With a cry of agony the girl dashed from the house, her sisters after her; and seeing the boat sailing away, but still at no great distance, for there was little breeze, she rushed into the sea and made frantic efforts to tear herself from the restraining arms of her sisters, who could barely prevent her from drowning herself. At the noise of all this uproar a number of men ran down to the shore, and, when they saw and heard what was the matter, they shouted to the Nakhôdah to put back again. He knew better than to thrust his neck into the noose, and, though they pursued his boat, they failed to catch him.

“When Ra’ûnah saw that she could not get to her lover, and that each moment was carrying him farther away, she cried to him to return, and bursting into sobs, she bemoaned her abandonment, and told her tale of love in words of endearment and despair that passed into a song, which to this day is known as Ra’ûnah’s Lament.

“Yes, I can remember the verses, and will repeat them if it does not weary you. The Nakhôdah never returned.

“‘Oh, shelter! my dear shelter! the palm stands in the plain. The fruit of the nutmeg falls to the ground and lies there. Thine is thy sister, small but comely, Thy diamond! the light of Permâtang Guntong.

Oh, my shelter! I hear the measured splash of the oars; I see the drift-weed caught in the rudder. Thou art above, my protecting shelter; I am beneath, in lowly worship.

Oh, my shelter! ’twas the hour of evening prayer when thou settest sail; The oars are straining and the boat reels along. God’s mercy is great, His promise sure; By His blessing we shall meet in the Garden of Paradise.

Oh, my shelter! the breeze is blowing in fitful gusts; Be careful not to pull the sail to the left. In three months and ten days, Thou wilt return, my brother!

Oh, my shelter! make for the island, Sri Rama; For there are two marabouts and a fish-weir. Though thou leavest me, be not long absent; In two, at most in three, months, return again.

Oh, my shelter! the waters of the sea are calm, Yet do not hug the shore. Have no fear of my betrothed; Was not thy sword but lately sharpened?

Oh, my shelter! thou camest to Teluk Bâtu, And the peace of my heart has gone. Satan delights in my undoing, For my heart cleaves to thine.

Oh, my shelter! take good thought, The passions war with the soul. Do not waste the gold in thy hand, Lest scoffers have cause to mock thee.

Oh, my Nakhôdah! when the mattress is spread, who will lie on it? Who shall be covered by the folded coverlet? Who will sit upon the embroidered mat, Or lean against the great round pillow?

Oh, my Nakhôdah! the feast is waiting, but who will eat it? The water is cool, but who will drink it? The napkin is there, whose mouth can it wipe? The sireh is ready, but who will use it? Thy Sister is cold, who will fondle her? Ah-hu! ah-hu! come death, deliver me.’

“And then she fell to weeping and moaning, struggling with her sisters, and trying to cast herself into the sea.

“That is the tale of Ra’ûnah and Nakhôdah Ma’win, and every one knows it. Some tell it one way and some another, but that is how it came to me. The girl was mad, mad with love and regret for six months; and then her father married her to another man, and that cured her. I knew the man: he was a foreigner. She and two of her sisters died long ago, but the other is alive still.

“How to get the dûyong’s tears? Oh, that is easy enough. You catch the sea-woman when she comes up the sand to eat the sweet grass on shore. I told you how to do it. You have to lie in wait and she waddles up on two sort of fins that she uses like feet, helping with her tail. If she sees you, she tries to get back into the sea, but you stand between her and the water and so catch her. Then, if you want her tears, you make a palisade of sticks in the deeper water of the bay through which she came, and there you bind her in a sort of cage, at the surface of the water, so that she can’t move. It is like the thing they put elephants in when they are half-tamed. When she finds she is held fast there, and cannot get down into the deep water to her young, she weeps, and as the tears stream down her face you catch them, sweep them into a vessel, and you have the philtre.”

There was a pause. Then a man said, “I hear they sell dûyong’s tears in Penang.”

The teller of the story at once replied, “Very likely, I have heard it too; but it is probably only some make-believe stuff. You must try it before you buy it.”

“How do you do that?”

“Easily. Rub some of the philtre on a chicken’s beak; if it is really potent, the chicken will follow you wherever you go!”

“Have you seen that yourself?”

“No. I want no love-philtres. I manage well enough without them. I don’t care to play with a thing you can’t control. I might get into trouble, like Nakhôdah Ma’win. It is easy enough to give the potion, but I never heard what you do to stop it. Anyhow, if I wanted to buy the stuff, I should first try it on a chicken, and if it had no effect I should not believe in it, for every one knows that the story of Ra’ûnah and Ma’win is true, or they would not sing about it to this day. Hark! the teacher is calling to prayer.”

A number of boys’ high-pitched voices were chanting--

“_Bihak-illah, rizal-l’ Allah! A’ain-nu na, bi-aun illah!_”

and, across their chorus, came the sonorous, far-reaching tones of the priest--

“_Allah-hu akbar! Allah-hu akbar! Ashâd-du Allah, illah-ha il-Allah._”

When the little group of men had fallen into their places, and the only sound in the building was the musical intoning of the half-whispered prayers, I could not help musing on the extraordinarily happy expression, “he found an old woman to _needle_ the way for him.” Nothing could be more delightful than the symbol of the small, insinuating, finely tempered, horribly sharp bit of steel that goes so easily through things, and leaves no trace of its passage. And then there is nearly always a thread behind it, and that remains when the needle has gone!

I have translated Ra’ûnah’s lament for you absolutely literally, except that the word which occurs so often, and which I have rendered “shelter,” means “umbrella.” The umbrella here, as in other countries, is an emblem of the highest distinction: a shelter from sun and rain, a shield and protection, “the shadow of a great rock in a dry land.” A yellow umbrella is a sign and token of sovereignty.

XXVII

MOONSTRUCK

Once I suggested to you that the greatest facts of life are, in English, expressed by the smallest words, and, with that dainty, hesitating manner that is so captivating, you almost consented to agree. Look, for instance, at these words: God, sin, good, bad, day, night, sun, moon, light, dark, heat, cold, earth, sky, sea, world, peace, war, joy, pain, eat, drink, sleep, love, hate, birth, death. They cover a good deal of ground, and you can easily add to them. A philologist would tell you why the most profound conceptions, the most important abstract facts, are denoted by simple words, but the explanation might not interest you. The circle of my acquaintances does not include a philologist; my nearest approach to such dissipation is a friend who pretends to be a lexicographer. Now look at that word, it is long enough in all conscience, but the idea which it represents only makes one tired.

Whilst a good reason could be found for expressing original principles in monosyllables, I wonder if any one can say why that fantastic product of this century, the (so-called) educated Indian, revels in the use and misuse of all the longest words he can find to convey his, sometimes grotesque, but nearly always commonplace, thoughts, when he tries to put them in English. Curiously enough, this transcendental language, which is the peculiar pride of the Indian babu, leaves on the mind of the listener no concrete idea, no definite conception of what the speaker wants to say; but it does invariably conjure up a figure typical of the class which employs this barbarous tongue as a high-sounding medium in which to disguise its shallow thoughts. And then one feels sorry for the poor overthrown words, the maimed quotations, and the slaughtered sentences, so that one realises how happy is that description which speaks of the English conversation of East Indians as a _mêlée_, wherein the words lie about “like dead men on a battle-field.” There must be something in the Indian’s character to account for this; and, as a great stream of words pours from the narrow channel of his mind, and gives expression to his turgid thoughts in an avalanche of sound, so you will see the same extravagance of outward display in the manner of his life, in his strange garments, his sham jewellery, and his pitiful and disastrous attempts to ape what he thinks is the riotous “fastness” of the quite white man. Behind this outward seeming, there is also, in many cases, nothing, and sometimes even less than that. Misapplied English education has a good deal to answer for, and, if the babu has a soul, it may demand a reckoning from those who gave it a speech in which to make known the impossible aspirations of a class that is as rich in wordy agitation as it is poor in the spirit and physique of a ruling race. Many babus cannot quench revolt. Perhaps the babu is the “thing too much” in India; they could do without him. And yet he and education, combined, make a growing danger that may yet have to be counted with. But enough of the babu; I cannot think how he got into my letter.

* * * * *

My visit to this strange and beautiful country is over. For the last time a steamer is hurrying me down one of those great waterways which, until recent times, have been the only means of getting into this mysterious land. The dying day supplied a feast of colour, of momentarily changing pictures that, however familiar, seem always new, always resplendent with amazing lights, delicate half-tints, and soft shadows, such as only a moisture-charged atmosphere and a fiery sun can produce. Does the thought of such an evening ever come back to you, or are you trying to accustom yourself to the greys and neutral tints of the life of resignation? Ah! The moon is just rising; the scene is quite enchanting, and I must try to tell you exactly what I see.

The river is six or seven hundred yards wide. It is high tide, and, to the eye, the picture has but three component parts--sky, wood, and water. Sky and water are divided by a belt of wood which borders the river. The continuous belt of trees, of varying height, growing from out the river and up the bank, makes a deeply indented line of vegetation. This belt is unbroken, but it rises into plumes and graceful fronds, where some loftier palm or giant jungle-tree towers above its neighbours, and all its foliage shows clear as an etching against the grey-blue background. Again, the belt dips and leaves broken spaces of sky, where the foliage suddenly dwarfs. The sky is dark grey just above the trees, but the grey changes to blue as the eye travels upward, and overhead the zenith is sapphire, cloudless sapphire spangled with stars. The water is like burnished gun-metal, and, under the shore, there is a shadow as dark and wide as the line of trees which throws it. The moon, a perfect circle of brilliant light, not silver nor gold, but the colour produced by silvering over a golden ground, has just risen, and rides a short space above the trees. In the deepest shadow, exactly where water and land meet, there is a narrow streak of amazingly bright light; then a space of darkness, covered by the shadow of the trees, and then a veritable column of gold, the width of the moon, and the length of the moon’s distance above the trees. The column is not still, it is moved by the shimmer of the water, and it dazzles the eyes. The effect is marvellous: this intense brilliance as of molten gold, this pillar of light with quivering but clearly-defined edges, playing on a mirror of dark burnished steel. Then that weird glint of yellow flame, appearing and disappearing, in the very centre of the blackest shadow, and, above all, the Queen of Night moves through the heavens in superb consciousness of her own transcendent beauty, calmly satisfied to recognise that the sapphire firmament, and all the world of stars, are but the background and the foils to her surpassing loveliness.

As the moon rises, the reflection in the river lengthens, widens, breaks into ripples of amber, and shoots out arrows of paler light. Soon there is a broad pathway of glittering wavelets, which opens out into a great silvery road, and the light of the risen moon dispels the grey fog that hung over the belt of jungle, and tinges with silver the few fleecy clouds that emphasise the blueness of their background. Then a dark curtain gradually spreads itself across the sky, dims the moonlight, veils the stars, and throws a spell over the river, hiding its luminous highway, and casting upon the water the reflection of its own spectre-like form.

* * * * *

The fog clung to the river, but when we reached the sea the moon reigned alone, paling the stars and filling the air with a flood of delicious light. I was leaning over the side of the ship, wondering where I could ever see such a sight again, when a man of the country came and stood by me. I said something to him of the beauty of the night, and he answered, “Yes, there are flowers in the moon.”

I asked him what he meant, and this is what he told me:--