CHAPTER XVII

THREE WANDERERS IN INDIA

The merry circus days had left me so great a fortune that I decided to sail to the peninsula of India at once. Marten, of Tacoma, offered to go with me, and I agreed; for the ex-pearl-fisher could speak the Hindu language freely and he knew the country well.

On the morning of April fourth we bought our tickets for passage on the afternoon steamer, and set out to bid farewell to our acquaintances in the city. It was almost time to sail, when Haywood burst in upon us at Almeida’s.

“I hear,” he shouted, “that you fellows are off for India.”

We nodded.

“I’m going along,” he declared.

We scowled. We didn’t want him to go with us. But how could we stop him? He had the same right to travel on that steamer that we had. We kept silent, therefore; and, determining to shake off our unwelcome companion as soon as we landed, marched down to the dock with him, and tumbled with a crowd of coolies into a barge that soon set us aboard the steamship _Kasara_.

We landed in the early morning in a village of mud huts and bamboo bazaars. Here we waited only long enough to catch the train that, rumbling through the village, carried us northward.

I settled back in my seat and looked out of the window at the flying landscape. It was not much like the country of Ceylon. On either hand stretched treeless flat-lands, as parched and brown as Sahara, a desert blazed by a fiery sun, and unwatered for months. A few naked farmers toiled over the baked ground, scratching the dry soil with worthless wooden plows. A short distance beyond, we flew past wretched mud huts, too low to stand in, where the farmers burrow by night and squat on their heels by day.

A hundred miles north of the sea-coast we halted to visit the famous Brahmin temple of Madura. Brahminism is another religion of India—older than Buddhism and much like it. Its followers believe in caste. In ancient times they inflicted severe punishment on themselves for the purification of the soul.

The temple proved to be a great stone building surrounded by a massive wall. Four thousand statues of Hindu gods—so our guide-book told us—adorned each gateway. They were hideous-faced idols, each pouring down from four pairs of hands his blessings on the half-starved humans who crawled and lay flat on the ground to worship them.

Inside the gates swarmed crowds of pilgrims wearing rags as a punishment for their sins. A sunken-eyed youth wormed his way through the crowd and offered to guide us through the temple for a coin or two. We followed him down a narrow passage to a lead-colored pond in which not very neat pilgrims washed away their sins. Then he led us out upon an open space from which we could see the golden roofs.

“High up within one of those domes lives a god,” whispered the youth, while Marten translated. But when I asked him to lead us up so that we could see the god, he said that white men were never allowed to enter the temple.

He took us, instead, to see the sacred elephants. Seven of the monsters, each chained by a foot, thrashed about over their supper of hay in a roofless stable. They were as ready to accept a tuft of fodder from a heathen _sahib_ as from the dust-covered native pilgrim who had tramped many a burning mile to offer it, so that the holy beast would forgive him his sins. Children played in and out among the animals. The largest was amusing himself by setting the little ones, one by one, on his back.

In a far corner stood an elephant that even the clouted keepers avoided. He was the most sacred of them all, our guide said, for he was mad, and he visited a terrible punishment on any who came within reach of his angrily twisting trunk. Yet the sunken-eyed youth explained to us that if a man were killed by one of these holy animals he was very fortunate: for “if a coolie is killed in that way he will be a farmer when he is born again,” he said; “the peasant will become a shop-keeper, the merchant a warrior, in his next life.” But those present must have been satisfied to remain what they were in life, for we noticed that even the despised _sudra_ was careful to keep away from that far corner.

“And how about a white man?” asked Haywood, when our guide had finished his explanation.

“A sahib,” said our guide, “when he dies, becomes a crow. Therefore are white men afraid to die.”

We rode all night, and arrived at the station of Trichinopoly early the next morning. The city was some miles distant from the station. We called out to the driver of a bullock-cart, offering four annas for the trip to town. (An anna is equal to a cent.) The cart was a heavy two-wheeled affair. When two of us tried to climb in behind, we almost lifted the tiny, raw-boned bullock in mid-air. A screech from the driver called our attention to the danger his beast was in. We jumped down, and allowed him to tell us how to board the cart. While Haywood and the driver went to the front of the vehicle Marten and I stayed at the back. Then, drawing ourselves up on both ends of it, all at the same time, we managed to keep it balanced until we were aboard. The wagon was about four feet long and three wide, with an arched roof. It was too short to lie down in, and too low to sit up in. Haywood crouched beside the driver, sitting on the knife-like edge of the board in front. With his knees drawn up on a level with his eyes, he held on by clinging desperately to the edge of the roof. Marten and I lay on our backs under the roof, with our legs extending out at the rear.

At first the bullock would not move; but after much shouting from the driver he set out with little mincing steps, like a man in a sack race—a lame man at that. The driver screamed shrilly, struck the animal a dozen heavy whacks with his long pole, and forced him into a trot that lasted just four paces. Then the animal slowly shook his head from side to side, and fell again into a walk. This was repeated several times during the trip—always with the same result. The cart had no springs, and the road was like an empty stone-quarry. We were bounced up and down during the whole trip, until we fancied our bones rattled.

We grew very hungry, and Marten ordered the driver to take us to an eating-shop. The native grinned to himself and drove toward a _sahib_ hotel. We called out to him, telling him that that place was too high-priced for us. He shook his head mournfully, and said that he knew of no native shop where white men were allowed to enter. We bumped by more than a dozen restaurants, but all bore the sign, “For Hindus Only.”

At last, in a narrow alley-way, the bullock fell asleep before a miserable hut. The driver screeched, and a scared-looking coolie tumbled out of the shanty. Then he, Marten, and the driver began to talk excitedly in the language of southern India. For a time the coolie refused to sell us food, because if he touched anything that we touched he would become something lower than a coolie in his next life. But when we offered him the princely sum of three annas each he agreed to risk losing caste to get us something to eat. So we climbed down off the cart and squatted on his creaking veranda.

The bullock crawled on. The coolie ran screaming into the hut, and came out again with three banana-leaves, a wife, and many naked children, each of whom carried a cocoanut-shell filled with water or curries. They put these on the floor of the veranda. The native spread the leaves before us, and his wife dumped a small peck of hot rice into the center of each of them. When the meal was over we arose to go; but the native shrieked with terror, and insisted that we carry the leaves and shells away with us, as no member of his family dared touch them.

Our dinner had been generous enough, but it did not seem to satisfy our hunger. Within an hour I caught myself eyeing the food spread out in the open shops on all sides. There were coils of rope-like pastry fried in oil, lumps, balls, cakes of sweetmeats, brittle bread-sheets, pans of dark red chillies, potatoes cut into small cubes and covered with a green curry sauce.

I dropped behind my companions, and aroused a shop-keeper who was sound asleep among his pots and pans. For months, while traveling through countries where I could not speak the language, I had been in the habit of picking out my own food; but no sooner had I laid a hand on a sweetmeat than the merchant sprang into the air with a wild scream that brought my fellow countrymen running back upon me.

“What’s that fellow bawling about, Marten?” demanded Haywood.

“Oh, Franck’s gone and polluted his pan of sweets.”

“But I touched only the one I picked up,” I explained, “and I’m going to eat that.”

“These fellows won’t see it that way,” replied Marten. “If you put a finger on one piece, the whole dish is polluted. He’s sending for a low-caste man now to carry the panful away and dump it. Nobody’ll buy anything while it stays here.”

The keeper refused angrily to talk to me when I offered to buy the whole dish, and we went on.

Wherever we went, the people were afraid to come near us. The peddler of green cocoanuts begged us to carry away the shells when we had drunk the milk; passing natives sprang aside in terror when we tossed a banana-skin on the ground. When we bought slices of watermelon of a fruit-seller, he watched anxiously to make sure that we didn’t drop a seed on his stand. If we had done so he would have thrown away his entire stock to save himself from losing caste.

As we turned a corner in the crowded market-place, Haywood, who was smoking, and who was not at all neat in his habits, carelessly spat upon the flowing gown of a turbaned passer-by.

“Oh, sahib!” screamed the native in excellent English. “See what you have done! You have made me lose caste. For weeks, now, I may not go among my friends or see my family. I must stop my business, and wear rags, and sit in the street, and pour ashes on my head, and go often to the temple to purify myself.”

“Stuff!” said Haywood.

But the weeping Hindu turned back the way he had come.

This strange belief makes India a land of unusual hardship for a man who cannot afford to stop at the great European hotels. He not only has difficulty in buying food and lodging, but, worse than that, he cannot get water. And in a hot country like India water is an absolute necessity. For this reason the English rulers have made a law to help travelers who find themselves stranded far in the interior of the peninsula. India is divided into states or districts, and each district is ruled by a governor, called a commissioner, who lives in the largest city of his district. The law provides that if a European finds himself penniless and unable to buy food, he may apply to any commissioner, who must give him a third-class ticket to the capital of the next district, and enough money, called _batter_, to buy food on the way.

We had not been in Trichinopoly long when Marten, who had tossed his last anna to a beggar, decided to pay a visit to the district commissioner. I agreed to accompany him, for I wanted to see a commissioner’s bungalow and to make the acquaintance of so important a personage as the governor himself; and wherever we went Haywood was sure to follow. Thus it happened that, as noonday fell over Trichinopoly, three cotton-clad Americans walked out of the native town and turned northward toward the governor’s bungalow.

Heat-waves hovered like a fog before us. Here and there a tree cast its slender shadow, like a splash of ink, across the white highway. A few coolies, whose skins were safe from sunburn, shuffled through the sand on their way to the town. We spoke to one to ask our way; but he sprang with a side jump to the farthest edge of the roadway, in terror of our touch.

“Commissioner sahib keh bungalow kéhdereh?” (“Where is the commissioner’s bungalow?”) asked Marten.

“Hazur hum malum neh, sahib” (“I don’t know, sir”), stammered the native, backing away as we stepped toward him.

“Stand still, you fellows,” shouted Marten; “you’re scaring him so he can’t understand. Every coolie knows where the governor lives. Commissioner sahib keh bungalow kéhdereh?”

“Far down the road, O protector of the unfortunate.”

We came upon the low, rambling building in a grove among rocky hillocks. Along the broad veranda crouched a dozen servants (called _punkah-wallahs_), pulling drowsily at the cords that moved the great velvet fans (called _punkahs_) that hung from the ceiling within. Under the _punkahs_, at their desks, sat a small army of native secretaries and clerks, looking rather grand in their flowing gowns, great black beards, and the bright-colored turbans of the high-class Hindu. Servants swarmed about the writers, and fell on their knees with their faces to the ground each time an official gave a command. White men there were none.

The official wearing the brightest turban rose from his cushions as we entered, and addressed us in English:

“Can I be of service to you, sahibs?”

“We want to see the commissioner,” said Marten.

“The commissioner, sahib,” replied the Hindu, “is at his bungalow. He will perhaps come here for a half hour at three o’clock.”

“But we want tickets for the one o’clock train,” Haywood blurted out.

“I am the assistant governor,” answered the native. “What the governor sahib can do I can do. But it takes a long time to get the ticket, and you cannot, perhaps, catch the one o’clock train. Still, I shall hurry as much as possible.”

In his breathless haste he returned to his seat, carefully folded his legs, rolled a cigarette with great care, blew smoke at the _punkahs_ for several moments, and, pulling out the drawers of his desk, examined one by one the books and papers within them. He seemed unable to find that for which he was looking. He rose slowly to his feet, inquired among his dark-faced companions, returned to his cushions, and, calling a dozen servants around him, sent them on as many errands.

“It’s the book in which we enter the names of those who ask for tickets,” he explained; “it will soon be found.” And he lighted another cigarette.

A servant came upon the book at last—plainly in sight on the top of the assistant’s desk. That officer opened it slowly, read half the writing it contained, and, carefully choosing a native pen, prepared to write. He was not trying to provoke or tease us: he really thought that he was moving with all possible haste.

Slowly his sputtering pen wrote down whatever Marten and Haywood told him in answer to his questions. Then he laid the volume away in a drawer, locked it, and called for a time-table. He studied it dreamily before dragging forth another heavy book. But his pen refused to write smoothly; he couldn’t find the keys to the strong box for a time; and when he did find them they refused to fit the lock. He gave up at last, and, promising that a servant would meet us at the station in the evening with the tickets, he bade us good day.

As we rose to depart, Marten asked for water. The native officials scowled. They cried out in horrified chorus when Haywood stepped toward a _chettie_ in the corner of the room.

“Don’t touch that, sahib!” shrieked the governor’s assistant. “I shall arrange to give you a drink.”

Among the servants within the building were none low enough in caste to be assigned the task of bringing us water. The assistant sent for a _punkah-wallah_. One of the great folds of velvet fell motionless, and there sneaked into the room the lowest of human creatures. The assistant gave a sharp order. The _sudra_ dropped to a squat, raised his clasped hands to his forehead, and shuffled off toward the _chettie_.

Picking up a heavy brass goblet, he placed it, not on the table, but on the floor in the middle of the room. The officials nearest the spot left their desks, and the entire company formed a circle around us. Haywood stepped forward to pick up the cup.

“No, no,” cried the natives; “stand back!”

The coolie slunk forward with the _chettie_, and, holding it fully two feet above the goblet, filled the vessel, and drew back several paces.

“Now you may drink,” said the assistant.

“Do you want more?” he asked, when the cup was empty.

“Yes.”

“Then leave the lota on the floor and stand back.”

The _punkah-wallah_ filled it as before.

“Good day,” repeated the assistant, when we had acknowledged ourselves satisfied; “but you must carry the lota away with you.”

“But it cost a good piece of money,” suggested Haywood.

“Yes,” sighed the Hindu; “but no one dares touch it any more.”

A native clerk met us at the station with the tickets.

We boarded the express that thundered in a moment later, and in the early morning of the next day stopped at a station just outside the city of Madras. It was here that Haywood’s bad temper so overcame him that he rushed out upon the platform and struck an impudent fruit peddler who had sold him some spoiled bananas. Shortly afterward a native policeman arrested him, and we were rid of our fiery-tempered companion at last. The train sped on, and a few minutes later drew up in the station of Madras.

We turned away toward the Young Men’s Christian Association building.

“I’ll pick you up in a day or two,” said Marten, at the foot of the steps. “I’ve got an uncle living in town, and I always go to see him when I land here.”