CHAPTER XX

BEYOND THE GANGES

Two hours after my arrival in Calcutta, there was seen making his way through the streets of that city a youth who had been turned away from the Sailors’ Home by a hard-hearted manager because he had once left that place without permission for a trip “up country.” In his pocket was a single rupee. His cotton garments were threadbare rags through which the torrid sun had reddened his once white skin. Under one arm he carried a tattered, sunburned bundle of the size of a camera. In short, ’twas I.

Later, with much trouble, I gained entrance into the Seamen’s Mission. It was here that I made the acquaintance of the only guest of the place who paid his expenses. He was a clean, strong young man of twenty-five, named Gerald James, from Perth, Australia. He had been a kangaroo-hunter in his native land, and later a soldier in South Africa. After the war there he had turned northward with two companions. In Calcutta his partners had become policemen; but James, weary of bearing arms, had taken a position as salesman in a department-store.

Four days after my arrival a chance meeting with a German traveler who spoke no English raised my wealth to seven rupees. I had also made the acquaintance of a conductor who promised to let me ride as far as Goalando, a city on the banks of the Ganges. It was on the day following that I decided to escape from Calcutta and continue my journey eastward.

As I lay stretched on the roof of the building, that night, the man beside me rolled over in his blanket and peered at me through the darkness.

“That you, Franck?” he whispered.

The voice was that of James the Australian.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Some of the lads,” came the answer, “told me you were going to hit the trail again.”

“I’m off to-morrow night.”

“Where away?”

“Somewhere to the east.”

The Australian fell silent a moment, and his voice sounded as if he were apologizing when he spoke again:

“I quit my job to-day. There’s the plague and the summer coming on, and they expected me to take orders from a _babu_ manager.

“I’d like to leave Calcutta and go to Hong-Kong. Do you think you’ll come anywhere near there?”

“I expect to be there inside of a couple of months.”

“How if I go with you?” murmured James. “I’ve had some experience tramping round Australia after kangaroos.”

“Agreed,” I answered; for, of all those at the institute, there was no one I should sooner have chosen as a partner for the rough days to come than James.

“How’ll we make it?” he inquired. “It’s a long jump.”

“I’ll set you right to Goalando,” I replied. “We can go down on the Ganges boat to Chittagong. From there I think we can beat our way through the jungle to Mandalay. Then we’ll drop down to Rangoon. They say shipping is good there. But let’s have it understood that when we reach Hong-Kong each one goes where he likes.”

“All right,” said the Australian, lying down once more.

Thursday passed quickly in looking over our belongings; and, having stuffed them all into James’s carpet-bag, we set off at nightfall for the station.

“What! Two?” cried the conductor, when I had introduced James. “Well, pile on.”

He passed on, and, as the train started, James tumbled into an empty compartment after me. When daylight awakened us, our car stood alone on a side-track at the end of the line.

Goalando was a village of mud huts, perched on a slimy, sloping bank of the Ganges River, like turtles ready to slip into the stream at the first sign of danger.

Two days later we reached Chittagong after dark night had fallen.

As the sun was setting the next afternoon, we climbed the highest of the green hills in Chittagong to seek information from the district commissioner; for the natives in the city knew nothing of the route to Mandalay. The governor, aroused from a Sunday afternoon nap on his vine-curtained veranda, received us kindly, even delightedly, and, having called a servant to look after our thirst, went inside to astonish his wife with the news that he had European callers. That lady, after being properly introduced, consented to play upon the piano for us.

White men do not often come to Chittagong. Chatting like old acquaintances, with the district ruler stretched out in a reclining chair between us, we came near to forgetting, for a time, that we were mere beach-combers.

“And now, of course,” said the governor, when James had told him about our journey from Calcutta, “you will wait for the steamer to Rangoon?”

“Why, no, Mr. Commissioner,” I answered; “we’re going to walk overland to Mandalay, and we took the liberty of calling on you to—”

“Mandalay!” gasped the Englishman, dropping his slippered feet to the floor. “_Walk_ to Man—Why, my dear fellow, come here a moment.”

He rose and stepped to a corner of the veranda, and, raising an arm, pointed away to the eastward.

“That,” he said almost sadly, “is the way to Mandalay. Does that look like a country to be crossed on foot?”

It certainly did not. Beyond the river lay an unexplored wilderness. Range after range of bold hills and rocky mountain chains lay beyond the forest, rising higher and higher until they were lost in the blue and haze of the eastern sky. At the very edge of the river began a vine-choked tropical jungle, covering hill and valley as far as the eye could see, and broken nowhere in all its extent by a clearing, or even by the beginning of a pathway.

“There,” went on the commissioner, “is one of the wildest regions under British rule. Tigers abound; snakes sun themselves on every bush; wild animals lie in wait in every thicket. The valleys are full of wild men, savage outlaws that even the government fears; and the spring floods have made the mountain streams raging torrents. There is absolutely nothing to guide you. If you succeeded in traveling a mile after crossing the river, you would be hopelessly lost; and, if you were not, what would you eat and drink in that wilderness?”

“Why,” said James, “we’d eat the wild animals and drink the mountain streams. Of course we’d carry a compass. That’s what we do in the Australian bush.”

“We thought you might have a map,” I put in.

The commissioner stepped into the bungalow. The music ceased and the player followed her husband out to the veranda.

“This,” said the commissioner, spreading out a chart he carried, “is the latest map of the region. You mustn’t suppose, as many people do, that all India has been mapped out. You see for yourselves that there is nothing between Chittagong and the Irawaddy River but a few wavy lines to show mountain ranges. That’s all any map shows, and all any civilized man knows of that part. Bah! Your scheme is idiotic. You might as well try to walk to Llassa.”

He rolled up the map and dropped again into his chair.

“By the way,” he asked, “why don’t you stop at the Sailors’ Home to-night?”

“I never imagined for a moment,” I replied, “that there was a Home in a little town like this.”

“There is, and a fine one,” answered the commissioner; “and just waiting for someone to occupy it.”

“No place for us,” retorted James. “We’ve spent our last coin.”

“Nothing to do with it,” cried the Englishman. “Money or no money, you’ll stop there while you’re here. I’ll send word to the manager at once.”

The Sailors’ Home of Chittagong was a wonder in comfort and beauty. The city itself was a garden spot. The Home was a white bungalow set in the edge of the forest on a river-bank. The parlor was carpeted with mats, the dining-room furnished with _punkahs_. In another room stood a pool-table and—wonder of wonders—a piano!

Three native servants, housed in a near-by cottage, were ready to come when called and wait on us. For, though weeks had passed since a sailor had stopped at the Home, everything was as ready for our accommodation as if the manager had been expecting us.

An hour after we had moved into the bungalow, we were resting in veranda chairs with our feet on the railing, watching the cook chasing one of the chickens that later appeared before us in our evening curry, when a white man turned into the grounds and walked lazily toward us, swinging his cane and striking off a head here and there among the tall flowers that bordered the path. When he reached the shade of the bungalow, he sprang up the steps with outstretched hand, and, having expressed his joy at the meeting, sat down beside us. Whoever he was, he was an expert story-teller, and entertained us with tales of life in the army until the shades of night fell. Suddenly he stopped at the most interesting point of a story to cry out:

“The commissioner sent for me this afternoon.”

“That so?” asked James.

“Yes. He thinks you fellows are going to start to Mandalay on foot. Mighty good joke, that”; and he fell to chuckling, while he glanced sidewise at us.

“No joke at all,” I put in. “We _are_ going on foot, just as soon as we can find the road.”

“Don’t try it!” cried the Englishman, raising his cane on high. “I haven’t introduced myself, but I am chief of police for Chittagong. The commissioner has given orders that you must not go. The police have been ordered to watch you, the boatmen forbidden to row you across the river. Don’t try it.” With that, he said no more about it, and began telling another yarn.

Late that night, when James had finally agreed to leave off making strange noises on the piano, we made a surprising discovery. There was not a bed in the Home! While James hurried off to ask a servant about it, I went carefully through each room with the parlor lamp, peering under tables and opening drawers, in the hope of finding at least a ship’s hammock. I was still searching when the Australian returned with a frightened native, who assured us that there had never been a bed or a _charpoy_ in the Home. Just why, he could not say. Probably because the manager babu had forgotten to get them.

So we turned in side by side on the pool-table, and took turns in falling off at regular intervals through the night.

With the first gray light of morning we slipped out the back door of the bungalow and struck off through the forest toward the uninhabited river-bank beyond. For, in spite of the warning of the chief of police, we had decided to try the overland journey.

To get past the police was easy; to escape the jungle, quite a different matter. A full two hours we tore our way through the undergrowth along the river without finding a single spot in the wall-like eastern bank that we dared to swim for. James grew peevish and cross; we both became painfully hungry. And finally we turned back, promising ourselves to continue hunting for an opening in the forest beyond the river on the following day.

The servants at the Home, knowing that _sahibs_ often take early morning strolls, grinned cheerfully when they saw us returning, and told us breakfast was ready. While we were eating, the chief of police bounded into the room, told a new story, and said that the commissioner wished to see us at once; then bounded away again, complaining that he was being worked to death.

When we reached his bungalow on the hilltop, we found the ruler of the district pacing back and forth between rows of native secretaries and assistants.

“I have given orders that you are not to start for Mandalay,” he began shortly.

“But how shall we get out any other way?” demanded James.

“If you were killed in the jungle,” went on the governor, as if he had heard nothing, “your governments would blame me. But, of course, I have no intention of keeping you in Chittagong. I have arranged, therefore, with the agents of the weekly steamer, to give you deck passages, with European food, to Rangoon. Apply to them at once, and be ready to start to-morrow morning.”

In a blinding tropical shower we were rowed out to the steamer next morning. For four days following we lolled about the winch (a crank for raising weights) on which the Chinese stewards served our European “chow.” The steamer drifted slowly down the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal, and, rounding the delta of the Irawaddy River on the morning of May thirteenth, dropped anchor three hours later in the harbor of Rangoon.