The Gates of the East
I
IT was about twelve o’clock one hot tropical night when I took a blanket from my stateroom and went up on the deck of the Lady McCallum to sleep. The Lady McCallum, a small, compact, untidy coast steamer, was bound for Hambantotta, Ceylon. She was true to her type and appeared to take no pride in her work, moving along at a negligible rate amid a generous creaking that arose from some mysterious depths amidships. Her engine must have been a devastated and haphazard affair, with no remnant of self-respect; while her berths, her superior berths provided for first-class passengers, were intolerably, inhumanly hot, despite the noisy electric fan directly overhead.
Not that there was anything extraordinary about these facts. The only remarkable fact was that, as I walked out upon her narrow, forsaken deck, and saw above me a cluster of low stars appearing and disappearing behind her rolling funnel, I became suddenly aware that at last, at this particular moment, I had come to the real beginning of my trip after pheasants. There was something incomprehensible about this sudden conviction, and also something a little absurd, since I had already covered some thousands of miles of my journey. But these appeared preliminary when I knew that just ahead, somewhere in that promising expanse of black water, was the little harbor of Hambantotta, — the eastern gateway to the jungle beyond. It was undeniably true that some months before I had set out from America, and that this departure marked the lawful beginning of the expedition. However, when viewed from the deck of the Lady McCallum, that distant episode appeared somewhat fictitious. I was convinced that now, for the first time, I had come to the threshold of the real beginning.
It might have been that the light breeze brought with it some subtle evidence of land close ahead, some familiar Eastern fragrance which heralded the presence of a native village, with its palm trees rising dark and splendid above a row of thatched huts, and its fishing canoes drawn up like a black battalion along the water’s edge. For, in the early morning a blue mist that lay close to the horizon took form and contour, becoming a white shore behind which distant trees showed in an opaque emerald border against the sky. This had the quality and unreality of a mirage, and the appearance of each successive detail seemed only to bring new elements of fiction into the illusion.
Even when the Lady McCallum stood in slowly toward the coast, and straight before her nose the native boats, made very small by distance, rode on the bright surface of the water like a colored toy fleet, the illusion persisted. Then, a young Cinghalese appeared from some fastness below deck and put his modest baggage well forward by the rail. The spell was broken. There was no longer an opalescent mirage against the skyline, but land ahead.
One by one the miniature boats assumed character, became individuals with a purpose in life; and behind them the smooth beach, crescent-shaped, took on the semblance of a port. Some tall figures came out of the thatched houses and moved down slowly toward the surf. There was something leisurely and unhurried about these people, a certain natural poise which was singularly impressive in the midst of such simple surroundings. This might have been due to many things; it might have been something instinctive, or the result of countless subtle influences; but, whatever its source and its significance, it was something shared in common with the young Cinghalese who had come down from Colombo on the Lady McCallum and who stood guard over his baggage where it was heaped against the rail, stood guard over his mean assortment of parcels with that same gentle, almost melancholy air of detachment and fine dignity.
The fishermen, too, who in due time came alongside in their canoes, showed this racial kinship. They lent an aristocratic flavor to the humble job of transporting baggage. They were barefooted, and wore no clothing beyond a very large hat and a calico skirt which was gathered up tightly around the waist and fell in straight folds to the knees. But their faces were sensitive and highbred, at certain angles almost effeminate — a curious effect which was strengthened when, in the stress of manœuvring a sail or hoisting heavy cargo, they threw off their clumsy hats and showed their black hair done up, woman-fashion, at the back of the head and topped by a tall shell-comb. These combs were semi-circular in shape, polished, and a very pure bright yellow in color; so that in the sunshine they looked like the half of a gold crown kept upright by magic as a symbol of some obscure royalty.
But these Cinghalese were a legitimate enough part of their environment. They contributed a perfect foreground for that Eastern picture with its smooth sparkling sea and its outrigger canoes floating their patched sails. And these canoes were not only harmonious in the general scheme, which was their sole purpose when viewed from the deck of the Lady McCallum, but they were examples of a very superior craftsmanship. They were nothing more than the hollow trunk of a tree with a mast wherever convenient, and they trailed a short log at one side for balance; but they were water-tight, built for immortality, and possessed not so much as one nail in their whole ingenious structure. They were put together with pitch, and at certain critical points one part would be sewed to its affinity. To man them and to hustle them about from point to point with the aid of a short paddle was a feat demanding both adroitness and agility; but to have sewed one of them together must have been a task brought to fulfillment by nothing short of pure inspiration.
They were not, however, comfortable. At best they were no more than eight inches wide, with slithery bamboo poles for seats. Any baggage of reputable dimensions extended on either side, minus support, with an endless succession of waves curling up in a greedy, familiar fashion directly underneath. They created also an almost fatalistic impression of insecurity: a box of scientific instruments in company with some photographic plates was continually moving about underfoot, and a small leather handbag rode from one end of the boat to the other at every intimation of a breaker. It was like some sort of endless nautical game in which the luggage strove to outguess the sea. But like any good game it was dangerous, and a gathering of youthful Cinghalese who had come out from land for the dubious pleasure of swimming in again alongside, only emphasized the general uncertainty. They had the air of adolescent ghouls waiting to snatch up every scrap of flotsam and jetsam before it could sink unduly to some haven in the inaccessible depths of the sea.
But the outrigger made a safe landing, being beached by a great wave that flung it far up on the sand like a chip. The young ghouls came up dripping, and I believe were subsequently hired to carry baggage and various scientific items to the dâk bungalow which faced the harbor from the verdant summit of a little slope. It was my intention to go straight to the bungalow, interview the chowkidar, and set things in order for the day. But I was waylaid. I saw, far out across a stretch of emerald water, the Lady McCallum heading for the open sea. I stood and watched her, watched her moving slowly under the gray cloud of her own smoke. And such is the working of the human mind, I was sorry to see her go. I had been undeniably anxious to leave, had been the first lowered to the outrigger below; but I did not like to see her being swallowed up by that pitiless expanse of water.
And at the same time I was glad, because that unprepossessing little coast steamer was the last link in the long chain which bound Hambantotta to that other distant world from which I had come. And for a time I would have no need of the very highly civilized codes and standards which governed that world; they would be of little value to me in the jungle where life moves upon so much more broad and simple lines. Therefore as the Lady McCallum became smaller and smaller against the low clouds that lay close to the surface of the sea, the horizon line of the work I had to do became correspondingly large. And yet at the same time there was that sense of irreparable loss, that mysterious regret.
II
I went on down the beach toward the dâk, and long before I was aware of it the conventional Caucasian influences were losing their potency. The natives were no longer aliens wearing strange clothing, but familiar, acceptable figures; each one remarkably individual. Some naked chocolate boys were running up and down the sand in the elaborate manœuvres of a sham battle; this appeared a natural and a more or less amiable proceeding, — which it was. As a matter of fact, it was just as well that the civilized habits of thought I had brought from my own country let go their hold so easily. For I had not only come into one new world which demanded a new viewpoint, but into two. The first and foremost of these was scientific and had to do with pheasants and every other bird and creature near by; the second was made up of the people, and what they were making or were endeavoring to make out of their lives. A third world, even a phantom world built out of memories, would have been a handicap.
Up at the dâk, I found things well under way. The chowkidar, an old man and uncommonly benignant, had opened up his musty rooms and disposed the baggage around the veranda to his fancy. Inside the low front room it was cool and clean, and a gray lizard, a foot long, was stretched out comfortably in the middle of a canvas cot. I discovered later that he lived in the roof in company with some others much larger, who could stir up a lively commotion overhead whenever the spirit moved them. This was usually at night, because they spent most of the day running up and down the pillars of the porch. They did this in an anxious, hurried fashion, but since there was no profit in it, it must have been sport.
The big lizard took himself off at a leisurely gait, and I went on through to the back of the bungalow. Half way across the yard the chowkidar had built a fire, and with three of his friends was squatting on the ground before it. A black cooking-pot rested on the coals and sent up little puffs of steam, which, with the blue wood-smoke, formed a light motionless cloud directly over the heads of the four men. Beyond them a cactus-covered plain was spread out like a big carpet before the distant hills. The men by the fire neither moved nor talked, and the wind had died down somewhere in the spaces of that wide plain; it was all so silent, so peaceful, that for a moment life seemed to be divested of all its ugly qualities. It seemed incredible that the struggle to live could assume such vast proportions, that so much pain and so much sorrow were allotted a legitimate place in the world. Then, somewhere above my head, two unneighborly young crows began quarreling; their grievance was obscure, but they were singularly vindictive about it. After all, it was only an illusion that the big struggle had been suspended.
And down in the village proper, where I went in search of a servant, the people were having their quarrels, were facing down their own personal problems with just the same spirit which the young crows had shown on the roof of the dâk. The only difference was that the problems were a little more complex, and not so frankly exposed to the light of public opinion. At one end of the narrow street which was, in reality, the entire village of Hambantotta, some Tamil traders were gathered together around their wares, which were spread out on a square of dark calico. I do not know why this array of gold beetles, done in filigree, and these processions of tiny rickshaws, delicately carved, were grouped so harmoniously on their blue background. Nobody was buying, although the Tamils argued loudly among themselves and seemed to be insisting upon the especial merit of each particular offering. At any rate, every Tamil manifested a robust disregard for the claims of his competitors, whatever they were. The crowd looking on was a nondescript collection, entirely absorbed by what was afoot. If the exhibition was a business enterprise, it was also a small fête, a drama. There was unmistakably comedy, tragedy, incident, and situation to be found in the undertaking, and beyond question there was an appreciative audience. The possibility of selling the beetles was, after all, the least of the affair. It may have been that the traders were rehearsing their arguments, arranging them in some hypnotic sequence which would stand them in stead some momentous day; or it may have been that the little rickshaws were only a lodestone, unimportant in themselves, but like afternoon tea, a means of bringing people together that each might set out his individual views for the edification of his neighbor.
As an outsider I was, of course, totally unequal to a real appreciation of this critical transaction. There is something elusive and eternally baffling about human nature at all times, and when it speaks an alien tongue and conducts itself according to alien standards, the two highroads to understanding are closed. There is no way to reach the inner secrets; no way to disclose the inner motives. At best, there are no clues beyond a few illuminating gestures and the chance expressions that show in certain faces in unguarded moments. So in the last analysis I could do no more than hazard a guess at the true import of what was taking place around me, a guess supported by various scraps of information and a little theoretical knowledge of conditions. I saw that the Tamils were short, solid, awkward men, wholly unlike the Cinghalese; and I deduced some tentative estimates of their character.
Sometimes these haphazard opinions about daily affairs were verified. It happened that, after all, I had seen a true view of the Tamil personality at the beetle market. For they are a progressive, sturdy, diligent people, traders by instinct. They adapt themselves quickly to a new environment and are quick to seize every chance, no matter how humble or servile, for advancement. Unlike the Cinghalese, they are neither proud nor sensitive. They work on the roads, dig ditches, and even make brief excursions into adjoining territory as laborers or trackers, if they are assured of its profit to them. Their clothes are a savage array of crude colors and their headdress is a turban of bright cloth. A Cinghalese, with his flowing white skirt and white coat, with his oiled black hair surmounted by the tortoise-shell comb, has an aristocratic and distinguished bearing when placed beside them.
Not that the Cinghalese do not adapt themselves quickly to new conditions. They are too gentle by nature to offer any serious resistance to any advance. But they are not grasping like the Tamils; they are acquiescent. They give way quickly to authority and are respectful and courteous. It seems in the nature of a miracle that the Tamils have not completely overcome them, dominated them, and assumed control. Perhaps it was the imagination of the Cinghalese which stood in the way of this; they foresaw that their only strength lay in their holding close together. But whatever the underlying causes, they have given no ground; their superstitions, their religion, their language have all remained uncolored by this strong, opposing influence. And yet the two peoples live side by side in a perfectly friendly association which has remained unaltered for generations; and each Tamil speaks two or three Cinghalese dialects, while each Cinghalese, without sacrificing his own tongue, understands perfectly the jargon of his neighbor. Which proves, I think, that it is easier to deduce general facts about pheasants than about human nature.
As a matter of fact, although I had set out to find a servant somewhere in that main thoroughfare of Hambantotta, I took no direct action in the matter at all. Instead, I made a few observations on some scavenger birds, since they were present in large numbers and in every degree of efficiency; and I decided that the hundreds and hundreds of crows I had seen along the beach, as well as those crowded together on the yards and ratlines of the outriggers, were protected perhaps by some religious scruple. This provided a secure though uneventful existence for the crows. Their safety was insured beyond question, and each day they might dine magnificently upon such of the catch as the fishermen found useless for market. It was not surprising that they had become an opulent, sleek, greedy lot of individuals, given to thieving and all manner of impertinences.
As for the servant question, I turned it over bodily to the English government agent, — a young official who had been sent out by his government to superintend the welfare of the Hambantotta section of Ceylon. It was a difficult job, which he carried through with great understanding and a certain supreme patience. There was no other white man for miles in that isolated jungle country, and the work itself was not easy. He was unofficially a judge, a lawyer, a court of appeals, as well as all the lesser legal dignitaries upon occasion. I think that England must be very proud of such men.
I explained my difficulties to him and he took them over straightway. The servant matter was the least of the problems he shouldered, and he dispatched all of them with amazing speed and thoroughness. When I had been in Hambantotta but twenty-four hours I found myself indebted to him for one Cinghalese manservant, one Tamil tracker, three bullock-carts, six oxen, three drivers, a game license, one boar’s skull, one junglefowl egg, five peacock feathers, and two dozen bottles of soda pop. He would also have given me his house, I believe, if it would not have seriously disarranged the governmental machinery for him to move out on such very short notice.
As it happened, his house was an exceptionally fine one for the tropics, with its wide, screened veranda and cool rooms. And I found it particularly pleasing because of the geckos who lived there. I saw any number of these little indefatigable gray lizards, and I liked them better than the ones at the dâk, not only because they were smaller but because they were more industrious and more inclined to be friendly. The long clumsy creatures at the bungalow were so big and heavy that they gave an impression of fixed stupidity, and they were not hospitable. Whereas the geckos were intensely interested in all that was happening, and I am sure that nothing but politeness kept them from walking all over the guests of the government as a sign of appreciation. Certainly they walked over everything else within range, except an alcohol lamp which happened to be burning. Their feet are peculiarly fitted for these excursions, having padded toes which can secure a foothold upon anything, including mirrors and the ceiling. They have also a quaint habit of striking an attitude and remaining absolutely motionless. This may be fear, or it may be a method they employ when stalking their prey — a moth, or even a bread crumb upon occasion. At any rate they secure some novel effects. At the government bungalow there was a large picture placed at the left of the window overlooking the porch. So the light upon it was indirect, but I saw that it was handsomely framed in dark wood, — a Japanese frame presumably, since at the upper right-hand corner was an excellently done, very decorative lizard. The Japanese handle such motifs with great delicacy. And even in the dim light it was apparent that this was an exceptional example. I could not help but feel offended when it gathered itself together and went scampering headlong down the wall. However, there was one compensating feature to the incident. It happened that the gecko had given me warning of his intentions an instant before his flight, although I had failed to interpret it. I had heard a low, sweet tinkling sound, as if a tiny bell were ringing in some distant part of the house. Certainly I had not associated it with a carved lizard on a picture frame. But afterward I realized its source and its import. It was a singularly beautiful call, a little like a trill; and more than anything else it sounded as if a marble had been dropped on a silver platter and were settling slowly to rest.
When I went back to the dâk, early that afternoon, I felt that my first day in the country had been pretty well filled up, that I had pretty well estimated the possibilities of the village. But I found that, on the contrary, the one great event in the daily life of Hambantotta had not yet appeared above the horizon of affairs. I had failed to consider that momentous hour which marks the home-coming of the fleet. I had passed judgment on the play without waiting for the climax; because the arrival of the boats at sunset was the very pivotal point upon which that native community revolved. I do not believe that a more complex people, a more sophisticated people, can ever realize the significance of such a landing, can ever realize the naïve anticipation which makes those men go down and wait on the beach long before the first outrigger has turned her nose toward the land. It seemed to me that every household must have had a representative there, — some privileged one of the family who would return to tell all that was said and done.
For there were old men, old Tamil traders with a fringe of white hair showing under their faded turbans, and old Cinghalese sailors who stood about in dignified groups and talked together in a quiet, reminiscent fashion. There can be no doubt that they made unfavorable comment on the methods of the new generation, and did not fail to mention again the threadbare exploits of their own youth. And there were a few young men who had left their work that they might go down on the beach, and, with the unparalleled authority of twenty, pass judgment on all that was taking place. Three girls were standing together in the shadow of the palm trees that bordered the sand, but there were no others along the whole curved length of the shore; so I judged that public opinion held it that women should not be on too intimate terms with the inner machinery of men’s affairs. However, there were small boys scattered about in great profusion; they ran in and out wherever a gap appeared in the crowd, and shoved and shrieked, and shouted back impertinent replies over their shoulders when anybody spoke to them.
And when the boats appeared, racing along at full speed against the cloudy sunset, every one of that yelping horde went tumbling into the surf, and some of the tall young men went with them, regardless of the striped skirts and headdresses which had showed up so valiantly against the white sand. Other young men ran some rollers into place at the edge of the breakers — rollers which had been made by roping logs together in a very fair semblance of a skidway. Then the crowd began to drop back a little, for the boats had already broken into the rough water near shore and seemed to be fairly leaping along over the surface, with their richly dyed tan sails bellying out in silhouette, first against the blue sky, then against the green waves. They shot through the surf at a perilous rate, so that even when they struck the logs they did not stop, but sailed on for a bit, regardless.
Certainly there were elements of real excitement in this landing, and Hambantotta looked on in appreciative silence until the last boat was beached, and even until the fish were taken out and laid in shining rows on the sand. Then the old Cinghalese sailors went down and sagely handled the catch, appraising its worth and passing judgment upon its imperfections. And the Tamil traders stood by and pointed out the particularly fine specimens in those silver rows, — knew them instantly for their real value, — because there was a lifetime of experience to give authority to such swift decisions. But it was the young traders who bought when the catch was auctioned, and it was the young Cinghalese who were the auctioneers. Which was but one more proof that, for reasons of her own, life seems to have given all her sympathy to youth and not to wisdom.
The auctioning itself took but a little time. It was the culminating event of events, but it was passed over quickly and quietly. And immediately afterward, the whole crescent-shaped beach was forsaken, save for the crows who had already swooped down from the ratlines to gather like restless shadows at those chosen points where a banquet had been so generously spread for them. But the sand was still marked up with the imprint of hundreds of human feet; in some places it looked as if the water had come up and washed out those shallow troughs where so many people had stood together, and, receding, had left strange, meaningless marks on the face of the sand. It seemed incredible that so many human beings had so short a time before been united there by one impulse, only to return so quickly and so silently to the monotonous movement of their individual lives. But the crows were proof that the shore had not always been merely a harbor for deserted boats; and behind them the setting sun, showing above two bands of violet cloud, touched up with gold a western window in a hut that overlooked the sea.
Then the tropical night came down quickly, and up at the dâk the new manservant had already made a habitable place out of the front room and was awaiting his orders for the night. He was a tall Cinghalese, about thirtyfive years old, who said that his name was Boy. He was capable, deferential in manner, and in all the time that he was with me, regardless of the unfamiliar things he confronted daily, I never saw an expression of surprise on his face. He moved slowly about his work, and was equally conscientious about his cooking and the odd scientific jobs that fell to his lot. If he had any emotions, they were somewhere well below the surface. However, he did a great deal toward getting things in line for the work that lay ahead in the jungle; and it was in large part owing to his faithful service that early one morning three bullock-carts pulled up in front of the bungalow and were straightway loaded with all the equipment necessary for the field.
These carts were commodious, wattled affairs, precariously hoisted up on two wheels. They were cool — though covered at the sides and over the top with woven bamboo splits — but they were not comfortable. The roads were bad, winding in and out between deserted paddy fields, and the drivers would undertake any angle which happened to appear before them. It was not that they were eager to reach the P.W.D. resthouse at Welligatta, which was our destination; it was only one more manifestation of the native tendency to acquiesce in the face of difficulties. I traveled over the entire floor of my cart several times. It was like sliding around under an inverted basket, with the possibility each time of sliding right on out through the hole at the back. This was more exciting with a lagoon underneath instead of dry land, particularly when the water bubbled up under the bed and seeped gently through the cracks.
It was undoubtedly a precarious, noisy, unsavory journey. The drivers kept up a running conversation from cart to cart, whenever they were not shouting at the bullocks; and the bullocks themselves wore wooden bells. I was told that these were a warning to evil spirits and leopards and such, and, sliding around behind them, I hoped that they were. They were as clear as trumpets, and gave out abiding resonances. Every creature within hearing must have fled inland for its life. Once, on a level stretch of road, I looked out through my bamboo netting and saw nothing but a termite nest, and very high above this, so that they looked like two black motes above the trees, two Brahminy kites sailing smoothly on widespread wings.
When we stopped at noon the drivers put their food on to cook, then rubbed down the bullocks; afterwards, when they had washed the plates, they hung the dish-cloths and the bullock-cloths one over the other on the roofs of the carts. This accounted for many things. We were some five or six hours late in getting to Welligatta, which is good time for the East. At the resthouse, the door was locked and a surly chowkidar refused to open it. We argued with him, and I had time to look over my new headquarters, finding it to be the typical whitewashed dâk, with red tiled roof. This chowkidar had no inclination whatsoever to be friendly — in which he was true to type. However, when we made elaborate preparations for breaking down his door, he opened it. Which proved him a coward on top of his unpleasant disposition.
This was not an auspicious beginning, but afterwards Boy took him aside and told him a great many things, with gestures. I do not know what they were, but they converted that keeper into a new man in the space of about five minutes. He began hurriedly to get the place in order, and made various pacific advances. Perhaps Boy had assured him that I was a great physician, this being one of his fixed delusions, since he had never been able to find any other logical reason for the bottles and cases and instruments belonging to the expedition. At any rate, Welligatta shortly appeared at my doorstep and asked for medicine. Some of the cases needed only a little antiseptic soap, or some healing salve; but for others nothing could be done. The little boys were especially pitiable, because they were especially brave about their treatment, standing perfectly still, shy and heroic in the face of great mysteries.
There was one other native who came in that day — but he did not live in the dirty community at Welligatta. He was of good caste, an engineer. It happened that the resthouse was in his jurisdiction, and he stopped in to see if things were running well. He was a University man, with a fine mind, too subtle and too well trained for the work he was doing. But he could make no further advance because of the English laws which set a well-defined limit to the power of any native; and he admitted the wisdom of these laws. But he was a tragic example of the good material which any evolution throws aside. There was no legitimate place for his talents, even after they had been brought to their fullest development. He said himself that it would have been better to have let him alone, to have offered him no chance, since at best there was nothing but a blind road open to him. And he had come abruptly to the end of this. He pointed to his man who was lying asleep in the shadow of the porch, and said that in the East such a low-caste servant, without dreams and without ideals, was better off than his master, who could stand on the borderline of a new country and know the full meaning of what it represented, but must remain helpless in the very face of such a realization. It was the inevitable tragic waste which follows close on the heels of any progress. And this was emphasized, in some way, by the fact that he knew such a process was necessary, that in the end it would work out for the good of his people and his country.
The next day, when I got up before sunrise to start out after jungle-fowl, I kept thinking of all that he had said, and I could not help but compare him with my Tamil tracker, who was waiting sleepy, incurious, and ignorant, for the day’s work that lay ahead. One had made such great strides, and to no apparent purpose; the other had taken no steps at all beside him. Yet they were both moving, each as best he could, toward some obscure goal. I had come again upon more mysteries in human beings and in the philosophies and laws which govern them, and I was glad to put the whole of it aside and start out into the jungle, where I had work of my own to do.
III
The jungle was like a big park which began almost at my door — a park with little glades and every once in a while a shallow lake surrounded by dark trees. The tops of the trees showed against the pale, luminous sky, although the low branches were lost in deep shadow. The tracker led the way along a narrow animal trail, and I followed, guided chiefly by the thorns which were lined up on either side like two armies set to keep travelers well within the path.
The sun had not yet come up above the blue haze that lay far to the east, but a host of flamingos flying high overhead caught the first rays on their wide wings. Then the acacia shrub began to show little lines of gold against the mist which lay behind it, and pink, nameless flowers came out like stars in the shadowy glades.
Down by a triangular lake, that was changing from silver to blue, two elephants moved slowly forward through the low underbrush; then turned, and swung into the jungle. At one side of the lake, where the ground rose in a gentle slope, some axis deer watched them till they had gone, and the coarse grass, springing back into place, had covered up the great marks made by their feet.
I heard the tracker whisper something unintelligible, but it was drowned out midway by the familiar scream of a wild peacock, and looking up quickly,
I saw the great bird with his undulating train glide down from a distant tree and disappear behind a little ridge some hundred yards away. I had started out after junglefowl, but nature has a contrary habit of offering the unexpected, so I was grateful enough and began crawling along after him. There is something essentially undignified in such a pursuit as this; but work in the field has nothing to do with dignity or with anything except patience, concentration, and eternal vigilance. All that I had to do was to get that peacock within range, and to keep out of sight. In time, I came upon him, although I did not know it. I saw only two bee-eaters balanced on a low branch directly above me. Then, straight ahead, something moved — it looked like a dry, gray stalk standing upright in the grass. Then, although there was no wind, it swayed a little to one side and back into position again; and I saw then the contour of the head and neck of the first wild peacock I had ever laid eyes upon. The body itself was almost hidden. Then suddenly he leaped into the air, one single spring and a quick movement of his wings lifting him six feet or more in a half circle, with his long train spread out to make a feathery mist which the sunlight touched with emerald and gold. He alighted slowly and returned to his place in the tall grass, where he stood as he had stood before, with his neck stretched out and his head down, watching something, — something of great interest which was completely hidden from me. He lifted himself again in the wide circle and returned. Then something brown moved swiftly across a little opening in the brush and the peacock trailed it, bringing it to bay again. This was in a clear spot, and I got my glasses up and focused them. First, a gray blurred circle moved quickly into position, then the beautiful breast of the peacock took its place, perfect in every detail of color and structure. And finally, a little brown vibrating point showed against the sand. It seemed at best only a tiny mound of earth, moving inexplicably. Then I saw that it was a Russell’s viper, and a viper with a particularly venomous head, broad between the eyes, but flat so that it lay close to the ground.
For fully ten minutes the peacock pursued it from point to point, keeping always at a discreet distance, but making the viper strike again and again. It may have been curiosity only, and whatever it was, the bird tired of it at last and went over to the edge of the lake, where he found some food that occupied him for a long time. The sun was then high overhead and turned his fine plumage to copper and gold. I stood up to see him better; and even before I had taken a step toward him he had sensed the danger and was running down the side of the slope, beating his wings rapidly for a few seconds before he rose and flew swiftly over the acacias and into the wooded plain beyond. I watched him until the last moment; and the bright light made a wonderful colored tapestry out of his train as he moved. Then I found that the sun was getting unbearably hot even through a pith helmet, and I went back quickly to the resthouse, following the narrow animal trail by which I had come.
It was on this same trail, later, that three important things befell. The first was the appearance of a high-backed tortoise. Just before he came out to meet me, I heard somewhere in the bushes a thin, trembling sound, very high and a little querulous in character. Then the singing tortoise came waddling out underfoot, singing as he came. His back was finely marked in broad patterns of gold, and he carried his shell along with a certain proud gravity. He stopped and looked at my feet when they came conveniently within his range of vision, turning his eyes quickly from one to the other. But for reasons of his own he was not afraid; instead he put up his small, leathery head, and as if in salute, sent forth again his clear penetrating trill. Then he waddled off again over an avenue of golden flower-balls that had dropped down from the acacia trees which met to form a canopy somewhere far above his head. And in the distance I heard him singing.
The second trail episode came about quickly. I was walking along a little ahead of my assistant when I was suddenly pushed far forward by a strong blow between my shoulders. It nearly sent me off my feet. I turned and was on the point of saying fully what I thought about it, when I looked down and saw a Russell’s viper lifting himself to strike. I should have stepped on him if I had been alone, and my pheasant work would have come to an abrupt end. It was not a pleasant experience.
Then, the last day at Welligatta, I had the bad luck to get within range of some water-buffaloes. I had been told that these buffaloes were a singularly savage lot who for mysterious reasons would attack any white man without provocation. I had not been fully convinced, however, or else I had given the matter very little thought, because once I had seen a native driving six of the beasts before him, whistling at his job and twiddling a slender whip between his fingers. It had been an amiable enough proceeding. But when I saw those three buffaloes lift themselves out of the high grass by the lake, saw them rise up heavily with lowered heads, some entirely new thoughts about them went flashing through my mind. It happened also that I had been told that when several of the beasts are together they will not attack any man who does not run away from them. With those three black mounds of flesh down by the lake already getting under way, this appeared an unusually idiotic contention. I did not make any effort to hold to it. I put down my camera and went up a tree. And I stayed there for some time, with the three buffaloes charging repeatedly underneath, until a native boy came out providently and drove them away. I know that there were elements of absurdity in the whole affair, but absurdity and great danger sometimes go hand in hand. And these beasts are the greatest danger of the jungle country.
However, that night, when the packing was done and my notes were finished for the day, I was out on the porch for a while going over the details of the trip, and I found that incident after incident slipped into its lawful place in the general scheme. It happened that only two hours earlier a native had come in for medicine for his arm, which was marked up above the elbow by elephant bruise. We did what we could for him, and he went away. But although he was only one out of many who had come up to the house for medicine, because he had come last, he stood well in the foreground of events. And it was so with the water-buffaloes who had run me up a tree. It was only when I thought of the bullock-carts and the noisy wooden bells, of the dâk bungalow at Hambantotta with the yard where the chowkidar built his fire, of the beach and the old fishermen estimating so carefully the catch which had been brought in at sundown, that one thing after another fell into position. I saw that after all it was only a matter of contrast, — that the values were relative.
And I tried to bring some of this philosophy into the question of leaving Welligatta; but this being also a matter of emotion, it needed a little more time before it would fall into its legitimate groove. I knew that in a week I could look back and see that the expedition could not have remained always in Welligatta, but as it was I found it hard to leave. I looked out over the dark trees which grew at the edge of the jungle and saw the lake between the branches like bars of new silver, and thought of the work I had left undone, and of the people close by who were living mysteries daily which I could in no way understand; and I did not want to leave it all unsolved.
Then I heard Boy adjusting my hammock, which hung at the end of the porch. Since it was already well placed, and needed no readjustment, this meant that he was sleepy. So I stood up and all the unanswered questions straightway went out of my mind. I thought that I had no more regrets about leaving the jungle. Then from far away, I heard a thin, trembling sound, a little querulous. I do not know that the tortoise was awake at such an hour, but I know that the last thought in my mind was that although I had come to Ceylon for junglefowl and peacocks and had found them, that some day I would return. And I hoped that at such a time I would find somewhere a golden-backed tortoise singing to welcome me back to the East.