From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

On my way here, on the coach, I fell in with Monerasingha, a Cinghalese of some education and ability, a proctor or solicitor. He is a cheerful little man, an immense talker, and very keen on politics. He was very amusing about the English; says they are very agreeable at first, “but after three months’ stay in the island a complete change comes over them—won’t speak to us or look at us—but I can give it them back.” His idea seems to be that representative institutions are wanted to restore to the people that interest in public life which has been taken from them by the destruction of their communal institutions under British rule. He seems to be a great hater of caste, and thinks the English have done much good in that matter. “I am loyal enough, because I know we are much better off than we should be under Russia. The English are stupid and incapable of understanding us, and don’t go among us to get understanding; but they mean well, according to their lights.”

This place (called Kornegalle by the English) is a little town of 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants, fifty miles from Colombo and eleven miles (by coach) from Polgahawella, the nearest railway station. It lies just at the foot of the mountain region of Ceylon, and takes its name, Kurunégala or Elephant-rock, from a huge Gibraltar-like rock, 600 feet high, at the base of which it nestles—and whose rounded dark granite structure, wrinkled with weather and largely bare of trees or any herbage, certainly bears a remarkable resemblance, both in form and color, to a couchant elephant. Ascending its steep sides, on which the sun strikes with fierce heat during the midday, one obtains from the summit a fine view—westward over low plains, eastward over mountain ranges rising higher and higher towards the centre of the island. The prevailing impression of the landscape here, as elsewhere in Ceylon, is its uniform green. There is no change of summer or winter. (Though this is the coolest time of year, the daily temperature ranges from 85° to 90° in the shade.) The trees do not cast their leaves at any stated time, though individual trees will sleep at intervals, resting so. In every direction the same color meets the eye—tracts of green scrub, green expanses of forest, green rice-fields, and the massed green of bananas and coco-palms. A little monotonous this in the general landscape, though it is plentifully compensated on a near view by the detailed color of insect and flower life. One curious feature is that though the country is well populated, hardly a trace of habitation is to be seen from any high point such as this. Even Kurunégala, which lies at our feet, is only distinguishable by its court-house and prison and one or two other emblems of civilisation; the native cabins, and even in many cases the European houses—which are of one storey only—are entirely hidden by trees. Those clumps however of coco-palms which you see standing like oases in the general woods, or breaking the levels of the rice-fields, with occasional traces of blue smoke curling up through them, are sure indications of little native hamlets clustered beneath—often far far from any road, and accessible only by natural footpaths worn by naked feet.

From the top of the rock one gets a good view of the tank which supplies irrigation water for the town and neighborhood. It is about three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile broad, and forms a pretty little lake, over which kites hover and kingfishers skim, and in which the people daily bathe. These tanks and irrigation channels are matters of the utmost importance, to which I think Government can hardly give too much attention. Their importance was well understood in past times, as indeed the remains and ruins of immense works of this kind, over a thousand years old, in various parts of the island fully testify. A little is being done towards their renewal and restoration, but the tendency to-day is to neglect the interests of the rice-growing peasant in favor of the tea-planting Englishman. The paddy tax, which presses very hardly on the almost starving cultivator, while tea goes scot-free, is an instance of this. Tea, which is an export and a luxury, and which enriches the few, is thought to be so much more important than an article which is grown for home consumption and for the needs of the many. It is of course only an instance of the general commercial policy of all modern Governments; but one cannot the less for that think it a mistake, and an attempt to make the pyramid of social prosperity stand upon its apex. There is something curious—and indeed is it not self-contradictory?—in the fact that every country of the civilized world studies above all things the increase of its exports—is engaged, not in producing things primarily for its own use, but in trying to get other people to buy what it produces!—as if we all stood round and tried to shuffle off our bad wares on the others, in the hope that they by some accident might return us good stuff in exchange. Somehow the system does not seem as if it would work; it looks too like the case of that island where the inhabitants all earned a precarious living by taking in each other’s washing. What, one may ask, is really the cause of the enormous growth of this practice of neglecting production for use in favor of production for export and for the market? Is it not simply money and the merchant interest? Production at home by the population and for its own use is and always must be, one would think, by far the most important for the population and for its own comfort and welfare, though a margin may of course be allowed for the acquirement by exchange of some few articles which cannot be grown at home. But production such as this does not necessarily mean either money or mercantile transaction. Conceivably it may very well take place without either these or the gains which flow from their use—without profits or interest or dividends or anything of the kind. But this would never do! The money and commercial interest, which is now by far the most powerful interest in all modern states, is not such a fool as to favor a system of national economy which would be its own ruin. No; it must encourage trade in every way, at all costs. Trade, commerce, exchange, exports and imports—these are the things which bring dividends and interest, which fill the pockets of the parasites at the expense of the people; and so the nations stand round, obedient, and carry on the futile game till further orders.

As a matter of fact in these hot countries, like Ceylon and India, almost unlimited results of productiveness can be got by perfected irrigation, and as long as the peasantry in these lands are (as they are) practically starving, and the irrigation works practically neglected, the responsibility for such a state of affairs must lie with the rulers; and naturally no mere shuffling of commercial cards, or encouragement of an export trade which brings fortunes into the hands of a few tea-planters and merchants, can be expected to make things better.

It is sad to see the thin and famished mortals who come in here from the country districts round to beg. Many of them, especially the younger ones, have their limbs badly ulcerated. One day, going through the hospital, the doctor—a Eurasian—took me through a ward full of such cases. He said that they mostly soon got better with the better hospital diet; “but,” he added, “when they get back to their old conditions they are soon as bad as ever.” In fact the mass of the population in a place like Colombo looks far sleeker and better off than in these country districts; but that only affords another instance of how the modern policy encourages the shifty and crafty onhanger of commercial life at the cost of the sturdy agriculturist—and I need not say that the case is the same at home as abroad.

It is quite a pretty sight to see the bathing in the tanks. It takes place in the early morning, and indeed during most of the day. Cleanliness is a religious observance, and engrained in the habits of the people. Of course there are exceptions, but save among the lowest castes this is the rule. An orthodox Hindu is expected not only to wash himself, but his own cloth, at least once a day. The climate makes bathing a pleasure, and the people linger over it. Men and boys, women and children, together or in groups not far distant from each other, revel and splash in the cool liquid; their colored wraps are rinsed and spread to dry on the banks, their brass pots glance in the sun as they dip the water with them and pour it over their own heads, their long black hair streams down their backs. Then, leaving the water, they pluck a twig from a certain tree, and, squatting on their hams, with the frayed twig-end rub their teeth and talk over the scandal of the day. This tooth-cleaning gossiping business lasts till they are dry, and often a good deal longer, and is, I fancy, one of the most enjoyable parts of the day to the mild oyster. In unsophisticated places there is no distinction of classes in this process, and rich and poor join in the public bathing alike—in fact there is very little difference in their dress and habits anyhow, as far as regards wealth and poverty—but of course where Western ideas are penetrating, the well-to-do natives adopt our habits and conduct their bathing discreetly at home.

The people never (except it be children) go into the water quite naked, and the women always retain one of their wraps wound round the body. These wraps are very long, and the skill with which they manage to wash first one end and then the other, winding and unwinding, and remaining decorously covered all the time, is quite admirable. I am struck by the gravity and decorum of the people generally—in outer behavior or gesture—though their language (among the lower castes) is by no means always select! But there is none, or very little, of that banter between the sexes which is common among the Western populations, and even among the boys and youths you see next to no frolicking or bear-fighting. I suppose it is part of the passivity and want of animal spirits which characterise the Hindu; and of course the sentiment of the relation between the sexes is different in some degree from what it is with us. On sexual matters generally, as far as I can make out, the tendency, even among the higher castes, is to be outspoken, and there is little of that prudery which among us is only after all a modern growth.

The town here is a queer mixture of primitive life with modern institutions. There are two or three little streets of booths, which constitute the “bazaar.” Walking down these—where behind baskets of wares the interiors of the dwellings are often visible, and the processes of life are naïvely exposed to the eye—one may judge for one’s self how little man wants here below. Here is a fruit and vegetable shop, with huge bunches of plantains or bananas, a hundred in a bunch, and selling at five or six a penny; of a morning you may see the peasant coming in along the road carrying two such bunches—a good load—slung one at each end of a long pole, or pingo, over his shoulder—a similar figure to that which is so frequent on the Egyptian monuments of 3,000 years ago; pineapples, from 1d. up to 4d. each for the very finest; the breadfruit, and its queer relation the enormous jack-fruit, weighing often as much as 12 to 14 lbs., with its pulpy and not very palatable interior, used so much by the people, growing high up over their cabins on the handsome jack-tree, and threatening you with instant dissolution if it descend upon your head; the egg-plant, murngal, beans, potatos, and other vegetables; and plentiful ready-prepared packets of areca nut and betel leaf for chewing. Then there is a shop where they sell spices, peppers, chilis, and all such condiments for curries, not to mention baskets of dried fish (also for currying), which stink horribly and constitute one of the chief drawbacks of the bazaars; and an earthenware shop,—and I must not forget the opium shop. Besides these there are only two others—and they represent Manchester and Birmingham respectively—one where they sell shoddy and much-sized cotton goods, and the other which displays tin ware, soap, matches, paraffin lamps, dinner knives, and all sorts of damnable cutlery. I have seen these knives and scissors, or such as these (made only to deceive), being manufactured in the dens of Sheffield by boys and girls slaving in dust and dirt, breathing out their lives in foul air under the gaslights, hounded on by mean taskmasters and by the fear of imminent starvation. Dear children! if you could only come out here yourselves, instead of sending the abominable work of your hands—come out here to enjoy this glorious sunshine, and fraternise, as I know many of you would, with the despised darkie!

The opium-seller is a friend of mine. I often go and sit in his shop—on his one chair. He teaches me Tamil—for he is a Tamil—and tells me long stories, slowly, word by word. He is a thin, soft-eyed, intelligent man, about thirty, has read a fair amount of English—of a friendly riant child-nature—not without a reasonable eye to the main chance, like some of his Northern cousins. There are a few jars of opium in its various forms—for smoking, drinking, and chewing; a pair of scales to weigh it with; a brass coconut-oil lamp with two or three wicks hanging overhead; and a partition for the bed at the back,—and that is all. The shopfront is of course entirely open to the thronged street, except at night, when it is closed with shutterboards.

At the corner of the street stands a policeman, of course, else we should not know we were being civilised. But, O Lord, what a policeman! How a London street arab would chuckle all over at the sight of him! Imagine the mild and somewhat timid oyster dressed in a blue woollen serge suit (very hot for this climate), with a belt round his waist, some kind of turban on his head, a staff in his hand, and boots on his feet! A real live oyster in boots! It is too absurd. How miserable he looks; and as to running after a criminal—the thing is not to be thought of. But no doubt the boots vindicate the majesty of the British Government.

While we are gazing at this apparition, a gang of prisoners marches by—twenty lean creatures, with slouched straw hats on their heads, striped cotton jackets and pants, and bare arms and lower legs, each carrying a mattock—for they are going to work on the roads—and the whole gang followed and guarded (certainly Ceylon is a most idyllic land) by a Cinghalese youth of about twenty-one, dressed in white skirts down to his feet, with a tortoise-shell comb on his head, and holding a parasol to shade himself from the sun. Why do not the twenty men with mattocks turn and slay the boy with the parasol, and so depart in peace? I asked this question many times, and always got the same answer. “Because,” they said, “the prisoners do not particularly want to run away. They are very well off in prison,—better off, as a rule, than they are outside. Imprisonment by an alien Government, under alien laws and standards, is naturally no disgrace, at any rate to the mass of the people, and so once in prison they make themselves as happy as they can.”

I visited the gaol one day, and thought they succeeded very well in that respect. The authorities, I am glad to say, do all they can to make them comfortable. They have each a large dish of rice and curry, with meat if they wish, twice a day, and a meal of coffee and bread in the morning besides; which is certainly better fare than they would get as peasants. They do their little apology for work in public places during the day—with a chance of a chat with friends—and sleep in gangs together in the prison sheds at night, each with his mat, pillow, and night suit; so possibly on the whole they are not ill-content.

My friend A——, with whom I am staying here, is a Tamil, and an official of high standing. He became thoroughly Anglicised while studying in England, and like many of the Hindus who come to London or Cambridge or Oxford, did for the time quite outwesternise us in the tendency towards materialism and the belief in science, ‘comforts,’ representative institutions, and ‘progress’ generally. Now however he seems to be undergoing a reaction in favor of caste and the religious traditions of his own people, and I am inclined to think that other westernising Hindus will experience the same reaction.

He lives in an ordinary one-storied stone house, or bungalow, such as the English inhabit here. These houses, naturally cover a good deal of ground. The roof, which is made of heavy tiles or thatch, is pitched high in the middle, giving space for lofty sitting-rooms; the sleeping chambers flank these at a lower slope, and outside runs the verandah, almost round the house, the roof terminating beyond it at six or seven feet from the ground. This arrangement makes the interiors very dark and cool, as the windows open on the verandah, and the sun cannot penetrate to them; but I am not sure that I like the sensation of being confined under this immense carapace of tiles, with no possible outlook to the sky, in a sort of cavernous twilight all the while. The verandah forms an easy means of access from one part to another, and in this house there are no passages in the interior, but the rooms all open into one another; and plentiful windows—some mere Venetian shutters, without glass—ensure a free circulation of air.

Mosquitos are a little trying. I don’t think they are more venomous than the English gnat, but they are far ’cuter. The mosquito is the ’cutest little animal for its size that exists. I am certain from repeated observations that it watches one’s eyes. If you look at it, it flies away. It settles on the under side of your hand (say when reading a book), or on your ankles when sitting at table—on any part in fact which is remote from observation; there is nothing that it loves better than for you to sit in a cane-bottomed chair. But it never attacks your face—and that is a curious thing—except when you are asleep. How it knows I cannot tell, but I have often noticed that it is so. If you close your eyes and pretend to be asleep, it will not come; but as sure as you begin to drowse off you hear the ping of its little wing as it swoops past your ear to your cheek.

At night however the mosquito curtains keep one in safety, and I cannot say that I am much troubled during the day, except on occasions, and in certain places, as in the woods when there is no breeze. A. is a vegetarian, and I fancy diet has a good deal to do with freedom from irritation by insects and by heat. The thermometer reaches 90° in the shade almost every day here; to sit and run at the same time is a gymnastic feat which one can easily perform, and at night it is hot enough to sleep without any covering on the bed; but I enjoy the climate thoroughly, and never felt in better health. No doubt these things often affect one more after a time than at first; but there seems almost always a pleasant breeze here at this time of year, and I do not notice that languor which generally accompanies sultry weather.

A. has most lovely vegetable curries; plenty of boiled rice, with four or five little dishes of different sorts of curried vegetables. This, with fruit, forms our breakfast—at ten; and dinner at six or seven is much the same, with perhaps an added soup or side-dish. His wife sometimes joins us at dinner, which I take as an honor, as even with those Hindu women who are emancipated there is often a little reserve about eating with the foreigner. She has a very composed and gentle manner, and speaks English prettily and correctly, though slowly and with a little hesitation; approves of a good deal of the English freedom for women, but says she cannot quite reconcile herself to women walking about the streets alone, and other things she hears they do in England. However, she would like to come to England herself and see.

The children are very bright and charming. Mahéswari (three years old) is the sweetest little dot, with big black eyes and a very decided opinion about things. She comes into the room and lifts up one arm and turns up her face and prophesies something in solemn tones in Tamil, which turns out to be, “Father is very naughty to sit down to dinner before mother comes.” Then she talks Cinghalese to her nurse and English to me, which is pretty good for a beginner in life. Mahadéva and Jayanta, the two boys (seven and nine respectively), are in the bubbling-over stage, and are alternately fast friends and fighting with each other two or three times a day, much like English boys. They are dressed more after the English fashion, though they are privileged to have bare knees and feet—at any rate in the house; and Jayanta has a pony which he rides out every day.

A. sets apart a little room in this house as a “chapel.” It is quite bare, with just a five-wicked lamp on a small table in one corner, and flowers, fruit, etc., on the ground in front. I was present the other day when the Brahman priest was performing a little service there. He recited Sanskrit formulas, burned camphor, and gave us cowdung ashes and sandalwood paste to put on our foreheads, consecrated milk to drink, and a flower each. The cowdung ashes are a symbol. For as cowdung, when burnt, becomes clean and even purifying in quality, so must the body itself be consumed and purified in the flame of Siva’s presence. A. says they use a gesture identifying the light (of Siva) within the body with the light of the flame, and also with that of the sun; and always terminate their worship by going out into the open and saluting the sun. The Brahman priest, a man about forty, and the boy of fifteen who often accompanies him, are pleasant-faced folk, not apparently at all highly educated, wearing but little in the way of clothes, and not specially distinguishable from other people, except by the sacred thread worn over the shoulder, and a certain alertness of expression which is often noticeable in the Brahman—though the trouble is that it is generally alertness for gain.

The priests generally here, whether Buddhist or Hindu (and Buddhism is of course the prevailing religion in Ceylon), occupy much the same relation to the people which the priests occupy in the country districts of France or Ireland—that is, whatever spiritual power they claim, they do not arrogate to themselves any worldly supremacy, and are always poor and often quite unlettered. In fact I suppose it is only in the commercially religious, i.e. Protestant, countries that the absurd anomaly exists of a priesthood which pretends to the service of the Jesus who had not where to lay his head, and which at the same time openly claims to belong to “society” and the well-to-do classes, and would resent any imputation to the contrary. There are indeed many points of resemblance between the religions here—especially Hinduism—and Roman Catholicism: the elaborate ceremonials and services, with processions, incense, lights, ringing of bells, etc.; the many mendicant orders, the use of beads and rosaries, and begging bowls, the monasteries with their abbots, and so forth.

There is one advantage in a hot damp climate like this; namely that things—books, furniture, clothes, etc.—soon get destroyed and done with, so that there is little temptation to cumber up your house with possessions. Some English of course try to furnish and keep their rooms as if they were still living in Bayswater, but they are plentifully plagued for their folly. The floors here are of some cement or concrete material, which prevents the white ants surging up through them, as they infallibly would through boards, and which is nice and cool to the feet; carpets, cupboards, and all collections of unremoved things are discountenanced. A chest of drawers or a bookcase stands out a foot or two from the wall, so that the servants can sweep behind it every day. Little frogs, lizards, scorpions, and other fry, which come hopping and creeping in during or after heavy rain can then be gently admonished to depart, and spiders do not find it easy to establish a footing. The greatest harbor for vermin is the big roof, which is full of rats. In pursuit of these come the rat-snakes, fellows five or six feet long, but not venomous, and wild cats; and the noises at night from them, the shuffling of the snakes, and the squeals of the poor little rats, etc., I confess are trying.

We have three or four male servants about the house and garden, and there are two ayahs, who look after the children and the women’s apartments. I believe many of these Indian and Cinghalese races love to be servants (under a tolerably good master); their feminine sensitive natures, often lacking in enterprise, rather seek the shelter of dependence. And certainly they make, in many instances and when well treated, wonderfully good servants, their tact and affectionateness riveting the bond. I know of a case in which an English civilian met with an accident when 200 miles away from his station, and his “bearer,” when he heard the news, in default of other means of communication, walked the whole distance, and arrived in time to see him before he died. At the same time it is a mistake to suppose they will do anything out of a sense of duty. The word duty doesn’t occupy an important place in the Oriental vocabulary, no more than it does among the Celtic peoples of Europe. This is a fruitful source of misunderstanding between the races. The Britisher pays his Indian servant regularly, and in return expects him to do his duty, and to submit to kicks when he doesn’t. He, the Britisher, regards this as a fair contract. But the oyster doesn’t understand it in the least. He would rather receive his pay less regularly, and be treated as “a man and a brother.” Haeckel’s account of the affection of his Rodiya servant-lad for him, and of the boy’s despair when Haeckel had to leave him, is quite touching; but it is corroborated by a thousand similar stories. But if there is no attachment, what is the meaning of duty? The oyster, in keeping with his weaker, more dependent nature, is cunning and lazy—his vices lie in that direction rather than in the Western direction of brutal energy. If his attachment is not called out, he can make his master miserable in his own way. And he does so; hence endless strife and recrimination.

The Arachchi here, a kind of official servant of A.’s, is a most gentle creature, with remarkable tact, but almost too sensitive; one is afraid of wounding him by not accepting all his numerous attentions. He glides in and out of the room—as they all do—noiselessly, with bare feet; and one never knows whether one is alone or not. The horse-keeper and I are good friends, though our dialogues are limited for want of vocabulary! He is a regular dusky demon, with his look of affectionate bedevilment and way of dissolving in a grin whenever he sees one. A. says that he thinks the pariahs, or outcastes—and the horse-keepers are pariahs—are some of the most genuine and good-hearted among the people; and I see that the author of Life in an Indian Village says something of the same kind. “As a class, hardworking, honest, and truthful,” he calls them; and after describing their devotion to the interests of the families to whom they are often hereditarily attached, adds, “Such are the illiterate pariahs, a unique class, whose pure lives and noble traits of character are in every way worthy of admiration.”

It is curious, but I am constantly being struck by the resemblance between the lowest castes here and the slum-dwellers in our great cities—resemblance in physiognomy, as well as in many unconscious traits of character, often very noble; with the brutish basis well-marked, the unformed mouth, and the somewhat heavy brows, just as in Meunier’s fine statue of the ironworker (“puddleur”), but with thicker lips.