The Pearl of India by Maturin Murray Ballou (ebook audio reader TXT) 📖

actual cost, which was between three and four million dollars. The entire work was performed by convict labor. The area sheltered from the southwest monsoons is over five hundred acres, half of which has depths varying from twenty-six to forty feet at low tide. The breakwater forms an excellent promenade except in rough weather, and is much improved for that purpose by the people who reside in the neighborhood. Having good anchorage space, sufficient depth of water, and a sheltered harbor, Colombo is now the regular port of call for the great steamship lines sailing to and from China, Japan, the Straits Settlements, Australia, and Calcutta, and is justly entitled to the name of the commercial as well as the political capital of Ceylon. In the long past, it has shared the former honor with Point de Galle.

There is no tropical island, or indeed any part of the Orient, which has a more prompt and frequent mail service than has Colombo, a highly important consideration with people who, aside from business connections, desire to keep in touch with the world and the times.

Like Malta, the island is so situated between the East and the West as to be exposed to any epidemic which may prevail in either quarter, and which is easily brought by vessels touching here for coal or freight. The author heard nothing of quarantine provisions or regulations enforced at Colombo, but there is doubtless some official supervision of this character. All persons who have traveled extensively have encountered more or less annoyance from quarantine regulations, especially as enforced throughout the East, but all experience shows their necessity.

We landed at Colombo on Christmas day, our baggage—after a mere pretense of examination on the part of the custom-house officers—being promptly put into a two-wheeled, canvas-covered bullock cart, beside which we walked with open umbrella, for the direct rays of the equatorial sun were almost unbearable even at this season of the year. It was observed that the driver of the small, dun-colored yoke of cattle attached to the cart used no whip, and he was mentally commended for his humanity. This, however, was premature, for it soon appeared that he had an ingenious and cruel device whereby to urge his oxen forward. The fellow twisted their tails vigorously, which must have been intensely painful to them, as they showed by their actions. Not being able to speak Singhalese, the author promptly applied the same treatment to the driver's ears, an argument which required no interpreter, and which proved to be both convincing and effectual. It was afterward discovered that the tails of many of the oxen here were absolutely dislocated from this brutal process, used by the drivers to urge them forward. Though a Singhalese's religion forbids his taking the life of the meanest insect, it does not seem to prevent his torturing these really handsome and useful animals. There is one way in which these mild-eyed, hump-backed creatures occasionally assert themselves which is somewhat original, and commands our hearty approval. When they are overtasked and abused beyond endurance, they are liable to lie down in the middle of the roadway, and nothing will start them until they choose to get up and proceed of their own will. So the overladen camel lies down upon the desert sand, and will not rise until his burden is properly adjusted.

While wilting in the enervating atmosphere, as we pursued our way from the shore, the thought naturally suggested itself that just then, on the other side of the globe, our friends at home were probably sitting before cheerful soft-coal fires and quietly enjoying the genial heat and the enlivening blaze. It was also remembered that Colombo is acknowledged to be the hottest city in the Queen of England's dominions. The sun was far too bright and intense for unaccustomed northern eyes, and it was a great relief to reach the shelter beneath the broad piazza of the hotel, though it is but a short distance from the landing. We were waited upon at the Grand Oriental with an intelligent and discerning regard for a traveler's comfort, and assigned to large, cleanly apartments. The rooms were divided from each other only by partial partitions, which did not reach the ceilings, the upper portion being left open for the purpose of promoting ventilation. So intense is the heat in Colombo at times that this is quite necessary, though such an arrangement does not permit of the degree of privacy requisite for a sleeping apartment. The hottest months at this point are February, March, and April, when all who can do so escape to the hill district.

The Oriental is an excellent and spacious hotel, containing over one hundred sleeping-rooms, with ample retiring apartments on the first floor and a dining-room which will seat three hundred guests at a time. A line of arcades is connected with the house, beneath the shade of which one can go shopping at the little gem and curio stores. The hotel is built about a large central court or area, which is well filled with thrifty tropical vegetation. The whole is admirably arranged, and is well kept after American and European ideas. While the guests sit at meals in the large dining-hall, long lines of punkas or fans, suspended over the tables, are operated by servants placed outside of the room, thus rendering the atmosphere quite endurable, notwithstanding the intense heat which generally prevails. The waiters were found to be natives, but all spoke English, and were well trained in the performance of their duties. Each one of them wore a white turban, and a single white cotton garment cut like a gentleman's dressing-gown, and confined at the waist by a crimson sash. The legs and feet of these copper-colored servants were bare, after the conventional style of such persons throughout this island, as well as in India proper.

One other large house of public entertainment has a good reputation, and is certainly most favorably situated. It is known as the Galle Face Hotel, adjoining the popular esplanade of the same name. This house is well patronized, especially by officers of the army and navy. For a permanent residence it is perhaps preferable to the Oriental, on account of its charming maritime outlook. There are several other public houses, but of these two the author can speak approvingly from personal experience.

An unusual scene, which transpired on the esplanade near the Galle Face Hotel, occurs to us at this writing:—

One of the bullock gigs, so common in Colombo, stopped suddenly before that hostelry. The driver, who had jumped to the ground, was examining the animal with much surprise. In the mean time, the bullock was staggering like a drunken man, reeling hither and thither while striving to keep upon its feet, shaking its head strangely in a wild sort of way, and trembling all over. The thermometer was somewhere between 95° and 100° Fahr. A score of idle and curious natives thronged about the spot, entirely shutting out the circulation of what little fresh air there was stirring. At this moment a cavalryman from the barracks hard by made his way into the crowd, and seizing the bullock's nose he bade the driver hold him steadily by the horns. Taking a knife from his pocket, the new-comer forced the animal's mouth open and adroitly made a deep incision in one of the bars which form the roof, instantly causing the blood to flow freely therefrom. After the lapse of a very few minutes, the bullock recovered, standing once more quite firmly upon its feet, as soon as the pressure upon its brain was relieved by the flow of blood. The creature had experienced an attack of what in horses is called blind-staggers, produced by a rush of blood to the brain, undoubtedly occasioned in this instance by the great heat and by over-exertion. The cavalryman's readiness with his knife produced just the sort of relief which was required in such an exigency.

"The bullock could not have been driven very fast," said an English lady, who had regarded the scene intently from the piazza of the hotel, "because it does not perspire at all; see, its hide is perfectly dry."

"That sort of hanimal doesn't sweat only on the nose," said the cavalryman, as he coolly wiped his knife and returned it to his pocket, adding, "'Orses does, but hoxen doesn't."

It is a noticeable fact that European horses cannot endure the climate of Ceylon; some which are imported from Australia manage to give satisfaction for a limited period. The breeding of these animals is not a success in the island, and the natives do not use them at all.

Colombo has a hundred and thirty thousand inhabitants, and is divided into what is known as The Fort and Black Town, the former being the portion devoted to the official quarters and the residences of the English, the latter mostly to the very humble homes of the natives. Black Town is quite oriental and very dirty, dispensing a most unmistakable odor like a faint tincture of musk. It stretches along the harbor front for more than a mile, until it ends at the Kalani River, and contains a most heterogeneous mingling of races, each individual decked in some distinctive garb of his original nationality, the majority, however, exhibiting only the bronzed skin covering to their bones which nature provides. Even these nude figures form an anomalous sight, often having their heads covered with monstrous, elaborate white turbans, and only a thin piece of cotton about their loins. The houses, or cabins as they would more properly be called, are of one story, dingy and poor, generally constructed of mud upon bamboo frames, with a thatched roof of dried palm leaves so braided together as to make a stout and secure protection from the rain. The fronts of these simple houses are quite open, revealing all sorts of domestic habits incident to native life, and very often outraging one's sense of propriety. Men or women care nothing for publicity, and do not hesitate in the conduct of affairs which are strictly of a personal nature.

If one desires a remedy for over-fastidiousness, let him stroll for a while about this native portion of Colombo. He will open his eyes in surprise now and then, but it is astonishing how soon one becomes indifferent to the most peculiar local customs, whether in Samoa, Japan, or among the Alaska Indians. The lazy Singhalese or Tamil men lying half asleep upon the ground, the women, semi-nude, cooking fish over a brazier in the open air, and a group of naked children playing in the roadway, form a common tableau in this quarter of the town. Every necessity seems to be provided for by the salubrity of the climate and the spontaneity of the soil. Enterprise, emulation, ambition, are to these people unknown incentives to action. The height of their desire is plenty of sleep and plenty to eat.

The scene is occasionally varied by a group of men sitting upon their heels and absorbed in gambling for small sums of money. It should be stated here that the natives, Singhalese, Tamils, Moormen, or of whatever tribe, are all inveterate gamblers; only the Chinese can equal them in this propensity to risk all they possess upon the cast of the dice, or in betting upon some other trivial game. We were told of instances where the gambler, having lost everything else, staked the possession of his wife against his opponent's money, and, losing, the woman quietly acquiesced in consummating the arrangement. Women of the humbler castes are looked upon more as slaves than as filling any other relation to those whom they call their husbands. As a rule, they would not think of asserting any will of their own. As their husbands are abject slaves to the idea of