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

has been said, will not permit him to take animal life. All animals are sacred to a Buddhist; even snakes and vermin have nothing to fear from him. As to these Ceylon crows, one regards them with a full sense of their audacity, but the birds themselves do not seem to be at all annoyed by such scrutiny. Cocking their heads on one side, parrot-like, they coolly proceed to look you out of countenance. Their mischievous and vicious activity is temporarily suspended during your presence, but no sooner is one's back turned upon them than their reckless antics and thieving propensities are resumed with increased vigor.

One of their favorite tricks is to purloin silver spoons, being attracted perhaps by their brightness, and as they are not able to consume them, though like the ostrich they can eat almost anything, they seek some unfrequented piece of ground and dig a hole with their sharp claws, wherein they bury the stolen property from sight. The employees of the Grand Oriental Hotel are obliged to keep a sharp lookout for their table-ware, as anything small and bright at once challenges the curiosity of the crows, and is liable to be stolen by them. They are most adroit thieves, and watch with cunning precaution for a chance to perpetrate any sort of mischief.

There is another reason besides that of a religious prompting which leads to the protection and toleration of the crows in this island. They are the recognized scavengers of the city of Colombo, just as vultures are permitted in Vera Cruz, where they are protected by law, for a similar purpose. Not a scrap of carrion escapes the voracious appetites of either species of these birds. All such matter cast into the street instantly disappears, while, if left exposed to decay in the hot sun, it might prove pestilential. It is remembered that the question seriously suggested itself at Vera Cruz, which was most to be deplored, the presence of the uncleanly, disgusting vultures, or that of Yellow Jack, as the prevailing epidemic is called in southern Mexico.

"Why don't they kill these nuisances?" asked one of our fellow travelers of another, while he impatiently drove away a crow from the back of his chair in the hotel at Colombo.

"They have too much respect for their dead relatives," was the reply of a companion.

"Dead relatives?" queried the first speaker. "What has that to do with it?"

"Very much. These Singhalese are believers in the doctrine of metempsychosis."

"Who?"

"Metempsychosis; that is, in the transmigration of the soul from human bodies into animals."

"Don't see where that idea comes in," said the obtuse querist.

"Why, if a fellow killed one of these impertinent rooks, don't you know, he might be murdering his dead grandmother!"

These Buddhists of Ceylon believe that departed spirits who have behaved badly in human shape reappear in the form of domestic animals or birds, and those who have done well are turned into wild animals. The most dreadful fate is held to be the reappearance in life in the body of a woman, a sad and significant reflection upon the treatment to which they are universally subjected.

The Singhalese and Tamils are the most numerous among the population of Colombo. Mohammedans, Malays, and Parsees, as intimated, are also here in considerable numbers, mingled with representatives of other nationalities. The Mohammedans are best known as Moormen. Though in the far past of the island's history Ceylon was so long and so intimately connected with the Celestial Empire, the author did not even chance to see a Chinaman on the island, though at the north and elsewhere in the several provinces these Mongolians are to be found. In their migrating westward, the race cease to establish a foothold in numbers beyond Penang. This latter island, as well as that of Singapore, is dominated by them, the small trade of both places being wholly in their hands. But beyond the Malacca Straits, they have not made their way westward to any considerable extent.

The Singhalese language, which is soft and flowing, is founded on the Sanskrit, an evidence in itself of the antiquity of the people. Tamil is the language of southern India, and is used here by the Moormen as well as by the Tamils proper. There is a Portuguese patois still spoken by European descendants and half-breeds, while the Dutch language is quite unknown, though that people remained here nearly a century and a half after the Portuguese were driven out of the island. The English tongue is becoming more and more common in all populous centres like Colombo, Trincomalee, Kandy, and Point de Galle. The Singhalese are nearly always Buddhists, while the Tamils, as a people, are Hindus. The latter, as we have said, are the wage-earners of the country, working alongshore at the wharves, loading and unloading ships, belonging to the coal barges, and the like. The Singhalese proper take higher rank; the sort of occupation accepted by the Tamils would not on any account be adopted by a Singhalese. Caste is imperious and imperative, though it is strictly discountenanced by the religion of the people, and especially so by the English government, which does not fail to exercise its influence against it.

The Tamils, being light of body and used to laborious occupations, make the best jinrikisha men,—the small, man-propelled chaise,—trotting off in their almost naked condition with the speed of a horse, while drawing the vehicle and its occupants behind them. They rival in fleetness the little gigs or hackeries, as they are called, propelled by small and active brahmin bulls, gayly decked with tinkling bells. Some of the zebus, with their humped necks, deep dewlaps, silky hides, and deer-like limbs, are really handsome creatures. These gigs with their peculiar animals, and the jinrikishas drawn by Tamils, are striking and novel features to a stranger when he first lands at Colombo, unless he comes from the East. The idea of the jinrikisha is borrowed from Japan, but that of the small bullock cart comes from India, where they are common all over the country. It is surprising to see with what ease and speed these little creatures will trot along the smooth roads, guided by reins attached to a ring which passes through a hole in the cartilage of their nostrils. There is a larger breed of cattle which are imported from India for farming purposes, but most of those in common use are the small ones we have described. Both are of the zebu breed. A certain number of the larger ones, like elephants, are kept in the temples of India and worshiped as sacred animals. It will doubtless strike the reader that there is a certain degree of inconsistency in using these cattle as beasts of burden, twisting their tails to elicit a high degree of speed, and in kneeling solemnly before the same creatures as sacred when they are kept within the walls of the temples.

The Singhalese proper make very good mechanics, and can imitate a delicate model when submitted to them, equaling the Chinese, whose fidelity in this respect has passed into a proverb. They are specially expert in the manufacture of wooden boxes from choice material, inlaid with ivory, tortoise shell, mother of pearl, and the like; but above all else they pride themselves as a people upon being agriculturists, a planter's occupation being considered as fitting for the highest caste to engage in. It is in the cultivation of broad rice-fields that the Singhalese is seen at his best. This occupation he fully understands. A predilection for it seems to have been born in him; his forefathers have followed the business for centuries, and success in this line of occupation means to him independence and plenty. All classes of the natives of Ceylon are full of superstitions, and support hundreds of demon-priests, who thrive upon the foolishness and fears of the masses. Incantations of the most extravagant character are the principal means used by the priests, who are also called doctors, and who pretend to relieve sickness and pain by barbarous means, such as hideous dances, beating of tom-toms, blowing of horns, wearing hideous masks, and other devices. All this nonsense is popularly supposed to drive away the evil spirits who cause the sickness.

The Singhalese believe that all ills in life are inflicted as punishment, and that evil spirits are the agents of Providence to apply the same. They think that they are under penalty not alone for sins committed during their present lives, but also for their wrongdoing in some previous state of existence. They may have been "rogue" elephants, thieving crows, vicious buffaloes, or vile cobras, all of which is quite in accordance with their creed as promulgated by the Buddhist priests.

They seem to have no skill whatever in the treatment of the most simple illness. The author has never, even among the most barbaric tribes, quite isolated from contact with white men, known a people so deficient in this respect. Some few of the Singhalese planters regularly set aside a small portion of their rice-fields, and leave them unharvested, for the use of the demons! It is intimated that the priests manage to secretly reap these portions for their own benefit, representing it to have been done by the evil spirits, whose good-will has thus been secured in behalf of the credulous planter. The base and groveling superstitions and credulity of the natives of Ceylon are simply disgusting. There are said to be three thousand devil-priests supported in the island, living with unblushing assurance upon the ignorance of the masses. How closely akin is all this to the Roman Catholic priests, who pretend "on liberal terms" to pray departed souls out of purgatory.

Does it not seem extraordinary that the idea of worshiping or propitiating some powerful evil spirit should prevail almost universally among barbarous and half-civilized races? It is not the force of example which inculcates such an idea, since the author has met with it as a native custom among various tribes situated as far apart as the poles. The Alaska Indians, the denizens of "Darkest Africa," the Maoris of New Zealand, and the cannibal tribes of the Fiji Islands, all yield more or less to this instinct. Nor were the Indians of North America devoid of an equivalent custom when the European settlers first came among them. It is only natural that all people, civilized or otherwise, should be exercised by an instinct leading up to the worship of a great Heavenly Father of mankind, but the belief in the existence of an opposing and more important power, which must first be propitiated, is certainly as singular as it is universal among the barbarous races of both hemispheres. When visiting the famous temples of Nikkō, in Japan, the author saw a priest sitting before a temple in the open air, beside a collection of prepared pine chips with which he was feeding a small fire upon an open stone slab, and accompanying the burning process by beating at intervals upon a tom-tom. On inquiring as to the significance of this singular ceremony, we were sagely told by the native guide that the priest thus solicited the good-will of the god of fire, who was very powerful and inimical to man, unless his favor was frequently sought by such means.

"How terrible it would be," added the devout Japanese, "if he (the god of fire) were to consume these sacred temples," pointing as he spoke to the unique group of buildings so elaborately ornamented, which contain such priceless hoards of rich bronzes, carved images, and delicate lacquered ware.

The sacred temples of Nikkō are in their way quite unequaled in the world, having, with other remarkable attractions, the consecrating influence of great antiquity. The oldest Japanese bronzes are valued at their weight in gold; indeed, that precious metal forms a large percentage of the