Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife by Marietta Holley (ebook reader android txt) đź“–
- Author: Marietta Holley
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The Parsees live together in big families of relations, sometimes fifty.
They do not bury their dead, but put ’em up in high towers, called Towers of Silence. And I believe my soul that I’d ruther be put up in the sky than down in the mouldy earth.
Jest a little way from this Tower of Silence is the spot where the Brahmans burn their dead; there are so many that the fires are kep’ burnin’ all the time. And a little ways off is the place where the English bury their dead.
And I d’no but one way is as good as another. The pale 247 shadder of the real tower of silence has fell on ’em all and silenced ’em. It don’t make much difference what becomes of the husk that is wropped round the wheat. The freed soul soarin’ off to its own place wouldn’t care what become of the wornout garment it dropped in its flight.
But to resoom: We all went out for a drive through the streets; Josiah and I and Arvilly and little Tommy in a little two-wheeled cart settin’ facin’ each other drawed by two buffalo cows. Robert and Dorothy and Miss Meechim occupied another jest ahead on us. The driver sot on the tongue of the wagon, and would pull their tails instead of whippin’ ’em when he wanted ’em to go faster. The cows’ ears wuz all trimmed off with bells and gay streamers of cotton cloth, and their tails had big red bows on ’em, and Josiah whispered to me:
“You see, Samantha, if I don’t get some ear and tail trimmin’ for old Brindle and Lineback when I git home; our cows are goin’ to have some advantage of our tower if they couldn’t travel with us. And,” sez he, “what a show we could make, Samantha, ridin’ in to meetin’ behind ’em; bells a-jinglin’ and ribbins a-flyin’, I dressed in a long silk frock and you all covered with jewelry.”
“Well,” sez I (wantin’ to break up the idee to once), “if we do that, I must be buyin’ some jewelry right away.”
“Oh, Samantha,” sez he anxiously, “can’t you take a joke? I wouldn’t drive anything but the old mair for love or money. And your cameo pin is so beautiful and so becoming to you.”
We went by a good many Parsees in that drive, and Arvilly sez, “They look so rich somehow, I believe I shall try to canvass some on ’em.” And that afternoon about sundown she seein’ one on ’em goin’ into a little garden she follered him in; he wuz dressed in such a gorgeous way that she wuz almost sure of a customer, but jest as she wuz gettin’ the “Twin Crimes” out of her work-bag, he took off his outer frock, lain it down on the ground and knelt down, 248 facin’ the sunset, and sprinkled his head, breast and hands three times from a little dish he had with him, and then begun to pray and kep’ up his devotions for half an hour, and Arvilly of course not wantin’ to break up a meetin’ put her book into her work-bag and went away. I kinder like the idee of their worshippin’ under the blue dome of heaven, though of course I didn’t like their idee of worshippin’ the created instead of the Creator. In travellin’ through these countries more and more every day did I feel to thank the Lord that I wuz a member of the M. E. meetin’ house in Jonesville, U. S., a humble follower of him who went about doing good, but I didn’t feel like goin’ on as Miss Meechim did. How she did look down on the Parsees and compared ’em to the Piscopals to their immense disadvantage.
But Arvilly, the iconoclast, sez, “These Parsees boast that there is not a pauper or woman of bad character in the hull of their sect, and I wonder if any other religious sect in America could say as much as that, Miss Meechim?”
Miss Meechim turned her head away and sniffed some; she hates to enter into a argument with Arvilly, but she wuz gittin’ real worked up and I don’t know how it would have ended, but I spoke right up and quoted some Bible to ’em, thinkin’ mebby that it might avert a storm.
Sez I, “Charity vaunteth not itself. Charity thinketh no evil, suffereth long and is kind.”
I meant both on ’em to take it, and I meant to take some on’t myself. I knowed that I wuz sometimes a little hash with my beloved pardner. But a woman, if she don’t want to be run over has to work every way to keep a man’s naterel overbeariness quelled down. I worship him and he knows it, and if I didn’t use headwork he would take advantage of that worship and tromple on me.
But though Arvilly didn’t canvass the Parsee, she sold several copies of the “Twin Crimes” to English residents who seemed to hail the idee of meeting a Yankee book-agent in the Orient with gladness.
Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong went over to an island on the bay to see the caves of Elephanta, the great underground temple, one hall of which is one hundred and fifty feet long, the lofty ceilin’ supported by immense columns, and three smaller halls, the walls of all on ’em richly sculptured.
Whose hands made them statutes? I don’t know nor Josiah don’t and I guess nobody duz. There wuz a thoughtful look on Dorothy’s sweet face when she came home, and Robert Strong too seemed walkin’ in a reverie, but Miss Meechim wuz as pert as ever; it takes more than a cave to dant her.
One place in Bombay I liked first rate, a hospital for dumb animals, it is kep’ by a sect called the Jains. Sick animals of all kinds are cared for: horses, cows, dogs, cats, rats and I spoze any ailin’ creeter from a mouse up to a elephant is nursed with tender care.
Sez Josiah, “No matter what her creed is, Samantha, that Jane is a good creeter and is doin’ a great work, I would send the old mair here in a minute if she wuz took with consumption or janders or anythin’, if it wuzn’t so fur, and I’d tell Jane jest how much I thought on her for her goodness.”
Sez I, “Josiah, it is a sect, not a female.”
But he wouldn’t gin in and talks about Jane a sight now when he recalls about the horrers of vivisection or when he sees animals abused and horses driv too hard and overloaded––he always sez:
“I would like to have Jane see that, I guess Jane would put a stop to that pretty lively.”
250Well, it shows Josiah’s good heart.
The Hindus have several temples in Bombay. One of the great days is the Festival of the Serpents. Snake charmers bring to this place the deadly snakes which are then fed to propitiate them, by the priests, I spoze.
Oh, how Miss Meechim went on about the idee of worshippin’ snakes, and it wuz perfectly dretful to me too, I must confess. But Arvilly always puttin’ her oar in and always hash on our govermunt, sez:
“Why, what is this different from what we do in America?”
Miss Meechim’s eyes snapped, she wuz madder than a wet hen, but Arvilly went on, “Every ’lection time hain’t the great serpent of the liquor power fed and pampered by the law-makers of our country?”
Miss Meechim didn’t reply; I guess she dassent, and I didn’t say anything, and Arvilly went on:
“Our serpent worship is as bad agin as these Hindus’, for after their snakes are fed and worshipped they shet ’em up agin so they can’t do any harm. But after lawmakers propitiate the serpent with money and influence, they let it loose to wreathe round the bright young lives and noble manhood and crunch and destroy ’em in its deadly folds, leavin’ the slime of agony and death in its tracks all over our country from North to South, East to West. It don’t look well after all this for an American to act horrified at feedin’ a snake a little milk and shettin’ it up in a box.” She wuz fairly shakin’ with indignation, and Miss Meechim dast as well die as dispute her agin. And I didn’t say a word to harrer her up any more, for I knew well what she had went through.
We only stayed a few days in Bombay, and then took the steamer and went straight acrost the Arabian Sea, stopping at Aden for a little while, and then up the Red Sea; on one side on us, Arabia, and on the other, Africa.
Aden, where we stopped for a short time, is a dreary 251 lookin’ little place with seventy or eighty thousand natives livin’ a little back from the shore, while the few English people there live near the coast. Beautiful ostrich feathers are obtained there from the many ostrich farmers living near, as well as the Mocha coffee, which made over a Jonesville stove by a Jonesville woman has so often cheered the heart and put to flight the worrisome passions of a Josiah. But in most of these tropical countries, where you’d think you could git the best, I didn’t find coffee half so good as I made it myself, though mebby I ortn’t to say it.
We saw some wonderful jugglers here. They will draw out great bunches of natural flowers from most anywhere that you wouldn’t expect ’em to be, and call birds down or out of some place onseen by us; mebby they come from the mysterious gardens of a Carabi’s home, and those great bunches of roses, I d’no from what invisible rose bushes they wuz picked; mebby they growed up tall and stately on either side of the Ether avenues that surround us on every side. Mebby Carabi lives right under the shade of some on ’em, but ’tennyrate some of these flowers they made out of nothin’ I took right into my hands, great, soft, dewy roses, with seemin’ly the same dew and perfume on ’em they have when picked in our earthly gardens. And we saw some wonderful divers there; they did such strange things that it wuz fairly skairful to see ’em. If you would throw a small coin down into the water, they would dive way down, down with both hands full of balls and bring up the coin in their teeth, showing that they picked it up offen the bottom without touching their hands to it. Good land! I couldn’t do it to save my life in our cistern or wash bowl, let alone the deep, deep sea.
As we entered the Red Sea we passed through the narrer channel called The Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, Gate of Tears, named so on account of the many axidents that have happened there. But we got through safely and sailed on towards Suez.
252So we went on past the coasts of Abyssinia, Nubia. Fur off we see Mount Sineii, sacred mount, where the Law wuz given to Moses.
Oh, my soul, think on’t! To see the very spot where Moses stood and talked to the Almighty face to face. It is only three hundred milds from Suez.
We sailed directly over the place where the Israelites passed over dry shod whilst their enemies, the Egyptians, wuz overwhelmed by the waters. The persecuted triumphant and walkin’ a-foot into safety, while Tyranny and Oppression wuz drownded.
I wish them waters wuz swashin’ up to-day and closin’ in on the Oppressor, not to drownd ’em, mebby, but to give ’em a pretty good duckin’. But I spoze the walls of water like as not is risin’ on each side on ’em onbeknown to them, and when the time comes, when the bugle sounds, they will rush in and overwhelm the armies of Greed and Tyranny and the oppressed. Them that are forced to make brick without straw, or without sand hardly, will be free, and go on rejoicin’ into the land of Promise.
But to resoom: It is three thousand milds from Bombay to Suez, but it wuz all safely passed and we found ourselves in Cairo in a most comfortable hotel, and felt after all our wanderings in fur off lands that we agin breathed the air of civilization almost equal to Jonesville.
We found some letters here from home. I had a letter from Tirzah Ann and one from Thomas Jefferson. His letter wuz full of gratitude to heaven and his ma for his dear little boy’s restored strength and health. He and Maggie wuz lookin’ and waitin’ with eager hearts and open arms to greet us, and the time wuz long to ’em I could see, though he didn’t say so.
Tirzah Ann’s letter
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