At that moment forked lightning plays across the sky in a great ragged streak, and immediately there is another display as if answering it, but we can hear no thunder.

What is the North-East monsoon? It sounds rather like some kind of animal, but it is only the name given to a certain wind that blows always at one season of the year.

Across broad s.p.a.ces of the ocean there are always steady winds to be counted on, such as the trade-winds, which are caused by the air at the Equator getting hot and rising, and being replaced by the cold air from the Poles which rushes in; besides this there are other winds which blow half the year, called monsoons, these are due to very much the same causes. The North-East monsoon comes in the northern winter; the air from the North Pole coming down slowly is met by the earth as she turns, and as she rushes into it she makes it a north-eastern wind; this, coming over the land from the north, is a dry wind, while the other one, the South-Western monsoon, coming from the south over the ocean in the other half of the year, is a wet wind and brings the rain which is such a boon to India.

The lightning is continually playing, and I shouldn't be surprised if we are on the edge of a cyclone, but with a big ship like this, and a captain who knows his business, there is nothing to be afraid of. These cyclones, which are called typhoons in the China seas, are curious storms which twist round and round in a circle, all the time progressing onward too, and the danger is in getting into the middle of one, for there, as you may imagine, the wind comes from all quarters at once, and the waves are piled up on all sides like huge overhanging pyramids. I've never been in the middle of one, I'm thankful to say, but those who have, and have escaped with their lives, say that the ship is buffeted as if by mighty billows which smack down upon her from all directions.

Sometimes there is seen a s.p.a.ce of blue sky, and there is a great calm, but this to the commander is the most ominous sign of all, for he knows he must be in the centre funnel of the storm, so to speak, and that it will be worse for him directly!

We had better go to bed, there's nothing else to do.

Are you awake? Yes, I thought even you could hardly sleep through that!

What a smack! It sounds as if the heavens had opened and a water-spout had descended on deck! What a roar! Can you hear me? All right, come in here beside me if you like, but there is precious little room. It seems as if every noise on the ocean had been let loose. The rain must be simply one great volume of water, and the thunder----Even through our port-hole the cabin is as light as day with the lightning; it is just two o'clock in the morning. The thunder seems to come absolutely instantaneously with the lightning; we must be right in it! I never heard such crashes. One minute our heads are down below our feet and the next we are almost standing on end. Hang on! We shall probably get through all right, this noise doesn't mean anything very bad. But I thank my stars I'm not an officer on the bridge. How they ever manage to keep on their feet I don't know, much less how they give directions. One man told me that he was once in such a sea that when he was pitched off his feet into one end of the bridge he hadn't time to recover himself before the same pitch came again and sent him down just as he was trying to get up! At any time the life at sea is hard, but doubly so in a storm like this! Hour after hour it goes on. I don't suppose anyone has slept through this, and many must be feeling very ill. We are lucky to be spared that!

Next morning, though the lightning had ceased, the wind is terrific, it goes screeching past, and the rain comes down in buckets; with great difficulty we get into our clothes and scramble up to the smoking-room.

It is a miserable day and very few of the pa.s.sengers appear, but by the afternoon the worst is over, and we can get out into our alcove. We are still labouring heavily in a blue-black sea, and can see a very little way as we are surrounded by mountains of water. Hurrah! There is a cleft over in the east, which means the storm is breaking. Our captain knows the law of cyclones and has judged rightly which way to turn to get out of the track of the storm. We have pa.s.sed through a corner of it, and though we have got out of our course, that won't mean much delay.

Anyway, you've had an experience very few people have had, for there are few indeed of all the thousands who go to India who have ever been in the tail of a cyclone! It is most unusual, but in these seas one never knows what will happen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NATIVE VILLAGE.]

CHAPTER XV

A TROPICAL THUNDERSTORM

We have really arrived in the East! We are in Colombo, the capital town of Ceylon, the great island which lies swung like a pendant from the southernmost point of India. We are sitting in the shady verandah of one of the largest hotels, the Grand Oriental, called G.O.H. for short, and as we sip lemon-squash we look out over a scene so full of interest that it is difficult to take it all in. This is quite different from Port Said. There it was bright and clear, but there was not the wonderful smell and sense of being the East that we have here. The air is full of scent, a kind of spicy smell mingled with a touch of wood-smoke, and there is a balminess in it that we have never felt till now. The water in the harbour is a glorious emerald green, and small boys, almost naked, play about on roughly shaped log canoes called catamarans. They used to dive for pennies, but the sharks lopped off a leg here and an arm there and swallowed one up whole now and again, and so the Government forbade it. The dark wooden wharf forms a frame for gay figures in pure pinks and greens and yellows, and on the roads there run past continually the funniest st.u.r.dy little men with their loin-cloths tucked up, pulling light-looking chairs on high wheels with people in them. These chairs are called rickshaws and are the chief way of getting about. Very comfortable they are too, and quite cheap; we will go in them presently. The men who pull them have funny chignons of frizzy black hair sticking out under their little red caps, and it would be easy to mistake them for women. That attendant from the hotel at your elbow is asking you if you'll take another lemon-squash; he is quite a different sort of man from the runners, isn't he? Much taller and with a mild expression; his straight hair is adorned by a curved tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb of considerable size; he wears it round the back of his head, and how he makes it stay on among his very scanty locks is a miracle. His flowing white garments are immaculately clean, and he doesn't look as if he could kill a mosquito! He is a Cingalee, and the little men who run in the rickshaws are Tamils; these races live side by side in Ceylon, though there are many more Cingalese than Tamils. They are quite distinct, though they both originally came over from India, and in the old days when the Cingalese gave a line of kings to the island they were always fighting the Tamils; to-day both live together peacefully under British rule.

This place is a positive bazaar! There is a deep, crafty old merchant sitting like a spider over his pile of sheeny silks in the corner--he hopes to get good prices from the unwary tourist; there is another with a stall of beautiful bra.s.s and copper hand-worked things, and others with jewellery and carved ivory. But more interesting than any is the snake-charmer, who has just squatted down in front of us, prepared to give us an entertainment.

That is a cobra he takes out; you know it by its large, flat head. It seems sleepy and stupid, but its bite is deadly. It is possible, of course, that he has abstracted the poison-fangs which make its bite fatal, but even without them I shouldn't care to handle it. It is a huge beast, seven or eight feet long I should guess. See how he teases it; he is making it rise up on its coils and swing this way and that, darting its forked tongue out at him, and yet all the time it fears him. He has a marvellous power over it; its narrow, wicked light eyes are fixed on his face; it never looks away. Now he begins to play to it on a little flute; it is dancing, swaying its lean unlovely body to and fro and up and down in time with the tune. He puts down his pipe and makes a motion to it as if he were mesmerising it, pa.s.sing his hands this way and that, until it comes to him and puts its flat head on his shoulder, nozzling into his neck. It makes one shudder to see it! It coils round his body again and again; he is enveloped in the coils. I should not care for that profession! It is not every man that can do it, only some of the natives have a gift for it, and they really have a power over snakes, even those in a wild state, for they make them come forth out of holes when called and remain pa.s.sive at their feet. This man deserves a good tip. Bakshish they call it here too; that word accompanies you round the world!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CINGALEE WAITER.]

I think we'll go for a jaunt, if you're ready, as the light falls quickly here. There is no difficulty in getting two rickshaws, and how they spin along. They say the men who drag them don't live many years, as the constant running wears them out, but they look healthy enough and show no more exhaustion after running than a horse does after trotting.

Each one has twisted up his dhoti, as the white skirts they wear are called, showing his bare brown legs; the upper garment is simply a European cotton vest. We spin along the bright red road by the sea, seeing the long lines of foam breaking gently on the beach, and then turn into shady roads where trees with brilliant yellow leaves light the wayside. Then we pa.s.s through a native village with huts of thatch, while plantains, which at home we call bananas, grow on broad-leaved plants by each door. There is dust enough here, and mangy-looking pariah dogs, and c.o.c.ks and hens, and mult.i.tudes of bright beady-eyed children with hardly any clothing on. There is plenty of foliage and greenery and a freshness and richness of colouring that is much better than the grey leafless harshness of an Egyptian village, for this land gets plenty of rain. Everyone seems good-humoured and happy, and the children look fat enough; some of them are very black, with woolly heads, of a different type from the others. These are the children of a race called Moormen.

When we get down near the hotel I want you to come into this jeweller's shop in the arcade; you'll see a strange sight. A crowd of tourists are sitting round a table which is covered with little heaps of shining stones, unset and piled on squares of white paper; some are brilliant blue, others flashing crimson, others sombre in hue, but showing a glitter of living light whichever way you turn them. The odd thing is that the visitors are handling them and turning them over, and examining them quite freely, while the owner, a wizened old man in horn spectacles, hardly watches!

"They're not real?"

Indeed they are! Rubies, star-sapphires, opals, and many another precious stone. That native owner has a queer faith in the honesty of his customers! Long may it last!

We are only in Colombo for one night, and to-morrow we are going up-country to stay with a friend of mine, a tea-planter.

As we are undressing you give a sudden start, "What's that?" Only a lizard scuttling over the dark-washed bedroom wall, first cousin to the chameleon you saw at Abu Simbel. He is quite harmless and lives on flies. He runs like a little shadow across the wall and sometimes he loses his balance and comes down thump on the floor, or breaks his fall on the mosquito curtains. He is one of the signs that we really are in the East; here is another. Listen for a moment at the window. There is a distant barking of dogs, a far-away crow from a defiant c.o.c.k, a strange murmurous chant of men, weird cries intermingled, and now and then the deep beat of a parchment drum. The people of the land are all awake and stirring though it is late--the East never really sleeps as profoundly as does the West; there is a restlessness in the blood that stirs too much, and a pulsating warmth in the air that does not allow of deep slumber; it is the restlessness of the jungle translated into town life.

Next day at the station we find that the porters, though dressed in neat blue suits, have p.r.o.nounced chignons of the same type as their brothers who draw the rickshaws, and in spite of their European-cut coats and trousers they run about with bare feet! We might make a museum of the strange porters we see on our wanderings, collecting a specimen from each country!

The train is comfortable enough and there is a luncheon-car, so we shan't starve this time; besides, the journey to Kandy is only a few hours. There I hope we shall be met, as I haven't the least idea whereabouts my friend, Mr. Hunter's, tea-plantation is; however, I sent him a wire yesterday directly we arrived to say we would come by this train, so he is sure to be there.

The line for the greater part of the way is laid on a terrace or shelf cut out of a hillside, and it winds along climbing ever up with a towering wall on one side and a precipice on the other. The little stations have hardly room to wedge in, but they are very gay with flowers--indeed the whole line is, for great yellow daisies and the terra-cotta blossoms of a pretty creeper called lantana climb everywhere. As we get higher and higher we can look down and see the country spread out before us like a map; it is cut up into neat little fields and would be like a draught-board except that the fields are often on different levels one above the other, made on land cut out from the hillsides. These people grow rice, which is to them what maize is to the Egyptian. In the fields, before it has been threshed, it is known as paddy. They live on rice and very little else, and seem to thrive on it.

Rice pudding if repeated every day for a month at both breakfast and dinner would grow monotonous, but the man of the East does not find it so. His rice is not cooked with milk but with water, and is eaten with a little curry made of fish or vegetables to give it flavour.

Higher yet, and soon we see the hills laid out with rows of a tiny dark-green bush, planted as neatly as rows of turnips; this is the tea for which Ceylon is famous, and we shall get a nearer look at it presently. That and rubber are the staple crops that Englishmen come out here to raise, but they also grow coffee and other things too.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOWN IN THE PADDYFIELDS.]

When we arrive at Kandy there is no sign of anything to meet us and no white man on the platform, so I make inquiries of the stationmaster, who is a Eurasian, which means that he has some white blood in his veins. He knows Mr. and Mrs. Hunter perfectly well, he says, though he has not seen them for a day or two. If, as I say, I wired, they are certain to send in a trap to meet us; but it may have been delayed or still be in the town. If we care to go up and look round, and come back again, he will meantime make inquiries. With many thanks we take his advice. The town is quite near and we find the main part of it built around a pretty little lake near which is the famous Temple of the Tooth. This is a ma.s.sive building visited by thousands of pilgrims, because it enshrines a relic of great sanct.i.ty, nothing less than the tooth of Buddha! What Mohammed is to the Mohammedans so Buddha is to the Buddhists, among whom the greater part of the people of Ceylon may be counted. But Buddha is more than a prophet; his followers say that he has appeared on earth many times, and that the last time he came in the form of an Indian prince who, instead of living in careless luxury, left his home and wandered forth among the people to discover the meaning of life. When he found it, after deep meditation, he left certain precepts and rules to his followers. Some of them are very good, resembling our own Commandments: "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not lie," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not drink intoxicating liquor." But, unlike the Mohammedans, the Buddhists do not believe in G.o.d. Their idea of blissful happiness at the last is to melt away into a kind of nothingness of perfect peace, with no desires, no worries, and no cares.

All over the East you find temples which are supposed to contain some part of Buddha's person, hairs, teeth, even a collar-bone! Of course it is impossible that these things should be genuine, and in any case, if they were, there is nothing sacred about them. The worshippers always say they do not look upon Buddha as a G.o.d, but only a great spiritual teacher, yet the poor and ignorant come and worship and bow down in these temples, and there is no doubt that to them the image itself stands for a G.o.d. The tooth which is here is kept in many caskets, one within the other, and it is never shown except on very great occasions.

Mr. Hunter saw it once, and says it is not a human tooth at all, but a great thing like a boar's tusk or possibly an elephant's tooth. He couldn't get a good look at it, anyway he saw enough to be quite sure that it is not human at all, and the same may be said without doubt of all similar relics.

What a lovely scene! The graceful dark-skinned crowd in their softly flowing garments of the purest pinks you ever saw, with sulphur yellow and rich red draperies thrown over them, are idling by the h.o.a.ry grey steps of the temple and dropping bits of bread into the ponds in front.

They are feeding the tortoises, fat lazy beasts who will hardly move to snap at the fragments unless they fall before their very noses. These beasts are supposed to be sacred too, and so they have an uncommonly good time of it. This ma.s.sive building, temple and palace in one, was inhabited by the old line of native kings who made Kandy their capital.

We must get back to the station or we may miss Mr. Hunter. When we arrive there we find there is no sign of him, whereat the attentive stationmaster is greatly distressed. He advises us to hire a trap and drive to some place with an unp.r.o.nounceable name, where Mr. Hunter is sure to meet us; visitors often do that, he says. I try to discover why we can't drive all the way, but his answers are not enlightening; "big hill," he replies, and I don't see why the trap can't go up a hill!

However, we shall see. He engages a trap for us, anyway; with a scarecrow horse and a friendly looking driver whose hairy legs protrude from wrappings of cinnamon-coloured cloth--once white, I suppose--and we are off. The roads at first are very good; and there is none of the dust we suffered from so much in Egypt, for Ceylon is a moist land. In fact, it looks rather like rain now, with heavy clouds gathering up.

After going at a slow trot for a considerable distance the driver pulls up, and pointing with his whip to a tree-covered mountain says something unintelligible, which turns out to be "'Unter Tuan," after he has repeated it about six times. This means Mr. Hunter, "Tuan" being the same term of respect here that "Sahib" is in India.

There is no sign of a house or any living being; the place is absolutely deserted. In vain I sign to the man to go ahead; he shakes his head and remains seated on his box like an image of despair. I get out and see that the road runs away to nothing in the bushes and scrub in front, it just ends suddenly for no apparent reason, and while I am looking I hear a slight crackling in the bushes, and a tall, thin, very dirty-looking youth appears and salaams respectfully. The driver immediately begins to converse with him, whereupon the youth takes our bag unceremoniously out of the carriage and putting it on his head beckons to us to follow him. There is nothing else for it, so, after paying the driver, we do so, feeling like two infants in charge of this fellow.

I try the lean lad in English, asking him if he knows Hunter Tuan's place, but he swings round, looks at me gravely, and continues his graceful, elastic walk.

It is pretty warm, and the path is narrow and lined by thorn bushes, so the going is not easy; but the youth seems to float on ahead with mysterious ease, and we pant after him feeling as if our lives depended on not losing sight of him. At last the bushes get so thick that we have to push our way through, and we suddenly see him a good distance ahead, half-way across a broad and shallow river which bubbles round his knees.

"Hi!" we shout after him. "Stop!" And he turns, but only to beckon imperturbably and continue evenly on his way. It is evidently the custom of this country to walk through rivers when you meet them! Easy enough for the inhabitants, who are not enc.u.mbered with shoes and stockings, but for us....

Down we go and are soon hard after him with our boots slung round our necks and our stockings stuffed into them; the cool water splashing round our legs is rather pleasant. Lucky it is not deep. We have to stop and re-clothe on the other side. Here our coolie has condescended to wait for us, and just as you are about to sit down on a convenient hillock of bare brown earth he waves you away, and you see that big red ants with a most fierce and warlike appearance are running about it; it is their home and fortress! Once more booted we struggle on, uphill now, on a stony path, and very stiff work it is. When we tell our guide to stop for a moment he looks at us condescendingly and stands with his burden poised on his head, not even caring to put it down as he waits until these poor creatures, who are not carrying anything at all, regain their breath, and that makes us feel so inferior we don't like to stop often! The clouds gather and blacken, the perspiration is running down my back, and I am as wet as if I had waded through the river up to my neck. I should be glad to see the house, for we have been scrambling upwards for quite an hour now. What a place to live in! Fancy having to come down here every time you wanted to do a little shopping!

Another hour at least! A few drops, muttering thunder, and then, quicker than one can say it, a blinding, crashing downpour. Never in my life have I seen rain like this until that night at sea when we pa.s.sed through the edge of the cyclone, and now twice have I met it in a week!

It is simply a water-spout. A brilliant flash of lightning shows us the youth crouching under a bank some yards ahead, and we dive into the nearest place, following his example. Luckily the bank is high here and there is a kind of cave beneath a ma.s.s of broad-leaved plants; there is just room for the two of us huddled close together, and the wall of water sweeps past the entrance like a curtain. The rain makes a deafening noise, it literally crashes down; the path is a mountain torrent; if we had stayed there we should have been swept off our feet; it seems as if the whole mountain-side must go. We hang on to each other, avoiding the trickles as best we can. Hullo! this plant is a cardamom, carrying little seeds rather like spicy pepper; nibble one, it may keep off the effects of the wetting we have been unable to avoid altogether. How cold it seems to have grown all of a sudden! Is it the rain, or because we are so much higher up? I suppose really it is the latter, because I remember now that the planters always live on the tops of hills to get the fresh air, which is more healthy there than in the stifling valleys.

It is a long time before the storm pa.s.ses, and when at last it dies down to a few drops and we emerge and shake ourselves, all trace of the coolie boy has vanished! Yes, it is true! He has gone, and the bag too!

Well, he must have gone upward or we should have seen him pa.s.s, so let us hope he is honest and has taken the bag to the house. There is only one path, so we can do nothing but follow.

On we climb again, and presently the scene changes; we have got into the tea-scrub, and wander among rows of bushes about the size of gooseberry bushes, receiving deluges of cold water against our legs. The path zigzags this way and that, rising each time so that we can look back and see it lying below us in fold after fold. At last! There is an opening!

I see a glimpse of green lawn and some poinsettias! This must be the place! Yes, I can see the bungalow, and here is a mackintosh-clad figure hastening down the path to greet us.

"My dear fellow! However did you get here? Why on earth didn't you let us know? We'd have sent to meet you!"

As we grasp hands I explain about the telegram. "Oh, then I shall get it with the letters to-morrow morning!" he says lightly. "No matter, so long as you are here and safe. I was afraid you had got lost upon the mountain-top, and was setting forth to seek you."

"But how did you know?"

"Your coolie arrived with the bag a quarter of an hour ago, and your name is written on the label very large and clear. Delighted to see you!