A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8453, 1 June 1907, Page 7

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

By ALBERT DORRINGTON. (Author of "Along the Castlereagh," "Children of the Gully," etc.)

(Published by special arrangement —Copyright reserved.)

VII.—CEYLON. Midnight, March 27th: A faint odour of cinnamon stole through the sweltering air. After ten days off sea and sky, men moved uneasily in their cabins, as though a atrange voice was hailing them. Men and children came up from their stuffy berths, fixing their land-hungry eyes on the far north. A white light flowered ahead, and stabbed the darkness with its pointed warning. Later a procession of moonsized lamps wheeled upon us from the north-north-east, where Colombo sweats on the edge of the Line. Theihot darkness seemed to press upon the face of the scarce-moving sea. An unquenchable heat enveloped the ship—a sticky, slimy heat, loaded with perfume and occasional swamp odours. Out of this steaming darkness came boats and murmuring voices. And long before we had dropped anchor a number of shining bodies appeared on our port rail-wet-skinned Tamils and Cingalee laundry men, voiceless as yet, but eager for business when the moment arrived. It would take a hundred stockwhips to keep the adventurous Cingalee from entering your cabin. As fast as the stewards drive him from one quarter of the ship he descends another. He is an aggravating sma thief in his way,; his eyes are full of tender reproach when you accuse him of stealing your razors and soap. Caught in the act of opening your valise, he will tell you point blank that it is not a valise, and that he is not in your cabin. In fact, he will swear that he is not himself, and that you are another person altogether. His logic is bewildering, but it is a great relief to hit him with his own thick walking-cane. Four Tamil coolies rowed us ashore in an evil-smelliDg fruit boat and cast us adrift on an unfriendly pier, swarming with backsheesh men and Malays. The backsheesh fiend charges two cents for wishing you good morning; the memory of his villainous breath will follow us across the three oceans. Climbing the pier steps, we walked, so to speak, from the sea's bosom across the feet of Asia. It was not yet day, nut the red roads stretched suddenly before us in an Eastern frenzy of colour. At the end of one ved road stood a pile of salt-white buildings, fronted with Irish-green palms and lip-red flowers. We passed the Governor's residence, where an army of high-caste Tamils were sweeping the wide lawns and beating fawn-grey carpets against Ihe austere palm boles. Large Asian roses climbed over the teak-shingled roofs. Native servants in pantomime-coloured silks flitted across the road, carrying flowers and feather-dusters and bras-s trays. The dawn was thick with crows; the road and housetops were alive, with them. They foregathered within the porches of the Government buildings and on the steps of the; drinking fountains. They ca'aed at the post office windows, and obstructed the footwalk. Unlike the Australian crow, the Ceylon carrioneater will venture within kicking die:tance, and refuses to be shoo-ed away. No one interferes with them; they are as sacred as the Indian bull or the tooth of Buddah. A crowd of rickshaw men ran out to meet us; in a jiffy we were being rushed through the native quarter of Colombo towards the famous Cinnamon Gardens. The native quarter of Colombo is the abcde of the Seven Smells. We had smelt dead whales at Eden, but the odours that walked from the native bazaars will always occupy the top hole in our memory. | Every doorway held its sleeping coolie, some huddled on mats, others | stretched corpse-like in front of their ; wares. The sea-weary eye turns gratefully upon the still, palm-shrouded lagoons which flank the narrow, chrome-coloured roads, beaten to powder- by the tramping of innumerable feet. On our right stood a widegabled Buddhist temple, its crowcovered roof crimsoning in the sunrays. A priest was standing in the courtyard, motionless as a stake, his old eyes fixed on the reddening East. At foot of the temple steps a crowd of boys were splashing and swimming in an artificial lake. Entering the Cinnamon Gardens we passed troops of Cingalee girls running towards a white-walled silk factory, shut in by dense foliage and creepers. The hot air was full of laughter as they ran. They laughed at the Australian's straw hat and the kingly way he sat in his 20-cent rickshaw. There is small worry in a land where girls and women run laughing to work. One recalls the crowds of stern-faced factory girls that troop from the Sydney and Melbourne railway stations on their way to their obnoxious toil. Also, the Cingalee girl is very happy while earning her 25 cents a week, and she is never so tired as the Sydney tea-room girl earning thirty times the amount. The streets are crowded with processions of heavy waggons drawn by small buffaloes. The Ceylon buffalo is not to be compared with the Australian bullock. In comparison with the fast-moving native animal the bullock is a snail and a full brother to the tortoise. At a touch of the hand the mouse-coloUred little bull drops into a fast canter that equals the pacts of an ordinary pony. The lush native grasses and irrigated feeding-grounds are responsible for the buffalo's stamina and condition. When unyoked at night from his heavy pole, after a 16-hour jaunl under an equatorial sun, it will galloj to the nearest lagoon and wallow lr mud and grass until dawn. (To be Continued.)