A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8466, 17 June 1907, Page 5

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

By ALBERT DORRINGTON. I (Author of -"Along the Castlereagh," "Children of the Gully," etc.) . (Published by special arrangement ' i —'Copyright reserved.) No. XII. The Ceylon Government official prides himself on his red tape. It must be borne in mind, however, that C.G.O. is a coloured person whose, ancestors worked the system to death long' before the white person had emerged from his cave. Travelling to Kandy we forgot to change at Nanouya, and were carried on to ! Newera Eliya, the Simla of Ceylon. We were immediately invited to contribute eight rupees to the railways as a kind of overshoot money. We were told that if we cared to apply in writing to the head official we' might get our eight rupees returned. We applied and awaited results. Nothing happened, except courtesy and silence. We began to feel that our eight rupees had got jammed in the tape machine, and we wrote again stating that unless some of the eight rupees were imfriediately rebated, we would become insolvent and a burden to the Government. Five days later a reply came telling us that the Government was considering our eight r's. It referred us to section 9, rule 10, of the Ceylon Railway Act. It requested us not to be in a hurry fOr j our success, but to view dispassionately rule 79, section 4. It occurred to us that the leisureliness of the Ceylon Government amounted to positive indecency. We replied again, saying that' we intended to become a bachsheesh man and a gar in the streets of Colombo! Following day we entered a Government rest-house at Gampolo, and stayed, for the night, while an ofd-man cyclone tore round the neigh- | bouring cocoanut plantations and I prostrated about fifty acres of banyan J grove. At daybreak I was aroused by a rest-house official with a bill for j,; shelter, bed, supper, and breakfast. The amount was exactly eight rupees. We tendered a sovereign as payment and were told by the agitated official that there was no silver change in. the house. Would the "sinna dorai" tender the exact amount? .: The "sinna dorai" took bade the sovereign and wrote' a letter to the Ceylon Government stating that one of the rest-houses was without cash or change. The "sinna dorai" promised to pay the «Ightrupee3 into the head department the moment he arrived in Colombo.. TiieJtuiif-;frantf e rest-house official fblloiwfid; down the road, imploring me not to owe the Government eight rupees. He cried out for my sovereign, and offered to send on the change—if I would ( apply for it in writing. At a icon-, venient turn in the mffliatiunrxoiiJ we" paused to cast a little metal at thi; rest-house man. It was the first bit \ of metal we had handled since we cast forth certain Chows from a sec- ■] tjon ot our mining camp »'n North Queensland once. The rest-house , man appeared considerably impressed. . In certain parts of Ceylon thi blue '. metal grows wild, so to; speak, and it is always a mistake to argue with a . Tamil official. The luxuriant blue I metal is more effective than a dictionary of Yankee swear words. Arriving.at Colombo, 'we were met at the hotel door by two railway officials and a native policeman armed with a rifle and bayonet. Said one of the officials: "Here is an unsettled account of yours. We • deeply regret the action we must take if you refuse to settle the same at once." The native policeman banged his rifle butt on the hotel stops and sucked his chin-strap reflectively. I replied that there wasn't much red tape in , Ceylon when the. Government was , after its little accounts. I paid up. I shall never forgive the land of tea and tired Englishmen, for the way it hawked out its bayonet the moment I began to owe it eight rupees. We took passage by the' Ophir after a fourteen days' sojourn in Ceylon, and continued our journey on April 11th. The Vessel wad crowded with Anglo-Indians from Madras and Bombay. The travelling Australian and New Zealander find the warmwater Englishman a humorous kind of bore, After'spehding half his life in India orC-yloh, where climate and surroundings unfit him for civilised intercourse, he develops a wincing -. offensive attitude towards strangers from the South who happen to come Within glaring distance of his curry coloured eyes. j The Anglo-Indian is usually the j result of what the cheap and overflowI ing nigger servant can do in th«.- way i j of rapping a white man's vitality . and independencs. When the first | batch of them boarded the vessel at j J Colombo they began shouting 1 j l "Boy!" from every part of the deck. In Ceylon and India f when .a white , man yells "Boy!" it is at once i understood that he requires a dozen or more "saices'' to unlace his boots | and carry him to his bath. 'ln India . a man is not considered "pukkah" ] unless he has invented a new series \ of curse words to hurl at his trembling servant. s Year in and out this unquestioning < obedience unbalances the average white; the perpetual kowtowing and brow-rubbing obliterates his manhood, leaves him dead to all * things strenuous and exacting. Even ( the children of the Anglo-Indians are ' damned in their early training. At , the age of four or thereabouts they ( have acquired the habits of their ] ayahs and saices. In later years they i behave like little fiends when placed J in charge of white attendants. Instance many white Indian-born children being allowed to thrash their nurses. Conceive their dismay on , being soundly beaten by the firsit t white woman who is compelled to c face their petulant rage and choleric \ temper. j - Of the number of Anglo-English- j men who came aboard, at Colombo, j c four were married to half-caste i f woriien of the Eurasian type. Their . 1 children were delicate, fever-stricken I t midgets who became ill of ague the | J moment we put out to sea. These!' Anglo-Indians were Indian Civilfser- I { vants, men of University training I j and good family, the type which i p Kipling taught us to believe hold \ in abhorrence the man who allies ' t himself to a colored woman in India. [ 4 Yet here on board the Ophir they I c promenaded the decks accompanied ' (

by their dusky wives and lemonskinned progeny, as though no such person as Kipling existed. Probably the new Imperialism will encourageyoung English gentlemen to go East i and marry the charming leopard-col-oured young ladies who are likely to assist in the work of Empire-build-ing by supplying it with a half-caste-population. Everyone on board is interested in the movements of the sailor whose business is to record the sea's temperature about four times a day. The water is raised in a bucket and duly thermometered. Of. late years earth- ; quakes and volcanoes have been at work disturbing the floor of the ocean, in many, parts of the world. Between , the Gulf of Aden and the Mediterranean great care is" taken in registering the heat of the water. "Quite possible," said the chief officer/'for a vessel to pass into water with a tempeaturre approaching boiling point without anyone being wiser, especially at night. Probably our freezing chambers would start toboil over, and we'd have to throw ' several thousand carcases of stewed sheep overboard. Of course we're always on the lock-out for deep sea. eruptions and upheavals since theSan Francisco affair. There's nothing like feeling the ocein's pulse occasionally." Just here someone asked the; chief officer to record the temperature of the redhaired girl passenger, whb usually sat on the icehouse stepsspooning with the bo'sun's mate. Nobody laughed. We passed the Island of Sokotra at 6 a.m.. April 16th. It is situated near the entrance to the Gulf of Aden a windless scrap of rock sweltering in the tropic glare. As a navaL '.base Sokotra may have many strategical doubt been, -fought for in the past, with bitterness and vim, and we assume that the British flag waves, permanently on an adjoining peak. One almost fancies that the wind east, of Suez is rather tired of blowingover the British flag from morn tilt night. Still one would vie v with regret a German or Japanese ensign: waving in its place. 1 (To be continued.) t r '<■•■• .■=£=====-==========