Volume 1861
Georges Dodds'
The Ape-Man: his Kith and Kin
A collection of texts which prepared the advent of Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Presents
http://www.erbzine.com/mag18/soong.htm
In assuming the privilege of dedicating "the papers" addressed through your indefatigable Secretary to your theo-ret-ically learned body, I am aware that I expose myself to the censorious charge of endeavoring to obtain, in a surreptitious way, the valuable sanction of the world-wide reputation you have gained for scientific wisdom. But when I appeal openly for the aid of your theo-ret-ical knowledge in elucidating the status of the pre-historic antecedents of humanity, in confirmation of their subsequent record of habits and customs, it should disarm censure and obtain for me the indispensable boon that I require. If you are willing to confer the service that I solicit, and the honor of accepting the dedication of my "Investigations and Experience in Saar Soong," you will benefit the public by expressing your scientific opinion, theo-ret-ically, in answer to the following queried propositions:
Imprimis -- Would instinctive habit and custom, in your opinion, produce the sensation of a wag in the spinal elongation of the os-sacrum and coccygeal caudal continuations, as described by Ran Avan? -- p. 7.
Do you uphold that the sons and daughters of Eve retain the rudimentary hirsute and caudal germs of the vestments that clothed her during the contentful period she passed in Eden; and that they can be reproduced by the cultivation of like habits? -- pp. 11-30, inclusive.
Is it not possible that the resemblance in scenery between Eden and Leslie Holm had a tendency to redevelop pre-Adamic impressions, that resulted in birth adaptation to the requirements of contentful support? -- p. 53.
Are there limits in the development of instinctive habits which exceed the educational power of disciplined imitation? -- p. 56.
What in your estimation, are the essentials required in conducive aid for an extended longevity, with the retention of the mental faculties in a normal state for vigorous expression? -- p. 60.
Is not the fashionable fondness of "society ladies" for furs an indication derived from the transmitted impression of their first self-supplied dress endowment? -- p. 62.
Which do you consider the most authentic, the Chinese or Israelitish record of the world's creation? -- p. 65.
In your opinion, did the old Serpent's method of ascending the toddy tree suggest to Archimides the invention of the corkscrew? -- p. 72.
Do you maintain that it was from over-indulgence in partaking of the forbidden fruit that caused the loss of Adam and Eve's tails and depilation, or that the fruit itself was the destructive cause? -- p. 79.
In your opinion, would it be theo-ret-ically advisable to reduce speech within the limits of truthful expression? -- p. 87.
Would you not consider a fledged-tail as necessary for the direction of angelic flight to the heavenly and nether creed-ports as a rudder to a vessel for ocean navigation? -- p. 90.
Do you argue from the caudal extension of the sacrum and os coccyx affected by the Gibbons' missionary labors, that it was lost by retraction? -- p. 105.
In your estimation, do you consider the knowledge derived from public lectures theo-ret-ically practical? -- p. 115.
Does sectarianism serve to promote union? -- p. 119.
Will you please weigh in the balance of your opinion and judgment the Chata expositions of Doctor Olu Babi? -- p. 120.
Are the specie variations in tail manifestations of animality standard indication of sagacity? -- p. 131.
What influence would the abridgment of an animal's tail be likely to exercise on the temper? -- p. 142.
Do you consider the emotional intelligence of affection the highest source of happiness? -- p. 155.
Is it not probable that the Lord God of the Garden of Eden made the reservation of the fruit of the tree of knowledge with the disinterested intention of preserving the Orang's and Worang's souls (stomachs, Proverbs 6: 30) from the experience that would follow the evil effects produced by it -- knowing that the evil of over- indulgence would beget a like source of temptation that would destroy grateful affection? -- p. 157.
Was it not with the fore-ordained intention of indicating the advantages of self-legislation that he made the prohibition? -- p. 158.
If the wo-rang had not stolen the fruit, or toddy, would it not have preserved her posterity from the multiplied evils of law, medicine and theology? -- pp. 161-178, inclusive.
In your opinion, was religion the curse evolved as a faith source of reprisal for the penalty of transgression? If so, does not its angelic wing attachment to the immovable scapula, and lack of tail for rudder direction, show clearly crude human devisement founded upon unregenerated faith, without suitable works for the attainment of its object? -- pp. 162-178, inclusive.
Moreover, does not the Brazilian ape's recognition of the ludicrous attachment of the Chinese tail to the head show an innate perception of the hereditary influence of the wo-rang's devotional reverence and faith in the old Serpent's god-like attributes? -- p. 179.
As an architectural device, would you not consider Mahomet's adaptation of a spire consistent for eliciting and attracting devotional worship to the sacred source from whence it emanated? -- p. 179.
Do you not recognize in Mahomet's foresight the revival impressions that attracted the followers of San-kee to witness the marvelous incoherency of expression in convert's tail translation from Mood-ee? -- pp. 168-188, inclusive.
Are not the ideas evolved in my diaretical observations agreeable to and consistent with your theo-ret-ical notions? -- pp. 197-201, inclusive.
Do you believe in the constancy of tailiphonic reciprocations founded upon faith without works? -- p. 203.
Can you imagine, theo-ret-ically, a more unselfish sacrifice than the Patriarch's bequeathment of his tailacy to Bridget, in perpetuity for the redemption of her own despondency from the inherited curse of Eve and the wo- rang, and its transmission to her posterity as a tailismanic heir-loom? -- p. 175.
In argument, would you support the affirmative, or negative, views, of the question of cause, whether the toddy, or the loss of her tail had the greatest influence in provoking the wo-rang's revengeful spite when she found that her first-born inherited, for reflection, the curse of her trangression? -- p. 113.
Will your knowledge sustain theo-ret-ically the legitimacy and specific effect of counter-irritation, introduced by Eve for the correction of Cain's sin, imparted from the hereditary impression of her own example? or vice versa, the reaction introduced for the cure of the exampled habits of the senior Ran Avan and son by Doctor Olu Babi? -- pp. 205-213, inclusive.
Do you believe that the abridgment of a tail provokes meanness and ferocity? -- pp. 142-179, inclusive.
If you should, as a body, devote yourselves theoretically to the subject, I feel certain that in the course of a month you would be able to revive, for practical realization, all the latent impressions necessary for the assurance of faith in caudal regermination. -- p. 148.
Do you not realize that, in theo-ret-ical and practical demonstration, sectarian multiplication has proved the curse of mankind, as prophetically denounced in the beginning and illustrated through the bible record; and that its tendencies are for the reproduction in arithmetical progression, of Amaruthian and Gulosputian dispositions? -- pp. 11-251, inclusive.
Finis -- As a practical check upon the progress of sectarianism, would not self-legislation, in the exampled method adopted by the family descendants of Abou Ben Isaacs, produce the much-desired result of establishing an earthly premonition of an affectionate immortality? -- pp. 1-263, inclusive.
DEAR MARVEL:
You will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that I have turned aside from the beaten track of scientific and literary investigation common to travelers in search for relic novelty to establish a foundation for the reedification of past usage. The cause that tempted me to become an apostate to the hand-book regulations of society, designed for the perceptive enlightenment of instinctive sense, I will describe in as brief a manner as possible. During my recent voyage from Sedang Borneo to Singapoor, on board of the armed trading packet Lorcha Martha, we touched at the port of Banka for an exchange of freight. When ready to renew our voyage we received on board as passengers M. Oderat, a Catholic Missionary, and the Rev. Benedict Rantkin, a free-will Baptist Missionary, who had been taken prisoners in the sack of Soordook by a chang, or band, of Look Malay pirates. Their lives had been spared after a searching examination of their acquired abilities for useful employment; when it was discovered that the former was a skillful French cook, and the latter a capable and ingenious jack-knife artist; as the reputation of the French and Yankees they had tested in these specialties of nationality by a long series of captures. M. Oderat was accompanied by a singular being, whose physiognomy betokened an unusually recent ingraft of celtic scionry with the original type of manhood. After the missionaries' liberation by the Rajah Brooke, they were "interviewed" by this person at Abia, who, after introducing himself by the name of Patronimick Kan-Avan, commenced a searching inquiry, to learn if they had discovered during their captivity, types of a race that resembled him. From their assurance that all the Ladinong (Kubu Orangs, styled by the natives refuse men of ape parentage,) families were of the Malay cast of features and complexion, he asked the privilege of bearing Father Oderat company in his homeward journey. As there was a report of a large fleet of Malay prihous lying in wait for traders among the intermediate islands, the captain of the Martha determined to hug the eastern shore of Sumatra. It was not until the day after we had gained the Sumatrian shore that I ventured to accost our new passengers, as they seemed to hold themselves aloof from association through fear of an impending danger that threatened a second term of captivity. While doubling a point, which was covered with a heavy growth of the banian mangrove, which extended into deep water, we discovered a party of Kubu Orangs fishing from off a pack of drift that had lodged against the inward trend of the northern shore. As their features were regular and of an olive tint, free from hair, they attracted general attention; the Cingalee Badda and Malay sailors seemingly regarding them with a gaze as curious as our own. The captain, well acquainted with the indications of deep water, and the wind serving, ran the vessel within a few fathoms of them, so that we mutually gained a clear view of each others' faces. When we were passing their position they rose to their feet, leisurely, without the slightest indication of fear, but evidently with the intention of getting a better view of our persons, which were partially concealed by the bulwarks. Their bodies were well formed, although covered with hair, and in stature they averaged above the middle height of our civilized rank and file. Although lacking in expression, their features were not devoid of all traits esteemed essential to the role of comeliness by the Caucasian race. Indeed, it was hard to escape a favorable conviction in their behalf by a comparison in contrast with members of our race, who would be shocked with a hint of relationship. While we held each other in close review, neither party seemed inclined to express by signs or words their emotions of surprise. But when we had gained an offing and I had recourse to my sea-glass, the Orangs raised their hands to their eye in imitation. The scene, when it had passed from view, served as an introductory subject of conversation, which I opened with the inquiry, if in their travels in Borneo they had encountered specimens of the Kubu Orang who had forced upon them a like conviction of relationship? Father Oderat did not seem inclined to satisfy my curiosity, but Mr. Rantkin said that the Kubu Orangs of Borneo resembled the species from which they sprung, in features, habits, and vindictive ferocity, and were, to all intents, soulless, and beyond the power of redeeming grace. It appeared from further conversation that the Malay masters of the missionaries, in humorous scorn of their pretensions to a new birth-alliance with their gods, had subjected them to Kubu task-masters.
In vindication of my curiosity, I stated that the object of my investigation was to test the truth of Sir Stamford Raffies', Rajah Brooke's, Gibson's, and other scientific travelers' statements, which declared an existing hybrid compatibility of union between the Orang and clearly defined human species. Father Oderat urged that it was quite sufficient for us to know that we were infallibly human, without endeavoring to subvert with scientific evasions the word of God! When I urged that truth was a creative dispensation, designed for our direction to a higher grade of happy attainment, Mr. Rantkin referred me to the tree of knowledge and its fruit, which brought sin and death into the world and all our woes! "We are free-will agents, he continued, and with the efficacy of prayer, inspired by faith in the written word of God, we can, with renewed grace, gain a new birth in Christ, that will protect us from temptations of the devil, which have consigned the Malay race to a beastly degradation, beyond the hope of redemption. As the experience of the missionaries had failed to enlighten their understanding for a clear perception of practical evidence, my discretion withheld me from entering the lists of argument.
Kan Avan, while the Orangs were in view, kept his hands nervously moving up and down his back beneath his coat-tails. (His coat was of the Irish "court dress fashion," short waist, with breast lappels to correspond, and long swallow tails.) Notwithstanding the mutual fascination of gaze caused by the novel encounter of evergent specimens of humanity, with those in an apparent state of proximate emergence from the tadpole period, curious glances of comparison were attracted from them to the person of Kan Avan, which he could not fail to interpret, although they were in intention void of offense.
Having inherited a predisposition to democracy, I could not withhold the exclamation, breathed with the aspiration of a sigh, "Thank God I have now seen a primative democrat capable of appreciating the constituent rights of an honest equality!" This enthusiastic ejaculation brought Kan Avan to my side, with the exclamation, "An' sure you are a gintleman of sinse. and a man of science after me own heart!" Then, as if conscious of attracting attention, he relapsed into silence, while M. Oderat and Rantkin answered my inquiry in the characteristic style of their sects. After the crew -- off watch -- had exercised their ingenuity in pantomimic burlesque of the Orangs, stub tails, and other peculiarities, in the Caucasian style of African imitation, and the passengers had resumed their pipes and smoke ruminations, Kan Avan, with a furtive glance deprecating freedom from observation, asked me if I would favor him with a few minutes conversation in his state-room below. In compliance, I joined him in his cabin, and after he had set his punkah in motion (it revolved with the impetus of clock- work), and refreshed me with an orange beesep, flavored with champagne, he, with evident embarrasment, addressed me in the following style: "If I had not been convinced that you was a gentleman entirely, of excellent naturalistic abilities and democratic sympathies, I should never have been drawn out to confide in you a family secret that belongs to me alon, as I am not altogether certain who my parental ancestors were, for I never had a home, except in my adopted country, and the cradle of liberty, where I was naturalized. For all that, I feel at times, when subject to strong emotions of sympathy, a friendly wag in the lower portion of my back, but this, you know, I have never stated openly, as my modesty could never withstand the jibes of prejudice; a Father Oderat, to whom I confided the impression as a confessional secret, exorcised the idea as the work of the devil, who labored to pervert the thoughts of mankind into his own caudial way of expression.
"Now when we came so suddenly on those native gentlemen who were fishing apostolically, I could not restrain a feeling of elation in my back, and belikes the same when you expressed so energetically your democratic sympathies. Not that this emotional wag -- or whatever you may be pleased to call it -- should make you think that I am in any way related to the likes of them in the matter of blood, but I thought possibly from the pleasurable sensations, it might indicate kindred ties of affection in another way! You see, I thought that my parents, whom I have heard lived on an island in the Indian Ocean, and am now in search for, might have been frightened by the sudden appearance of a native about the premises! You understand? The doctors have told me that such things are likely to prove hereditary. Moreover, although I have concealed my personal impressions, I have often been asked what my sensations were when I visited a menagerie; which, you know, was more or less an insinuation that there was something remarkable about my resemblance. This was remarked by a doctor, and I might have taken it in dudgeon as a personal insult, but I knew that he was looney on the relationship of monkeys to the human species. Besides, I did not flatter myself that he reflected a personal resemblance, for I take it that I am considerably above the average in the matter of distinguished features, imposing figure, and dignified bearing. With one exception, which is only known to myself and my confessors, and is not perceptible in a remarkable degree with my coat on, I imagine that but few gentlemen would dare treat my claims to a Christian descent cavalierly by a hint to the rudimentary fact. If my birth had been entailed, I'm sure I shouldn't have taken so kindly to spiritual influence and Christian doctrine. Although there are many things that appear out of the usual course, still I have studied enough scientifically and physiologically to believe that everything created has a beginning and an end, as well as a democratic level, if we don't go above our common origin. At any rate, if you can't give me your full sympathy, and believe me a man for all that, you'll he sure to keep the object of my visit to Indgy a secret?"
During the rambling revelation of Kan Avan, my attentive admiration was constantly on the alert to detect, and, if possible, to separate, the hereditary impressions of the spinal chord continuation from those of the brain; as it is a fact patent to the knowledge of all who have been abridged of a member that all its sensations of movement, and of cold and heat are retained with scarcely perceptible diminution. At the close I assured him of my sympathy to the extent of my limited capacity, which was enhanced by a feeling of friendship that I once had for an old garden pensioner that with the privilege of familiarity I called Jack, and promised to aid him to the extent of my ability, in his parental search Adding my commendations in praise of an affection that had prompted him to undertake a filial pilgrimage in search of the shrine of paternity, our cabin interview ended with his grateful protestations of eternal friendship; but his simiathetic emotions continued to well up long after our return to the deck, producing a corresponding movement, as if to bestow upon me a prehensile grasp in acknowledgment of gratification.
As you will readily surmise, I adopted, in part, his own interpretation of the cause which had subjected him to this hereditary monomaniac impression of entailment. But the captain assured me that he had conveyed passengers to and from a small embarcadero, or landing place, that was used as an entrepot for a large valley estate situated between the two interior mountain ranges of Sumatra, and was owned by an eccentric English family, who asserted that there were families living under their protection who acknowledged derivation from orang and European parentage. When our preparations for landing were completed, on the day of our arrival in the port of Singapoor, while standing remote from the throng collected in the waist of the ship, Kan Ayan approached me unobserved. and addressed me with the subdued inquiry: "Are you quite sure, since I reminded you of the fact, that you have never felt in the lower part of your spine a prehensile desire to clasp an object of affection in warm embrace? or a lashing paroxysm when subject to a fit of rage?" If he had possessed the power of divination, he could not have approached nearer the current of my thoughts, for my imagination had been busily engaged in supplying the motley assemblage with tails for pantomimic gesticulation, as a decisive check upon chattering volubility, which served to mystify and retard negotiations rather than as an aid for amicable adjustment; and in reversion had just referred the impression for the judgment of my own spinal chord. Of course his question, so pat for the expression of my own humorous ruminations, caused me to smile audibly, which served, from his interpretation, as a check upon further communication, but as he turned to go below, I heard him mutter, "brevis caudam -- it can't be expected!"
The boat was picked up by a Dutch vessel to the south of Delhi on the 27th day from the wreck, but the captain insisted upon completing his voyage to Batavia before returning to render assistance to his consort, for they had sailed from Amsterdam in company. The party of his brother had been driven back by the natives, after having reached a highland plateau of surpassing beauty, with which he was so enraptured that he declared his determination to effect a settlement in despite of the natives, if they succeeded in obtaining help to relaunch the ship. In due time the ship was restored to her element, and Henri Vondermaiden established his family in the mountain valley of Saar Soong. Its situation and surroundings were singularly remarkable for beauty, and its altitude of five thousand feet above the sea insured a refreshingly salubrious atmosphere, which combined with a well-watered fertility of soil and varied adaptation for the production of temperate and tropical fruits, rendered it surpassingly desirable as a place of abode, notwithstanding the great distance and difficulty of reaching a port of embarkation. The greatest of its apprehended disadvantages was its proximity to the territory of a colony of Cingalese Baddas, who had, by some chance gale, been transhipped to the Sumatrian shore with an apparent increase of savage ferocity. To undertake the settlement of a place so remote from an available market and succor, presupposed great local attractions and boldness for their successful cultivation and retention. The courage of the Vondermaidens was peculiar to their Dutch origin, and successful from its daring, which, although adventured with seemingly reckless enterprise, was in fact guarded with precautionary provisions in anticipation of the possible failure of their schemes. Their triumphant control of their savage neighbors for two-thirds of a century, without an outbreak of their ferocious dispositions, bespeaks a wisdom of judgment quite opposite to the reckless ruthlessness of the American settlers of English and Spanish birth, who provoked the vengeful spirit of the Indians by impositions and encroachments. During this long period they had not only managed to keep on good terms with the Baddas, but actually obtained from them laboring service in erecting a fortified enclosure to provide against the contingency of future enmity.
They were also employed with like success in the cultivation of their plantations, and in the educational process subjecting them to toiling hardships reprobated by the traditional usages of their progenitors. The means used by which they obtained over them this directing power had, in the hands of the English colonists, from a lack of provisionary discretion, been the cause of bloody reprisals for impositions practiced under its influence.
The Vondermaidens, by a politic combination of rites and ceremonies calculated to inspire their superstitious fears with religious awe, by imposing upon them the mechanism of the still surmounted by curiously carved gods as the presiding controllers of its spiritual dispensations, so wrought upon the Baddas that they believed the Dutch to be the Lushvedas, or prophets of their god Vishnu, who held celestial control over the mouth, stomach. and belly. By wise decree Sunday with held sacred as a day of rest, that the Saturday night's communicants might recover from the effects of their potations. Father Anslem, in his confessional record, uses the following language: "So bigoted had these benighted heathens become in a single year, that those unable to walk to the temple of the still to partake of the spirit of their faith, in commemoration of their god's triune attributes, were brought on their relative's backs; but, often from worshipful excess in devotional zeal, were obliged to pass the night in a trance state upon the ground beside their bearers. As the desired effects depended on its skillful administration, under the influence of imposing rites designed for producing an impression of awe, the office of grand high priest devolved on me, after the death of my predecessor Padre Simon, who used less discretion in the control of his own devotion to the sacramental waters than he exercised over his savage participants. It may appear strange that I, an ordained priest of our must holy church and the Society of Jesus, should be guilty of a profanation of the most sacred eucharistic rites of transubstantiation; but the manifest good imparted for holding the ferocious instincts of the savages under control for more mature christianization sanctified the means and made it acceptable in like manner with the acts of our great exemplar. From the effects produced we studied their individual welfare, and by tempering the means, controlled the spiritual manifestations. As you will readily comprehend, there were no laggards to the communion service, as in our churches at home, notwithstanding the exaction of other tithes than those derived from the labor of hands, which exceeded in value the cost of the ceremonial rites. At first we dreaded exposure from envious adventurers, who would, like the dog in the manger, seek to deprive us of what in naught could avail them, as it would insure their own with our destruction. But gradually the earnest improvement of our neophytes banished fear, for they became so completely subject to our control, and withal aware of their happy change in the protective providence of domestic economy, it would have gone hard with the interloper had he ventured to expose our impositions, which had proved so practically beneficial. The scheme having been fully matured in the beginning, none were allowed to participate in the secret influence of the temple still but trustworthy persons. The mystery of the temple, which was built in a deep glen at a great distance from the fortified enclosure and cultivated portions of the valley, was as much a subject of gossiping speculation with the servants of the family, from its style of architecture and surroundings, as of reverential awe to the Baddas. Immediately after my induction as priest, I will acknowledge that the deception I was abetting caused me great disquietude, from self accusations that I could not repress by any manner of reasoning with which I had been accustomed to sustain my acts. But Mynheer Vondermaiden was more happy in his endeavors to quiet my scruples of conscience, for he explained that the Baddas were as wild in their appetites as the beasts of the forests, and could not be made to work for their own advantage without the stimulating deception, or controlled, if once they were made to understand that the Geneva Baptism -- as he facetiously styled the distilled liquor -- was the juice transformed from fruits furnished by themselves. Moreover, in vindication of his invention, he urged the example of our own people, who, when they used spirits freely, did not hesitate to set at defiance laws of restraint and penalties while subject to the influence. "How long," he asked, with apprehensive sincerity, "would your missionary prayers and teachings restrain their ferocity in its natural state, or should we be able to defend our lives if their instincts once became maddened with its uncontrolled use? Furthermore, you cannot withhold your convictions that it is other than an honest deception, for by its cautious dispensation we control rather than excite their evil passions, which could not be reached by reason or your religion. With like effect, the superstitious blindness of our commonality subjects them to your control from the imaginary efficacy of the rites and ceremonies of your church. But our Geneva Baptism affords you more effectual evidence of its efficacy, in the conversion of a commonality of Baddas into subjects capable of being controlled for their own and others' good, without being able to raise themselves, unaided by the deception, upon the foundation we have established for mutual protection." Although I felt keenly the truth of his sceptical insinuations, I could not forbear checking him for his lack of reverence for things sacred. "But," he continued smiling, "is it not enough to satisfy your craviug that the Baddas reverence you in your new vocation, which has enabled you to accomplish much good in their behalf, without making me subserve their part in your ancient imaginary role of faith?" Notwithstanding his irreverent disposition to sneer at the holy rites of the church, I could not withhold my admiration for his great practical powers of judgment shown in anticipating the means of controlling the savage passions, and was even glad to hear him acknowledge that he copied from our church method. Although equivocally using the heretical name of the stronghold of fanaticism for the designation of the spirit of Badda transubstantiation, which produced, he urged, instead of faith, influential fact, I held my peace, for I was unwilling to expose my weakness by argument; for I could not fail to perceive that the virtue of his invention resided in the ritual discretion of administration, which the bare ceremonials of our church could not reach; as faith without works would prove a stumbling block to savage comprehension.
With this descriptive insight into the paradoxical method of the Vondermaidens' adoption for holding the savage instincts of the Baddas in subjection, we will now proceed to note the opposite policy of the Darwings, their relatives, and successors to Saar Soong, who threw off the ritual disguise necessary for the control of superstitious instinct. Fortunately, for the purpose of clear demonstration, Father Anslem has portrayed the phlegmatic self-restraint of the Darwings' Netherlandic predecessors, who never allowed their covetousness to overstep the bounds of prudence. By making the gin-flavored products of the still the means of inspiring the trustful confidence of superstitious reverence -- founded upon the exhilarating properties skillfully managed -- they not only shielded their own lives, but were able to confer real benefits upon their unwitting dupes. Unlike their European neighbors, the Batavians, in founding colonies, studied the savage characteristics of the aborigines for the purpose of utilizing their services without subjecting them to absolute slavery; and while allowing them the nominal impression of freedom -- which serves as a placebo for the boast of the citizen demagogue -- they obtained an amount of labor that never could be forced by the task- master from the real slave. The Darwings, on their accession, were advised to continue the temple rites of the still, and were warned by the priests of the fatal result that would follow from the sale of andent Spirits to the Baddas. But the father, who had married the sole surviving daughter of the last Vondermaiden inheritor of Saar Soong, was of the Hebrew race, and had been educated in Holland among his people, whose dispositiond have never inclined them to become cultivators of the soil, as the time between seed season and harvest would be esteemed by them lost, as it gave no material evidenee of compounding monthly interest upon the investment. The advice of the priests was received with the sectarian spirit of disdain, and when once entered upon his proposed career of "reform" -- which in substance meant quick barter returns -- he could not turn back and cover the exposure he had made of his predecessors' impositions, as the savages were unable to distinguish the casuistical difference between a dispensation of evil, under the guise of deception, for good, and its open, free-will exchange upon the same terms.
In the second year after the establishment of the new regime, scarcely a characteristic vestige remained to mark the improvement that had been wrought in the physical condition of the Baddas by the Vondermaiden dispensation of the "Geneva Baptism."
On the 4th of October, 1737, after all communication with the coast had been closed for two months by an insurrection of the Baddas, they surprised the guards of the fortified enclosure, and after gaining an entrance, killed Mr. Darwing and all the servants.
But Mrs. Darwing with her boyra (Kandyan nurse) and three young children escaped from a postern gate and had nearly gained the jungle when they were overtaken by a Malay half-breed, a rejected lover of the nurse, who with his kyrta (a long kris dagger) made a lunge at Mrs. Darwing's breast, but the nurse averted his intention by seizing his arm, which caused its point to gash the face of the infant she carried. The boyra sprung upon the vengeful wretch with a foster-mother's desperation, and holding his arms pinioned with her own, called upon the mother to escape with her children. The mother in stooping to recover the child she had dropped, came within reach of the struggling savage who plunged his knife into her body. She with an answering groan seized her child and fled to the forest with dying energy, her elder children following clinging to her skirt with the clutch of fright. The brave boyra, inspired with the courage of desperation for the preservation of her foster children held the struggling fiend until they entered the forest, then feeling that her strength was failing, she summoned its remaining energy and wrenched the kyrta from his grasp and without hesitation killed him. Released by this decisive act from detention, she searched the forest for her lost charges, but only succeeded in finding the mother, who was in a dying condition and past the power of speech, but gave the faithful boyra tokens of grateful recognition. Continuing her search until the third day, she was warned of her danger by discovering a band of Baddah on her trail, when she was obliged to seek security for her own safety in flight. After many weary days passed in danger she reached Delhi, on the eastern coast, where she took service with a Dutch family who had often visited "Geneva Shiedam," as they had in the days of the Vondermaidens familiarly styled Saar Soong. Her tidings of the massacre, although they shocked, did not surprise those acquainted with the change of policy adopted by the Darwings.
The apprehension of a catastrophe so fearful, caused my grandmother to take charge of her own children, the aya acting as an aid. On the lamentable day of her loss she left the infant in the cradle and stepped into an adjoining room without closing the door and turned, only for a moment, to secure a fan, but on her return to the cradle she found it empty! A glance at the open treme (bamboo lattice window- blind) announced the fate of her cbild, and with a fearful outcry she alarmed the household. But a few moments elapsed before the servants, under the direction of the practiced hunters of the estate, were in full career for the boothies of orangs at the opening of the ghaut.
Notwithstanding the utmost speed was used, they found the boothies deserted, but everything about them indicated a recent and sudden flight, and the pursuit was continued up the ghaut. When the summit was reached and a point gained that overlooked the wooded gorge, and a second pass in the range of mountains beyond, the chang was discovered in full swing from tree to tree, with a swaying of branches in advance, which showed that the main body had gained a start that rendered further pursuit hopeless. The fact that a child stolen by the orangs had never been recovered, did not deter my grandparents from continuing the search, which was prosecuted with the utmost vigor for the space of three months by large parties starting from different points, so that in range it embraced a good portion of the island, and in result greatly diminished the orang population.
At length they became impressed with the utter hopelessness of farther search, and inconsolable returned to India. The Vondermaidens, with a desire to impart the assurance of their heartfelt sympathy, promised they woud use their best efforts for the recovery of the child. But from that period, during the life of the last Vondermaiden, an orang was never seen in the Saar Soong valley.
Twelve years after the Darwing massacre, when the sale of the estate of Saar Soong was announced, my grandmother's yearnings for her lost child induced my grandfather to purchase it. Well aware of all that had transpired, and the nature of the Badda disposition, my grandfather felt confident that he could, without excessive severity, enforce from them obedience from the first, and in train enlist their willing sympathy. During the first year he was obliged to have frequent recourse to arms for subjecting the turbulent to his control, but gradually with the contrast of kind treatment to the deserving he finally succeeded in forcing them to recognize the difference between good and evil. But full ten years were required, with the reduction of the tribe to one-third of its original number, before they could be made to realize that a persistence in treachery would result in extermination. At last, by a systematic course of forced labor under taskmasters, he made them understand that the cultivation of the soil would yield them all that they required for comfort, with a zest for its enjoyment. After he had conquered subjection to his kind intentions, he laid the foundation of a system of education for the reclamation of their children's instincts from the hereditary impression of evil. For the accomplishment of this purpose, he established separate nurseries for the male and female children, so that they might be withheld from parental example in association, allowing the mothers to give them daily nourishment, and the fathers occasional opportunities to witness their improvement for the encouragement of affectionate pride. He acknowledged that he had received the hint for this inductive system of education from the course adopted by the English stock-breeder for the improvement of calves and colts. When the Baddas began to realize the pleasure afforded from the self-supplied products of cultivation, and were no longer dangerous to the unwary, my immediate grandfather derived great pleasure from the "friendly" visits of those who had foreboded their irreclaimable nature, and that his father's family would follow the Darwing's lead. When he was well advanced in years, one of his guests, an inveterate hunter, under the guidance of a Badda forester, strayed into the remote portion of the valley, at the opening of the ghaut formerly cultivated by the Vondermaidens for the production of melons as a food offering to the Orangs, which still retained in a wild state its fruitful impression. While resting under a tamarisk, his eyes, in glancing over the beautiful landscape, caught sight of what appeared to him like a Passumah Arab woman of the coast. But as she approached nearer, her peculiar features, scanty covering, and movements betrayed Orang source and association. Yet there was apparently a nearer kindred alliance to the Caucasian race. Becoming alarmed, she sprang upward and caught with her right hand the limb of a teconia tree, and, as she hung suspended, gazed intently along the wooded border of the valley. Then suddenly changing hands in her grasp on the limb, in movement as though she had canght sight of an unwelcome object, she gave the startled cry of "Maa," in prolonged accent like that of the kid. In a few moments she was joined by another woman, who appeared to be her mother, but with a face of unmistakable European cast. With excited curiosity and a hunter's cunning, he gained a nearer view, and noted that the mother's face was marked with a scar that reached from the temple to the angle of the mouth.
This reminded him of the boyra's encounter with the half-breed, and he felt assured that the mother represented the Darwing child, which had been rescued and held in association by the Orang , and he was impressed with the unpleasant conviction that one of the species shared with her the parentage of the daughter.
The distant boom of an Orang's voice confirmed his suggestion of paternity from the effect it produced upon mother and daughter, which in similitude was not confined to the grade of her alliance. As the approaching sound of the voice became more distinct and disagreeable in its harshness, they swung themselves from branch to limb with a peculiar impetus and measured certainty of grasp that, with its accomplished ease in freedom from labored effort, quite surprised him with involuntary admiration.
Gaining a large teconia tree they disappeared among its branches; a nearer inspection of it discovered a large booth covered in from the topmost branches enclosing the trunk. The hunter's curiosity was checked by the Badda forester, who pointed to the waving jar of the tree tops but a few hundred yards distant; this warning was sufficient to hasten their retreat.
Ascending a wooded hillock they obtained a full view of the chang as it crossed a brook that flowed into the valley. It numbered sixty adult orangs of mixed species, and a sportive representative band of youths of both sexes, who seemed to take special delight in delaying the homeward progress of their parents, each party showing an intimate knowledge of their human cousins disentailed traits of disobedience and style of correction. Immediately on his return to the Holm (the estate had been named Leslie Holm after its purchase by my great grandfather) he related his discovery, and a council was held to devise means to recover the human representative of the chang. The boyra of the Darwing children, who had, as a native born on the estate, received and accepted an invitation to become a member of the Leslie family, from a knowledge of the orangs' habits, recommended that the melon garden should be again cultivated to encourage their return. For, with reason, she urged, that any attempt to separate the human members from their alliance with the chang, by force, would send them back to their retreat, which had never yet been discovered, so that the object they had in view would be defeated. She then reminded my grandfather of the Badda orangs -- so called from the hybrid cast derived principally from the characteristics of their union -- which his father had aided in an attempt to exterminate before the loss of his child. These and the Kubu orang had always been enemies, and knew each other's haunts, so that by conciliating the instincts of the higher class the remnant of the Badda troglodytes could be discovered. During the first years of the Vondermaidens' reign over Saar Soong these hybrid orang Baddas were preferred above their more savage relatives of more distant genealogy, for they possessed in a small way an idea of mechanical construction, inclining to the tinkering disposition that distinguishes the gipsies of the past and present day. But, as with their present type, the labor was not one of love, the vocation having evidently been adopted as a means of obtaining knowledge for successful depredations and duping their employers. One of their most dangerous acquirements was the art of throwing, or rather slinging stones from the hand, which they accomplished with such force and precision that, within range, they were as deadly in effect as the musket bullet. Some time before my grandparents' visit they had been in the habit of wandering over the island in detached parties, and had obtained, in a rude way, a knowledge of fermenting and distilling ardent spirits. From this period they became dangerous and disgusting neighbors, and on the occasion referred to by the boyra, they had actually laid seige to the fortified stronghold, and, although despised and ridiculed at first, they soon taught the besieged a lesson that forced them to respect their own lives in withholding their bodies from exposure. Their dispersion was accomplished finally by stratagem and with great slaughter, which was continued until my grandfather, who conducted the defense, discovered some pitiable evidences of affection manifested by the troglydite women, when he stopped the carnage. The incident that excited his emotions of pity was the sight of a woman, in a quadrupedal position, bearing off her wounded lord upon her back, whose love of life still retained sufficient affection for his spouse, to hold himself upon her body without impeding her movements. The other women, although they apparently understood the cause of their lives being spared, hesitated in following her example, with the evident fear of establishing a precedent for vehicular transportation that their burdens might, upon a future occasion, after their recovery, enforce for their pleasure. When the field of slaughter was rid of its surviving incumbents, the question arose whether it would be better to bury or burn the dead?
The "fanatic" Hindoos advocated burning, that the carcasses might not be more destructive dead than living; but the Scotch steward carried the day by urging, with foresight, the interest that would accrue to the estate at some future period of time from their burial. "To be sure," he said, "the soil does na want the heelp of nourishment just at the present time, but that is na reason that we should throw God's special bounte awa', but rather with the text, without reference to meeself, place it at interest against a day of need, when the fruitfulness of the soil becomes exhausted." He further supported his position by quoting authorities who advocated the productive advantages derived from battlefields.
"As for the dragons' teeth of the Hindoo's fables, they were na doubt allegorical warnings, which arose from a neglect of precautions to prevent the emanations of decomposition from rising above the surface; but the estate was large enough to select a place of burial safe from exposure." An opposing sectarian reminded him of the buried talent. "You observe, General Leslie, what reading will do without a discriminating understanding? In the parable referred to, the talent was gold, and could not gain by burial, but only by man's usorious selfishness which it encourages; but here we have mankind's material legacy for impartial distribution in fruitful returns to replenish the waste of reproduction. To my mind it would be a sin to controvert this wise intention, when a modicum of lime will prevent exhalation and add interest to the investment."
The inducements offered by McSawney's method of utilizing reservation were so unselfish in their provisionary extension, aside from the sarcasm conveyed, that he was allowed the privilege of selecting the place of interment and superintending the obsequies. He chose a deep dingle, remote from the cultivated portions of the plateau, in which were a collection of old indigo tanks that had been long out of use; yet, on commencing to excavate after the planks were removed, the stench was so strong from the disturbed earth, which had been saturated with the foul drain of the putrefactive decomposition of the indigo plant, that relays of workmen were required to accomplish the undertaking. The planks had been laid with the seeming intention of giving the widest scope to the caulker's craft, and the constant leakage of the decoction had, from the earth's evaporation, left a chrystalline deposit upon the hard clay pan beneath, of upwards of two tons weight of pure indigo, and by the removal of all the tanks the trove amounted to fifteen tons. The superstitiously elated explorers attributed the discovery to the direction of a special providence in favor of McSawney, and inhumation, and he was afterwards obeyed with reverential alacrity. One of the priests of the still had been the first killed upon the walls, by exposing himself in drunken bravado to the missile- stones of the assailants, to shame, as he said, the cautious cowardice of the Scotsman, who had often expostulated with him upon the bad example of his habits of intemperance. The steward interred his remains with those of the troglodytes. He said that living they had been wicked to themselves and bad for the estate, but with their resurrection they would with renewed goodness compensate for the evil they had done. Having been bred a grave-stone artist, he sculptured on a slab of marble the figure of a drunken man and his troglodyte counterpart, and underneath, the epitaph,
Engraved above you'll see the troglodyte,This memorial monument, attesting to their virtues, he erected upon the mound as a hint for the improvement of future generations.
And in groveling kind, the drunken wight,
Now dig below, and see if you can find,
In sottish mould, opposing traits of mild.
With this introduction to the hybrid Badda Orang, I will now describe the visit of my grandfather and boyra to the martruvo of the returned Kubu Orangs. Starting at an early hour that they might reach the ghaut while the males were abroad in search of food, they crossed the valley and gained the narrow plateau within its skirting range of foothills, which would allow them to approach the boskies (tree booths) without fear of being discovered by the occupants.
"Our plans proved successful." (I copy the record of my grandfather. ) "We found the mother surrounded with tadpole children which appeared to represent, with orang admixture, all the races of the island inhabitants, both foreign and native. The children were in gleeful humor, swinging and springing from the tree branches to the ground, in pursuit of each other, with true germ-man agility, seemingly, in the even tenor of their enjoyment, free from the quarrelsome spirit of their civilized cousins. As there was such an attractive spirit of fun in their frolicsome pranks, our own mirthful sympathy was fully enlisted, so that we, for a moment, forgot the object of our visit. The boyra seemed to be enchanted with the sports of the orang fauns, bestowing upon them a gaze of worshipful admiration, which reminded me that she came from a race of monkey devotees, who, like the Hindu Poleahs, believed that they represented mankind in their happy state before the period of degeneration. When I called her attention to the elder female's scared face, she recognized it with a look of affection and outspread arms, but checked her impulsive intention to spring forward and clasp her in embrace, as her long-lost foster-child, with the evident impression that the gratification of her affection would prove sacrilegious, as she was under sacred protection. The restraint that she placed upon her affectionate emotions gave me an opportunity to judge whether the mother's adoption by the orang had in reality been as deplorable as the refined instincts of our civilized humanity had imagined. After her boothy arrangements had been completed, she joined the younger brood in their playful jousts, and exhibited a gymnastic sprightliness, and accuracy of judgment, in the measures of her powers of propulsion and distance that excited our wondering admiration, and with our closest scrutiny we could not detect the shadow of a reflected sorrow. Her countenance, when composed, was still attractive, but when excited with the amusing freaks of the playful chase, the grimaced corrugations that expressed a risible inclination, gave to her face a painful appearance of constraint. These emotional effects of muscular correspondents were undoubtedly the characteristic results of apish association. The sudden cessation of the frolicsome amusement warned us that the male Kubus were near at hand and in a few minutes one of the patriarchs of the chang, with a few followers, swung themselves into the glade. The elder held himself suspended from a limb for a few moments with his right hand while he surveyed the urchin fauns with a suspicious frown. But never was demure innocence better displayed by the schooled specimens of enlightened humanity than these youthful scions of hybrid birth exhibited, as they hung suspended from the limbs of trees, like so many young Adams of Eden ready for a fall from the reproving voice of their lord. Seemingly satisfied with his scrutiny that nothing was amiss, he uttered a zetzoon (low call); in answer, the Darwing matron swung herself down from the bosky with an infant in a net, suspended from her shoulder obliquely across her breast. When the elder had seated himself on the ground, in a half-oriental position, she presented the child to him for inspection. After an exchange of grimaces of an explanatory nature, he examined the child, which was evidently sick. His style of procedure was so grotesquely ludicrous in its burlesque imitation of our physicians' method, we were obliged to have recourse to our handkerchiefs to suppress our laughter. Having prognosed and diagnosed the condition of the infant, he gave an approving nod, and commenced unloading his provisionary mouth pouches of their stores of food, in a plantain leaf, for their regalement, and then left with his followers in the direction from whence they came. The children, after their departure, recommenced their sportive entertainment, and the mother was joined by another female older than herself. In order to attract their attention, without alarming them with the sudden exposure of our persons, the boyra commenced singing a simple air to the accompaniment of her gourd-gee (Malay calabash guitar), with which she had been in the habit of soothing Emily the eldest. They listened, then advanced timidly, but halted when they saw the boyra approach them, and rubbed their eyes as if to revive their recollection, and catch from memory the source of attraction. When she prouounced the name of Emily, with the endearing expressions once so familiar, with a cry of relief, and a struggle for articulation, she called the name of the boyra, and with the apparent remembrance of her former resting-place, sprang forward, and was received in her arms. For some minutes neither moved from their position, but the boyra's tears were showered plentifully on the head of her foster child. When at length they stood apart, with their hands joined, Emily, after a few moments' struggle as if endeavoriug to recall the power of giving vocalized utterances to her thoughts, pronounced "Lulia ete!" (Lulia dear), with the shadow of a smile, which seemed to flit beneath a grimace, with a joyful tremor of surprised recollection. The boyra, with the impulsively fond affection of her Hindu birthright, tinged with reverence for the favor her loved foster-child had found with the race of the blest, prostrated herself before her, and exclaimed with fervor, 'Now that I have known this great joy let me die!' But when Emily was in the act of stooping to raise the nurse there came a harsh volley of gibberish from the grove, which we recognized as the signal of a raid used by our old foes the Badda Orangs; and the Kubu children, who had looked with curious wonder on the scene enacted between the elder matron and boyra, now clustered around them for protection. Fortunately we had come armed, and were accompanied by the head forester and the dogs, who were well acquainted with the habits of the Orangs. But ready and quick as they were to act, a numher of formidable Orangs had already seized some of the smallest children, and were bearing them away to the forest of the Ghaut with kangaroo leaps, when I arrested the first with a bullet and as he fell the others dropped the children they carried, and redoubled their speed to gain the shelter of the wood, with the dogs in hot pursuit. As their habits of intemperance had rendered them imbecile in activity, they had become degraded in capacity for enacting both the role of men and Orangs, and had assumed a gait and carriage that alternated between the bipedal, marsupial, quadrumanal, and quadrupedal; but of necessity were laggards in each; so that pursued they were subject to the mercy of the pursuer. The dogs soon overtook them, and held them at bay, while the hunter and his aids adjudged the sentence of their guilt with the pleadings of a Pedang lawyer -- a specie of tough bamboo, with the longitudinal fibres webbed in, and covered with a vegetable enamel bark, which adds to its strength and durability. It grows to perfection in the neighborhood of Pedang, and is used in the sam-pac, or foot bastinado of criminals. Our prompt rescue of the children, and punishment of the would-be abductors, caused them to acknowledge with timid trustfulness the necessity and their desire for our protection. We left them in charge of the sub-forester and dogs, with the determination to commence on the morrow the recultivation of the banana and plantain patch for their support. The following day, with a large Badda volunteer force, and all that could be spared from our household, we engaged in restoring and replanting the banana and melon patches; in addition, having obtained from the American provinces a supply of Indian corn, of the sweet ear species, an extensive field was seeded with it for the mutual benefit of all the residents. The busy scene was watched with an appreciative interest by the old Orangs, and by the young ones as a source of exciting amusement, in which they seemed inclined to join."
"With the ripening of the crops the long- tailed Gibbons Orangs returned to receive their tribute as the original possessors of the island. But before they were sufficiently ripe to be really serviceable for food the gardeners found that in a night descent nearly an acre of vines had been destroyed, and the tasted unripe fruit scattered in every direction; and the cockneys report that 'they had made a hawful mess of it,' was fully verified. The doctor undertook their correction by charging the fruit nearest their martruvo with algaroth (tartar emetic of the period), of which the juice of the melon is an excellent solvent. The wasteful tasting had scarcely commenced on the second night, when it was arrested by the remedy with violent and painful retchings, symptoms quite new to their germ-man experience, which caused them to betake themselves in woful plight to the limbs of the trees skirting the patch, where all, who were able to retain their hold, were found in the morning, for their stomachs, unused to the epicure's regurgitating source of relief, the nauseating effect was continued longer, and with an evident increase in severity, while their grimaces exceeded in grotesque expression the novice sea-voyager's sympathetic apprenticeship to the rolling sway of the ocean's undulations. As an evidence of the scene's ludicrous nature, my wife with pity for their sufferings, chided the doctor for causing it, while her eyes were flooded with tears and her utterance choked with the rising throes of suppressed laughter. Toward night they began to recover so that they were able to reach their martruvo. Two days passed before they reappeared, and we began to surmise that the remedy for their wastefulness had cured their taste for water-melons altogether; but on the third day they returned and swung themselves from tree to tree of the forest border, casting their eyes with hungry longings towards the tempting fruit which had been selected and transplanted with the vines near their tree promenade. After their forbearance had been well tested, the doctor, with great ceremony, proceeded to examine the melons with a looking glass, reflecting each, and occasionally throwing a dazzling gleam across their expectant eyes, causing them to blink with its brightness."
"With faculties rendered keen by their depleting fast, they quickly understood the intention of his finger and pencil, as he numbered each, when a corresponding melon was added to the heap, for they all came swinging forward to the front to attract his attention. When the ritualistic ceremonv had been made sufficiently impressive; and their longing impatience had become as manifest as that of schoolboys under the infliction of a long blessing pronounced upon food prepared for dinner; the servants cut the melons in slices and distributed them. The improvement in style they seemed to appreciate, also a hint for the correction of their uncleanly negligence in dropping the rinds beneath them was given, and followed with willing submission to exampled direction. The females, with inherent modesty; natural to the sex, in a primitive state of simplicity; would have fared poorly if Mrs. Leslie and her attendants had not supplied their wants; for the males of the distal and proximal extremes of humanity are alike predisposed to the gratification of self-indulgence when not overawed with the presence of caste superiors; weakness, want, and suffering serving, in the lack of sympathy, as a zest to appetite, pride, and arrogance. The preparatory course of algaroth had assured the fulfillment of the banqueting toast, 'that good digestion would wait on appetite.' When a melon allowance to each had been dispatched to the stomach bourne, they looked wistfully to the doctor, as the judge and source of supplies, for more! After a careful inspection, with the mirror's aid, of their stomach's distention, to which they quietly submitted with an anxious expression of hopeful expectation; the doctor nodded, and an additional half melon was allowed to each. Then, with a dessert ration of sweet Indian corn, the germ- men's first lesson in the natural art of temperate eating was concluded. After a few minutes' lingering hesitation, they, with reluctant satisfaction, felt that they had received all that was to be given them for the day, and regretfully swung themselves away; the jar of their hands' limb-catch causing a dirge-like sound from the bowels in requiem for departed joys. With this politic prelude, in the ritualistic style; faith in the efficacy of the doctor's wisdom was established with the Gibbous; who were the reverenced exemplars of the Kubu and Badda Orangs, and all changes made thereafter, with his approving nod, were held sacred by them as revealed dispensations of their lord and master, to his chosen tribe.
"The First Foundling of Orang and Darwing Extraction entrusted to my parents' care was a girl, which was left at our door in a fern basket rudely constructed in imitation of a cradle designed for suspension. Its bed and covering was composed of golden moss, matted and rendered compact by fibres with which it was interwoven and quilted. This bequest was made in the thirty-ninth year of our residence at the Holm. It did not require a second glance to discover its ties of relationship, for its lank tendinous extremities declared the source of their birthright. But a trinket attached to its cradle was identified by the boyra as the one Emily had worn on the day of the massacre; which implied that she was its mother or grandmother. Like the Malabar-Hindu Aya, the boyra displayed the strength of her fond attachment as a foster mother by adopting with like fervor the offspring of her godchild, deformity in person, or imbecility, serving to strengthen the ties of affection; but in this instance its allied birth enlisted her reverential devotion in worshipful beatitude for the privilege confered; esteeming it a hopeful indication of her own redemption from her lost condition. The feelings of the family were keenly aroused in pity for its forlorn inheritance; but in fulfillment of the mother's confiding trust, gladly accepted the responsibility of the charge, with the firm resolve to bestow upon it every thoughtful precaution to redeem it, if possible, from the hereditary taint of its paternity. Through the boyra's influence the child received from the servants more attention than our own children, the doctor and tutor making its progressive development their sppcial study. An army chaplain, visiting the estate, for his health; after due consideration of all the circumstances; thought the child entitled to at least the half of an unconverted soul; and offered to take the responsibility of christening and baptizing it according to the established rites of the church of England; upon the supposition that the marriage had been solemnized by the Orang Kaya form; which he had learned embraced in title the highest nobility and religious caste of the Malays. But the boyra claimed that the sacred origin of the child would be profaned by the administration of rites adopted by a degenerate race; whose first parents had fallen from grace, and as a punishment had been obliged to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling as drudges of the earth, As the chaplain was a scion of nobility, and of strict high church principles, who had volunteered his service to the East India Company's armies, to gain experience in the art of saving souls; his method had become somewhat arbitrary: and the boyra's objection to his proffered condescension to save and seal the child's fraction of a soul, aroused his indignation; causing him to denounce the Indian races as beasts, and totally incapable of appreciating the sacrifices made in their behalf by the Christian missionary. It required the utmost stretch Mrs. Leslie's powers of persuasion to induce him to forgive the boyra's reverential intolerance; and allow her the privilege of bestowing upon the child, without ceremony, the name of Emily. He consoled himself for the lack of deferential consideration paid to the vestment dignity of the cloth by observing, that the thing would have been hardly regular, at any rate, without a registered certiticate of its parents' marriage; and might have bothered him with a reprimand, and a demand for a written defense of the innovation he had presumed to sanction, But as you had offered to become sponsers I was willing to enter her for the baptismal cup, and give her a fair start for the run of life, that her prospects might not be balked."
"As the child Emily increase in years and size, a human modification of her supposed paternal peculiarities became manifest, which, although pleasing to us, was deprecated by the boyra as a departure from the happy estate entailed from her forefathers. Still the length and sinuosity of her limbs -- diffuse growth of hair -- inclination of the nose to blend with the chin's protuberence -- and graceful curve of the spinal continuation, were more suggestive in contemplation than beautiful to our abridged conceptions of natural grace, which ill curtail, from sin, had reduced our race to eke out with artificial subterfuge, an imaginary memorial means of future salvation from the adjudged penalty of labor. In her habits she was sportive and frolicsome with a genial inclination to familiarity; which, in the supply of her wants, indicated an indifference to our artificial rights, and special claims to personal property; that fully sustained the boyra's reverential respect for her paternal antecedents who had lived in joyous freedom from labor and its penitential sweat of the brow. Her tenacity of hold upon transferable objects, and upon permanent ones, beyond our reach, to escape reprisal, fully sustained the boyra's ideas in support of her claims to an exalted lineage above the aspirations of our race. For the quick despatch of her marriage romance, we will state that her amusing qualifications attracted our knight of the pestle, whose habitual thirst caused us to prefer another to his place, and on the consummation of their union he was established upon a grazing range opening upon the pass leading to our eastern entrepot. They in an especial manner fulfilled the injunction given to her paternal ancestors in the garden of Eden, and if their multiplied re-productions caused like destructive havoc among its fruit-trees, as hers did with those of the Holm, there is but little cause for wonder that their lord and master expelled them from their boundaries, and caused them to gain with the labored sweat of their brows a livelihood."
"Nine years after the singular advent of our first hybrid waif, the servants of the Holm in carrying the daily rations of melons, corn and bananas to the Gibbons' rendezvous, heard the wailing of a female yoice that did not sound like the orang zetzoon; following its direction they saw a female spring from the ground to the branches of a teconia tree, and disappear among its foliage. Beneath the tree they found the body of a venerable presbyter, or preaching Gibbons orang, who had probably died from over-distention of the stomach with fruit, for he lay within a rampart of corn husks and rinds of melons and bananas."
"In contrast with his emormously distended stomach, the limbs of his body were extremely attenuated, plainly indicating his recent arrival and ignorance of our established customs; for those who had come in with the melon season were in excellent condition, their paunches scarcely receeding, under our dietetic limitations, the aldermanic curve of beauty."
"The servants were perplexed with the discovery, and questioned among themselves whether the body was entitled to the rites of christian burial? To resolve their doubts they sent for me. The occasion was opportune for an inductive illustration of the absurdities of sectarian prejudice, and the fact that bigotry, fanaticism and intolerance were the essential components of partisan religion, and that the real elemeuts of joy resided in the power of self-communion aud control in thoughtful meditation for the associate happiness of others, as a like inducement for reciprocation. We had often felt from our isolated position and the savage element with which we were surrounded, the great necessity of household union, as an example for perfecting the confidence reposed in our protective influence by their dull perceptions."
"The servants of the Holm had been purposely selected from all available nationalities; that, in the diversity of habits, customs, and religious rites, each might be impressed with opposing absurdities and their ridiculous tendencies, as an incitement to mirth, for the prevention of factious discord. In our home establishment we numbered two hundred and thirty adult individuals, and with the exception of a few duplicates, each represented an opposing sect. My experimental intention had been disagreeably disappointed; for I had hoped to find diversion and a source of deductive instruction in reconciling their prejudices for happy association. But the excitement caused by their polemical dissensions and quarrels, had frequently required my interference to prevent them from settling their arguments at close quarters. When I received the summons I requested the attendance of all the members of the household and plantation within call, both male and female, at the orang refectory."
"On our arrival at the place where the deceased lay, I assisted in his removal to the margin of the forest, where both branches of his relatives were engaged in disposing of their morning repast. That finished, they became spectators; and were to all appearance deeply interested in my proceedings. From the diversified grades of humanity assembled I selected twelve representatives to act as a coroner's jury to investigate the cause of death, then delivered to them the formulistic charge of the civilized functionary. In closing, I impressed upon them the importance of using their best judgment in arriving at the cause of death, that there might be no suspicion of foul play harbored by his relatives. At first, the Europeans were disposed to look upon the proceedings in the light of a farce, but my serious charge dispelled the idea."
"Under the foreman's direction they measured his feet and hands, in accordance with the regulations of corono-medical jurisprudence practiced by civilized humanity for comparison with the imprint in the soil. After identifying their impression, a like process rendered his teeth accountable for the contents of the rinds. Then the jury proceeded to adjust the quantity of fruit that could be eaten without causing derangement and distress to the digestive organs. Finally, they questioned his previous condition, in adaptation for the disposal of fruit. Then the chief cook, who acted as foreman, rendered the verdict: 'That he came to his death from eating too much of a mixture without cooking upon an empty stomach!' In preparing for his burial, I expressed a wish that all possible respect should be paid to the remains of the departed, as I considered myself his feofee or tenant -- in jointure with his surviving relatives -- not only as a matter of policy, but that the widowed relict -- a sobbing zetzoon from the thick foliage of the overshadowing teconia tree had given me a hint of who she might be -- should not think that her mesalliance had rendered her an outcast and an exile from compassion and pity, as there were thousands upon thousands in our civilized cities who were condemned by society to multifarious associations infinitely more brutal and debasing. The butler, impressed with my serious bearing ventured to suggest that he thought there could be no possible objection to reading the funeral service over him, as he might have been converted to the Methodist way by camping out with his wife; 'unless, James the groom, who is a dissenter, and little better, chooses to read their service for the dead, if they have one!' This double sectarian innuendo of spite -- for they were rival lovers -- was turned aside by the Irish kitchen gardener, who said that the deceased, who was dead and wished to be buried, was a very fine native gentleman of his kind, but as there was no priest on the estate, a Christian burial was not to be had for the asking. The French cook admitted, that in France the negro was recognized as a religious citizen, entitled to the rites of communion and distant Christian fellowship; and could be educated to be useful, and thought the Sumatrians should have the same chance. But as the dead one was a fruit and seed eater, of the same caste with the Hindoos, they ought to be allowed to dispose of him in their own way. Others, including the female representatives, stood apart enwrapped in a curious mood of amazement, too much puzzled with my serious bearing to command their own thoughts. Having fixed their attention, I admonished them that our own bodies were in no respect better, living or dead, than the mass of flesh and bone we were about to bury. But that we were endowed with affections which, if cultivated independently of the body, while living, for associate reciprocation, they would increase for a complete realization that they were a creative endowment bestowed for cultivation, in preparation for the harvest garner of immortality."
"You have," I continued, "expressed yourselves affectionately grateful to us for the interest we have taken in your welfare. From henceforth allow us the grateful privilege of reciprocating your love with the knowledge that in united affection you represent one body, in freedom from selfishness, the sectarian source of unhappiness.' As if in sanction of my petition, there came, from far up among the deeply foliaged branches of the teconia, a souffled moan, that brought forth from the eyes of the female servants glistening tears; with the sudden blanch of pitying sympathy that bespeaks the surprise of emotions above the reach of animal gratification. Startled with the tearful sanction from the kindlier emotions I had invoked, it required a strong effort for me to proceed with my admonitory discourse."
"But observing in the expression of their faces -- for the eyes of the men were not altogether free from sympathetic moisture - a desire that I should continue, I urged that they should judge each other from the exampled evidences of unselfish affection, and forever banish from their thoughts the words pagan, christian and infidel, as they had given birth to bigotry, fanaticism, and intolerance; and they, in sequence, to detraction, hate and revenge."
"For your own happiness and ours, I hope that you will never, from this day, make use of bitter and taunting wonts of self-exaltation, as they are a sounding provocation for evil meditation. Be open, honest, and free in your associations; as clans, clubs, and societies beget an exclusive spirit of selfishness, which alike detracts from your own and others' happiness. Above all, recollect that the use of ardent spirits, tobacco, bang, and opium stimulate the cravings of habit for their excessive use, beyond the reach of control; and as they are debasing and deadly poisons, which at first are repugnant to the cravings of appetite, their indulgence is far more beastly than that of the deceased, whose hunger was an excuse for his gluttonous imprudence. Of the two you are the most guilty, in knowing the injury you are inflicting upon yourselves and others. Now, as there is one who has watched our proceedings, and has probably retained in memory an instinctive affection for this relict, with whom she was forced to associate from the sad effects of ardent spirits; we will, for her sake, bestow upon the body such marks of kindly attention as she will be capable of understanding. For he is, of himself, more deserving, in being born a brute, than those of our race, who, with the privilege of achieving immortality, choose to reduce themselves to a worse condition by drunkeness and gluttony. That our kindly intention may not interfere through ignorance with the sepulchral rites of his species, we will gather ferns and the choicest flowers, and cover the body as it lies here in state; so, that with the traditional comprehension attributed to their ancestral relatives, the wood fauns -- the satyr-germ-men of Greece -- the act will be taken as a ceremonial token to grace the deceased's re-union with his mother, earth."
"Never had I seen my 'servant' companions unite with such manifest evidences of joyful alacrity as in the labor tribute proposed at the close of my exordic admonition! While gathering flowers in the forest glades -- Irish and Hiudoos, the most fanatical of our employees -- seemed to forget their former acts of scornful despite and court each the other's companionship. The females, also, forgetting the shade distinctions of color, exchanged lip service without the slightest show of their former repugnance; the affection of the morning's manifestation proving in after association the sincerity of the impression. As each contributor brought in his or her collections, the bier of branches which I had wattled together with osiers was decked by a Choontoo maiden who had been brought from the Thibetstana range of the Himalaya by my wife, where she had from childhood been accustomed to note the habits of the Orang Gibbons of that region. When the bier was fully prepared for the body, it was removed from the debris of husks and carefully placed thereon. The Gibbons, with here and there a Kubu, having hung in attentive clusters from the branches of the surrounding trees. the obsequies only lacked the sombre accompaniments of a London undertaker's paraphernalia, to render the primitive simplicity of the scene, a civilized burlesque upon solemnity. Considerable difficulty was encountered in straightening and composing the limbs, from their cramped contractions induced by the expiring agonies of indigestive colic. When finally reduced to the orthodox position required for burial, the enormous distention of the stomach was fully exposed, equalling in prominence aldermanic proportions, or those of a church dignitary in the enjoyment of the highest plurality of beneficed livings ever bestowed by favor upon a single incumbent of England's ecclesiastical aristocracy. It required a determined effort of the will to suppress the rising tendency of emotions foreign to those of sedate meditation; but the misfortunes of one, and the presence of curious kindred spectators prevailed. When our floral tribute was completed we returned to the Holm, leaving the body to the care of the living members of its species. Arraigned by my wife, when alone, for having deprived the house of its servants when most needed, I related to her the events of the morning, and received as my reward the salutation, 'You delightful old humbug!' preluded and sanctioned with kisses, and the addenda, 'Who would want neighbors with you about? I knew that you were up to some of your wise pranks!' She afterwards referred to the funerat obsequies of Emily's supposed brother-in-law as a happy household epoch, which had served to transform the servants from fighting and quarreling drudges into companions, capable of understanding and reciprocating affectionate trust, receiving in return our confidence, without taking unkind advantage of our good will.
"Just after the break of day of the twelfth morning succeeding that of the orang obsequies, my personal attendant knocked at my chamber door, and asked me to step out upon the verandah. 'What now, Aleer,' I questioned; 'a tiger?' 'No, sahib master,' he replied, 'wild woman with monkey child; wish to leave, no let me take; want to see you.' Opening the door, I saw that Aleer's usually sage face was lighted with a humorous glow that indicated something unusual."
"Hastily dressing myself, I went out, and as I stepped from the door a yetsoome (cry of a young orang) wail directed me to a moss basket, in which I found the child, and at the distance of a few yards, under the nearest of our avenue marsang trees, the mother was seated in a squatting position, awaiting my appearance. At my approach she exhibited strong emotions of pleasure, which she tried to express in words, but her tongue refused its office for the interpretation of her wishes. Seeing by my perplexity that her articulate sounds were not understood, she then by pantomimic signs of endearment pointed to the child in the basket of moss, and then approached caressingly, and when near placed her hands upon her eyes, as if to repress her tears; finally in giving expression to her reluctance in leaving it, she uttered real sobs of grief. With words and impulsive tokens expressive of my desire, I urged her to remain with her child."
"Counting upon her fingers, three, and measuring with her hand from the basket, with periods, to give me an impression of height and age, she pointed in the direction of the eastern ghaut; then retreating she sprang upward and caught with her right band the lowest branch of the tree, and mimicked the gathering of fruit and the action of casting it to the children on the ground. Then pointing to her infant, she folded her left arm across her breast, showing that, with it, she could not provide for the others in her widowed state."
"In answer to my pantomimic invitation to bring them with her into the house, she pointed to the room of my wife and the nursery; then to the fern leaves which she had evidently woven into a skirt in preparation for the visit; again repeating the stature measurement of the children she retained, shook her head sadly, in token that they were too old to adapt themselves to house confinement and dress. Her modest consideration of civilized proprieties, habits, and customs, with self abnegation; as being adverse to those of her children, iustead of abating my desire to establish her rescioned species upon a civilized standpoint, for a more successful and happy re- germ-man impression, it increased it, so that I became quite earnest in my word and pantomimic expostulation. As if fearing that I had not fully comprehended the reason why she had parted with her infant -- perhaps thinking that I might attribute the cause to a lack of maternal affection -- she placed a bunch of grass hastily twisted to represent a child, upon her hip, in imitation of the method of bearing their children while in swinging progression from branch to branch of the trees. Then with intentional miscalculation dropped to the ground short of her intended grasp of the limb in advance, intimating that from weakness she was unable to bear the additional weight. She then placed the representative child with two others of like mold beneath the tree, and commenced an imaginary search for fruit, the while holding them in view with anxious watchfulness, and listening as if to catch the sound of approaching danger in time to conceal them. Suddenly her gaze became transfixed, as if an object of terror had been discovered in ambush, and with a moaning, muffled shriek she dropped to the ground, and began a frantic struggle as if for the protection of her children from a dreaded reptile or beast of prey. During this short enactment, her agony was so truthfully depicted, that I involuntarily started to aid in her rescue, with the sudden impression of remorseful regrets, in reproof for leaving her, with her brother and sister, to a fate so fearful in its exposure to the preying dangers of a jungle and forest life. She at once divined with a woman's quick instinct the impression her actions had wrought, and the source of my impulsive emotion; for she sprang to her feet with an impetuous start toward me, as if to accept my proffered protection; but suddenly stopped, as though arrested by thoughts of her condition, and uttering a piteous wail she crouched at my feet. Stooping to raise her, she drew quickly back from my reach, and with a longing look of tendernss, sprang to the limb and swung herself from branch to branch of the avenue trees with such a rapidity of motion and certainty of grasp, with the impetus for the calculation of varied distance, that admiration for the elasticity of her acquired ability slackened my steps as I pursued; but pity kept pace, as I used impulsive terms of endearment to recall her. When she had regained the tree shadows of the forest belt, she looked back; the fount of tears long closed to human sympathy had opened, blinding with their flow her eyes, which she tried to clear with her right band, but prompted to their emotional source, it fell to her breast, which she pressed to stay the throbbing throes of her heart. At the sight of a grief so deplorable, I approached to plead with her again, my own eyes contributing their meed to the pleading tones of my voice.'
"With a step toward me, in hand walk upon the limbs, she seemed to meditate
in doubt for a moment, her hand, as if in token of desire, moving toward
me, but in quick reversion, with a look of conscious shame, withdrew it;
then, with impulsive boldness, turning her face half aside, she beckoned
to my vest pocket, and placed the palm of her open hand before her face.
Words of designation would have failed to express with equal clearness
the full interpretation of her wish. After the doctor's introduction of
the mirror, as a dazzling ritual accompaniment for the restraint of orang
gluttony and wastefulness, we had all carried a small pocket one, to command
a like impression. In quick response to her petition, I placed mine in
her hand. She raised it to her face and perused the reflection with a prolonged
gaze of changing emotions, compounded of curiosity and admiration, and,
as she glanced at my face, by way of comparison, a gleam of pleased vanity
flitted like the phantom ghost of civilized impression from the eyes downward,
then, with a zetzoon sigh, she carefully bestowed it in the amulet bag
suspended from her neck. Its preservation assured, with the impetus of
a forward swing, she cast upon me a backward glance full in its expression
of grateful sorrow, and, while passing in reach for a forest catch, cast
loose her skirt of fern, and quickly disappeared from view. When all hope
of her return had passed, I retraced my steps to the house, questioning
my feelings of responsibility, to learn the extent of my culpability in
leaving the foundling scions for re-germ-man-a-tion with their orang antecedents.
My wife, who had witnessed a portion of the interiew, caused the child
during my absence to be taken to the nursery and dressed in the swaddling
clothes which had been used for our own children. In the wrapper of moss
an amulet was found, which the boyra recognized as the one worn by Letitia,
the eldest of the Darwing sisters, who was undoubtedly the child's grandmother.
It was a boy, and in personal appearance bore a characteristic resemblance
to the race of its paternal ancestor, and, as he increased in years, showed
a decided predilection for toys of gold and silver, and a strong disposition
to hold those of his associates in pawn. The skins of the adopted were
tanned to a brownish olive, bearing a strong resemblance in color to the
gipsy, or the 'tawno petulengro chabos,' as they term their bands. Their
garments of hair were soft and silky and by no means unpleasant to the
eye. In the nursery they adopted in progression all known gaits and especially
delighted in giving their associates gymnastic instruction in woodland
games, a knowledge of which seemed to have been derived from hereditary
intuition. In conformity with this predisposition their hands, in quadrumanal
estimation, were elongated, and those of the upper and lower extremities
were equally well formed for prehensile hold; and, with the grasping tenacity
of curiosity seemed to be constantly on the stretch. The ears were adapted
to catch sounds from every direction, and the eyes, in deferential relation
to other organs, had acquired a quick furtive glance, moving in concert
with the ears, like those of the antelope, ever on the alert to detect
and anticipate danger."
WILHELM SHAWTINBACH, ESQ.
My Dear Sir> : -- If after reading the abstract of my grandfather's record of events, which transpired in the settlement of Saar Soong, your curiosity or desire to investigate, for your own attestation, the relations which have been re-established with the progenitorial stock of humanity, should prompt you to visit my home. I herewith extend to you, and your follower, a most cordial invitation to accompany me. As I sincerely hope that you will accept my proffer, I shall make my arrangements at once for your accommodation by despatching a courier to inform my relatives in preparation for your welcome. In our journey thitherward it will please me if you will defer the topic of your attraction in conversation until after our arrival at the Holm. You will, without doubt, understand that my negative request is adressed especially to our companions. As your follower has undoubtedly taken umbrage from the emotions of surprise that I evinced when we were introduced, please offer him my sincere apologies with the plea of his resemblance to absent friends. If you can induce him to accompany you, he will add greatly to your ready appreciation of cause and effect in the study of natural history.
Before I read his narrative relation of the events which had transpired during the various stages, or transition epochs, which were inaugurated for the purpose of controlling savage instinct, and holding it amenable to honest reciprocation in association, I had relieved myself of the repugnance which theoretical humanity attaches to our simian relationship and origin by cultivating an intimate acquaintance with their habits and customs. For this purpose I had obtained specimens of the smaller types of the species peculiar to America, and an aboriginal ape from the Island of Java, whose native ferocity of disposition did not improve under the influence of the civilized example of my garden visitors. But familiarity with their forms and apish dispositions during my peripatetic meditations, served to remove from my mind the prejudices entertained by our species in disfavor of an hereditary alliance with theirs. With this inductive method of observation, and intercourse with an inferior type, I was prepared to realize in my travels the existence of higher grades, and to accept the Malaysian title of orang, not only as the most legitimate source of nobility, but the most honored in its derivation from the most remote vestiges of antiquity in worshipful authority and lineage. Yet I will acknowledge that the proofs which I have gained from actual investigation are so positive in revelation that my wonder has been surprised at the tardy recognition and adoption of the title as the highest and most aristocratic within the scope of possible attainment for bestowal in promotion of the merit of genealogical superiority. As Sumatra is the ancient Fortunati‘ Insel, I shall undoubtedly be able to obtain reliable information of its remote society grades, for the foundation of titles and orders to distinguish political, theological and scientifie aspirants with addenda honors; and in grateful remembrance of those which have been conferred on me, I shall ever bold my rights and privileges of discovery subject to your disposal. In earnest of my intention I shall dedicate my journalistic installments for your perusal and approval.
With permission. most respectfully yours,
On our arrival at the Embacadero of Saar Soong, we found the train waiting, and without stopping longer than was required to receive the affectionate congratulations bestowed upon Mr. Leslie and the doctor, we proceeded on our journey to the interior. While traversing the lowlands, over an exceedingly good road, Mr. Leslie kept his elephant abreast of ours, so that we could converse without much difficulty, from howdah to howdah. From time to time, as he noted improvements which had been made during his absence, he explained the plan which his parents had adopted to secure co-operative self-government, for the furtherance of unity in freedom from covetous desire, with an assured perpetuation from the happy fruits of honest reciprocation. On the approach of the train to the upland plantations, the occupants flocked from their houses to welcome the absentees home. The warmth of their attachment was manifested with such zestful tokens of joyful gladness that my own emotions were surprised with an accession of gratification, and my companions for the moment seemed to be startled with a new sensation foreign to his nature. When, in ascending the ghaut of the second range of bulwark foothills, of a higher elevation, we reached an inter-vale, the members of their own individual families met them, but held themselves aloof while their children received the welcome homage of the residents with an increase of happiness from the outflowing abundance of others to enrich and strengthen the ties of their own affection. At length the throng, abashed with their thoughtless selfishness, gave place for the expression of parental gladness. The quadrupeds also claimed the privilege of being recognized as members of the family by the ties of instinct. The elephant who had borne the Leslie family became impatient from the long delayed recognition of her young master, and, overreaching the group that surrounded him, seized his shoulder with her trunk and turned him about, and he, recognizing the cause, saluted her with the apology, "Well, Juno, I did not mean to neglect you. How have you been? No tantrums, I hope, while I have been absent. You must give up hysterics now that you have a child, for they indicate a bad and willful temper, and set a bad example; besides, our race claims the monopoly for their exhibition." When ready to continue their homeward progress, Loftus was about to remount to his seat in the howdah with the doctor, but Juno vetoed the movement, obliging him to occupy a seat in her howdah with his family. While observing these varied and wonderful evidences of attachment, which were so vividly retained in the memory of the brute species, I could not help uttering aloud the exclamation, "Well, I declare, here is a real demonstration of what I have longed to see, but have feared that I should die with the wish ungratified. If I could only have witnessed this trustful confidence in an abiding affection in my youth, the example would have added to my life a never-failing zest as an assurance of its immortal extension. They have received a noble recompense for the money and care they have bestowed, in the reverential affection returned by the representatives of so many diverse sects, and withal in like harmony with each other. How they have been able to accomplish this reconciliation of incompatibles, with the aristocratic pride they exhibit in intercourse, is beyond my present powers of comprehension; for there is nothing in the wide world that appears so repugnant to democratic equality as the ruling power of austerity. This new phase in life offers an extensive field for study, and if I can learn the secret, it will prove far more potent and reliable, for the control of the masses, than money! Even the elephant, under the direction of this power, shows an instinctive discernment nearly akin in manifestation to her sex of the humankind, for she questions his right to bestow attentions upon others to the neglect of his own family! The world, outside of Indian island extension, looks upon the elephant as a monstrous piece of property, that pays interest out of pocket; but if all were like this, they would prove invaluable to wives whose husbands were addicted to saloons, clubs, lodges, and night resorts in kind, begetting a tendency to household desertion."
At this stage of my soliloquy, Ran Avan, in the height of excitement, called my attention to a couple who were hastening from a bungalow, down a broad avenue planted on either side with the marsang species of trees. The man was on "foot," but the woman was far in advance, swinging herself from branch to limb by the force of projection, and in train was followed by a numerous progeny, chiefly composed of girls. The parents -- for they appeared to hold that relation -- were well advanced in years, but still buoyant and elastic in all their motions. A glance at the bungalow showed that it had been built, and then extended by additions, without regard to the original nucleus style of architecture; probably with the sole intention of affording accommodation for an increasing family.
From various portions of this curious edifice children continued to issue, until twenty-five or thirty heads were seen in motion following in the wake of the mother.
The elephants were halted by the mahouts, to allow the old couple to give their salutations of welcome to the returned travelers, and in a few minutes the younger members with romping agility covered the elephants of their patrons and acquaintances, but with coyness avoided the one that bore the howdah we occupied.
A whispered announcement from Mr. Leslie caused the old lady to give a zetzoon cry of joy, and but a second elapsed before Ran Avan's neck was embraced with the arms of a mother's fond affection, his sisters hanging in festoons from the neighboring bought and eaves of the howdah. The father, having caught a glimpse of his son's profile, exclaimed. "Arrah! an' be me faith, it's Patronimick, sure!"
Kan Avan, in the excitement of the moment, when his parents appeared in full view, had leaned so far out of the howdah that he lost his balance, and would have fallen to the ground if I had not caught him by the coat tail, and it was at this moment, when I was exerting my strength to restore him to his seat in the howdah, that his relationship was made known to his mother.
His position as he hung in suspension by that subtitute member brought his person into a favorable view for his mother's recognition. Eyen his younger sisters discovered the affinity of relationship from the unembarrassed native grace with which he retrieved his seat, from the accidental development of his latent hereditary predisposition for caudal suspension. The coincident attraction that caused his projection, and the providential means that secured a hold for his retrievement, was of a character to excite superstitious awe with the unthinking commonalty, who under the dictation of congregation leadership, would ascribe his preservation from a second fall to a guardian angel's protection, if my pious faith had been sufficient to sustain such an efficacious investment, with power for redeeming salvation. As with all mothers, when the first outburst of joy has been reduced, by the embrace of a loved object, to the tranquil impression of repossession, Jan Avan's swung herself gracefully out of the howdah, and hung suspended from the outer cornice, from thence regarding her son with a fond glance of critical survey, to balance the reality with the wished-for evidences of improvement. Her cherished expectations of his youthful promise revived by the view, with a cry of endearment she swung herself to his side, and patting his back with a gentle caress, exclaimed in an ecstacy of realized impression, "Yah hoo voo, Pat darling!" and again clasped him in her arms. There is probably no incident in life so moving, in accord with universal sympathy, as the unexpected meeting of a mother with her child after long years of separation; and from the glimpse it affords of a joy purified from the taint of sordid selfishness, in its perfection exceeds beyond conception the sum of the body's gratifications I have wondered how affectionate humanity could avoid the impression that it alone could offer, in cultivated extension, a realizing foretaste of immortality.
But the course of Kan Avan p‚re illustrates more truly the indifference of mankind to this elevated source of happiness. After his salutation of recognition he hastened back to the house to enjoy the stolen solace of a pipe, as its open use, and that of ardent spirits, had been declared by his daughters contrabnd, and opposed to household affection, as well as to comfort and decency. The combined effects of surprise and the sudden revelation of the cause of his dorsal emotions had rendered Kan Avan Jr. stupid for their realization as actual occurrences; and after having submitted to the caresses bestowed by his mother with a vacant stare, as if suddenly bereft of the power of self- identification, he scratched his head and rubbed his back, to recover from memory the evidences of his continued existence. These regained, from familiar sensations, his eyes appealed to me for an assurance that the scene was a real enactment; as he had regarded the doctor in the light of a magician, and Mr. Leslie as a second-sight seer, who had from
the beginning subjected him to their spells. To aid him in the recovery of his self-possession I asked him to favor me with an introduction to his mother and sisters, for I felt my position as a stranger embarrassing. A girl of twenty-seven or eight years of age, who appeared to be the oldest of his sisters present, addressed me with an apology in his behalf "What you request, sir, cannot be complied with on his part, unless it will serve for your content that he acknowledges us collectively as sisters, for he was but an infant when our father took him abroad; but as an individual introduction will avail him as well as you, I will act as the medium for our more extended personal acquaintance, if you will favor me with your name for our gratification?"
Having complied with her request, the sisters were introduced singly, by name, to their brother and myself. But in deference to their mother's fond yearnings for her first-born they confined the promptings of their curiosity to a distant view. Bridget, the eldest sister of those present, having an innate perception of the cause of her brother's mazed condition and her mother's absorbed devotion, asked me to regard the circumstances of the occasion as an excuse for any apparent lack of consideration on their part, as the surprise overbalanced the command of thought for the choice of greetings that should assure me of an affectionate welcome.
Then helping her brother to dismount she was about to wave her hard as a signal for the train to move on, when Patronimick, with his neck in the yoked embrace of his mother's arm, looked helplessly up to me from among his troop of sisters, and, with a piteous whine of alarm, addressed me in the following terms: "An' sure, Mr. Shawtinbach, it's not you that will be after leaving me in this predicament, when ye assured me of your protection at the start, as the confidant anxious expectations?" "But," I answered, "your expectations are more than realized, for you have not only found a home, with a mother's and sisters'abundant love, but a natural source of sympathy for emotions that from the unregenerated condition of my ancestors I am only able to appreciate in curtailed expression! However, the distance is not so great, but, in case of desperate emergency, you can avail yourself of my willing service, and, with permission, I will volunteer my desire to become better acquainted with the members of your newly-found family." Upon this hint, Bridget, with an apologetic blush. and an inwrought primitive smile, urged me to still afford her brother the benefit of my counsel until his nature should become reconciled to an association with his families peculiarities.
Then, with a partial salutation, Juno trumpeted an advance, and the train passed onward to commence the ascent of the second ghaut. But my curiosity was not proof to a backward look, while the avenue to the Kan Avan bungalow remained open my view, and the drawn curtains rendered my admiring gaze unobtrusive, Bridget detained her brother and mother, seemingly reluctant to expose discourteously her back to my retreating view; but at length, with a mid-tree glance. I saw her turn and while her sisters with gladsome glee sprang with hand reach from tree to tree, her train with gentle curve from the dust she raised, then upward turned, and as it disappeared my eyes still gazed through the vacant space, until my thoughts emotions wrought that in backward flow seemed to revive impressions of a pre-Adamic state. While in visioned mood I reveled in eden's garden with the gentle Bridget, plucking the choice fruit to plead with her taste for my love's gratification; depending from a tree -- too distant for our projectile power to reach -- in golden clusters from branches of the brightest green, grew kindred leaves of such shapely form and size, that of themselves they seemed a prize worthy to wreath my loved one's head, and from the sun's gaze shadow her eyes. But out from beneath these verdure crowns golden heads of fruit looked forth so brightly tinged with red that my charmer's lips could with them scarce compare. Then as we sat poised upon an embowered branch of a neighboring tree there came the zephyrs waft from the rustling leaves, and borne upon its wings an odor so rich in luscious aroma, that we became entranced with longing desire to realize from taste the united "virtues" of a flavor so enticing in its lure of hopeful gratification. But, to our measured glance, the space between did by far exceed the utmost limits of our bodies, motor power of flight, and the shaft below that up-bore the tempting lure, rose smooth and straight from root to bole which outward cast the foliaged branches, whose fruit had made us feel an inward pang of want beyond and above our reach. Sad and thoughtful in our baffled plight, we mused and questioned the cause that had placed in tempting view this luscious sight, with space between on every side to guard it from our reach aud taste. From this inquiet mood reason grew which made us more unhappy; still we longed and looked with hope, and never a glance backward deigned to cast all suspended joys which in oscillating contentment we had passed. To lessen my loved Bridget's desire and its pang assuage, with thought intention, suggestion prompted, that the fruit might prove sour or bitter if obtained But this doubtful plea only served to strengthen with curiosity her desire to taste the fruit, for what she questioned, with ingenious haste, was it adorned with beauty and odor if not to enhance with their zest its taste? When all our efforts failed to devise a plan to obtain and test the fruit in proof that faith and knowledge correspond, she sullen and fretful grew from hope deferred, and threw at me a spiteful glance, and with the same scorned the tree.
While her eyes were cast upon the tree, with baneful light, an apple serpent's tail in prehensile coil embraced the highest bough, above the branch that bore the fruit coveted by her glance.
Then, with outward swing and corrugation, he nearly spanned the space between the tree of knowledge and our lofty seat of green. With this movement, to attract our sight, he addressed Bridget with a lisping sibilation, and said, I have seen your longing tribulation and justly admire your wish to gratify with knowledge your desire. To aid you in this laudable undertaking, let your lover entail an upper branch as I have done, and then dependant within his grasp your prehensile caudal clasp, and as you hang give an outward throe, and I will swing to meet yon with an apple in my mouth, which you can seize, and at your leisure with its taste you will be with knowledge crowned. By Bridget urged, in suspension I held her caudal clasped, and, with the serpent, in outward swing she met and grasped the fruit of knowledge, -- then by its weigh we fell, and from our members parted, and the serpent hissed, "Tailless, in sin and wo, the fruits of labor you shall know."
At this moment the call of the mahout for the elephant to kneel and voices of welcome aroused me from my ludicrously-reveried vision, which was more remarkable from the fact that in style and train, as well as in expression, it was entirely foreign to my natural promptings of thought. If it had been a sleep vision or dream, the occurrences of the day would have been quite sufficient for an exciting cause; but the discipline of my mind, under waking control, was more inclined to serious thought in tracing from cause to effect an experience founded upon natural sequence. As the glad salutations of the household greeted me with equal frankness and warmth bestowed upon their long-absent relatives, my feelings of self-possession were soon restored.
LESLIE HOLM, and its immediate surroundings, impressed me with their singularly attractive beauties, and the corresponding taste displayed in cultivation was in keeping with nature's capital endowment. But for the day the household attractions allowed me but a glance abroad. All the residents had collected to welcome the travelers' return, but the exchange of greetings was free from exuberant and noisy demonstrations, yet there seemed to be a happy undercurrent of mingled joy that was imparted to me.
Our elephants had kneeled at the junction of the forest avenue with that of the plantation marsangs and their shaded fruit-trees. If my visioned reverie had not withheld me from an outward observance of changing scenes, my attention would have been gratified with the evolutions and progress of an escort which had attended the train from its first entrance into the valley of the Saar Soong. This was composed of delegations from the Orang Kubu and Badda changs, on one side, and the long and short-tailed Gibbons Orang on the other.
The doctor, Olu Babi -- grandfather to the returned traveler -- took me in charge on my descent from the howdah, and after an exchange of salutations with the assembled representative residents of varied cosmopolitan types, the elephant train proceeded up the avenue while we followed on foot. The scene to which I was suddenly introduced was one of startling novelty, and appeared to me, in vision train, as the transmitted product of my Eden alliance. In answer to my puzzled look of inquiry, Doctor Olu informed me that all strangers on entering the valleys were subject to certain impressions which seemed to be opposed in a remarkable way to their customary habits of thought. But after a time they became reconciled to the influence, and were able to derive from it happy instruction. "We have certain methodical habits and