The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858

The schoolmistress was polite enough to say that she was pleased with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next day. But she should tell the children, she said, that there were better reasons for truth than could be found in mere experience of its convenience and the inconvenience of lying.

Yes,—I said,—but education always begins through the senses, and works up to the idea of absolute right and wrong. The first thing the child has to learn about this matter is, that lying is unprofitable,—afterwards, that it is against the peace and dignity of the universe.

–—Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm?—Why, no,—I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile too carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers, the other day, that contains a number of improbabilities, and, I suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it.—Ah, this is it; it is headed

"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE

"This island is now the property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir – Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South-Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.

"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful condiment. [Note received from Dr. D.P.] It is said, however that, as the oysters were of the kind called natives in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skilful in the cuisine peculiar to the island.

"During the season of gathering the pepper, the persons employed are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole pepper-harvest, they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as it is called, cudgelled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mahometan Buddhists.

"The bread tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni The smaller twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular is the favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives among us. It therefore always contains many of these insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this source are comparatively rare.

"The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of hot rolls. The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with cold"–

–—There,—I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many of these statements are highly improbable.—No, I shall not mention the paper.—No, neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of the style of these popular writers. I think the fellow that wrote it must have been reading some of their stories, and got them mixed up with his history and geography. I don't suppose he lies;—he sells it to the editor, who knows how many squares off "Sumatra" is. The editor, who sells it to the public–By the way, the papers have been very civil—haven't they?—to the—the—what d'ye call it?—"Northern Magazine"—isn't it?—got up by some of those Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local peculiarities.

–—The Professor has been to see me. Came in, glorious, at about twelve o'clock, last night. Said he had been with "the boys." On inquiry, found that "the boys" were certain baldish and grayish old gentlemen that one sees or hears of in various important stations of society. The Professor is one of the same set, but he always talks as if he had been out of college about ten years, whereas….. …. [Each of these dots was a little nod, which the company understood, as the reader will, no doubt.] He calls them sometimes "the boys," and sometimes "the old fellows." Call him by the latter title, and see how he likes it.—Well, he came in last night, glorious, as I was saying. Of course I don't mean vinously exalted; he drinks little wine on such occasions, and is well known to all the Johns and Patricks as the gentleman that always has indefinite quantities of black tea to kill any extra glass of red claret he may have swallowed. But the Professor says he always gets tipsy on old memories at these gatherings. He was, I forget how many years old when he went to the meeting; just turned of twenty now,—he said. He made various youthful proposals to me, including a duet under the landlady's daughter's window. He had just learned a trick, he said, of one of "the boys," of getting a splendid bass out of a door-panel by rubbing it with the palm of his hand,—offered to sing "The sky is bright," accompanying himself on the front-door, if I would go down and help in the chorus. Said there never was such a set of fellows as the old boys of the set he has been with. Judges, mayors, Congress-men, Mr. Speakers, leaders in science, clergymen better than famous, and famous too, poets by the half-dozen, singers with voices like angels, financiers, wits, three of the best laughers in the Commonwealth, engineers, agriculturists,—all forms of talent and knowledge he pretended were represented in that meeting. Then he began to quote Byron about Santa Croce, and maintained that he could "furnish out creation" in all its details from that set of his. He would like to have the whole boodle of them, (I remonstrated against this word, but the Professor said it was a diabolish good word, and he would have no other,) with their wives and children, shipwrecked on a remote island, just to see how splendidly they would reorganize society. They could build a city,—they have done it; make constitutions and laws; establish churches and lyceums; teach and practise the healing art; instruct in every department; found observatories; create commerce and manufactures; write songs and hymns, and sing 'em, and make instruments to accompany the songs with; lastly, publish a journal almost as good as the "Northern Magazine," edited by the Come-outers. There was nothing they were not up to, from a christening to a hanging; the last, to be sure, could never be called for, unless some stranger got in among them.

–—I let the Professor talk as long as he liked; it didn't make much difference to me whether it was all truth, or partly made up of pale Sherry and similar elements. All at once he jumped up and said,—

Don't you want to hear what I just read to the boys?

I have had questions of a similar character asked me before, occasionally. A man of iron mould might perhaps say, No! I am not a man of iron mould, and said that I should be delighted.

The Professor then read—with that slightly sing-song cadence which is observed to be common in poets reading their own verses—the following stanzas; holding them at a focal distance of about two feet and a half, with an occasional movement back or forward for better adjustment, the appearance of which has been likened by some impertinent young folks to that of the act of playing on the trombone. His eyesight was never better; I have his word for it.

MARE RUBRUM

  Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!—    For I would drink to other days;  And brighter shall their memory shine,    Seen flaming through its crimson blaze.  The roses die, the summers fade;    But every ghost of boyhood's dream  By Nature's magic power is laid    To sleep beneath this blood-red stream.  It filled the purple grapes that lay    And drank the splendors of the sun  Where the long summer's cloudless day    Is mirrored in the broad Garonne;  It pictures still the bacchant shapes    That saw their hoarded sunlight shed,—  The maidens dancing on the grapes,—    Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.  Beneath these waves of crimson lie,    In rosy fetters prisoned fast,  Those flitting shapes that never die,    The swift-winged visions of the past.  Kiss but the crystal's mystic rim,    Each shadow rends its flowery chain,  Springs in a bubble from its brim,    And walks the chambers of the brain.  Poor Beauty! time and fortune's wrong    No form nor feature may withstand,—  Thy wrecks are scattered all along,    Like emptied sea-shells on the sand;—  Yet, sprinkled with this blushing rain,    The dust restores each blooming girl,  As if the sea-shells moved again    Their glistening lips of pink and pearl.  Here lies the home of school-boy life,    With creaking stair and wind-swept hall,  And, scarred by many a truant knife,    Our old initials on the wall;  Here rest—their keen vibrations mute—    The shout of voices known so well,  The ringing laugh, the wailing flute,    The chiding of the sharp-tongued bell.  Here, clad in burning robes, are laid    Life's blossomed joys, untimely shed;  And here those cherished forms have strayed    We miss awhile, and call them dead.  What wizard fills the maddening glass?    What soil the enchanted clusters grew,  That buried passions wake and pass    In beaded drops of fiery dew?  Nay, take the cup of blood-red wine,—    Our hearts can boast a warmer glow,  Filled from a vintage more divine,—    Calmed, but not chilled by winter's snow!  To-night the palest wave we sip    Rich as the priceless draught shall be  That wet the bride of Cana's lip,—    The wedding wine of Galilee!

CHILD-LIFE BY THE GANGES

We are told—and, being philosophers, we will amuse ourselves by believing—that there are towns in India, somewhere between Cape Comorin and the Himalayas, wherein everything is butcha,—that is, "a little chap"; where inhabitants and inhabited are alike in the estate of urchins; where little Brahmins extort little offerings from little dupes at the foot of little altars, and ring little bells, and blow little horns, and pound little gongs, and mutter little rigmaroles before stupid little Krishnas and Sivas and Vishnus, doing their little wooden best to look solemn, mounted on little bulls or snakes, under little canopies; where little Brahminee bulls, in all the little insolence of their little sacred privileges, poke their little noses into the little rice-baskets of pious little maidens in little bazaars, and help their little selves to their little hearts' content, without "begging your little pardons," or "by your little leaves"; where dirty little fakirs and yogees hold their dirty little arms above their dirty little heads, until their dirty little muscles are shrunk to dirty little rags, and their dirty little finger-nails grow through the backs of their dirty little hands,—or wear little ten-penny nails thrust through their little tongues till they acquire little chronic impediments in their decidedly dirty little speech,—or, by means of little hooks through the little smalls-of-their-backs, circumgyrate from little churruck-posts for the edification of infatuated little crowds and the honor of horrid little goddesses; where plucky little widows perform their little suttees for defunct little husbands, grilling on little funeral piles; where mangy little Pariah dogs defile the little dinners of little high-caste folks, by stealing hungry little sniffs from sacred little pots; where omnivorous little adjutant-birds gobble up little glass bottles, and bones, and little dead cats, and little old slippers, and bits of little bricks, in front of little shops in little bazaars; where vociferous little circars are driving little bargains with obese little banyans, and consequential little chowkedars—that is, policemen—are bullying inoffensive little poor people, and calling them sooa-logue,—that is, pigs;—where—where, in fine, everything in heathen human-nature happens butcha, and the very fables with which the little story-tellers entertain the little loafers on the corners of the little streets, are full of little giants and little dwarfs. Let us pursue the little idea, and talk butcha to the end of this chapter.

When, in Calcutta, you have smitten the dry rock of your lonely life with the magic rod of connubial love, and that well-spring of pleasure, a new baby, has leaped up in the midst of your wilderness of exile, the demonstration, if any, with which your servants will receive the glad tidings, will depend wholly on the "denomination of the imbecile offspring," as our eleëmosynary widow, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green, would call it. If it happen to be only a girl, there will be a trace of pity in the silent salaam with which the grim durwan salutes you as you roll into your palkee at the gate to proceed to the godowns where they are weighing the saltpetre and the gunny bags. As he touches his forehead with his joined palms, he thinks of the difference that color makes to the babivorous crocodiles of Ganges. Perhaps your gray-beard circar, privileged by virtue of high caste and faithful service, will take upon himself to condole with you: "Khodabund" he will say, "better luck next time; Heaven is not always with one's paternal hopes; let us trust that my lord may live to say it might have been worse; let us pray that the baba's bridal necklace may be as gay as rubies and as light as lilies, and that she may die before her husband."

But if to the existing number of your suntoshums—the jewels that hang on the Mem Sahib's bosom—a man-child is added, ah, then there is merry-making in the verandas, and happy salaaming on the stairs; and in the fulness of his Hindoo Sary-Gampness, which counts the Sahib blessed that hath "his quiver full of sich," he says, Ap-ki kullejee kaisa burri ho-jaga! Khodá rukho ki beebi-ka kullejee bhee itni burri hoga,—Gurreeb-purwan! "How large my lord's liver is about to grow! God grant to the Mem Sahib, my exalted lady, a liver likewise large,—O favored protector of the poor!" The happiness and honors which should follow upon the birth of a male child being figuratively comprehended in that enlargement of the liver whence comes the good digestion for which alone life is worth the living.

Many and grievous perils do environ baby-life by the Ganges,—perils of dry nurses, perils by wolves, perils by crocodiles, perils by the Evil Eye, perils by kidnappers, perils by cobras, perils by devils.

You are living at one of the up-country stations, where the freer air of the jungle imparts to babes and sucklings a voracious appetite. Besides your own dhye, brought from Calcutta, there is not another wet-nurse to be had, for love or money. Immediately Dhye strikes for higher wages. The Baba Sahib, she says, has defiled her rice; yesterday he put his foot into her curry; to-day he washes the monkey's tail in her consecrated lotah. What shall she do? she has lost caste; the presents to the Brahmins, that her reinstatement will cost her, will consume all her earnings from the beginning. Gurreeb-purwan, O munificent and merciful! what shall she do? She strikes for higher wages.—But you are hard-hearted and hard-headed; you will not pay,—by Gunga, not another pice! by Latchtmee, not one cowry more!—Oh, then she will leave; with a heavy heart she will turn her back on the blessed baby; she will pour dust upon her head before the Mem Sahib, at whose door her disgrace shall lie, and she will return to her kindred.—Not she! the durwan, grim and incorruptible, has his orders; she cannot pass the gate. Oho! then immediately she dries up; no "fount," and Baby famishing. You try ass's milk; it does not agree with Baby; besides, it costs a rupee a pint. You try a goat; she does not agree with Baby, for she butts him treacherously, and, leaping over his prostrate body, scampers, like Leigh Hunt's pig in Smithfield Market, up all manner of figurative streets. Then you send for Dhye, and say, "Milk, or I shave your head!" Milk or death! And, lo, a miracle!—the "fount" again!—Baby is saved.

What was, then, the conjuration and the mighty magic? In the folds of her saree the dhye conceals leaves of chambeli, the Indian jessamine, roots of dhallapee, the jungle radish. She chews the chambeli, and hungry Baby, struggling for the "fount," is insulted with apples of Sodom; she swallows a portion of dhallapee, and he is regaled as with the melting melons of Ceylon.

* * * * *

Some fine afternoon your ayah takes your little Johnny to stroll by the river's bank,—to watch the green budgerows, as they glide, pulled by singing dandees (so the boatmen of Ganges are called) up to Patna,—to watch the brown corpses, as they float silently down from Benares. At night the ayah returns, wringing her hands. Where is your merry darling? She knows not. O Khodabund, go ask the evil spirits! O Sahib, go cry unto Gunga,—go accuse the greedy river, and say to the envious waters, "Give back my boy!" She had left him sitting on a stone, she says, counting the sailing corpses, while she went to find him a blue-jay's nest among the rocks; when she returned to the stone,—no Jonnee Sahib! "My golden image, who hath snatched him away? He that skipped and hummed like a singing-top, where is he gone?"—A month after that, your dandees capture a crocodile, and from his heathen maw recover a familiar coral necklace with an inscription on the clasp,—"To Johnny, on his birth-day." A pair of little silver bangles, whose jocund jingling had once been happy household music to some poor Hindoo mother, have kept the necklace company.

* * * * *

Over against the gate of our compound the Baboo's walks are bright with roses, and ixoras, and the creeping nagatallis; the Baboo's park is shady with banians, and fragrant with sandal-trees, and imposing with tall peepuls, and cool with sparkling fountains; and Chinna Tumbe, the Little Brother, the brown apple of the Baboo's eye, plays among the bamboos by the tank, just within the gate, and pelts the gold-fishes with mango-seeds. Presently comes along a pleasant peddler, all the way from Cabool, with a pretty bushy-tailed kitten of Persia in the hollow of his arm, and a cunning little mungooz cracking nuts on his shoulder. A score of tiny silver bells tinkle from a silken cord around Chinna Tumbe's loins, and the silver whistle with which he calls his cockatoos is suspended from his neck by a chain of gold. So the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool greets Chinna Tumbe merrily, saying, "See my pretty kitten, that knows a hundred tricks! and see my brave mungooz, that can kill cobras in fair fight! My Persian kitten for your silver bells, Chinna Tumbe, and my cunning mungooz for your golden chain!" And Chinna Tumbe laughs, and claps his hands, and dances for delight, and all his silver bells jingle gleefully. And the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool says, "Step without the gate, Little Brother, if you would see my pretty kitten play tricks; if you would stroke my cunning mungooz, step without the gate; for I dare not pass within, lest my lord, the Baboo of many lacs, should be angry." So Chinna Tumbe steps out into the road, and the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool sets the Persian kitten on the ground, and rattles off some strange words, that sound very funnily to the Little Brother; and immediately the Persian kitten begins to run round after its bushy tail, faster and faster, faster and faster, a ring of yellow light. And Chinna Tumbe claps his hands, and cries, Wah, wah! and he dances for delight, and all his silver bells jingle gleefully. So the pleasant peddler addresses other strange and funny words to the ring of yellow light, and instantly it stands still, and quivers its bushy tail, and pants. Then the peddler speaks to the cunning mungooz, which immediately leaps to the ground, and sitting quite erect, with its broad tail curled over its back, like a marabout feather, holds its paws together in the quaint manner of a squirrel, and looks attentive. More of the peddler's funny conjuration, and up springs the mungooz into the air, like a Birman's wicker football, and, alighting on the kitten's back, clings close and fast. Away fly kitten and mungooz,—away from the gate,—away from the Baboo's walks, bright with ixoras and creeping nagatallis,—away from the Baboo's park, shady with banians, and fragrant with sandal-trees, and imposing with tall peepuls, and cool with sparkling fountains,—away from the Baboo's home, away from the Baboo's heart, bereft thenceforth forever! For Chinna Tumbe follows fast, crying, Wah, wah! and clapping his hands, and jingling gleefully all his silver bells,—follows across the road, and through the bamboo hedge, and into the darkness and the danger of the jungle; and the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool goes smiling after,—but, as he goes, what is it that he draws from the breast of his dusty coortee? Only a slender, smooth cord, with a slip-knot at the end of it.

Within the twelvemonth, in a stony nullah, hard by a clump of crooked saul-trees, a mile away from the Baboo's gate, some jackals brought to light the bones of a little child; and the deep grave from which they dug them with their sharp, busy claws, bore marks of the mystic pick-axe of Thuggee. But there were no tinkling bells, no chain of gold, no silver whistle; and the cockatoos and the goldfishes knew Chinna Tumbe no more.

When a name was bestowed on the Little Brother, the Brahmins wrote a score of pretty words in rice, and set over each a lamp freshly trimmed, and the name whose light burned brightest, with happy augury, was "Chinna Tumbe." And when they had likewise inscribed the day of his birth, and the name of his natal star, the proud and happy Baboo cried, with a loud voice, three times, "Chinna Tumbe," and all the Brahmins stretched forth their hands and pronounced Asowadam,—benediction. Then they performed arati about the child's head, to avert the Evil Eye, describing mystic circles with lamps of rice-paste set on copper salvers, with many pious incantations. But, spite of all, the Evil Eye overtook Chinna Tumbe, when the pleasant peddler came all the way from Cabool, with his bushy-tailed kitten, and his mungooz cracking nuts.