A Yankee in the Far East Part 16

I plead guilty to the dove picture--it's on our mantle at home--had it taken to please my wife, who was with me on that trip.

The great satisfaction I take in that picture is its proof of my self-sacrificing nature.

Having visited Venice several times before I took my wife there, I knew all about that "picture-with-the-doves" game.

Just before the photograph fiend in Venice, who will photograph an American with the doves for $2.00, an Englishman for $1.00, and a German for 20 cents, made his exposure, I bought my wife a cornucopia of corn that venders sell for a cent, with which to feed the doves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Would be like going to Venice and not having your picture taken with the doves roosting all over you]

The woman in the picture behind the cloud of doves is my wife. The man at her side, minus any doves on him to mar his seraphic smile, is myself.

The photograph of me at the pyramids, taken on a former trip, would be a pretty good picture of me, too, if my natural modesty hadn't got the better of me, which modesty prompted me to get behind the pyramid when the photographer made his exposure.

This photographer is on the ground and does a rus.h.i.+ng business photographing globe trotters at the pyramids. The pyramid being betwixt me and the camera made a failure of the picture so far as being a good one of me is concerned; but I'm ready to bet good money that I'm the only world tourist who can show a photograph of Cheops without a globe-trotter in the foreground. It's a good photograph of the pyramid.

But really one shouldn't leave Rangoon without seeing the elephants work the teak logs.

The human intelligence of the animals, coupled with their great strength as they push the logs into place, accurately measure distances, walk back and forth to study the problem of how best to place a log, and then roll and put it into place, is one of the sights worth seeing in Rangoon; which, in itself, is a town worth seeing.

A city well laid out with wide streets running at right angles, extending several miles along the river front, and a mile inland.

Many beautiful lakes are in the suburbs, and tropical parks abound: and it is the third city in British India.

It's an old, old town. Its chief attraction to draw visitors from the ends of the earth is the great Shwe Dagon PaG.o.da, the oldest Buddhist temple in the world, the foundation of which was laid 588 B. C.

And Rangoon has trolley cars and water-works, and electric lights, and an ice plant.

And ice is a precious commodity in Rangoon. In fact, ice is a precious commodity in any Oriental city excepting Manila.

In Manila they have caught onto the idea that ice is not a deadly poison or precious stones.

I attribute it to the influence of the white Filipinos living there, who are wonderfully like Americans in taste, habits and general all-around desirableness.

Ask for a gla.s.s of ice-water at a hotel in Rangoon, or Hong Kong, or Pekin, or Yokohama, or Calcutta, or Bombay and watch what happens.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The only thing of note in the whole transaction is the boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty]

Your table boy will bring you a high gla.s.s of tepid water and drop a piece of ice in it as big as a hickory-nut, and the only thing in the whole transaction worthy of note is the boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty.

I have demoralized the whole running-gear of the best hotel in Rangoon--I'll be known among the hotel fraternity of Rangoon in future as the "ice man" who visited the town in 1914.

Becoming weary of watching that little nugget of ice in a large gla.s.s of tepid water, doing its best to chill the water as it rapidly diminished to the size of a two-carat diamond, finally to dissolve entirely in an heroic effort to make good, I called the table boy to me and ordered him to empty the gla.s.s and bring me the several receptacles in the dining room that held ice for all the guests.

Fis.h.i.+ng enough nuggets from the lot to pack the gla.s.s full of ice, I ordered it filled with water--looked up at the boy and said: "Savvy?

Ice-water!"

I leave town today for Calcutta--that gla.s.s of ice water has jarred Rangoon.

XXV

THE CALCUTTA SACRED BULL AND HIS TWISTED TAIL

Did one of your old readers, kind friend (I think it was McGuffy's Second) way back in childhood days have a little poem in it all about a lot of little girls playing a wis.h.i.+ng game? It's over forty years ago that I read that little poem, and I can only remember one little girl's wish.

She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's sparkling waves to sail, a flying fish, that's what I wish, 'mid Neptune's blue to lave my tail."

Not having read that little poem for over forty years, and not having the book with me out here in Calcutta, I may not have quoted the lines verbatim, but as near as I can recall it, that's what she said.

That little girl didn't know what she was wis.h.i.+ng for or she'd sooner have wished to be a devil bug.

The flying fish has got that old saying, "Between the devil and the deep sea," beaten to a frazzle.

The life of a flying fish may look all right to the unsophisticated, but things are rarely what they seem, and a flying fish's life is a hard lot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's sparkling waves to sail"]

Chased up out of the water to escape the jaws of some horrid sea monster seeking to make a meal off it, it spreads its silvery wings o'er "ocean's sparkling waves," when a seagull comes along, and--good-bye little flying fish.

Now if I'd been one of those little girls playing that wis.h.i.+ng game and had known as much as I know now, I'd have wished to be a sacred bull here in Calcutta.

That's one fine job--the life of a Calcutta sacred bull.

I stepped out of my hotel today onto one of Calcutta's best streets, with a pavement twenty feet wide, filled with pedestrians, lined with splendid shops.

Calcutta is a town of one million inhabitants and is the second city in size in the British Empire.

Just at the side of the entrance to a fine jewelry store lay a great big fat and glossy sacred bull, with a garland of roses round his neck, placed there by some devout Hindu.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Twist his tail," I said, "that will start him"]

The natives would stop and fondle and brush the flies off him.

Stopping to look at the novel sight, and giving the fine old fellow a few gentle strokes, I turned to my guide and asked him to tell the natives who had stopped to witness the foreigner's interest, to make the bull get up. I wanted to see what he would do.

A native pushed him in the flank and ribs, but Mr. Bull only smiled, and as plain as words his actions said, "No, thanks, I'm perfectly comfortable here."

"Twist his tail," I said; "that will start him."

The native gave his tail one twist. The bull looked around with a surprised air and anyone could see that he said, "That's a new kind of a caress," but he didn't get up.

"Twist it harder," I said.

Three turns of the tail brought him to his feet, and he walked leisurely along the crowded thoroughfare, perfectly at home, wearing his garland of roses as naturally as a girl would wear a string of beads, receiving a gentle pat from the native pa.s.sersby--even an English girl put out her hand and gave him a stroke in pa.s.sing.

He was a great big, glossy, docile pet, expecting and getting a wealth of love.

I am told that when he is hungry he goes to a green grocer's store and makes a meal off the grocer's cabbage, with no protest from the grocer, after which he goes to a confectioner's shop for a dessert--and gets it.