Continued my friend: “A man is a hardened wretch who will treat his own flesh and blood in that way. And probably all these planters call themselves gentlemen and Christians. The Turkish or oriental harems are places of virtue and honor compared with such a system of lust and injustice carried on, not by heathens, but by educated Englishmen.”
It appeared from this and other remarks, that my American friend had not traveled through India with blinkers on his eyes or cotton in his ears; yet who has not heard of such things?
I could have told him the story of my own life, that, alas! I knew too well; but self respect or prudence or something restrained me.
One day as I was standing beside the captain, looking down upon the lower deck, he asked me if I noticed a man walking there. Said he, “I doubt if you can imagine what his business is.” I replied that I had no idea of it. He said, “It is marrying and selling his wives.” I expressed surprise at that kind of a trade new to me. He continued, “He and a number of men like him go to Europe, get acquainted with some innocent, pretty peasant girl, makes love to her, marries her, and then takes her to Bombay as his wife, where he goes with her to what he calls a hotel, and after getting a big fee from the landlord, deserts her and goes back to marry again and bring out another wife to sell. This is their sole business.” “But,” I inquired, “why don’t you or your company do something to prevent this fraud and crime?” “What can I do?” he replied. “This man buys tickets for himself and wife as passengers, and he returns alone as a passenger. They conduct themselves very properly, so how can I interfere?” “But,” said I, “why don’t the English government in India prevent such outrages on innocent women and punish these degraded wretches of men?” He turned quickly towards me with an inquisitive look, as if he thought me a simpleton, and asked, “Were you born yesterday? Hadn’t you better go home to your mother?” These questions were so abrupt that they nearly knocked me off my pins, and I could only wait in silence for his explanation. He asked, “For whom are these brought out? Not for natives, but for Europeans. Who are the Europeans? Mostly officers of government. Do you suppose they are going to interfere and break up a business that is for their sole pleasure?”
The captain was an old, grey-headed man, and knew the ways of the world and of wicked men, and well acquainted with the seamy sides of life, while I was fresh, very fresh, on my first voyage away from home. I could say nothing, and beside was afraid that he might again suggest that I go back to my mother. I kept silent, except to utter a few denunciative adjectives. I several times noticed the betrayer of innocence and wife-seller along with his companions, from my place on the upper deck. Did I not recall the infamous betrayer of the governess, and did not I remember how I felt when I found that she was mine and not somebody else’s sister, and alas, seduced by my father and by her father? Yet these betrayed innocent women are some mother’s daughters, and may be some one’s sisters. Ye gods! How I hated those men and wished that in some way they could be thrown into the sea, and thus their despicable, villainous traffic be ended with their corrupt lives.
Then my reflections came. What a sin-cursed world this is, I thought. When there is so much sublime beauty in the heavens above us, and in the pure sea around us, and on land, so much in nature to charm the eye and delight the ear, yet one cannot go anywhere, even far away at sea, from the wretched abodes of mankind, without being afflicted with the knowledge of the filthy deeds of men. The earth may be cursed with briars and thorns, and man may have to toil and live by the sweat of his brow, but what is all this compared with the degrading sins of men? What a virtue is the chastity of brutes in comparison to the lusts of those who are said to have been created in the image of God? Blessed is the innocent, ignorant man who knoweth none of these things. Surely, it is folly to be wise when ignorance is bliss. Far better and happier for my heathen villagers to live, and toil, and die in their ignorant simplicity, than to have their souls scarred by the vices and knowledge of a corrupt world and of society.
“And bitter shame hath spoiled the sweet world’s taste, That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.”
As everything comes to an end some time, so did my voyage. The only regret of it was in parting from my American friend, for without him I would have been alone and my trip most monotonous.
CHAPTER XXIX.
I soon found Leadenhall street, and sure enough, the warmest kind of a letter, just as I had expected and was so sure of, bidding me come at once to her home in the country. Delays are dangerous, so I delayed not, and soon the object of my voyage was accomplished. If I were writing a novel, and wished to make it a two or three volumed one, I would enter into the details, but the story I can tell is so simple and well known that it is better to save time, as the captain saved his coal, by not using it.