If it were not for the intense heat, I would agree with Mark Twain that Ceylon is the most beautiful island in the world. Eliminating its temperature, it is Paradise on earth. With it, it is Hell. Colombo is built about several small lakes whose shores are a very jungle of graceful palms and other dense tropical plants. There is a beautiful driveway along the beach which is the promenade for the wealthy of the place and, during the afternoon, one can almost imagine that he is on some fashionable European thoroughfare from the numerous grand carriages and well-groomed horses which pass. Richardson and I swept back and forth on this lengthy boulevard in our rickshaws. We continued into Cinnamon Park, where most of the Europeans live. We had foolishly agreed to pay our rickshaw coolies by the hour. My man became so apparent in his efforts to loaf that I remarked to Richardson that he was the slowest and laziest horse I had ever driven.
"Mister, I'm a man, not a horse," said my coolie angrily and in excellent English, stopping and dropping the shafts of the vehicle.
I never was so startled in my life. This was the first horse that I had ever had speak to me. I had become so accustomed to rickshaw men with whom I could not communicate that this man's clear and to-the-point remark completely confused me for a minute.
"Then you are the poorest man I ever saw," I finally said, "and if you don't show some signs of a horse very soon, you will find yourself out of a job."
My threat to discharge him had no effect in increasing his momentum. Richardson and I dismissed both men, paid them off and returned to town on foot.
After a short trip to Kandy in the interior of Ceylon, we sailed for India. It was a night's journey to the little seaport town of Tuticorin and we took second-class passage.
The two hundred or more naked coolies of the steerage were walking down the pier towards the shore. Richardson and I were following close behind. Presently a man in uniform uttered a shrill call. The two hundred coolies stopped and separated into two columns. The uniformed man beckoned to us to come on. "Gangway for two white men," had evidently been the nature of the call. We were not used to such treatment. We were generally included in those swept aside. We were now in a land where the native, if he doesn't respect the white man, at least pretends that he does. This ceremonious entrance into India struck us as funny and we giggled our way down the double line of salaaming Tamils and Singhalese.
"It's too bad you're not a Christian," remarked a strange and simple looking man as I, smoking a cigarette, was waiting for my train at the Tuticorin station.
"Why?" I asked, blowing a cloud of smoke in his face.
"Just think of all the good you could do while travelling around the world."