From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

NATIVE HUT.

(Among banana and coco-palms.)

From the top of the rock one gets a good view of the tank which supplies irrigation water for the town and neighborhood. It is about three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile broad, and forms a pretty little lake, over which kites hover and kingfishers skim, and in which the people daily bathe. These tanks and irrigation channels are matters of the utmost importance, to which I think Government can hardly give too much attention. Their importance was well understood in past times, as indeed the remains and ruins of immense works of this kind, over a thousand years old, in various parts of the island fully testify. A little is being done towards their renewal and restoration, but the tendency to-day is to neglect the interests of the rice-growing peasant in favor of the tea-planting Englishman. The paddy tax, which presses very hardly on the almost starving cultivator, while tea goes scot-free, is an instance of this. Tea, which is an export and a luxury, and which enriches the few, is thought to be so much more important than an article which is grown for home consumption and for the needs of the many. It is of course only an instance of the general commercial policy of all modern Governments; but one cannot the less for that think it a mistake, and an attempt to make the pyramid of social prosperity stand upon its apex. There is something curious—and indeed is it not self-contradictory?—in the fact that every country of the civilized world studies above all things the increase of its exports—is engaged, not in producing things primarily for its own use, but in trying to get other people to buy what it produces!—as if we all stood round and tried to shuffle off our bad wares on the others, in the hope that they by some accident might return us good stuff in exchange. Somehow the system does not seem as if it would work; it looks too like the case of that island where the inhabitants all earned a precarious living by taking in each other’s washing. What, one may ask, is really the cause of the enormous growth of this practice of neglecting production for use in favor of production for export and for the market? Is it not simply money and the merchant interest? Production at home by the population and for its own use is and always must be, one would think, by far the most important for the population and for its own comfort and welfare, though a margin may of course be allowed for the acquirement by exchange of some few articles which cannot be grown at home. But production such as this does not necessarily mean either money or mercantile transaction. Conceivably it may very well take place without either these or the gains which flow from their use—without profits or interest or dividends or anything of the kind. But this would never do! The money and commercial interest, which is now by far the most powerful interest in all modern states, is not such a fool as to favor a system of national economy which would be its own ruin. No; it must encourage trade in every way, at all costs. Trade, commerce, exchange, exports and imports—these are the things which bring dividends and interest, which fill the pockets of the parasites at the expense of the people; and so the nations stand round, obedient, and carry on the futile game till further orders.

As a matter of fact in these hot countries, like Ceylon and India, almost unlimited results of productiveness can be got by perfected irrigation, and as long as the peasantry in these lands are (as they are) practically starving, and the irrigation works practically neglected, the responsibility for such a state of affairs must lie with the rulers; and naturally no mere shuffling of commercial cards, or encouragement of an export trade which brings fortunes into the hands of a few tea-planters and merchants, can be expected to make things better.

It is sad to see the thin and famished mortals who come in here from the country districts round to beg. Many of them, especially the younger ones, have their limbs badly ulcerated. One day, going through the hospital, the doctor—a Eurasian—took me through a ward full of such cases. He said that they mostly soon got better with the better hospital diet; “but,” he added, “when they get back to their old conditions they are soon as bad as ever.” In fact the mass of the population in a place like Colombo looks far sleeker and better off than in these country districts; but that only affords another instance of how the modern policy encourages the shifty and crafty onhanger of commercial life at the cost of the sturdy agriculturist—and I need not say that the case is the same at home as abroad.

It is quite a pretty sight to see the bathing in the tanks. It takes place in the early morning, and indeed during most of the day. Cleanliness is a religious observance, and engrained in the habits of the people. Of course there are exceptions, but save among the lowest castes this is the rule. An orthodox Hindu is expected not only to wash himself, but his own cloth, at least once a day. The climate makes bathing a pleasure, and the people linger over it. Men and boys, women and children, together or in groups not far distant from each other, revel and splash in the cool liquid; their colored wraps are rinsed and spread to dry on the banks, their brass pots glance in the sun as they dip the water with them and pour it over their own heads, their long black hair streams down their backs. Then, leaving the water, they pluck a twig from a certain tree, and, squatting on their hams, with the frayed twig-end rub their teeth and talk over the scandal of the day. This tooth-cleaning gossiping business lasts till they are dry, and often a good deal longer, and is, I fancy, one of the most enjoyable parts of the day to the mild oyster. In unsophisticated places there is no distinction of classes in this process, and rich and poor join in the public bathing alike—in fact there is very little difference in their dress and habits anyhow, as far as regards wealth and poverty—but of course where Western ideas are penetrating, the well-to-do natives adopt our habits and conduct their bathing discreetly at home.

The people never (except it be children) go into the water quite naked, and the women always retain one of their wraps wound round the body. These wraps are very long, and the skill with which they manage to wash first one end and then the other, winding and unwinding, and remaining decorously covered all the time, is quite admirable. I am struck by the gravity and decorum of the people generally—in outer behavior or gesture—though their language (among the lower castes) is by no means always select! But there is none, or very little, of that banter between the sexes which is common among the Western populations, and even among the boys and youths you see next to no frolicking or bear-fighting. I suppose it is part of the passivity and want of animal spirits which characterise the Hindu; and of course the sentiment of the relation between the sexes is different in some degree from what it is with us. On sexual matters generally, as far as I can make out, the tendency, even among the higher castes, is to be outspoken, and there is little of that prudery which among us is only after all a modern growth.

NATIVE STREET, AND SHOPS.

The town here is a queer mixture of primitive life with modern institutions. There are two or three little streets of booths, which constitute the “bazaar.” Walking down these—where behind baskets of wares the interiors of the dwellings are often visible, and the processes of life are naïvely exposed to the eye—one may judge for one’s self how little man wants here below. Here is a fruit and vegetable shop, with huge bunches of plantains or bananas, a hundred in a bunch, and selling at five or six a penny; of a morning you may see the peasant coming in along the road carrying two such bunches—a good load—slung one at each end of a long pole, or pingo, over his shoulder—a similar figure to that which is so frequent on the Egyptian monuments of 3,000 years ago; pineapples, from 1d. up to 4d. each for the very finest; the breadfruit, and its queer relation the enormous jack-fruit, weighing often as much as 12 to 14 lbs., with its pulpy and not very palatable interior, used so much by the people, growing high up over their cabins on the handsome jack-tree, and threatening you with instant dissolution if it descend upon your head; the egg-plant, murngal, beans, potatos, and other vegetables; and plentiful ready-prepared packets of areca nut and betel leaf for chewing. Then there is a shop where they sell spices, peppers, chilis, and all such condiments for curries, not to mention baskets of dried fish (also for currying), which stink horribly and constitute one of the chief drawbacks of the bazaars; and an earthenware shop,—and I must not forget the opium shop. Besides these there are only two others—and they represent Manchester and Birmingham respectively—one where they sell shoddy and much-sized cotton goods, and the other which displays tin ware, soap, matches, paraffin lamps, dinner knives, and all sorts of damnable cutlery. I have seen these knives and scissors, or such as these (made only to deceive), being manufactured in the dens of Sheffield by boys and girls slaving in dust and dirt, breathing out their lives in foul air under the gaslights, hounded on by mean taskmasters and by the fear of imminent starvation. Dear children! if you could only come out here yourselves, instead of sending the abominable work of your hands—come out here to enjoy this glorious sunshine, and fraternise, as I know many of you would, with the despised darkie!