Road-repairers of Ceylon. Highway between Colombo and Kandy
The simple formality of signing a promise-to-pay made me a guest. Four white men and as many black leaned their elbows on the unplaned table, awaiting the evening meal. In an adjoining grotto, two natives were stumbling over each other around a kettle and a fire of fagots. Both were clothed in the scantiest of breechclouts. Now and then they squatted on their smoothly polished heels, scratched savagely at some portion of their scrawny bodies, and sprang up again to plunge both hands into the kettle.
In due time the mess grew too hot for stirring. The pair resumed their squat and burst forth in a dreadful chatter of falsetto voices. Then fell ominous silence. Suddenly the cooks dashed into the smoke that veiled the entrance to the cave, and, flinging themselves upon the caldron, dragged it forth into the dining-room. The senior scooped out handfuls of steaming rice and filled our plates. The younger returned to the smoky cavern and laid hold on a smaller pot that contained a curry of chopped fish. Besides these two delicacies, there were bananas in abundance and a chettie of water, brackish, discolored and lukewarm.
Having distributed heavy pewter spoons among the guests, the cooks filled a battered basin with rice and, dropping on their haunches, thrust the food into their mouths with both hands. The blazing fagots turned to dying embers, the wick that floated in a bottle of oil lighted up a bare corner of the table, and the rising moon, falling upon the naked figures, cast weird shadows across the uneven floor.
Almeida took his leave. The dropping of his comb sounded twice or thrice between the dining-room and the street, and the patter of his bare feet mingled with the whisper of the night outside. I laid my head on a hand as a sign of sleepiness, and a cook led the way to the second story and into one of the narrow rooms. It was furnished with three wooden tables of Dachshund legs. From two pegs in the wall hung several diaphanous tropical garments, the property of my unknown roommates. I inquired for my bed; but the cook spoke no English, and I sat down on the nearest table to await a more communicative mortal.
A long hour afterward two white men stumbled up the stairs, the first carrying a candle high above his head. He was lean and sallow, gray-haired and clean shaven, with something in his manner that spoke of better days. His companion was a burly, tow-headed Swede.
“Oho! Ole,” grinned the older man; “here’s a new bunkie. Why don’t you turn in, mate?”
“Haven’t found my bed yet,” I answered.
“Your bed!” cried the newcomer, “Why, damn it, man, you’re sitting on it.”