Singhalese infants are very sturdy during the first years.
The yogi who ate twenty-eight of the bananas at a sitting.
Of all the throng, I alone was shod. I dropped my slippers at the landing, and, half expecting a stern command to remove my socks, advanced into the brighter light of the interior. A whisper rose beside me and swelled in volume as it passed quickly from mouth to mouth:—“Sahib! sahib!” I had dreaded lest my coming should precipitate a riot, but Buddha himself, arriving thus unannounced, could not have won more boisterous welcome. The worshipers swept down upon me, shrieking their hospitality. Several thrust into my hands newly purchased blossoms, another—strange action, it seemed then, in a house of worship—pressed upon me a badly-rolled cigar of native make; from every side came candles and matches. At the tinkle of a far-off bell the natives fell back, leaving a lane for our passing. Two saffron-robed priests, smiling and salaaming at every step, advanced to meet me and led the way to a balcony overlooking the lake.
In the semi-darkness of a corner squatted, in scanty breechclouts and ample turbans, three natives,—low-caste coolies, no doubt, to whom fell the menial tasks within the temple inclosure; for before each sat what appeared to be a large basket. I took station near them with my attendant priests, and awaited “the service very important.”
Suddenly the cornered trio, each grasping in either hand a weapon reminiscent of a footpad’s billy, stretched their hands high above their heads and brought them down with a crash that would have startled a less phlegmatic sahib out of all sanity. What I had taken for baskets were tom-toms! Without losing a single beat, the drummers began, with the third or fourth stroke, to blow lustily on long pipes from which issued a plaintive wailing. I spoke no more with my interpreter. For the “musicians,” having pressed into service every soundwave lingering in the vicinity, monopolized them during the ensuing two hours. Two simple rules govern the production of Singhalese music: first, make as much noise as possible all the time; second, to heighten the effect, make more.
Puffing serenely at my stogie, I marched with the officiating monks, who had given me place of honor in their ranks, from one shrine to another. Behind us surged a murmuring, self-prostrating multitude. No one sat during the service, and there was nothing resembling a sermon. The priests addressed themselves only to the dreamy-eyed Buddhas, and craved boons or chanted their gratitude for former favors in a rising and falling monotone in which I caught, now and then, the rhythm and rhyme of poetry.
It was late when the service ended. The boiler-factory music ceased as suddenly as it had begun, the worshipers poured forth into the soft night, and I was left alone with my guides and a dozen priests.
“See,” whispered the intermittent Christian. “You are honored. The head man of the temple comes.”