Noon was the appointed time, the Church of Saint Nicholas the place; and in order that I might examine the locality I was about to visit, and which was entirely new to me, I left my quarters soon after our breakfast of rice and curry. It was a truly tropical day; the sea-breeze had not commenced to blow, and the cool land-wind had been fairly done up an hour since. In mercy to the horse and the runner by his side, I ordered the man to drive slowly. The sky seemed hot and coppery—too warm to look blue; and the great orb of light and heat had a sort of lacquered hue that was oppressive in the extreme. Round the great lake, past the dry, stagnant, putrid fort-ditch, to that part of the Black Town known as Sea street. How different from the quiet, broad Dutch streets, or the cool, shady lanes, and their fine old burgher mansions! Here all was dust, and dirt, and heat. A dense crowd of people, of many of the nations of the East, was passing to and fro, not, as with us, along the pavement—for there was no foot-way—but horses, bullocks, carriages, donkeys, and human beings, all hurried along pell-mell: Arabs, Moormen, Chinese, Parawas, Singalese, Kandyans, Malays, Chitties, Parsees, and Bengalis, were jostling each other in strange confusion. I shuddered as I beheld a brace of over-heated bullocks in an empty cart rush madly past me into the midst of a whole host of men, women, and children; but, strange to tell, no one seemed any the worse. There was, to be sure, a little rubbing of shins, and a good deal of Oriental swearing on the occasion, but no more. A vicious horse broke away from his Arab leader, dashed across a narrow street, and down a narrow turning, where women and children seemed to be literally paving the way; the furious animal bounded over and amongst the living pavement, knocking down children of tender years, and scattering elderly females right and left, but still harmlessly. I felt puzzled at this, and concluded that they were “used to it.”
The thronged street, along which I was slowly travelling, appeared to be the only thoroughfare of any length, shape, or breadth. From it diverged, on all sides, hundreds of dwarf carriage-ways—turnings that had been lanes in their younger days. They were like the Maze at Hampton Court—done in mud and masonry. I have often heard of crack skaters cutting out their names upon the frozen Serpentine; and, as I peeped up some of these curious, zigzag places, it seemed as though the builders had been actuated by a similar desire, and had managed to work their names and pedigrees in huts, and verandahs, and dwarf-walls. Into these strange quarters few, if any, Europeans ever care to venture; the sights and the effluvia are such as they prefer avoiding, with the thermometer standing at boiling-point in the sun. Curiosity, however, got the better of my caution; and, descending from my vehicle, I leisurely strolled up one of these densely-packed neighbourhoods, much to the annoyance of my horsekeeper, who tried hard in broken English to dissuade me from the excursion. Whether it be that the native families multiply here more rapidly, in dark and foul places, I know not; but never had I seen so many thrown together in so small a space. Boys and girls abounded in every corner. As I passed up this hot, dusty, crooked lane of huts, the first burst of the cool sea-breeze came up from the beach, glowing with health and life. I looked to see how many doors and windows would be gladly flung open to catch the first of the westerly wind, and chase away the hot, damp, sickly air within; but I looked in vain. Not a door creaked on its rusty hinges, not a window relaxed its close hold of the frame; the glorious light of day was not to be permitted to shine upon the foul walls and floors of those wretched hovels.
There was business, however, going on here and there. The fisher and his boy were patching up an old worm-eaten canoe, ready for the morrow’s toil; another son was hard at work upon the net that lay piled up in the little dirty verandah. Next door was a very small shoe-maker, sharing the little front courtyard with a cooper, who did not appear to be working at anything in particular, but was rather disposed to soliloquise upon buckets and tubs in general, and to envy the hearty meal which a couple of crows were making of a dead rat in the street. Farther on was a larger building, but clearly on its last legs, for it was held up by numberless crutches. It was not considered safe to hold merchandise of any description; and, as the owner did not desire the trouble and expense of pulling it down, he had let it out to a Malay, who allowed strangers to sleep in it on payment of a small nightly fee. As I passed by, a crowd of poor Malabars, just arrived from the opposite coast of India, were haggling for terms for a night’s lodging for the party, and not without sundry misgivings, for some looked wistfully at the tottering walls, and pointed with violent gestures to the many props.
Wending my slow way back towards the main street, I came upon a busy carpenter’s shop—a perfect model of its kind. In this country some carpenters are also carriage-builders, and the place I then stopped to examine was the home of one of these. It was a long, low, rambling shed, such as we might consider good enough to hold cinders or firewood. The leaf-thatched roof had been patched in many places with tattered matting; the crazy posts were undermined by the pigs in the next yard, where they share the dirt and the sun with a heap of wretched children, and a score of starving dogs. Every kind of conveyance that had been invented since the Flood appeared to have a damaged representative in that strange place. Children’s shattered donkey-carriages, spavined old breaks, and rickety tricycles of the Portuguese period; hackeries of the early Malabar dynasty, palanquins of Singalese descent, Dutch governors’ carriages, English gigs—were all pent up, with irrecoverable cart-wheels, distorted carriage-poles, and consumptive springs. Had I possessed any antiquarian experience, I doubt not I should have discovered amongst the mass an Assyrian chariot or two, with a few Delhi howdahs. The master-mind of this coach-factory was a genuine Singalese who, in company with a slender youth, was seated on his haunches upon the ground, chisel in hand, contemplating, but not working at, a felloe for some embryo vehicle. After one or two chips at the round block of wood between his feet, Jusey Appoo paused, arranged the circular comb in his hair, and took another mouthful of betel; then another chip at the wood; and then he rose, sauntered to the door, and looked very hard up the little lane and down it, as though he momentarily expected some dreadful accident to happen to somebody’s carriage in the next street.
Once more in my vehicle, I threaded the entire length of Sea street, with its little dirty shops; the sickly-smelling arrack-taverns; the quaint old Hindu temple, bedecked with flowers and flags inside, and with dirt outside; and the whitewashed Catholic churches. Little bells were tinkling at these churches; huge gongs were booming forth their brazen thunder from the heathen temples; there was a devil-dance in one house to charm away some sickness, and a Jesuit in the next hovel confessing a dying man. There was a chorus of many tiny lungs at a Tamil school, chanting out their daily lessons in dreary verse; and a wilder, older chorus at the arrack-shop just over the way, without any pretence to time or tune. The screams of bullock-drivers; the shouts of horse-keepers; the vociferations of loaded coolies; the screeching of rusty cart-wheels begging to be greased; the din of the discordant checkoo or oil-mill—all blended in one violent storm of sound—made me glad to hasten on my way, and leave the maddening chorus far behind. The open beach, with its tall fringe of graceful cocoa-palms, and its cool breeze, was doubly welcome. I was sorry when we left it, and drove slowly up a steep hill, on the summit of which stood the Church of St. Nicholas—my destination.
A busy scene was there. Long strings of curious-looking vehicles were ranged outside the tall white church—so white and shiny in the sun that the bullocks in the hackeries dared not look up at it. I felt quite strange amongst all the motley throng; and when I stared about and beheld those many carts, and palanquins, and hackeries, I fancied myself back again in Jusey Appoo’s coach-factory. But then these were all gaily painted, and some were actually varnished, and had red staring curtains, and clean white cushions, and radiant little lamps. Nearer the church were some half-a-dozen carriages with horses—poor enough of their kind, but still horses with real tails. I glided in amongst the crowd, unnoticed, as I too fondly believed; and was about to take up a very humble position just inside one of the great folding-doors, when I was accosted by a lofty Singalese in gold buttons and flowing robes, with a gigantic comb in his hair, and politely led away captive, I knew not whither. Down one side-aisle, and across a number of seats, and then up another long aisle; and to my utter discomfiture I found myself installed, on the spot, in the unenviable position of the “lion” of the day’s proceedings. To a person of modest temperament this was a most trying ordeal. There was not another white face there. Cookey had been disappointed, it seemed, in his other patrons, and knowing of my intended visit, had waited for my appearance to capture me, and thus add to the brilliancy of the scene.
I bowed to the bride with as little appearance of uneasiness as I could manage; but when I turned to the bridegroom, I had nearly forgotten my mortification in a burst of laughter. The tall, uncouth fellow had exchanged his wonted not ungraceful drapery for a sort of long frock-coat of blue cloth, thickly bedecked with gay gilt buttons, and sham gold-lace; some kind of a broad belt of a gaudy colour hung across his shoulders; he wore boots, evidently far too short for him, which made him walk in pain; and, to complete the absurdity of his attire, huge glittering rings covered half of his hands. The lady was oppressed with jewellery which, on these occasions, is let out on hire. She seemed unable to bend or turn for the mass of ornaments about her. White satin shoes and silk stockings gave a perfect finish to her bridal attire.
As the party marched up to the priest, I felt as a captive in chains gracing a Roman triumph. No one of all that crowd looked at the bride: they had evidently agreed among themselves to stare only at me. I felt that I was the bride, and the father, and the best man—in fact, everybody of any importance rolled into one. I looked around once; and what a strange scene it was in the long white church! There were hundreds of black faces, all looking one way—at me—but I did not see their faces; I saw only their white eyes glistening in the bright noon-day sun, that came streaming through the great open windows, as though purposely to show me off. I wished it had been midnight. I hoped fervently that some of the hackery bullocks would break loose, and rush into the church, and clear me a way out. I know nothing of how the marriage was performed, or whether it was performed at all; I was thinking too much of making my escape. But in a very short time by the clock, though terrifically long to me, I found myself gracing the Roman triumph on my way out. The fresh air rather recovered me; and what with the drollery of handing the cook’s wife into the cook’s carriage, and the excitement of the busy scene, and the scrambling for hackeries, and the galloping about of unruly bullocks, I felt determined to finish the day’s proceedings. I knew the worst.
I followed the happy couple in my vehicle, succeeded by a long line of miscellaneous conveyances, drawn by all sorts of animals. Away we went at a splitting pace, knocking up the hot dust and knocking down whole regiments of pigs and children, up one hill and down another, as best our animals could carry us. At last there was a halt. I peeped out of my carriage, and found that we were before a gaily decorated and flower-festooned bungalow, of humble build—the house of the conjugal cook. Up drove all the bullock hackeries, and the gigs, and the carts, but no one offered to alight. Suddenly a host of people rushed out of the little house in the greatest possible haste. They brought out a long strip of white cloth, and at once placed it between the bride’s carriage and the house, for her to walk upon. Still there was no move made from any of the carriages, and I began to feel rather warm. At length a native came forward from the verandah, gun in hand, I supposed to give the signal to alight. The man held it at arm’s length, turned away his head—as though admiring some of our carriages—and “snap” went the flint; but in vain. Fresh priming was placed in the pan, the warrior once more admired our carriages, and again the “snap” was impotent. Somebody volunteered a pin for the touch-hole, another suggested more powder to the charge, whilst a third brought out a lighted stick. The pin and the extra charge were duly acted upon. The weapon was grasped, the carriages were admired more ardently than before, the firestick was applied to the priming, and an explosion of undoubted reality followed. The warrior was stretched on his back. Half the hackery bullocks started and plunged out of their trappings, while the other half bolted. To add to the dire confusion, my villainous steed began to back very rapidly towards a steep bank, on the edge of which stood a quiet, old-fashioned pony, in a gig with two spruce natives seated in it. Before they could move away, my horse had backed into the pony chaise, and the last I saw of them at that time was an indistinct and rather mixed view of the two white-robed youths and the old-fashioned pony and chaise performing various somersaults into the grass-swamp at the base of the bank.
Glad to escape from the contemplation of my misdeeds, I followed the bridal party into the little house. Slowly alighting from her vehicle, the lady was received by a host of busy relations, some of whom commenced salaaming to her; some scattered showers of curiously-cut fragments of coloured and gilt paper over her and her better half—probably intended to represent the seeds of their future chequered happiness and troubles; and then, by way of inducing the said seed to germinate, somebody sprinkled over the couple a copious down-pouring of rose-water. The little front verandah of the dwelling was completely hidden beneath a mass of decorations of flowers, fruits, and leaves, giving it at first sight the appearance of a cross between a fairy-bower and a Covent Garden fruit-stall. The living, dark stream poured into the fairy bower, and rather threatened the floral arrangements outside; the door-way was quickly jammed up with the cook’s nearest and dearest relatives of both sexes; while the second cousins and half-uncles and aunts blocked up the little trap-door of a window with their grizzly, grinning visages. The room we were in was not many feet square—calculated to hold, perhaps, a dozen persons in ordinary comfort; but, on this occasion, compelled to welcome within its festive mud-walls at least forty. A small oval table was in the centre, a dozen or so of curiously-shaped chairs were ranged about the sides, in the largest of which the bride was seated. The poor creature was evidently but ill at ease—so stiff and heavily-laden with ornaments. The bridegroom was invisible, and I felt bound to wait upon the lady in his absence. The little darkened cell was becoming fearfully hot; indistinct ideas of the Black Hole of Calcutta rose to my heated imagination. A feverish feeling crept over me, not a little enhanced by the Oriental odours from things and persons about me. The breeze, when it did manage to squeeze itself in, brought with it the sickly perfume of the myriads of flowers and leaves outside. Upon the whole, the half hour or so which elapsed between our arrival and the repast, was a period of intense misery to me, and vast enjoyment to the cook’s family circle. There was nothing to while away the hot minutes. I had to look alternately at the bride, the company, and the ceiling; the company stared at myself and the lady; while she, in her turn, looked at the floor hard enough to penetrate through the bricks to the foundation below. In the first instance I had foolishly pictured the breakfast, or whatever the meal was to be, set forth upon some grassy spot in the rear of the premises, under the pleasant shade of palms and mangoe trees.