The tooth of Buddha is kep’ in a temple called Maligawa, or Temple of the Tooth, and I laid out to have a considerable number of emotions as I stood before it. But imagine a tooth bigger than a hull tooth brush! What kind of a mouth must Lord Buddha have had if that wuz a sample of his teeth? Why, his mouth, at the least calculation, must have been as big as a ten-quart pan! Where wuz the beauty and 234 charm of that countenance––that mouth that had spoke such wise words?
I don’t believe it wuz his tooth. I hain’t no idee it wuz. No human bein’ ever had a mouth big enough to hold thirty odd monsters like that, let alone this noble prince, “with godlike face and eyes enwrapped, lost in care for them he knew not, save as fellow lives.” There is a mistake somewhere. There wuz lots of natives round worshippin’ it. But I felt that if Prince Siddartha could speak out of Nirvana he would say:
“Don’t worship that tooth, Josiah Allen’s wife; it hain’t mine nor never wuz; but worship the principles of love and compassion and self-sacrifice I tried to teach to my people.” And almost instinctively I sez, “I will, Prince Siddartha, I will.”
And Josiah sez: “What say, Samantha?” And I sez:
“Let’s go out, Josiah, and see the sacred tree, Bo, that they worship.”
“I’ll go,” sez Josiah, “but you won’t git me to worship no tree, I can tell you that. I’ve cleared off too many acres and chopped and sawed too much cord wood to worship a tree.”
“Did I ask you to, Josiah?” sez I. “It would break my heart to see you bend your knee to any idol. But this is the oldest tree in the world; it is over two thousand years old.”
“Wall, it ort to be cut down, Samantha, if it is that age; it is seasoned and would make crackin’ good lumber.”
Oh, how oncongenial Josiah Allen is by spells; he seemed to be quite a distance off from me as he made them remarks. But Robert Strong and Dorothy shared my feelin’s of reverence for a tree whose mighty branches might have shaded the head of our Lord and whose leaves might have rustled with the wind that swept the brow of Napoleon and Cæsar and Pharo for all I knew. There wuz some natives burnin’ camphor flowers before it and some on ’em had hung up 235 little lamps in its branches. They say that one hundred thousand pilgrims visit it each year. Well, we driv round some, seein’ all the strange, picturesque sights; past tea plantations and a tea factory, the botanical gardens where we driv milds through its beautiful tree shaded avenoos; there are twenty-five thousand kinds of plants here in this garden; some say it is the finest collection in the world. And we driv past some of the native dwellings, and some beautiful villas where Europeans live durin’ the warm season, past the library, a beautiful building standing on pillars on the shores of the lake, and by the Governor’s palace, handsome enough for any king and queen, and we got back to Colombo middlin’ late and tired out. But as tired as Josiah wuz he talked considerable to me about “Bud,” as familiar as if he wuz well acquainted with him, but I sez, “You mean B-u-d-d-h, Josiah.” But I thought to myself as the Chinese have five thousand different names for him one more wouldn’t neither make nor break him.
Well, the next day we embarked for Calcutta. Our steamer stopped two milds off from Madras. The wind was so high we couldn’t get any nearer. None of our party went ashore but Robert Strong. He wuz tied into an arm-chair and swung off by ropes down into a little boat that wuz dashin’ up and down fur below.