Ye who would realise the vision of the wise, respecting savage happiness and nomadic innocence—a sweet hallucination, which hitherto you have considered the wildest dream that ever issued from the Ivory Gate—go, find it in the remote corners of Toda land, the fertile, the salubrious. See Hylobius, that burly barbarian—robust in frame, blessed with the best of health, and gifted with a mind that knows but one idea—how to be happy—sunning himself, whilst his buffaloes graze upon the hill side, or wandering listlessly through the mazy forest, or enjoying his rude meal of milk and rice, or affording himself the lazy luxury of squatting away the rainy hours round his primitive hearth. What care has he for to-day: what thought of to-morrow? He has food in abundance: his and his brothers’ common spouse and dubious children, make up, strange yet true, a united family; he is conscious of his own superiority, he claims and enjoys the respect of all around him. The use of arms he knows not: his convenient superstition tends only to increase his comforts here below, and finally, when Hylobius departs this transitory life, whatever others may think of his prospects, he steps fearlessly into the spirit-world, persuaded that he and his buffaloes are about to find a better climate, brighter scenes, and broader grass lands—in a word, to enjoy the fullest felicity. Contrast with this same Toda in his rude log hut amidst the giant trees, the European pater-familias, in his luxurious, artificial, unhappy civilized home!
But has not your picture of savage felicity its reverse?
Yes, especially when uncivilized comes into contact with semi-civilized or civilized life. Our poor barbarians led the life of hunted beasts, when Tippoo Sultan, incensed with them for being magicians and anxious to secure their brass bracelets, which he supposed were gold, sent his myrmidons into their peaceful hills. They are now in even a worse state.[200] The “noble unsophisticated Todas,” as they were once called, have been morally ruined by collision with Europeans and their dissolute attendants. They have lost their honesty: truth is become almost unknown to them; chastity, sobriety, and temperance, fell flat before the strong temptations of rupees, foreign luxuries, and ardent spirits. Covetousness is now the mountaineer’s ruling passion: the Toda is an inveterate, indefatigable beggar, whose cry, Eenam Kuroo, “give me a present!” no matter what,—money, brandy, cigars, or snuff—will follow you for miles over hill and dale: as a pickpocket, he displays considerable ingenuity; and no Moses or Levi was ever a more confirmed, determined, grasping, usurer. His wife and daughters have become vile as the very refuse of the bazaar. And what can he show in return for the loss of his innocence and happiness? True, he is no longer pursued by Tippoo, or the neighbouring Polygars: but he is persecuted by growing wants, and a covetousness which knows no bounds. He will not derive any benefit from education, nor will he give ear to a stranger’s creed. From the slow but sure effects of strange diseases, the race is rapidly deteriorating[201]—few of the giant figures that abound in the remote hills, are to be found near our cantonments—and it is more than probable that, like other wild tribes, which the progress of civilization has swept away from the face of the earth, the Toda will, ere long, cease to have “a local habitation and a name” among the people of the East.
CHAPTER XIX.
KOTAGHERRY.—ADIEU TO THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.
What a detestable place this Ootacamund is during the rains!
From morning to night, and from night to morning, gigantic piles of heavy wet clouds, which look as if the aerial sprites were amusing themselves by heaping misty black Pelions upon thundering purple Ossas, rise up slowly from the direction of the much-vexed Koondahs; each, as it impinges against the west flank of the giant Dodatetta, drenching us with one of those outpourings that resemble nothing but a vast aggregation of the biggest and highest Douche baths. In the interim, a gentle drizzle, now deepening into a shower, now driven into sleet, descends with vexatious perseverance. When there is no drizzle there is a Scotch mist: when the mist clears away, it is succeeded by a London fog. The sun, “shorn of his rays,” spitefully diffuses throughout the atmosphere a muggy warmth, the very reverse of genial. Conceive the effects of such weather upon the land in general, and the mind of man in particular! The surface of the mountains, for the most part, is a rich and reddish mould, easily and yet permanently affected by the least possible quantity of water. Thus the country becomes impassable, the cantonment dirty, every place wretched, every one miserable.
All the visitors have returned to the plains, all the invalids that can afford themselves the luxury, have escaped to Coonoor or Kotagherry. You feel that if you remain at Ootacamund—the affectionate “Ooty” somehow or other now sticks in your throat—you must be contented to sit between the horns of a fierce dilemma. If you stay at home you lose all the pleasure of life: if you do not, still you lose all the pleasure of life. In the former case your eyes[202] will suffer, your digestion become impaired, your imagination fall into a hypochondriacal state, and thus you expose yourself to that earthly pandemonium, the Anglo-Indian sick bed. But should you, on the contrary, quit the house, what is the result? The roads and paths not being covered with gravel, are as slippery as a mât de cocagne at a French fair; at every one hundred yards your nag kneels down, or diverts himself by reclining upon his side, with your leg between him and the mud. If you walk you are equally miserable. When you cannot find a companion you sigh for one; when you can, you probably discover that he is haunted by a legion of blue devils even more furious than those that have assailed you.
It is impossible! Let us make up a party—a bachelor party—and hire a bungalow for a month or two at Kotagherry. We do not belong to the tribe of “delicate invalids,” nor are our “complaints liable to be aggravated by internal congestions;” therefore we will go there as visitors, not valetudinarians.