MY SERVANT JOHN.
By Archibald Forbes.
Illustrations by Frederic Villiers.
Goa is a forlorn and decayed settlement on the west coast of Hindustan, the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions of the Portuguese in India. Its inhabitants are of the Roman Catholic faith, ever since in the 16th century St. Francis Xavier, the colleague of Loyola in the foundation of the Society of Jesus, baptised the Goanese in a mass. Its once splendid capital is now a miasmatic wreck, its cathedrals and churches are ruined and roofless, and only a few black nuns remain to keep alight the sacred fire before a crumbling altar. Of all European nations the Portuguese have intermingled most freely with the dusky races over which they held dominion, with the curious result that the offspring of the cross is darker in hue than the original coloured population. To-day, the adult males of Goa, such of them as have any enterprise, emigrate into less dull and dead regions of India, and are found everywhere as cooks, ship-stewards, messengers, and in similar menial capacities. They all call themselves Portuguese, and own high-sounding Portuguese surnames. Domingo de Gonsalvez de Soto will cook your curry, and Pedro de Guiterraz is content to act as dry nurse to your wife’s babies. The vice of those dusky noblemen is their addiction to drink.
“JOHN.”
The better sort of these self-expatriated Goanese are eager to serve as travelling servants, and when you have the luck to chance on a reasonably sober fellow, no better servant can be found anywhere. Being a Christian, he has no caste, and has no religious scruples preventing him from wiping your razor after you have shaved, or from eating his dinner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table. In Bombay there is a regular club or society of these Goanese travelling servants, and when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the Peninsular and Oriental mail boat, one of the first things he is advised to do is to send round to the “Goa Club” and desire the secretary to send him a travelling servant. The result is a lottery. The man arrives, mostly a good-looking fellow, tall and slight, of very dark olive complexion, with smooth glossy hair, large soft eyes, and well-cut features. He produces a packet of chafed and dingy testimonials of character from previous employers, all full of commendation, and not one of which is worth the paper it is written on, because the good-natured previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper. If by chance a stern and ruthless person has characterised Bartolomeo de Braganza as drunken, lazy, and dishonest, Bartolomeo, who has learnt to read English, promptly destroys the “chit,” and the stern man’s object is thus frustrated. But you must take the Goa man as he comes, for it is a law of the society that its members are offered in strict succession as available, and that no picking and choosing is to be allowed. When with the Prince of Wales during his tour in India, the man who fell to me, good, steady, honest Francis, was simply a dusky jewel. My comrade, Mr. Henty, the well-known author of so many boys’ books, rather crowed over me because Domingo, his man, seemed more spry and smart than did my Francis. But Francis had often to attend on Henty as well as myself, when Domingo the quick-witted was lying blind drunk at the back of the tent, and once and again I have seen Henty carrying down on his back to the departing train the unconscious servant on whom at the beginning he had congratulated himself.
“THE OLD AMEER.”
In the summer of 1876, Shere Ali, the old Ameer of Afghanistan, took it into his head to pick a quarrel with the Viceroy of British India. Lord Lytton was always spoiling for a fight himself, and thus there was every prospect of a lively little war. If war should occur, it was my duty to be in the thick of it, and I reached Bombay well in time to see the opening of the campaign. Knowing the ropes, within an hour of landing I sent to the “Goa Club” for a servant, begging that, if possible, I might have worthy Francis, who had fully satisfied me during the tour of the Prince. Francis was not available, and there was sent me a tall, prepossessing-looking young man, who presented himself as “John Assissis de Compostella de Crucis,” but was quite content to answer to the name of “John.”