There was much of savage African rhythm in these boat-songs, and instead of the drum of the Zulus came the regular thump-thump, thump-thump, of paddles on the thwarts. They were paddling slowly, weary and tired after a long day of portaging, passing with the tide down to Bartica. Then on to a short, exciting period of affluence in Georgetown, after which they would return for another six months in the gold bush. They were realizing their little El Dorados in these very waters more successfully than Sir Walter Raleigh was able to do.
I have said that the wonder windows would take one to the Far East; and hardly had the gold-boat passed out of hearing when the never-to-be-forgotten beat-beat-beat-beat of a tom-tom rose without hint or introduction, and straightway the cecropias became deodars and the palms dwarfed to pîpuls and sal, and the smells of the Calcutta bazaars and the dust of Agra caravans lived again in that sound.
A voice in soft Hindustani tones was heard below—the low, inarticulate phrases framing themselves into a gentle honk-honka, honk, honk-honka. Then, still out of sight, came a voice on the stairway: "Salaam, sahib, will sahib come see dance and see wedding?"
The sahib would; and I followed the wavering lantern of the bride's father down the steep, rocky path which, at the water's edge, turned toward the half-dozen huts of the East Indians.
For a week the coolie women had done no work in the fields, but had spent much of their time squatted in chanting circles. I learned that a marriage was to take place, and, to my surprise, the bride proved to be Budhany, the little child who brought us milk each day from the only cow south of the Mazaruni. Another day, as I passed to the tent-boat, I saw the groom, naked save for his breech-clout, looking very foolish and unhappy, seated on a box in the center of the one short street, and surrounded by six or eight women, all who could reach him rigorously slapping him and rubbing him with oil from head to foot. Every evening, to the dull monotone of a tom-tom, the shrill voices of the women were carried up to Kalacoon; but tonight a louder, more sonorous drum was audible and the moaning whine of a short, misshapen Hindi violin.
Amid a murmur of salaams we seated ourselves on grocery boxes while the audience ranged itself behind. In the flickering light of torches I recognized my friends one by one. There was Guiadeen who had brought in the first ant-eater; he seated us. Then Persaïd of the prominent teeth, who had tried to cheat me of a sixpence already paid for a mouse-opossum with her young. Persaïd gave us only a hasty salaam, for he was a very busy and fussy master of ceremonies. From behind came the constant droning chant of the priest, lingeringly reading from a tattered Pali volume, an oil torch dripping close to his white turban. His voice was cracked, but his intonation was careful and his words well articulated. The day before we had greeted him and chaffingly admonished him to marry them well.
"God only could promise that," he had replied with a quick smile.
Others of the little village I knew: Rahim the milkman, and Mahabol, with the head and beard of a Sikh on the legs of a Bengalee, and a thin Bengalee at that. The audience which pressed close behind, looked and smelled Calcutta and Darjeeling, and a homesickness which was pain came over me, to be once more among the great Himalayas. The flickering torch showed all my retinue threaded along the outer rim of onlookers; my following who formed a veritable racial tower of Babel. There was Nupee the Akawai, and Vingi the Machusi and Semmi the Wapiano—red Indians from forest and savannah. Near them the broad, black African face of little Mame, all eyes and mouth in the dim light. Then de Freitas the Portuguese, and all the others of less certain lineage.
Meanwhile Persaïd had brought forth an oily, vile-smelling liquid with which he coated a square yard of earth, and then with pounded maize and rice he marked out a mystic figure—two squares and diagonals. As the ceremony went on I lost much of the significance, and the coolies themselves seemed very vague. They were all of low caste and preserved more of the form than knowledge of the intricate rites.
We were at the groom's end of the absurd street, and before long Madhoo himself appeared and was led a few steps away by his female tormentors. This time they scrubbed and washed and rinsed him with water, and then dressed him in a soft white waist-cloth draped coolie-wise. Then a long tight-sleeved pink dress was pulled with much difficulty over his head. Madhoo now looked like a woman dressed in a fashion long extinct. Next, a pink turban was wound wonderfully about his head and he was led to one side of the rice figure, where he sat down on a low stool.