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XVIII
SINGAPORE – THE HUMORIST'S CLOSE CALL
There are more different ways of getting in bad than there are to keep out of trouble – a lot more. Indeed, straight and narrow is the road. But there are lots of by-ways leading off from the safe and beaten path, from which one's feet should never stray. In going around the world one can't keep too sharp a lookout for the prescribed highway.
This homely, safe and sane reasoning comes to me with force as I sadly pen these lines here in Singapore, having turned off on a side street that looked all right when I swerved —i. e., I knew it wasn't exactly the middle of the road, but I took a chance, because it looked inviting and I felt sure I could see my way back to the main line.
Leaving the Philippine Islands for Hong Kong, and taking a ship from there to Singapore is only a detail of my present perturbation.
That Hong Kong was an infected port, Black Plague being prevalent, is largely to blame.
I'd be easy in my mind this minute if Hong Kong had not been an infected port. Anyway, if my feet had slipped it would have been on a different orange peel or banana skin.
Singapore has very stringent health regulations against passengers arriving from Hong Kong.
To get into Singapore, to land at the port, one must sign what is called an "Undertaking"; the same being an agreement that if you stay in the town over twenty-four hours you agree to report at the health office in Singapore at 3 P. M. every day. Failing to do this, the penalty is arrest and a fine of $500.00.
The exact minute at which you must report is prescribed – 3 P. M. There is no leeway given, as, between the hours of two and three, or three and four.
If you hail from Hong Kong you may land at Singapore, and stay there more than twenty-four hours if you sign an agreement that you will report at the health office at 3 P. M. sharp, daily. Failing this, to the dungeon and $500.00, please.
My only object in coming to Singapore is to tranship for Rangoon; and, as we sailed up to quarantine at 8 this morning, we passed my ship laying at anchor, scheduled to sail for Rangoon at 5 P. M. today.
A row of "undesirables" from Hong Kong for Singapore ranged up in the dining saloon before an austere and awful health official, and were put through the thirty-second degree – it was a meek and patient lot of lambs that passed before the throne of his majesty.
When it came my turn, with my eye on the ship that was going to bear me hence from Singapore, as the gruelling questions were put to me, I told the official I was going to shake Singapore at 5 P. M. today.
Now it will be necessary for you to know the English better than perhaps you do, indeed, even with this increased knowledge you'll still be short unless you know the Singapore English, and, even with that knowledge, you won't be fully enlightened unless you've come in contact with the Singapore English official, to realize what a regular Daniel in the lion's den I was to tell that being that I proposed to "shake" Singapore.
Shake Singapore!
Ye gods!
Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the town! A Yankee at that, and from Hong Kong to boot!
A Singapore Englishman feels about Hong Kong, even when not infected, as a St. Paul man used to feel about Minneapolis before Minneapolis put it out of the running.
That Rangoon steamer was due to sail at 5 P. M. this very day, or I wouldn't have dared.
A laugh went down the line of crushed candidates for landing at the heavenly port of Singapore, which helped me to bear the jove-like frown of the official – it helped a lot. It egged me on to further deeds of daring; for when he handed me a duplicate of the undertaking I had signed, to remind me of what I was up against if I didn't report to him at 3 sharp the following day, if I was still in town, with the remark: "Right-o, see that you report at the health office daily at 3 P. M. every day you're in town after today" – with my eye on that ship for Rangoon I came back with: "Right-o, if I don't shake Singapore today you'll find me on the stoop of your office daily at 2:59, so you can feel my pulse and look at my tongue. But, oh man, my only object in coming to Singapore at all is to get out of it. Wouldn't have come to Singapore if there had been a way around it. I don't like Singapore. I think it a measly town. I like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a nice town. It's got Singapore beaten forty ways" – and it made a hit with the crowd, and I swelled out my chest and swaggered away, and thought I was funny.
Now word has just come to me that my ship won't sail today. Owing to unforeseen delays, she won't sail till tomorrow at 5 P. M., and it's the ship's delay, and "the haughtiness of office" for me. I feel just like the melancholy Dane in his famous soliloquy.
I'm in the same fix another fellow was, who thought he would be funny. He was standing on the rear platform of a train that was just pulling out from a town in Illinois, noted for its blood-thirsty, scrappy natives. The train was getting under good headway when this "humorist" thought it would be funny to shake his fist at one of the natives standing along the line, a great big especially vicious-looking citizen, and to promise him one good thrashing the next time he (the humorist) came that way.
Just then the train stopped and backed down to the station onto a siding.
With a blood-curdling whoop that native jumped aboard the train.
The humorist, who was wearing a wide-brimmed, conspicuous sombrero, ducked into the car, and espying an English tourist dozing and wearing a modest little derby, the "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place, and sat down two seats back and was nonchalantly looking out of the window as the native raged into the car looking for blood and that fellow with a hat.
There was no mistaking the hat; he spotted his man and was going to eat him alive.
The poor bewildered English tourist didn't know what it was all about. But that didn't go – nothing but blood would answer. It was looking dark for the bewildered Englishman when the rear platform orator stepped up and pacified the native by telling him that the gentleman didn't mean anything – that he wasn't quite right in his head, and in that way blood was averted.
The native got off; the train pulled out, this time for good. After it was fully forty miles from that station, and going sixty miles an hour, the owner of the sombrero stepped across the aisle, and, addressing the bewildered passenger, said: "Excuse me, sir, but I believe you are wearing my hat." B. p. reached for the hat on his head, saw it wasn't his (it was an afternoon of surprises), and handed it to the rightful owner, and, as he was a perfect gentleman, he thanked the man again for his presence of mind in saving him from a beating up. The rear platform humorist, orator, funny man, begged him not to mention it, and the incident was closed.
The funny man left the train at Milwaukee at supper time. The bewildered passenger stayed on and sat all night in a brown study – seemed to be trying to solve something. He reached St. Paul in the morning at sun-up, and with the coming of a new day, light dawned and he jumped up, shook his fist in the direction of Milwaukee, and said: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice, when I should 'ave punched his 'ead!"
Well, it's 7 P. M. I should have been two hours on my way to Rangoon. I'll drop this letter in the mail to catch the P. & O. going west, eat my dinner, and retire and get a good night's sleep; and after breakfast tomorrow I'll think till 2:59 P. M. There's no use worrying, for if worry gets you going it will keep you on the run. No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one. I'll get up in the morning and I'll think, and think, and think how I can put that dread official on the blink, blink, blink. But a Singapore official, oh, he's a mighty gun, and this Singapore official he weighs about a ton – I guess. Still, I will not worry, but then, for all of that, I wish that I'd been wearing a great big sombrero hat.
XIX
THE HINDU GUIDE A SAINT WOULD BE
Last evening I wrote you about my perturbed state of mind regarding quarantine here in Singapore.
After chota hazri this morning I thought for a couple of hours, then ate breakfast, after which I met a Hindu in my hotel (there are thirty thousand Indians in Singapore), who looked at me as if he were desirous of opening a conversation.
I stopped, saluted, and said to him: "Did you wish to speak to me?"
"Only to ask you if you wanted a guide for Singapore today. I can show you all the sights of Singapore and explain them to you in understandable English."
"By jove!" I exclaimed. "I believe you can. You speak English like an educated Englishman. What do you want for your day's services? You look like – ." I named an eminent American statesman, and he did look like him, too, except for color. I asked the guide if he knew of this statesman of whom he reminded me.
He said he didn't.
"Well," I said, "he is one of the most brilliant men on earth today."
The fellow smiled and showed a splendid set of teeth – a Hindu guide is susceptible to compliments.
"How much do you want for your day's services?" I again asked him.
"Three dollars."
"I'll give you a dollar and a half," I said.
"Pay me anything you like and then you'll pay me more than I am worthy of," he said.
We started off in a gharry, and he surely was a character.
Keen, bright, the most interesting guide I've ever struck – a Hindu.
We talked Hinduism till twelve o'clock, riding around Singapore; and if you think foreign missionaries aren't up against it in their job of converting India from Hinduism, or Brähmanism, you can think again.
He was a great solace to me.
"There are," he told me, "four great tenets to Hinduism:
"First – Don't question the mysteries. No one can solve them.
"Second – Don't worry about the future. No one knows what it has in store."
He frankly told me that the other two had slipped his memory, but he had cinched those two.
With me, number two was enough for today, with my job of thinking on hand.
That guide was a wonder. He was intelligent. There is not one Christian in ten thousand who could give a better argument for his faith than that guide gave me for his faith. He was about as refreshing a character as I have ever met.
He took me through a Hindu temple and laughed at Christians' "ignorance" in condemning the Hindus' idols. Hindus didn't worship the idols; but the Great Being the idols were to remind the worshiper of; they were only links between the worshipers and the Great Being.
He expects to be born over again and to answer in his new existence for the sins he has committed in this life; and the great end to be striven for, is to fly off into nothing and nobody.
"Why," I said, "that's Buddhism."
"Buddhism," he scoffed, "Buddhism is only an offshoot from Hinduism, borrowed from Hinduism." There were saints and sages among Hindus, he told me. Saints could die, sages never. He had tried to be a saint, but gave it up. No one was worthy of what they got, he the least of all. Here he was getting $1.50 a day. If I had offered him anything he would have taken it – 10c, 20c, and even then he wouldn't be worthy of it.
"Why in blazes didn't you tell me that before we closed for $1.50?" I asked him.
"I told you my price was $3.00, but that I would take anything you offered me. My offer stands," he said; "you offered me $1.50. At $1.50 I am riding around on a cushioned seat with a gentleman for four hours, as a day's work. Out there, digging in the street, in the hot sun, dressed only in a loin cloth, is a sweating, toiling brother Hindu, putting in ten hours a day for thirty cents. He is entitled to $1.50 for his day's work, more than I am entitled to thirty cents for my day's work."
He was a sinner and admitted it. A most unworthy sinner, and expected to get what was coming to him.
I dismissed him at lunch time to eat my lunch and prepare myself for three o'clock.
XX
PENANG – A BIRD, THE FEMALE OF ITS SPECIES, AND THE MANGOSTEEN
I want to draw a veil over my exit from Singapore on this trip.
There are some things that are too painful to talk about. What I think of the quarantine arrangements of that sun-blistered port, and what the health officials think of me will form no part of these notes of travel – suffice it to say that I got by the Singapore health officials. I escaped! I got away! Our expressions of endearment would be a new brand of travel stuff, and there are enough different kinds in these letters now.
After Singapore is Penang; and as I sit in my steamer chair, in my pajamas, in the grey of the dawning of a new day, on the freshly washed teak-deck of the steamer, as it sails through the peaceful strait nearing Penang, I can't see as there is a blessed thing to write about – not a blessed thing. A couple of junks float across the peaceful strait, the soft tropical breeze bellying their sails. One solitary bird, not a seagull, much bigger than a gull, lazily wings its way across the peaceful strait, aiming for the opposite shore. I think it's the female of its species, because when it gets nearly over it changes its mind, turns around, and flies back again across the peaceful strait.
The junks – the bird – the ship with its teak-decks freshly washed – the grey of the morning – the soft tropical breeze – the peaceful strait – me in my pajamas in a steamer chair – the low fringe of hills with cocoanut groves to the east – Penang rising out of the peaceful strait – not a blessed thing to write about.
The east reddens, the sun is going to rise over the peaceful strait. It's a peaceful scene. I've mentioned that the straits are peaceful, haven't I? That feature of the scene especially appeals to me after my exit from Singapore.
But the sun is rising! While this is not an exciting or unusual thing – while one doesn't have to come to Penang to see the sun rise – while I feel safe in boldly asserting that this is a matter of daily occurrence both here and at home, the chances are, kind reader, that you have never seen the sun rise. First you see a bright red convex streak, then the slice of a sphere, then more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and then the sun is up to meet the lark.
A Hindu comes with a cup of coffee, some toast, and six mangosteens on a tray, and asks: "Will master have his chota hazri here?" And now there is something to write about – the mangosteen!
The most unprepossessing fruit to look at, the size of a black walnut in its husk; an unlovely dark brown color on the outside. If you didn't know the mangosteen; if a plateful were brought to you for breakfast you'd eye the things askance, and say, "Take 'em away, please; take 'em away." But cut around its circumference through the husk, a quarter of an inch thick, and lift it apart. One of the halves makes a little bowl, its inside the most lovely old rose color, the other half holding a beautiful white pulp. The rich old rose edge of the husk hugs the mound of pulp, the combination making a color scheme to delight an artist's soul.
Insert a fork in the edge of the pulp, lift it out bodily, open your mouth, and – oh, say, after all the other delicious fruits on earth were made and pronounced good by the beneficent Creator, it would seem as if He had said: "Go to, now, let one more fruit be made for man, more delicate in flavor, more delicious than all the rest" – so He made the mangosteen.
XXI
BURMA AND BUDDHA
And Rangoon is in Burma, a city of some three hundred thousand, the chief commercial city of Burma.
It is located in the south of that country, on one of the numerous mouths of the Irawadi River. Burma forms a part of the narrow Malay Peninsula, broadening out after Rangoon is reached, coming north from Penang, into a country as large as Texas, bounded on the west by India, on the north by Thibet, on the east by Siam, Laos and China, with the Bay of Bengal washing its southern coast.
Burma is the most thoroughly Buddhistic country in the world.
Now Buddha was not a god, never claimed to be, and is not worshiped as one.
But he was a tremendous personage.
He was born in India 2500 years ago, and after that lapse of time his image and teachings live in the hearts of every third man on earth today.
That fact puts Buddha in a class with such personages as Moses and Confucius.
These men are three of a kind and hard to beat when it comes to putting one's name over into the minds of men and making it stick. A score or so of other mere men since Adam's time, whose names loom large today, are mere pikers in comparison, and need not be considered in this short sketch.
The exact date of Buddha's birth seems shrouded in mystery, but it is placed during the sixth century, B. C.
He was born in the town of Kapila-Vastu. Since that time the town has changed its name to Kohana, and is located northeast of Benares.
Buddha spent his early boyhood in that region. His father's name was Suddodana, which same is a long, hard name to pronounce, but his mother's name was Maya, and she died when Buddha was seven days old, and his aunt brought him up. Her name was Maha-Prajapati.
There is not much known about his youth and early education, except that he was a promising boy and put over everything he undertook.
He was supposed to be a prince of the Royal blood. He was a Hindu, and was faithful to the demands of that faith.
He was married, and when he was thirty years old there was born to him a son named Rahlu.
No one knows how well his family did for him in picking out a wife, but it is of record that he left wife and son and home shortly after the boy was born.
He just left home one day, and when next heard from was at Rajagriha and was leading the life of an ascetic.
Buddha never did things by halves. He was out seeking the way of salvation in rigorous and excessive asceticism, and he went at it with such intense earnestness that he nearly lost his life – he overworked it, and was all played out when he came to the conclusion that he was on the wrong track.
Abandoning asceticism, he gave himself up to a life of thought and meditation, and as a result he gradually evolved his religious and philosophic theory of the general existence of evil, its origin, and its eradication.
He was sitting under a pipal tree in a little village named Buddh-gaya, southeast of Benares, when light dawned upon his soul. As the result of his emancipation of spirit he became a poet.
He became thoroughly convinced that the great end and aim of existence was to attain non-existence: and that the cause of all evil was wanting things. We were here through no fault of our own; that we would continue to be born over and over; and that the next state into which we were born would depend upon how we used our present life.
To illustrate the idea: A tramp or hobo, if he tried to be as good a tramp or hobo as he could, would be born next time to be a roustabout, deck hand, or day laborer.
Continuing to be as good as possible in those callings, the next birth would be a step up, to, say, a bookkeeper, clerk, or possibly a commercial traveler.
The next birth, continuing meritorious in these last named capacities, would be a more desirable existence, and on up, passing the stage of a successful politician with a pull, to still higher and higher existence, until finally, getting out of the trouble and vexation of being any of them, one's individuality would be lost entirely in the great spirit of Nirvana – rest – peace – out of it – finished.
On the other hand, the politician with a pull if he didn't keep his eyes set toward righteousness, would slip down the scale in a future birth, and, continuing bad behavior in new births, run clear down past the hobo to be nothing more than a potato-bug, to end that existence for one even lower than that; unless, perchance, he decided to be an exemplary potato-bug and climb back up again.
After Buddha had thoroughly worked out his solution of life's problems, he settled in Benares, gathered five choice spirits who had been companions in his life as an ascetic, imparted to them his discovery of what he believed to be the path of truth, and spent the rest of a long life developing truth as he believed it.
He had to compete with Hinduism in India, and was only measurably successful there, but his theories captured Burma, and overspread Ceylon, China, and Japan, and, judging by results, anyone making a tour of China and Japan must take off their hats to Buddha. His long ministry was marked with a life of purity, gentleness, earnestness, and firm convictions.
He preached his doctrines for forty years and lived to be eighty years of age.
