The Skeptical Romancer (15 page)

“Don’t the Rogerses live on the Salween? You must go and stay with them when you cross.”

“Oh, my dear fellow,” someone expostulated, “they live right down on the Siamese frontier; he won’t be going within three weeks’ journey of them.”

And when we passed some rare traveller on the road perhaps my interpreter after talking to him would come and tell me that he had crossed the Salween three days before. The water was high but was going down; in bad weather it was no joke crossing. “Beyond the Salween” had a stirring sound, and the country seemed dim and aloof. I added one little impression to another, a detached fact, a word, an epithet, the recollection of an engraving in an old book, enriching the name with associations as the lover in Stendhal’s book decks his beloved with the jewels of his fancy, and soon the thought of the Salween intoxicated my imagination. It became the Oriental river of my dreams, a broad stream, deep and secret, flowing through wooded hills, and it had romance, and a dark mystery so that you could scarcely believe that it rose here and there poured itself into the ocean, but that, like a symbol of eternity, it flowed from an unknown source to lose itself at last in an unknown sea.

We were two days from the Salween; then one. We left the high road and took a rocky path that wound through the jungle in and out of the hills. There was a heavy fog, and the bamboos on each side were ghostly. They were like the pale wraiths of giant armies that had fought desperate wars in the beginning of the world’s long history, and now, lowering, waited in ominous silence, waited and watched for one knew not what. But every now and then, straight and imposing, rose dimly the shadow of a tall, an immensely tall tree. An unseen brook babbled noisily, but for the rest silence surrounded one. No birds sang, and the crickets were still. One seemed to go stealthily, as though one had no business there, and dangers encompassed one all about. Spectral eyes seemed to watch one. Once when a branch broke and fell to the ground, it was with so sharp and unexpected a sound that it startled one like a pistol shot.

But at last we came out into the sunshine and soon passed through a bedraggled village. Suddenly I saw the Salween shining silvery in front of me. I was prepared to feel like stout Cortez on his peak and was more than ready to look upon that sheet of water with a wild surmise, but I had already exhausted the emotion it had to offer me. It was a more ordinary and less imposing stream than I had expected; indeed, then and there, it was no wider than the Thames at Chelsea Bridge. It flowed without turbulence, swiftly and silently.

The raft (two dugouts on which was built a platform of bamboos) was at the water’s edge, and we set about unloading the mules. One of them, seized with a sudden panic, bolted for the river and before anyone could stop him plunged in. He was carried away on the current. I would never have thought that that turbid, sluggish stream had such a power. He was swept along the beach swiftly, swiftly, and the muleteers shouted and waved their arms. We would see the poor brute struggling desperately, but it was inevitable that he would be drowned, and I was thankful when a bend of the river robbed me of the sight of him. When with my pony and my personal effects I was ferried across the stream I looked at it with more respect, and since the raft seemed to me none too secure I was not sorry when I reached the other side.

The bungalow was on the top of the bank. It was surrounded by lawns and flowers. Poinsettias enriched it with their brilliant hues. It had a little less than the austerity common to the bungalows of the P.W.D., and I was glad that I had chosen this place to linger at for a day or two in order to rest the mules and my own weary limbs. From the windows the river, shut in by the hills, looked like an ornamental water. I watched the raft going backwards and forwards, bringing over the mules and their loads. The muleteers were cheerful because they were to get their rest and I had given the headman a trifling sum so that they could have a treat.

Then, their duties accomplished and the servants having unpacked my things, peace descended upon the scene, and the river, empty as though man had never adventured up its winding defiles, regained its dim remoteness. There was not a sound. The day waned, and the peace of the water, the peace of the tree-clad hills, and the peace of the evening were three exquisite things. There is a moment just before sundown when the trees seem to detach themselves from the dark mass of the jungle and become individuals. Then you cannot see the wood for the trees. In the magic of the hour they seem to acquire a life of a new kind, so that it is not hard to imagine that spirits inhabit them and with dusk they will have the power to change their places. You feel that at some uncertain moment some strange thing will happen to them and they will be wondrously transfigured. You hold your breath waiting for a marvel the thought of which stirs your heart
with a kind of terrified eagerness. But the night falls; the moment has passed, and once more the jungle takes them back. It takes them back as the world takes young people who, feeling in themselves the genius which is youth, hesitate for an instant on the brink of a great adventure of the spirit, and then, engulfed by their surroundings, sink back into the vast anonymity of human kind. The trees again become part of the wood; they are still and, if not lifeless, alive only with the sullen and stubborn life of the jungle.

The spot was so lovely, and the bungalow with its lawns and trees so homelike and peaceful, that for a moment I toyed with the notion of staying there not a day but a year, not a year but all my life. Ten days from a railhead and my only communication with the outside world the trains of mules that passed occasionally between Taunggyi and Keng Tung, my only intercourse the villagers from the bedraggled village on the other side of the river, and so to spend the years away from the turmoil, the envy and bitterness and malice of the world, with my thoughts, my books, my dog and my gun and all about me the vast, mysterious, and luxuriant jungle. But alas, life does not consist only of years, but of hours, the day has twenty-four, and it is no paradox that they are harder to get through than a year; and I knew that in a week my restless spirit would drive me on, to no envisaged goal, it is true, but on as dead leaves are blown hither and thither to no purpose by a gusty wind. But being a writer (no poet, alas! but merely a writer of stories) I was able to lead for others a life I could not lead for myself. This was a fit scene for an idyll of young lovers, and I let my fancy wander as I devised a story to fit the tranquil and lovely scene. But, I do not know why, unless it is that in beauty is always something tragic, my invention threw itself into a perverse mould and disaster fell upon the thin wraiths of my imagination.

IN THE MARKET
was to be found everything to eat, to wear, and to furnish his house that was necessary to the needs of the simple Shan. There were silks from China, and the Chinese hucksters, sedately smoking their water pipes, were dressed in blue trousers,
tight-fitting black coats, and black silk caps. They were not lacking in elegance. The Chinese are the aristocracy of the East. There were Indians in white trousers, a white tunic that fitted closely to their thin bodies, and round caps of black velvet. They sold soap and buttons, and flimsy Indian silks, rolls of Manchester cotton, alarm clocks, looking glasses, and knives from Sheffield. The Shans retailed the goods brought down by the tribesmen from the surrounding hills and the simple products of their own industry. Here and there a little band of musicians occupied a booth, and a crowd stood round, idly listening. In one three men beat on gongs, one played the cymbals, and another thumped a drum as long as himself. My uneducated ear could discern no pattern in that welter of sound, but only a direct and not un-exhilarating appeal to crude emotion; but a little farther on I came across another band, not of Shans this time but of hillmen, who played on long wind instruments of bamboo, and their music was melancholy and tremulous. Every now and then I seemed in its vague monotony to catch a few notes of a wistful melody. It gave you an impression of something immensely old. Every violence of statement had been worn away from it and every challenge to an energetic reaction, and there remained but subdued suggestions on which the imagination might work and references, as it were, to desires and hopes and despairs deep buried in the heart. You had the feeling of a music recollected at night by the camp fires of nomad tribes on their wanderings from the grass lands of their ancient homes and begotten of the scattered sounds of the jungle and the silence of flowing rivers; and to my fancy (worked up now, as is the writer’s way, by the power of the words, so difficultly controlled, that throng upon his imagination) it suggested the perplexity in the midst of strange and hostile surroundings of men who came they knew not whence and went they knew not whither, a plaintive, questioning cry and a song sung together (as men at sea in a storm tell one another lewd stories to drive away the uneasiness of the battering waves and the howling wind) to reassure themselves by the blessed solace of human companionship against the loneliness of the world.

But there was nothing doleful or forlorn in the throng that crowded the streets of the market. They were gay, voluble, and blithe. They had come not only to buy and sell, but to gossip
and pass the time of day with their friends. It was the meeting place not only of Keng Tung but of the whole countryside for fifty miles around. Here they got the news and heard the latest stories. It was as good as a play and doubtless much better than most. Among the Shans, who were in the majority, wandered in their distinctive costumes members of many tribes. They held together in little groups as though, feeling shy in this foreign environment, they were afraid of being parted from one another. To them it must have seemed a vast and populous city, and they kept themselves to themselves with the countryman’s odd mingling of awe and contempt for the inhabitants of a city. There were Tais, Laos, Kaws, Palaungs, Was, and heaven knows what else. The Was are divided by people wise in these matters into wild and tame, but the wild ones do not leave their mountain fastnesses. They are head hunters, not from vainglory like the Dyaks, nor for aesthetic reasons like the people of the Mambwe country, but for the purely utilitarian purpose of protecting their crops. A fresh skull will guard and strengthen the growing grain, and so at the approach of a spring from each village a small party of men goes out to look for a likely stranger. A stranger is sought since he does not know his way about the country and his spirit will not wander away from his earthly remains. But it is said that travel in those parts is far from popular during the hunting season. But the tame Was have the air of amiable and kindly people, and certainly their appearance, though wild enough, is picturesque. The Kaws stand out from among the others by reason of their fine physique and swarthy colour. The authorities, however, state that the darkness of their complexion is due for the most part to their dislike of the use of water. The women wear a headdress covered with silver beads so that it looks like a helmet; their hair is parted in the middle and comes down over the ears as one sees it in the portraits of the Empress Eugenie, and in middle age they have funny little wrinkled faces full of humour. They wear a short coat, a kilt, and leggings; and there is quite an interval between the coat and the kilt: I could not fail to notice how much character it gives a woman’s face to display her navel. The men are dressed in dingy blue, with turbans, and in these the young lads put marigolds as a sign that they are bachelors and want to marry. I wondered indeed if they kept them there or only put them in when the
urge was strong upon them. For presumably no one feels inclined to marry on a cold and frosty morning. I saw one with half a dozen flowers in his turban. He was not going to leave his intentions in doubt. He cut a gay and jaunty figure, but the girls seemed to take no more notice of him than he, I am bound to confess, took of them. Perhaps they thought his eagerness was exaggerated, and he, I suppose, having put his advertisement in the paper, as it were, was willing to leave it at that. He was a pleasant creature, of a dusky complexion, with large dark eyes, bold and shining, and he stood, with his back a trifle arched, as though all his muscles quivered with strength. There were peasants threading their way among the throng with pigeons on a perch tied by the leg with a string, which you might either buy to release and so acquire merit or add to the next day’s curry. One of these men passing him, the young Kaw, evidently a careless fellow with his money, on a sudden impulse (and you saw on his mobile face how unexpectedly it came into his head) bought a pigeon, and when it was given to him he held it for a moment in both his hands, a grey wood pigeon with a pink breast, and then throwing up his arms with the gesture of the bronze boy from Herculaneum flung it high into the air. He watched it fly rapidly away, fly back to its native woods, and there was a boyish smile on his handsome face.

I SPENT THE
best part of a week in Keng Tung. The days were warm and sunny and the circuit house neat, clean, and roomy. After so many strenuous days on the road it was pleasant to have nothing much to do. It was pleasant not to get up till one felt inclined and to breakfast in pajamas. It was pleasant to lounge through the morning with a book. For it is an error to think that because you have no train to catch and no appointments to keep your movements on the road are free. Your times for doing this and that are as definite as if you lived in a city and had to go to business every morning. Your movements are settled not by your own whim, but by the length of the stages and the endurance of the mules. Though you would not think it mattered if you arrived half an hour sooner or later at your day’s destination there
is always a rush to get up in the morning, a bustle of preparation, and an urgent compulsion to get off without delay.

I kept the emotion with which Keng Tung filled me well under control. It was a village, larger than those I had passed on the way, but a village notwithstanding, of wooden houses, spacious, with wide dirt streets, and I was put to it to find objects of interest to visit. On other than market days it was empty. In the main street you saw nothing but a few gaunt pariah dogs. In one or two shops a woman, smoking a cheroot, sat idly on the floor; she had no thought that on such a day there would ever be a customer; in another four Chinamen, crouched on their heels, were gambling. Silence. The dusty road had great ruts in it, and the sun beat down on it from a clear blue sky. Three little women suddenly appeared in monstrous, diverting hats and passed along in single file; they had a couple of baskets suspended by a bamboo over the shoulder, and they walked with bent knees, speedily, as though if they went more slowly they would sink under their burdens. And against the emptiness of the street they made a quick and evanescent pattern.