The Collected Novels. Anna Buchan

      THE SUNBURNED EARTH

       Table of Contents

      Takai, Jan. 19.

      There is no doubt this is the ideal place for letter-writing. I sit here, in the verandah, with long, quiet hours stretching out before me and nothing to do but write and write, and I suppose that is why for the last thirty minutes I have sat nibbling the end of my pen and dreaming—without putting pen to paper.

      Where did I leave off? The Monday we left Calcutta, wasn't it? To continue. The said Monday was a strenuous day. Boggley absented himself till late afternoon, while I wrestled with wild beasts at Ephesus in the shape of bearers and coolies, my Hindustani deserting me utterly, as it always does at a crisis. G., desolated at the thought of the coming separation, hovered round all day and did her best to help.

      About tea-time Boggley walked in, serenely regardless of the fact that we were still devoid of bed and table linen, crockery and cooking utensils. In the end the bearer was dispatched to the Stores with a list, but the result of his shopping I haven't yet seen. G. stayed till nearly dinner-time, and sang to us for a last time. It was horrid parting from her, my dear old G. Do I write too much about her? I thought from something you said in a letter that perhaps I rather bored you talking of her. You see, I like her so much, and you can hardly understand how much she has meant to me since we left England together that showery October day.

      After dinner we said good-bye to our friends in what Boggley irreverently calls "the hash-house," and at nine o'clock departed to the station. The bearer was there with all the luggage, and the syces with the ponies, for we are taking the ponies in case there is a chance of polo. In the end we nearly missed the train. At the booking-office, when we tried to book the ponies, the babu in charge lost his presence of mind and turned round and round like a teetotum. I was amazed at Boggley's patience. For myself, I was conscious of an intense, and most unladylike, desire to slap the poor babu. I, who have constantly protested against any want of consideration in the treatment of natives!

      As I was the only lady travelling, the guard was much against giving me a carriage to myself, but a man who spoke with authority, hearing us argue, came up and told him to put a "Ladies Only" placard on my carriage, so I travelled in lonely splendour.

      At Assansol, which we reached at 5 a.m., we had chota-hazri. Tea and toast, and most diminutive eggs, which we had to hold in our fingers as there were no egg-cups.

      Simultala was my destination, and about eleven o'clock we reached it. Underneath the trees a few yards away from the little station we found a bullock-cart, which the Russels had sent for my luggage, and a doolie for myself. A doolie is a kind of string-bed hung on a pole, with a covering to keep off the sun. It is carried by four men, and two others run alongside to relieve their companions at intervals. I had sixteen miles to travel in this thing. I looked at Boggley very doubtfully, and he tried to encourage me.

      "It is really quite comfortable," he said (and when he said so he lied), "and the men go very fast. You will be there in no time." So I bundled in somehow, said a wistful good-bye to Boggley, and we started. I can't honestly say I like a doolie. I would rather have been my luggage and gone in the bullock-cart. Whichever way I lay I very soon got an ache in my back. The conduct, too, of the coolies filled me with uneasiness. They kept up a continued groaning. One said, "Oh—oh—oh!" and the other replied, "Oo—oo—oo!" and you can't think what a depressing sound it was. (I know now that doolie-coolies always make that noise when on duty. It seems to keep up their hearts, so to speak, and cheer them on.) Feeling guiltily that it was my weight that made them groan, I lay perfectly still, and was even holding my breath in an effort to make myself lighter, when, for no apparent reason, we left the road, such as it was, and started across the trackless plain. There was nothing to be seen except an infrequent bush, no trace of a human habitation—nothing but the wind blowing and the grass growing. Awful thoughts began to come into my head. I was all alone in India, indeed worse than alone, I was in the company of six natives most inadequately clothed: of their language I knew not one single word; I didn't even know if they were carrying me in the direction I wanted to go. Suddenly the groaning ceased, and I found myself and the doolie planted on the ground. Was my bright young life to be ended? Cold with terror, I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them I found all the six coolies squatted round, all talking at once, all presumably addressing me. I made out one word which was repeated often, baksheesh. Reminding myself that I was of the Dominant Race, I sat up and waving a hand towards the horizon said sternly, "Jao!" I do think I must have intimidated them, for they meekly picked me up again and we resumed our journey. The longest lane turns, the darkest night wears on to dawn, the weariest river winds at last to the sea; and about tea-time, aching, dishevelled, hungry (having had nothing but a few chocolates since chota-hazri at 5 a.m.), I was deposited before the verandah of the Russels' bungalow.

      I don't suppose you know anything about mission work? Neither do I, which is very shocking, as I have had every opportunity of acquiring information. Perhaps, as a child, I was taken to too many missionary meetings, with their atmosphere of hot tea and sentiment, and heard too much of "my dear brothers and sisters in the mission field," for I grieve to say, before I came to India, I quite actively disliked missionaries and thought them a feeble folk. Mother was the only kind of missionary I liked. She has a mission—so we tell her—to the dreary people of this world. Not the very poor—they are vastly entertaining—but the not-very-rich, highly respectable, deadly dull people, with awkward, unlovable manners, whom no one cares very much to visit or to ask to things, and who must often feel very lonely and neglected. While others are taken up with more entertaining company Mother has time to trot to these people with a new book or magazine, or merely to talk for half an hour in the funny bright way which is like no one else's way; has them to the house to meet interesting people (in spite of the remonstrant groans of the family), and having brought them does not neglect them, but draws them out till they seem quite brilliant, and they go away warmed and enlivened by their social success.

      Even the most determined distruster of missions couldn't stay long at Takai without being converted. Dr. Russel, very far from being feeble, is a most able man, who would have made his mark in his profession at home; but he prefers healing the bodies and saving the souls of the Santals in the jungle, to building up a lucrative practice, and even attaining the dizzy height of a knighthood.

      To heal their poor neglected bodies; to be the first to tell them of Jesus—how did Festus put it?—"one Jesus, which is dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive"; to teach them, to help and raise them until life becomes for these natives a new and undreamed-of thing—one can see how fine it is, how soul-satisfying!