Time had changed Vancouver literally out of all knowledge. From the
station to the suburbs, and back to the wharves, every step was strange,
and where I remembered open spaces and still untouched timber, the
tramcars were fleeting people out to a lacrosse game. Vancouver is an
aged city, for only a few days previous to my arrival the Vancouver
Baby - i.e. the first child born in Vancouver - had been married.
A steamer - once familiar in Table Bay - had landed a few hundred Sikhs
and Punjabi Jats - to each man his bundle - and the little groups walked
uneasy alone, keeping, for many of them had been soldiers, to the
military step. Yes, they said they had come to this country to get work.
News had reached their villages that work at great wages was to be had
in this country. Their brethren who had gone before had sent them the
news. Yes, and sometimes the money for the passage out. The money would
be paid back from the so-great wages to come. With interest? Assuredly
with interest.. Did men lend money for nothing in any country? They
were waiting for their brethren to come and show them where to eat, and
later, how to work. Meanwhile this was a new country. How could they say
anything about it? No, it was not like Gurgaon or Shahpur or Jullundur.
The Sickness (plague) had come to all these places. It had come into the
Punjab by every road, and many - many - many had died. The crops, too, had
failed in some districts. Hearing the news about these so-great wages
they had taken ship for the belly's sake - for the money's sake - for the
children's sake.
'Would they go back again?'
They grinned as they nudged each other. The Sahib had not quite
understood. They had come over for the sake of the money - the rupees,
no, the dollars. The Punjab was their home where their villages lay,
where their people were waiting. Without doubt - without doubt - they
would go back. Then came the brethren already working in the
mills - cosmopolitans dressed in ready-made clothes, and smoking
cigarettes.
'This way, O you people,' they cried. The bundles were reshouldered and
the turbaned knots melted away. The last words I caught were true Sikh
talk: 'But what about the money, O my brother?'
Some Punjabis have found out that money can be too dearly bought.
There was a Sikh in a sawmill, had been driver in a mountain battery at
home. Himself he was from Amritsar. (Oh, pleasant as cold water in a
thirsty land is the sound of a familiar name in a fair country!)
'But you had your pension. Why did you come here?'
'Heaven-born, because my sense was little.
