There is a very
interesting study somewhere of the social and commercial effects of the
Black Death in England.)
On a wharf, waiting for a steamer, some thirty Sikhs, many of them
wearing their old uniforms (which should not be allowed) were talking at
the tops of their voices, so that the shed rang like an Indian railway
station. A suggestion that if they spoke lower life would be easier was
instantly adopted. Then a senior officer with a British India medal
asked hopefully: 'Has the Sahib any orders where we are to go?'
Alas he had none - nothing but goodwill and greetings for the sons of
the Khalsa, and they tramped off in fours.
It is said that when the little riot broke out in Vancouver these
'heathen' were invited by other Asiatics to join in defending themselves
against the white man. They refused on the ground that they were
subjects of the King. I wonder what tales they sent back to their
villages, and where, and how fully, every detail of the affair was
talked over. White men forget that no part of the Empire can live or die
to itself.
Here is a rather comic illustration of this on the material side. The
wonderful waters between Vancouver and Victoria are full of whales,
leaping and rejoicing in the strong blue all about the steamer. There
is, therefore, a whalery on an island near by, and I had the luck to
travel with one of the shareholders.
'Whales are beautiful beasts,' he said affectionately. 'We've a contract
with a Scotch firm for every barrel of oil we can deliver for years
ahead. It's reckoned the best for harness-dressing.'
He went on to tell me how a swift ship goes hunting whales with a
bomb-gun and explodes shells into their insides so that they perish at
once.
'All the old harpoon and boat business would take till the cows come
home. We kill 'em right off.'
'And how d'you strip 'em?'
It seemed that the expeditious ship carried also a large air-pump, and
pumped up the carcass to float roundly till she could attend to it. At
the end of her day's kill she would return, towing sometimes as many as
four inflated whales to the whalery, which is a factory full of modern
appliances. The whales are hauled up inclined planes like logs to a
sawmill, and as much of them as will not make oil for the Scotch
leather-dresser, or cannot be dried for the Japanese market, is
converted into potent manure.
'No manure can touch ours,' said the shareholder. 'It's so rich in bone,
d'you see. The only thing that has beat us up to date is their hides;
but we've fixed up a patent process now for turning 'em into floorcloth.
Yes, they're beautiful beasts.
