"How can you Europeans
kill and even devour them?"
"What would you do," I asked, "if this snake were about to bite you?
Is it possible you would not kill it, if you had time?"
"Not for all the world. I should cautiously catch it, and then
I should carry it to some deserted place outside the town, and
there set it free."
"Nevertheless; suppose it bit you?"
"Then I should recite a mantram, and, if that produced no good
result, I should be fair to consider it as the finger of Fate, and
quietly leave this body for another."
These were the words of a man who was educated to a certain extent,
and very well read. When we pointed out that no gift of Nature
is aimless, and that the human teeth are all devouring, he answered
by quoting whole chapters of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection
and Origin of Species. "It is not true," argued he, "that the
first men were born with canine teeth. It was only in course of
time, with the degradation of humanity, - only when the appetite
for flesh food began to develop - that the jaws changed their first
shape under the influence of new necessities."
I could not help asking myself, "Ou la science va-t'elle se fourrer?"
- - - - - - -
The same evening, in Elphinstone's Theatre, there was given a
special performance in honour of "the American Mission," as we
are styled here. Native actors represented in Gujerati the ancient
fairy drama Sita-Rama, that has been adapted from the Ramayana,
the celebrated epic by Vilmiki. This drama is composed of
fourteen acts and no end of tableaux, in addition to transformation
scenes. All the female parts, as usual, were acted by young boys,
and the actors, accord-ing to the historical and national customs,
were bare-footed and half-naked. Still, the richness of the costumes,
the stage adornments and transformations, were truly wonderful.
For instance, even on the stages of large metropolitan theatres,
it would have been difficult to give a better representation of
the army of Rama's allies, who are nothing more than troops of
monkeys under the leadership of Hanuman - the soldier, statesman,
dramatist, poet, god, who is so celebrated in history (that of
India s.v.p.). The oldest and best of all Sanskrit dramas, Hanuman-
Natak, is ascribed to this talented forefather of ours.
Alas! gone is the glorious time when, proud of our white skin
(which after all may be nothing more than the result of a fading,
under the influences of our northern sky), we looked down upon
Hindus and other "niggers" with a feeling of contempt well suited
to our own magnificence. No doubt Sir William Jones's soft heart
ached, when translating from the Sanskrit such humiliating sentences
as the following: "Hanuman is said to be the forefather of the
Europeans." Rama, being a hero and a demi-god, was well entitled
to unite all the bachelors of his useful monkey army to the
daughters of the Lanka (Ceylon) giants, the Rakshasas, and to
present these Dravidian beauties with the dowry of all Western
lands.
