TALES OF ADVENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 7, 9 January 1926, Page 28

TALES OF ADVENTURE

AZIZUN THE DANCING GIRL.

(MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEO. McMUNN, X.C.8., X.C.5.1., D.5.0.)

The recent sensational attempt to kidnap a beautiful Indian dancing girl at Bombay by armed men alleged to be in the service of a powerfulvlndiarj Prince lends additional interest to this remarkable story, told by a distinguished Army Sir George MacMunn describes his flrst meeting with the uncanny Uttle " frog-girl," the odd bargain that made her his property, and the strange meeting years afterwards at the court of a ruling Haharajah.

The world has recently been stirred by the. story of a beautiful Indian dancing-girl who was slashed across the face, while the wealthy Indian who was with her was shot, as they drove through a fashionable suburb of Bombay. A web of mystery and intrigue, apparently, lies behind the outrage, and already officials in the service of a wellknown Indian Prince have been implicated.

Whence do they come and whither do they go, these strange, lustrous-eyed, bejewelled women who for a time may hold a powerful rajah in their hands? They have two, and only two, sources of origin. They are either stolen as children and sold to professional dan-' ccrs, or else they are born to the* profession—daughters of mothers who belong to an "outcast" tribe, and whose mothers in turn were dancers and courtezans before them, right ba.ck into the mists of the ages. And what are the "outcast" tribes? The answer is that thoy are none other than the original inhabitants of India, conquered, expatriated, and enslaved by the invading Aryans, and condemned for countless centuries to menial duties. Denied all share in any religious life, save what they can remember for themselves, refused all share of civilisation or culture, they are a living reminder of the evil that man wreaks upon man. The result is curious.

To be born of a long line of dancers of matriarchal descent for so many generations that all count is lost is to have every nerve and muscle, every instinct of brain and body, attuned to the spirit of the dance. When to such a pedigree is added great personal grace

" '1 would greet you in the English ~ai

ihion,' she said, in a musical voice."

and beauty and an impish understanding, it is not to be wondered at that the girl so endowed is likely to be an influence of no small weight in the circles in which she moves.

In the eyes of the Eastern world, however, tho beautiful dancer lives without soul," without caste, without religion, without future—a creature of beauty, a valued plaything, but a person who by no possible turn of imagination or play of feeling could be given a respectable status. To power and wealth of the backstairs they come, and .have come, through the ages, but, like the flowers of the field, they fade and die away in due season. A race apart, they ere no more admitted to be human than those other outcasts who scavenge the streets.

All of which brings mc to the astonishing story of Azizun, that queen of dancing-girls, with whom it was my fate to have a strange acquaintance, and for whose success in her own line I was in some degree unwittingly responsible.

Some years ago, when captain of a battery of artillery, I happened to be quartered in one of those old-world Indian cantonments which then remained, as some do still, unchanged in their ways and life since the Great Mutiny.' In such stations, off the main line of rail, your equipment and your training may be modern, but- everything else is redolent of the days of the Honourable East India Company. Even now the public garden is called "the Company's Garden," and the trees were planted when'men sailed to the East round the Cape of Good Hope. The Artillery officers' mess-house at this particular place had been the Artillery Mes3 since the station was built, and it stood in a large compound with a row of red-tiled servants' huts and- stables in the corner, and a sweeping drive leading to the great covered porch, under which the regimental four-In-hand would drive on polo days. In front of the porch was a raised •dinth on which we dined in summer, under a. swinging punkah, by the light of lamps fixed on poles.

It was grov-ing dusk one evening in ■arly* autumn, when days and nights were still warm- when I rode into-the mess compound after evening stables to find a crowd of grooms and servants watching something on the lawn in front of the dining plinth. As. I drew near and dismounted; I saw that a hole had been, dug in the lawn, and that the water-carrier was busy filling it with water. - Ranged in. front of the hole were three or four cane-bottomed chairs

from the ante-room. A few yards away sat a ragged-looking, bearded old man, with a reed pipe in his hands and a guitar of sorts hung over his back. There was an old woman, too, in voluminous gipsy skirts, and beside her a lass in an orange skirt embroidered in red and blue. "What is all this?" I demanded. "A tamasha (show), sahib," replied the old mess head-waiter. "Very good tamasha; master plenty pleased. All waiting, if master order." As everything seemed ready, the domestics all excited, and the hole in the lawn already dug, I said: "Very well, carry on; but light those lamps," and sat'down in one of the chairs. The old bearer lit the lamps and stationed himself behind mc. "This frog-girl," he explained, "I think master never seeing this froggirl." He called to the man with the pipe. "Sahib agya tamasha karo" ("The sahib hag come; begin the pcrforma.nce.").

Thereupon the rascal with the beard started to play his pipe, a weird, mournful note, and another man behind him, whom I had not noticed before, began to roll a small tom-tom. The old lady then gave the girl a push, and up she rose from her crouching position and took off the blue cotton shawl that had covered h er head and shoulders. I saw that sbe was naked to the waist, save for a small embroidered camisole that bound her bust. Sbe was a met . "slip of a girl, just budding to maidenhood, comely and shapely, but a trifle awkward. She turned and looked at me—a pathetic, haunting, frightened sort of

look—and then the pipe played and the drum throbbed as she drew herself up and waved her rounded arms above her head.

Stooping, the girl bent over the pool and plunged her bare arm in' almost to the shoulder, showing it was close on three feet deep. Next, drawing herself up, she took from her hair a large silver ring, four or five inches in diameter., and dropped it into the pool. The piper played a bar and she shuffled a few steps, jingling the heavy bangles on her ankles. This was merely a prelude; the real performance of the "froggirl" was now to begin, unexpected and astonishing. Turning her back to the pool, she squatted on the very edge and proceeded to balance herself to her satisfaction. Slowly, from the waist, she arched her back and neck, till she looked behind her, with ber head hanging downwa.rds. pie"n, seemingly stretching out to twice her length, she curled back and down till the top of her head almost touched the water in the hole. The spectators held their breath, and the piper played a tremulous longdrawn note. In this uncomfortable position the girl stamped her foot twice, as if to be sure of her balance; then, much as a "Pharaoh's serpent" coils from out the chemical egg, she lowered herself into the water, her little hands all the while tightly grasping the edge of the turf at the top of the hole. Down and down she writhed herself. Now her hair, now her nose and mouth went under, and still the elongation continued, till chin and neck were below the water, and then her camisole touched the muddy liquid. Still the strange serpent-like glide continued, till the water reached her waist. Tflere the process stopped, and the part under water moved from side to side for thirty seconds or so before, quietly reversing the process, the supple body slowly emerged and coiled back to the original sitting position. When she sat up again the silver ring from the bottom of the pool shone between the "frog-girl's" teeth.

It was a pathetic-looking, dripping creature that rose erect on the edge of the pool, amid the plaudits of the crowd, and it was an appealing and haunted eye that gazed into mine.

I turned to the bearded rogue with the pipes. "Is this your daughter?" I asked. He did not answer, but with his cheeks puffed out, blew a wail of triumph, while the tom-tom beat the call of baksheesh. For the moment I felt like taking my cane to the rascal, but the old head-waiter counselled wisdom. "Never getting angry, sahib," he

murmured, noting the expression in my eyes. "That very bad girl; got no caste. Master never minding." The -girl was putting on her shawl and the old woman was collecting coppers from the crowd, which was about to melt away. The hole looked loathsome in the dim light of the lamps; the whole affair appeared uncanny and • sinister. Bah! What had it got to do with mc? I dropped three rupees into the girl's shavl and strode away to my own bungalow, across the road outside the mess compound. What a horrible show, I ' thought, and how frightened and cowed the poor little girl looked! ! Thoroughly annoyed with everything, I threw myself into a long chair in the verand -h. All was quiet save for the interminable buzz of the crickets. Then suddenly I heard a jingle of anklets, and th- twanged chord of a guitar. "Who's there ?" I shouted, and jumped up. My own servant hurried in. 'Who is out "there?" I demanded. The man looked out of the verandah and spoke a word or two. It was now almost dark. Then he returned and said: "That-tama-sha wallah (showman) is here, sahib. He saying how much master give for that girl. Master want that girl?" Here was a quite unexpected and unwelcome development. Master certainly did not "want that girl." By now, however, the tamasha wallah and the girl had come forward, and I could see by the light of my bearer's lantern that she was beside herself with fright. "Tell them to go away. Anthony," I told the bearer —and then the girl suddenly threw herself on the ground at my feet and clasped mc round the legs! Here was a pretty kettle of fish! The subalterns who lodged with mc might come in at any moment and see their cap;ain in this unusual and mirth-provoking situation. To make matters worse, the girl began to sob. The old rogue was speaking, and Anthony translated. "He is sa3'ing master giving one hundred rupees, then keeping the girl. I think master not wanting this girl?" "You tell this man," I said, "that he must go away now, but that he can come and see mc in the morning. Tell him also that if he is not kind to the girl I will have him beaten."

To cut a long story short, we managed to get the girl to her feet and sent her away with the tamasha wallah. I had made up my mind that the poor wench was in a blue funk of the old rogue, who was no relation at all, and that something ought to be done about it.

Happily, the chaplain lived only two bungalows away, aftd new he had nowle.dge of the "criminal tribes" and their ways. To him. I went at once, and was fortunate to find him sitting ; n his verandah, watching his pony being fed. I told him what had happened, how remarkable the girl seemed, and in what pitiable fear of her keepers or

owners. I was quite prepared, I added, to pay anything in reason to get her into better hands. ; My friend listened in silence, suckine away at his pipe meanwhile. At last he said thoughtfully: "Well! criminal tribes are best let alone, especially "by such people as you, but I quite understand how you feel. I tell you what T will do. I know Captain and Mrs Bester, of the Salvation Army, who are in this station. Gove-nmsnt, as ynu know, is going to give the Salvationists charge of some of the criminal tribes- • they arc trying to reform them. Bester himself is away, but Mrs. Bester is here I will get her over to breakfast tomorrow morning, and we will tell her the story and see what she advises. I dare say, if you will bear some of the expense that she would take charge of the girl! But mind you, I won't say that you are wise, or that you are even doinw the girl a good turn. These outcasts are people ye know nothing about," The next morning the old rogue duly brought back the "frog-girl," being fully persuaded that I was going to pay a good price for her. They were sitting under a tree in the garden when I went ' to meet Mrs. Bester. That good lady appeared somewhat amused, but was quite prepared to take charge of the girl if I was ready to pay expenses, with the result that for seventy rupees, after some haggling the/ young lady changed proprietors, and drove off in the "tonga" with Mrs. Bester, leaving mc rather in the position of a gentleman with a ward. A ward too, of a notorious hereditary criminal tribe —a pretty position for a Godfearing captain of Artillery to find himself in as a result of what could hardly be called anything more than a whim. In due course Mrs. Bester reported that the "frog-girl" appeared happy; she was docile, apt at sewing, and was being taught the various arts and crafts of a mission station. I saw her once, about six weeks after she had gone to Mrs. Bester, and was astonished to note the effect on her looks of good food and the absence of fear. She was growing superbly beautiful and graceful, and the odd frog-like look was disappearing. Shortly afterwards the Boer War took mc to South Africa, where I received a letter from Mrs. Bester telling mc that my little protege, after three or four months of entirely good behaviour, had suddenly disappeared one night. Nod the faintest trace of her could be discovered, nor could any information bo obtained. She had left behind all the clothes that had been given her and crone off, apparently, in the yellow petticoat and blue cotton shawl in which she had come. And that appeared to be the end of my experiment with the 'frog-girl." (To be concluded next Saturday.)