ROLLAND'S NAME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1930, Page 7 (Supplement)

ROLLAND'S NAME.

The cabin boys and stewards on the ship in which I travelled to Suez recently are Hindus.: With the exception of a dozen or-so they were Mohammedans. Each night as the sun began-to sink a croup of them spread small carpets on the forward deck and, half squatting and half kneeling there, they went through their religious ceremonial, their faces turned to the East. At the striking of the hour bell one of the Moslems promptly intoned the great shout, with its queer tonal vibrations of' Allah Ikbar Allah. Each hour, day or night, this muezzin of the forecastle announced the neatness of God. One morning the huttoy showed unmistakable signs of wishing to tell me something. It should be added that the Hindus were as a general rule treated rather abruptly by the officers on board. This, I was told, was quite necessary. Coloured people, so they called them, although pure Aryan stock, of course, must be kept in their places. If you give them a finger they take the whole hand. Lesser breeds without the law and that sort of thing, don't you know. So, when the hut-boy, by his behaviour, intimated that he had something to say, this was rather unusual. And what had he to say? On the night table lay a book, Ebmain Holland's '"Life of Gandhi." He wanted to know if he couid borrow it for a few hours. "Holland," he said, "is one of the few smrits Who understands the East." So he carried off the book. When I recounted the incident to my hut companions, two British majors on the way to India,-after leave of absence, they expressed considerable surprise And of * Holland they had iwwr