A Sunday Afternoon.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 214, 12 November 1896, Page 4

A Sunday Afternoon.

— ; ♦ : Ay Sunday is a very dull day in the y .East.- When once you have passed ; Port Said it has lost all religious significance, and in the far East it -'..becomes to the majority of Europeans s,imply a day of rest and recreation. And it is interesting to observe how • very differently people of different ■ nationalities make use of their holiday. My old friend Graebe spends a jytiipst delightful day on Sunday with y. ..music, winding up with his quartet ;:- -party in the evening. Munn, the y Scotchman, retires to his so-called V : studio, where, in company with a ■:' •_. lay figure, he paints and ruminates on "Art," emerging when summoned to meals to talk platitudes on the same • subject." His partner in business appears to devour the published statistics of the Government, bnt as no one dare disturb him at his work, the current theory is that he sleeps all day. This theory is confirmed by the .fact that his "liver" is very bad. Meyer, the Swiss, always goes to the range morning and afternoon and shoots — his one recreation and an V expensive one on §595 a month. Mj j • own particular amusement on Sunday ; ■ -• 'was to do nothing in particular, and i anything that turned vp — letter-writ- ' ing, rambling, exploring the islands j ' . in a sanpan, eating tiffin (all my cooks, i especially the gentle Celandine, were : good at curry, and the Sunday curry was a special one), and anything else that came into my head. The Englishman is always bored with a holiday out there, and does not know what to do, unless he is a shikari and goes out after game, or owns a yacht and goes cruising. One Sunday I was terribly bored. I had tried to read almost every book . I had, and had failed to fix my attention, and was looking , forward to a fearfully dull afterneon till tea-time, after which I proposed to go out and call on some people I knew. It was unusually hot and still, not a breath of air was moving, . and even tbe cicades were silent. Harris was spending the week-end with me, and we were absolutely tired of eacb other's company. He was on one verandah and I on another, as far apart as we '■ could get. While I was ruminating my " boy " came to me. " Tuan 1 the Indian- men with snakes have come and asked to play before the Tuan." " All right, send them, round to the front of the bungalow, and tell Tuan Harris and anyone else you like." So they came with much squeaking and droning of their pipes and other musical instruments of torture. One of them carried an old sack and the other a basket, and a small boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen years of age accompanied them. Harris and I interviewed them. We had seen a dozen shows of the same sort before and wanted something new. " Good morning, Samai ; what do you want?" "We will show the Sahib 3ome strange play with snakes and balls - and scorpions, and other- things if the Sahib will be kind enough to watch. We will send them to Bombay and Calcutta, bring them back while the Sahib blows — phew ! — so. We will make the snakes danco and obey our words. And we havo other matters, too, to show. Will the Sahib deign to look ?" "We have seen all these before, Samai ; we have seen them many times. You must show us some new thing or we will not give you a»y money." Then they began. A circular piece of ground in the garden about Bft. in , diameter was swept clear, and the two men squatted in it with the bag between them, and the boy and basket behind. One of the men began playing on his gourd, making a hideous noise while the other began his tricks with balls and cups, making ' the balls appear and disappear at will. I turned to Harris and said the gourdblowing must be dry work, and no sooner were ihe words oufc of my mouth ,than the performance stopped, , and the musician, standing up, said : " It is very hot to-day, and we have walked a long way; will the Sahib give us a little something to drink ? V/e know the great kindness of his • heart, and ask as his servants." " Well, what will you have ? Some water ?" " A little brandy, if the Sahib is so good ; a very little brandy." "No Samai, I won't give brandy ; but " — a thought struck me — " I will give you some gin, if you like." " The Sahib is very good ; we will drink the ' geen," and will always bless the Sahib." • One of my contractors, Ah Ching, ■ had presented me on a previous occasion with a gift of three bottles of cheap gin, some fowls, some fruit, and other things. The gin had re- . . mained untouched till now, as no snakes had been preserved recently in our establishment, and I thought :,;. I would let them have it. I told the V. boy to bring a bottle of gin and some ' glasses and water, and give it to the men. He did so. The musician poured out half a tumbler of gin and tasted it, passing it on to his fellow. They both looked up to heaven, rolled their eyes, and said it- was exceedingly good, and promptly drank a tumblerful each, casting looks of disdain at the waterbottle. Harris and I gasped, and I had ..visions of emetics and so forth, . but the performance recommenced, ;.-■!' 'iahd we did nothing. *.; - -' There never was such a performance. : y Nothing went right. When three -j\ balls should have been under one cup, y, there were none; when .the casual -, r'-ji" bystander was given a coin to hold * between his palms for the juggler to change into a scorpion in the good old-fashioned way, is persistently refused to change, and so with, all the tricks; and meanwhile the musical partner was extracting the most bloodcurdlingsounds from his gourd. Every- £ body was in fits of laughter. The abject surprise of the performers was indescribable. But the final touch was -. yet to come. In getting some of their *' . paraphernalia out of the sack they .- had disarranged the contents to such fcsi;j- an extent that the scorpion and snakes 'v : -r-had got loose. One of their tricks •'" consisted of pulling yards and yards .and yards of red worsted out of the mouth of the performer, and this scarlet- thread ..had got mixed up in . : the bag- .with the scorpion. When jt^horbughly entangled by its struggles yss|t6 free, itself, the scorpion walked out v Xoi the-inoutn of the bag with all this

red stuff wrapped round him, and the jugglers did not recognise it ; they both jumped clean out of the ring, and the audience scattered. 'They were very drunk by now, and wero in a most extreme state of fright. To make matters worse, tho .snakes got loose at this moment, and things were very lively. After a short chase the snakes were captured, but tho men refused stoutly to have anything to do with the scorpion, and ultimately I had to secure it by putting an empty flower-pot over it and stopping up the hole in tho bottom with some clay. Then the men quarrelled, and knocked one another about a great deal without doing any hurt, and finally went to sleep under the verandah. When they woke up at 5 o'clock we gave them a dollar and some vinegar to drink, and they walked off all right, after unwinding the scorpion aud putting it in its box. But we had had a thoroughly amusing afternoon.