A PILGRIM GOES HOME

Southland Times, Issue 23332, 16 October 1937, Page 19

A PILGRIM GOES HOME

V. More Of Colombo

(SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THE SOUTHLAND TIMES)

By

NGAIO MARSH

It is, of course, the colour and the smell that does it. That is why no talkie travelogue can give you more than a half-size impression of an. Oriental town. Even the native bazaars at Colombo smelt delightful and the colour was so exciting that it made you catch your breath. Sharp cerise skirts, fierce emerald loin-cloths, white tunics, and, almost intolerably beautiful, like an exultant cry, the orange robes of a Brahmin priest. It was pleasant to sit inside one of the shops while long hands piled silks on the table. It was delightful to walk into the street and see no white faces but those of my companions. “Yess, madame, yess. Up!”

We were in the rickshaws again, mixed up with such a bewildering sea of black faces that once more the adventure was a dream. How many pennies did I give to those bad little black boys with tragic eyes, soft beseeching voices, and no morals at all? Why did that incredible old gentleman insist on swapping boxes of matches with me? Mine had only half a dozen matches left in it and was a dull looking affair. His was adorned with a picture, in bright colours, of a simpering infant and was labelled “Baby.” It was full of matches and at least every third match could be persuaded to burst into an uncertain glory and go out immediately. FORBIDDEN TEMPLE Half way down the street was a temple. A plethora of pink and blue towers, like spiked turbans, rose from a conglomeration of mouldering plaster and sacred posters that hung in strips from the sun-blistered walls. The entrance, narrow and dark, was approached by a steep flight of steps from the street. From inside came the drift of an uneven chant. While we watched for our rickshaws a youth with a roll of matting balanced on his head walked steadily up the steps, turned with a grave movement, and entered the temple. “Not in there,” said my rickshaw man. “Not permitted.” The crowds closed about us again. We began to say, “No,” “No thank you,” “No.” We were asked to buy postcards, flowers, elephants ad nauseam —“Lovely trunk-up elephant for luck, madame! Trunk-up elephant!” —and merely to give money away. “No, thank you.” “No.” We were asked every few yards fcr cigarettes. Loathsome sweetmeats were proffered on revolting trays. By and by we turned into a wider thoroughfare and our rickshaw men suddenly shouted, “Cinnamon Gardens,” and broke into a trot. “How far?” ' “Cinnamon Gardens.” “How far?” Peals of laughter. “Only sixpence for half an hour,” we reminded them. “Cinnamon Gardens!” CINNAMON GARDENS

On the way our rickshaw men stopped, rested their shafts on the grass in a pleasant by-road, and plucked a great many bright flowers from the hedges of some private gardens. One man went so far as to run inside a garden and secure a rarer bloom. This made us very nervous. They tossed the flowers into our laps, picked up their shafts, and off we went again. The gardens were charming. In them all the vague drifts of scent had their habitation—in orange and lemon trees, in camphor trees, and in the tall cinnamons themselves. Our rickshaw men were not allowed into the gardens; but no sooner had we passed through the gates than we were met by a persistent horticulturist who flashed a smile and said, “Come! You come with me. Come!” “We don’t want to come with you. We want to be alone. Alone. Alone!” “Come! This way. Yess. No pay. Come!”

As he would not go away and as we did not care to remain indefinitely in the broiling sun at the portals of the Cinnamon Gardens we were forced to accompany him. He led us down the most delightful paths and gave us small pieces of sweet-smelling wood and aromatic leaves to crush between our fingers. He was joined by several extortionate infants and by lesser horticulturists, who pointed out beauties of their particular choice and asked for gratuities. They were more or less pacified by a five cent piece, which is worth about a penny. We passed a small summerhouse and through its leaves came the sound of children’s voices raised in a soft monotonous chant. Flamboyants and bougainvillias blazed above the lawns; the air simmered hazily among the strange trees. We drifted back to the gates, got rid of the horticulturist for 20 cents, and warded off the last of the extortionate infants. Our rickshaw men were overjoyed to see us, screamed “Temple”, in unison, and set off down the baking highway. “You take us straight to the Galle Face.” “Temple!” “No! Galle Face!” “All same.” And in five minutes, after executing what we discovered to be a wide detour, they decanted us into the entrance of a modern temple, through which we were obliged to walk on our stockinged feet. I imagine that the recumbent Buddha, 14 feet long, and the upright Buddha, blandly serene on his throne, were both made in Birmingham. The paint was still shiny on the faintly smiling lips and our guides were at great pains to tell us, with the liveliest enthusiasm, that everything was very new indeed.

But it was cool in there and the votive petals on the low altar were fragrant. From deep inside an inner court came the hum of a chant, and five Brahmin priests stood motionless on a low flight of steps. The tangerine of their robes burned against the translucent amber of their skins. We stared about us for a little while, fought our way through temple off-siders back to the rickshaws, and at last set off in deadly earnest for the Galle Face.

HOTELS, FOOD AND PEOPLE The Galle Face is an enormous, rosecoloured hotel overlooking the sea. Before its palatial entrance we parted with our rickshaw men after a scene of passionate recrimination, during which they attempted to treble our fares on the score that we had insisted on being taken to the Cinnamon Gardens and the temple. . . The hotel was extremely grand with superb swimming baths, loggias, restaurants, and beauty salons. In a parlour off the' main hall three exotic gentlemen sat amid a collection of jewels and unset stones. Colombo is a good place to buy precious stones if you know what you are doing and a disastrous one if you don’t. The hotel is overrun by tourists, and we seemed to meet most of our shipmates. It was not entertaining to hear of their adventures or to watch them drift restlessly about in a condition of advanced sight-seeing; so we left the Galle Face and took a car to Mount Lavinia, where we lunched in a room that overlooked the sea and ate our first Indian curry. It was brought to us in a great divided dish; in each division was a separate kind of curry; you mixed them all on your plate with coco-nut, chutney, and grated cheese; and you discovered that you had never eaten curry before. BRIDAL PROCESSION From Mount Lavinia the coast curves back towards Colombo and is a little too obviously fringed with palm trees. But along the road we took on our return are native villages; and in these we seemed to find the unchangeable reality of Colombo. In a narrow lane we met a wedding procession and were held up by it. It was a grand wedding. In a magnificent car sat a girl dressed like an Occidental bride with a white veil above her sloe-black eyes. Beside her sweated her dark brown papa in a morning suit and top hat. The wedding guests swarmed over the road and tooted impotently but incessantly on their motor homs. Native policemen danced up and down in the dust and screamed orders to which nobody paid the slightest attention. Every moment the crowd got bigger and less manageable. Indian ladies left their cars and walked through the dust. Their saris were shrilly pink and pink jewels flashed in their nostrils and between their >rows. Children swarmed round the cars, showing the whites of their eyes. When they caught sight of us they extended brown-and-pink paws, whispered, “Madame! Pleasse! Madame! and sidled away again. SUBJECT FOR GAUGUIN The heat and noise became almost intolerable. Our Cingalese chauffeur sat like a Buddha at the wheel. Everything seemed to move behind a sort of heat haze. From my memory of this wedding procession only one image remains quite clear. Close to our car was a little native garden, very overgrown and lush. Dipping branches of palm leaves, emerald green, almost hid from us a small hut. A mass of tangled undergrowth rose up to meet them. Not a breath of wind was there to stir those shining emerald leaves, not a ray of hot sun to violate the sanctuary they made. At first I thought this small garden was deserted; but presently the green jewels moved very slightly, and in the swimming shade beyond a pair of eyes glinted. A hand touched a palm frond and there was the face of a girl, rimmed by blue, reflected light, shadowed by dark locks of hair. Almost all the dark colour of the face was translated into strange colours. It was as though she,were drowned in a sea of green leaved She looked directly at us and suddenly her teeth gleamed. The leaves moved again and three small babies’ heads were there beside her. If Gauguin had come that way he would have sat down in the middle of the wedding procession and painted th. four children, and the strange colours would have lived forever instead of in a memory that has no language to give them life. It was impossible not to return those ingenuous smiles, so innocently soft and shy. For perhaps 10 minutes we exchanged friendly signs. They made no attempt to come out and beg, staying still behind their leafy fortress; but when at last we moved away, four slim hands waved us goodbye.

DEPARTURE AT NIGHT After nightfall we wandered through the little shops and found them enchanting by lamplight About 9 o’clock on a very still evening we went down to the wharves and found a boat with three rowers who took us back over the dark harbour to our ship. The sound of oars, voices that called from other boats, a song that floated across the water, these are all jumbled in the recollection of our departure. I remember that I dipped my hand in the water and found it warmer than the air, that the lights of Colombo were broken by the wake of our boat, that we sat for a long time looking back to the shore, that we sailed away somewhere about midnight. (To be continued.)