ZEMY KUND.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15894, 19 January 1924, Page 15 (Supplement)

ZEMY KUND.

"IT tS GOOD TO EAT!" The following entertaining sketch from the pen of Edmund Candler appeared in a recent issue of the "Spejlator": — Plants with evil properties are generally evil in appearance. The henbane has sticky leaves and a foul smell; its flowers are unhealthy looking. The poisonous aconite has a snake-like curl. The purple! and scarlet berries of the Deadly Nightshade and Lords and Ladies ought not to deceive a child. Delapryms and I should have been warned by the shape of the root. It was a malignantly freakish and sinisterlooking object. But the man in the bazaar who sold it to us and the Collector's red-coated chaprassi, and our two syces, all truth loving-persons where inexactitude is unprofitable told us that it was good to eat. And this, I have come to know, provided certain conditions are preserved, is literally true.

We were riding through one of those little narrow Baghdad-like alleys of Gopalpura, which give the city" its charm, when we passed a stall, or a hole in the wall, where a man was selling the strange vegetables of the country. A wry-faced, weather-beaten old Jat was buying a root which the shop-keeper was weighing on has scales. It was a large, roundish, truffle-like object, with bulbs and earthy tentacles protruding from it, like a petrified octopus which had Died in Convulsions. My friend, Delapryme, the future administrator of the Province, pulled up and asked the man the name of the root, where it came .from, how it grew, its market value, and whether it was good to eat. It was his business to know these things, as he was collecting statistics for the District Gazetteer. The vendor detached a bulbous annexe of the root , which repeated the main fabric in miniature; he held it out to Delapryme obsequiously. "It is zemy kund. -Yes, it is good to eat. The people eat it. Very good, j It comes from the hills. Two pounds are sold for one anna and a half."

Delapryme pocketed the sample and threw the man a four-anna piece, telling him with condescension to gave the change to the poor. We rode home and dismounted under the porch. Delapryme's wife came out into the verandah to meet us, with a ball of coarse brown sugar for each pony. The syces ran forward to take off the bridles. Then Delapryme remembered the root. He showed it to the red-coated chaprassi on duty. "What is this root?" he asked. "Where does it grow? Is it good to eat?"

"Huzoor, it is zemy kund. It grows under the ground. The. people eat it. Certainly it is good to eat."

Delapryme took a knife from his syce and cut it open. The internal texture was like a turnip with a strange lateral tissue which struck me at the time as unnatural. It smelt of the essence of earth and mushroom, with ;a faint suggestion of fish. Delapryme cut a thin slice from the core of the root, disccted it, and handed half to me. We both tasted it, Delapryme first. The redcoated chaprassi stood by/ watching i us respectfully. The syces watched us till they led the ponies away. Before they were round the corner of the house Delapryme was on allfours, Grovelling and Spitting. and foaming at the mouth. "Hellflre!" I theught ho shouted; but he soon became inarticulate. Then it began on me. I felt points of flame blistering my throat and tongue and lips. We both grinned whoa we felt the first burning, thinking that it would be momentary, like mustard or chillies. But this was only a foretaste; the zemy kund had not yet begun to take hold. Delapryme made signs to the chaprassi to bring water. He /brought jugfuls, and we lay on the floor of the verandah and drank, or tried to drink. A thick curdy slime gathered in our mouths, and flowed continuously. Delapryme was sick and I observed other horrid details which I will not repeat. His wife, who had gone inside before we tasted the root, came out again. We tried to explain, but wo were speechless, and could not get out an articulate word. When she saw the stinging, white, mucous fluid oozing from our mouths she thought we had hydrophobia. When we showed her the root and pointed to our mouths, she thought we were mad, as indeed we had been, and the foolish grimaces which Delapryme made to reassure her only frightened her the more. She turned the colour of a faded Bougainvillaea, and sank down on to a chesterfield. I thought she was going to faint, but she pulled herself together and began to talk to Delapryme cajolingly, caressingly, in the coaxing voice one might use to a Beast of Uncertain Temper. which had escaped from its cage. For all she knew, the next stage in our seizure might be violent. .. A more timid woman would have run awav and locked herself in her room. But she sat on the edge of the chesterfield and tried to hypnotise Delapryme into obedience with childlike exhortations, as if the intelligent part of him were asleep. "Doctor, doctor," she said, "he will make you well Hospital. Only a little way. Hun quick." And she pointed to the hospital, which was visible through the trees, less than a quarter of a mile distant. We started off in a bent, shuffling run, our heads down, ejecting saliva, the chaprassi following with glasses and a jug. We found a crowd in the corridor outside the operating room. The civil surgeon saw us through a chink in the blinds, left his operation and ran out. Wo could not explain things to him, and he, too Ihought we were mad, until the. chaprassi told him we had eaten the root, lie took us to the dispensing room and gave us lotions, first of soda, then of alum, and told us to rinse out our mouths. '■Gargle," ho said; but we could not gargle, as the passage of the throat was blocked by the swelling of the lonsil.s and the water lay at the back of our mouths. So wc rinsed and frothed and foamed until the carriage eamo for us and we were driven home, where we rinsed and frothed and foamed again all the rest of (lie morning, and all the nriornoon until ten at night. At eight my tonsils, which had been painted, opened a bit and I swallowed some milk. 1 felt my teeth meet in a kind of fiery void. They were the only part of my mouth which 1 could localise: all the rest was that hot, white sticky scum which curdled if one neglected it, and hung from one's gums in a way that reminded me of :

A Slobbering Bulldog.

The details of that vigil will not bear repeating. Delaprymo was a disgusting sight. At ten I went to bed, put my head in a towel and tried to sleep. But it was fortyeight hours before either of us could speak coherently or eat anything. "It just shows," as Delaprymo observed, "what a damn funny country this is." It appears that the insido of the root will raise a blister on your hand, when raw, and native cooks take care not to touch at when preparing it for the stew with their hands. Stewed, it is reputed to be an appetising condiment. The wonder is that in its natural state it does not burn a hole in hte eartl\. Yet three servants, who understood the properties of the root, stood by' and watohed us eat it. If we had swallowed a few fibres we should most certainly have died. Odd, 100, but credible in this land of unexpected values, that there should be a drug of such violent properties and that we should know nothing about it. Delapryme is now the recognised authority on zemy kund. His note on the root is probably the only passage in his report on Economic Products distinguished by any literary merit. But, j unfortunately, nobody reads the Gopalpura Gazetteer.