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LIFE'S HANDICAP

BEING STORIES OF MINE OWN PEOPLE

By Rudyard Kipling

1915


   TO
   E.K.R.
   FROM
   R.K.
   1887-89
   C.M.G.




PREFACE

In Northern India stood a monastery called The Chubara of Dhunni Bhagat.
No one remembered who or what Dhunni Bhagat had been. He had lived his
life, made a little money and spent it all, as every good Hindu should
do, on a work of piety--the Chubara. That was full of brick cells, gaily
painted with the figures of Gods and kings and elephants, where worn-out
priests could sit and meditate on the latter end of things; the paths
were brick paved, and the naked feet of thousands had worn them into
gutters. Clumps of mangoes sprouted from between the bricks; great
pipal trees overhung the well-windlass that whined all day; and hosts
of parrots tore through the trees. Crows and squirrels were tame in that
place, for they knew that never a priest would touch them.

The wandering mendicants, charm-sellers, and holy vagabonds for a
hundred miles round used to make the Chubara their place of call and
rest. Mahomedan, Sikh, and Hindu mixed equally under the trees. They
were old men, and when man has come to the turnstiles of Night all the
creeds in the world seem to him wonderfully alike and colourless.

Gobind the one-eyed told me this. He was a holy man who lived on an
island in the middle of a river and fed the fishes with little bread
pellets twice a day. In flood-time, when swollen corpses stranded
themselves at the foot of the island, Gobind would cause them to be
piously burned, for the sake of the honour of mankind, and having regard
to his own account with God hereafter. But when two-thirds of the
island was torn away in a spate, Gobind came across the river to Dhunni
Bhagat's Chubara, he and his brass drinking vessel with the well-cord
round the neck, his short arm-rest crutch studded with brass nails, his
roll of bedding, his big pipe, his umbrella, and his tall sugar-loaf hat
with the nodding peacock feathers in it. He wrapped himself up in his
patched quilt made of every colour and material in the world, sat down
in a sunny corner of the very quiet Chubara, and, resting his arm on his
short-handled crutch, waited for death. The people brought him food and
little clumps of marigold flowers, and he gave his blessing in return.
He was nearly blind, and his face was seamed and lined and wrinkled
beyond belief, for he had lived in his time which was before the English
came within five hundred miles of Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara.

When we grew to know each other well, Gobind would tell me tales in a
voice most like the rumbling of heavy guns over a wooden bridge. His
tales were true, but not one in twenty could be printed in an English
book, because the English do not think as natives do. They brood over
matters that a native would dismiss till a fitting occasion; and what
they would not think twice about a native will brood over till a fitting
occasion: then native and English stare at each other hopelessly across
great gulfs of miscomprehension.

'And what,' said Gobind one Sunday evening, 'is your honoured craft, and
by what manner of means earn you your daily bread?'

'I am,' said I, 'a kerani--one who writes with a pen upon paper, not
being in the service of the Government.'

'Then what do you write?' said Gobind. 'Come nearer, for I cannot see
your countenance, and the light fails.'

'I write of all matters that lie within my understanding, and of many
that do not. But chiefly I write of Life and Death, and men and women,
and Love and Fate according to the measure of my ability, telling the
tale through the mouths of one, two, or more people. Then by the favour
of God the tales are sold and money accrues to me that I may keep
alive.'

'Even so,' said Gobind. 'That is the work of the bazar story-teller; but
he speaks straight to men and women and does not write anything at all.
Only when the tale has aroused expectation, and calamities are about
to befall the virtuous, he stops suddenly and demands payment ere he
continues the narration. Is it so in your craft, my son?'

'I have heard of such things when a tale is of great length, and is sold
as a cucumber, in small pieces.'

'Ay, I was once a famed teller of stories when I was begging on the road
between Koshin and Etra; before the last pilgrimage that ever I took to
Orissa. I told many tales and heard many more at the rest-houses in the
evening when we were merry at the end of the march. It is in my heart
that grown men are but as little children in the matter of tales, and
the oldest tale is the most beloved.'

'With your people that is truth,' said I. 'But in regard to our people
they desire new tales, and when all is written they rise up and declare
that the tale were better told in such and such a manner, and doubt
either the truth or the invention thereof.'

'But what folly is theirs!' said Gobind, throwing out his knotted hand.
'A tale that is told is a true tale as long as the telling lasts. And
of their talk upon it--you know how Bilas Khan, that was the prince of
tale-tellers, said to one who mocked him in the great rest-house on the
Jhelum road: "Go on, my brother, and finish that I have begun," and he
who mocked took up the tale, but having neither voice nor manner for the
task came to a standstill, and the pilgrims at supper made him eat abuse
and stick half that night.'

'Nay, but with our people, money having passed, it is their right; as we
should turn against a shoeseller in regard to shoes if those wore out.
If ever I make a book you shall see and judge.'

'And the parrot said to the falling tree, Wait, brother, till I fetch a
prop!' said Gobind with a grim chuckle. 'God has given me eighty years,
and it may be some over. I cannot look for more than day granted by day
and as a favour at this tide. Be swift.'

'In what manner is it best to set about the task.' said I, 'O chiefest
of those who string pearls with their tongue?'

'How do I know? Yet'--he thought for a little--'how should I not know?
God has made very many heads, but there is only one heart in all the
world among your people or my people. They are children in the matter of
tales.'

'But none are so terrible as the little ones, if a man misplace a word,
or in a second telling vary events by so much as one small devil.'

'Ay, I also have told tales to the little ones, but do thou this--' His
old eyes fell on the gaudy paintings of the wall, the blue and red dome,
and the flames of the poinsettias beyond. 'Tell them first of those
things that thou hast seen and they have seen together. Thus their
knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell them of what thou alone
hast seen, then what thou hast heard, and since they be children tell
them of battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants, and angels, but
omit not to tell them of love and suchlike. All the earth is full of
tales to him who listens and does not drive away the poor from his door.
The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for they must lay their ear to
the ground every night.'

After this conversation the idea grew in my head, and Gobind was
pressing in his inquiries as to the health of the book.

Later, when we had been parted for months, it happened that I was to go
away and far off, and I came to bid Gobind good-bye.

'It is farewell between us now, for I go a very long journey,' I said.

'And I also. A longer one than thou. But what of the book?' said he.

'It will be born in due season if it is so ordained.'

'I would I could see it,' said the old man, huddling beneath his quilt.
'But that will not be. I die three days hence, in the night, a little
before the dawn. The term of my years is accomplished.'

In nine cases out of ten a native makes no miscalculation as to the day
of his death. He has the foreknowledge of the beasts in this respect.

'Then thou wilt depart in peace, and it is good talk, for thou hast said
that life is no delight to thee.'

'But it is a pity that our book is not born. How shall I know that there
is any record of my name?'

'Because I promise, in the forepart of the book, preceding everything
else, that it shall be written, Gobind, sadhu, of the island in the
river and awaiting God in Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara, first spoke of the
book,' said I.

'And gave counsel--an old man's counsel. Gobind, son of Gobind of the
Chumi village in the Karaon tehsil, in the district of Mooltan. Will
that be written also?'

'That will be written also.'

'And the book will go across the Black Water to the houses of your
people, and all the Sahibs will know of me who am eighty years old?'

'All who read the book shall know. I cannot promise for the rest.'

'That is good talk. Call aloud to all who are in the monastery, and I
will tell them this thing.'

They trooped up, faquirs, sadhus, sunnyasis, byragis, nihangs, and
mullahs, priests of all faiths and every degree of raggedness, and
Gobind, leaning upon his crutch, spoke so that they were visibly filled
with envy, and a white-haired senior bade Gobind think of his latter
end instead of transitory repute in the mouths of strangers. Then Gobind
gave me his blessing and I came away.

These tales have been collected from all places, and all sorts of
people, from priests in the Chubara, from Ala Yar the carver, Jiwun
Singh the carpenter, nameless men on steamers and trains round the
world, women spinning outside their cottages in the twilight, officers
and gentlemen now dead and buried, and a few, but these are the very
best, my father gave me. The greater part of them have been published in
magazines and newspapers, to whose editors I am indebted; but some are
new on this side of the water, and some have not seen the light before.

The most remarkable stories are, of course, those which do not
appear--for obvious reasons.




CONTENTS


THE LANG MEN O' LARUT

REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG

THE WANDERING JEW

THROUGH THE FIRE

THE FINANCES OF THE GODS

THE AMIR'S HOMILY

JEWS IN SHUSHAN

THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG

LITTLE TOBRAH

BUBBLING WELL ROAD

'THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT'

GEORGIE PORGIE

NABOTH

THE DREAM OF DUNCAN PARRENNESS

THE INCARNATION OF KRISHNA MULVANEY

THE COURTING OF DINAH SHADD

ON GREENHOW HILL

THE MAN WHO WAS

THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY

AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE

THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS

THE MARK OF THE BEAST

THE RETURN OF IMRAY

NAMGAY DOOLA

BERTRAN AND BIMI

MOTI GUJ--MUTINEER




THE LANG MEN O' LARUT


[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN & CO.]


The Chief Engineer's sleeping suit was of yellow striped with blue, and
his speech was the speech of Aberdeen. They sluiced the deck under him,
and he hopped on to the ornamental capstan, a black pipe between his
teeth, though the hour was not seven of the morn.

'Did you ever hear o' the Lang Men o' Larut?' he asked when the Man from
Orizava had finished a story of an aboriginal giant discovered in the
wilds of Brazil. There was never story yet passed the lips of teller,
but the Man from Orizava could cap it.

'No, we never did,' we responded with one voice. The Man from Orizava
watched the Chief keenly, as a possible rival.

'I'm not telling the story for the sake of talking merely,' said the
Chief, 'but as a warning against betting, unless you bet on a perrfect
certainty. The Lang Men o' Larut were just a certainty. I have had talk
wi' them. Now Larut, you will understand, is a dependency, or it may be
an outlying possession, o' the island o' Penang, and there they will get
you tin and manganese, an' it mayhap mica, and all manner o' meenerals.
Larut is a great place.'

'But what about the population?' said the Man from Orizava.

'The population,' said the Chief slowly, 'were few but enorrmous. You
must understand that, exceptin' the tin-mines, there is no special
inducement to Europeans to reside in Larut. The climate is warm and
remarkably like the climate o' Calcutta; and in regard to Calcutta, it
cannot have escaped your obsairvation that--'

'Calcutta isn't Larut; and we've only just come from it,' protested
the Man from Orizava. 'There's a meteorological department in Calcutta,
too.'

'Ay, but there's no meteorological department in Larut. Each man is a
law to himself. Some drink whisky, and some drink brandipanee, and
some drink cocktails--vara bad for the coats o' the stomach is a
cocktail--and some drink sangaree, so I have been credibly informed;
but one and all they sweat like the packing of piston-head on a
fourrteen-days' voyage with the screw racing half her time. But, as I
was saying, the population o' Larut was five all told of English--that
is to say, Scotch--an' I'm Scotch, ye know,' said the Chief.

The Man from Orizava lit another cigarette, and waited patiently. It was
hopeless to hurry the Chief Engineer.

'I am not pretending to account for the population o' Larut being
laid down according to such fabulous dimensions. O' the five white men
engaged upon the extraction o' tin ore and mercantile pursuits, there
were three o' the sons o' Anak. Wait while I remember. Lammitter was the
first by two inches--a giant in the land, an' a terreefic man to
cross in his ways. From heel to head he was six feet nine inches, and
proportionately built across and through the thickness of his body.
Six good feet nine inches--an overbearin' man. Next to him, and I have
forgotten his precise business, was Sandy Vowle. And he was six feet
seven, but lean and lathy, and it was more in the elasteecity of his
neck that the height lay than in any honesty o' bone and sinew. Five
feet and a few odd inches may have been his real height. The remainder
came out when he held up his head, and six feet seven he was upon the
door-sills. I took his measure in chalk standin' on a chair. And next
to him, but a proportionately made man, ruddy and of a fair countenance,
was Jock Coan--that they called the Fir Cone. He was but six feet
five, and a child beside Lammitter and Vowle. When the three walked
out together, they made a scunner run through the colony o' Larut. The
Malays ran round them as though they had been the giant trees in
the Yosemite Valley--these three Lang Men o' Larut. It was perfectly
ridiculous--a lusus naturae--that one little place should have contained
maybe the three tallest ordinar' men upon the face o' the earth.

'Obsairve now the order o' things. For it led to the finest big drink in
Larut, and six sore heads the morn that endured for a week. I am against
immoderate liquor, but the event to follow was a justification. You must
understand that many coasting steamers call at Larut wi' strangers o'
the mercantile profession. In the spring time, when the young cocoanuts
were ripening, and the trees o' the forests were putting forth their
leaves, there came an American man to Larut, and he was six foot three,
or it may have been four, in his stockings. He came on business from
Sacramento, but he stayed for pleasure wi' the Lang Men o' Larut. Less
than, a half o' the population were ordinar' in their girth and stature,
ye will understand--Howson and Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or
thereabouts. He had business with those two, and he stood above them
from the six feet threedom o' his height till they went to drink. In
the course o' conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his
height, and the trouble of it to him. That was his pride o' the flesh.

'"As the longest man in the island--" he said, but there they took him
up and asked if he were sure.

'"I say I am the longest man in the island," he said, "and on that I'll
bet my substance."

'They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and there, and put
it aside while they called Jock Coan from his house, near by among the
fireflies' winking.

'"How's a' wi' you?" said Jock, and came in by the side o' the
Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may have been one, taller than
he.

'"You're long," said the man, opening his eyes. "But I am longer." An'
they sent a whistle through the night an' howkit out Sandy Vowle from
his bit bungalow, and he came in an' stood by the side o' Jock, an' the
pair just fillit the room to the ceiling-cloth.

'The Sacramento man was a euchre-player and a most profane sweerer. "You
hold both Bowers," he said, "but the Joker is with me."

'"Fair an' softly," says Nailor. "Jock, whaur's Lang Lammitter?"

'"Here," says that man, putting his leg through the window and coming
in like an anaconda o' the desert furlong by furlong, one foot in Penang
and one in Batavia, and a hand in North Borneo it may be.

'"Are you suited?" said Nailor, when the hinder end o' Lang Lammitter
was slidden through the sill an' the head of Lammitter was lost in the
smoke away above.

'The American man took out his card and put it on the table. "Esdras B.
Longer is my name, America is my nation, 'Frisco is my resting-place,
but this here beats Creation," said he. "Boys, giants--side-show
giants--I minded to slide out of my bet if I had been overtopped, on the
strength of the riddle on this paste-board. I would have done it if
you had topped me even by three inches, but when it comes to
feet--yards--miles, I am not the man to shirk the biggest drink that
ever made the travellers'-joy palm blush with virginal indignation, or
the orang-outang and the perambulating dyak howl with envy. Set them up
and continue till the final conclusion."

'O mon, I tell you 'twas an awful sight to see those four giants
threshing about the house and the island, and tearin' down the pillars
thereof an' throwing palm-trees broadcast, and currling their long legs
round the hills o' Larut. An awfu' sight! I was there. I did not mean to
tell you, but it's out now. I was not overcome, for I e'en sat me down
under the pieces o' the table at four the morn an' meditated upon the
strangeness of things.

'Losh, yon's the breakfast-bell!'




REINGELDER AND THE GERMAN FLAG


[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN
& CO.]


Hans Breitmann paddled across the deck in his pink pyjamas, a cup of tea
in one hand and a cheroot in the other, when the steamer was sweltering
down the coast on her way to Singapur. He drank beer all day and all
night, and played a game called 'Scairt' with three compatriots.

'I haf washed,' said he in a voice of thunder, 'but dere is no
use washing on these hell-seas. Look at me--I am still all wet and
schweatin'. It is der tea dot makes me so. Boy, bring me Bilsener on
ice.'

'You will die if you drink beer before breakfast,' said one man. 'Beer
is the worst thing in the world for--'

'Ya, I know--der liver. I haf no liver, und I shall not die. At least I
will not die obon dese benny sdeamers dot haf no beer fit to trink. If
I should haf died, I will haf don so a hoondert dimes before now--in
Shermany, in New York, in Japon, in Assam, und all over der inside bans
of South Amerique. Also in Shamaica should I hat died or in Siam, but I
am here; und der are my orchits dot I have drafelled all the vorld round
to find.'

He pointed towards the wheel, where, in two rough wooden boxes, lay a
mass of shrivelled vegetation, supposed by all the ship to represent
Assam orchids of fabulous value.

Now, orchids do not grow in the main streets of towns, and Hans
Breitmann had gone far to get his. There was nothing that he had not
collected that year, from king-crabs to white kangaroos.

'Lisden now,' said he, after he had been speaking for not much more than
ten minutes without a pause; 'Lisden und I will dell you a sdory to show
how bad und worse it is to go gollectin' und belief vot