Chapter 39 - Page 2

prince's religious account straight, and his spiritual person
safe; but the record has the added value of keeping the pedigree
authentic, too.

When I think of Bombay now, at this distance of time, I seem to have a
kaleidoscope at my eye; and I hear the clash of the glass bits as the
splendid figures change, and fall apart, and flash into new forms, figure
after figure, and with the birth of each new form I feel my skin crinkle
and my nerve-web tingle with a new thrill of wonder and delight. These
remembered pictures float past me in a sequence of contracts; following
the same order always, and always whirling by and disappearing with the
swiftness of a dream, leaving me with the sense that the actuality was
the experience of an hour, at most, whereas it really covered days, I
think.

The series begins with the hiring of a "bearer"--native man-servant--a
person who should be selected with some care, because as long as he is in
your employ he will be about as near to you as your clothes.

In India your day may be said to begin with the "bearer's" knock on the
bedroom door, accompanied by a formula of, words--a formula which is
intended to mean that the bath is ready. It doesn't really seem to mean
anything at all. But that is because you are not used to "bearer"
English. You will presently understand.

Where he gets his English is his own secret. There is nothing like it
elsewhere in the earth; or even in paradise, perhaps, but the other place
is probably full of it. You hire him as soon as you touch Indian soil;
for no matter what your sex is, you cannot do without him. He is
messenger, valet, chambermaid, table-waiter, lady's maid, courier--he is
everything. He carries a coarse linen clothes-bag and a quilt; he sleeps
on the stone floor outside your chamber door, and gets his meals you do
not know where nor when; you only know that he is not fed on the
premises, either when you are in a hotel or when you are a guest in a
private house. His wages are large--from an Indian point of view--and he
feeds and clothes himself out of them. We had three of him in two and a
half months. The first one's rate was thirty rupees a month that is to
say, twenty-seven cents a day; the rate of the others, Rs. 40 (40 rupees)
a month. A princely sum; for the native switchman on a railway and the
native servant in a private family get only Rs. 7 per month, and the
farm-hand only 4. The two former feed and clothe themselves and their
families on their $1.90 per month; but I cannot believe that the farmhand
has to feed himself on his $1.08. I think the farm probably feeds him,
and that the whole of his wages, except a trifle for the priest, go to
the support of his family. That is, to