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My Tropic Isle

56 of 70

With the wind in his favour Hamed does wonders even now--at sea. It was not seemly to suggest to him that cynical memory dulled the polish of his story; but if there really are chinks in the world above at which they listen to words from below, did the Prophet smile to hear the parable by which his devout and faithful follower brought his own ride on the flying mare up to date? Having the unwonted privilege of cross-examining a man who had ridden or rather been wafted to Medina specially that he might do homage at the Tomb of the Prophet, I asked a few questions respecting the famous coffin. Was it a fact that the coffin hung in the air on a wire so fine that no one could see it? Was it, in fact, without lawful visible means of support? Hamed would neither deny nor confirm the legend. "I dunno what people you! I bin tell-straight my yarn go one time like wind to Medina. What more you want? I dunno what kind people you!" One mystery at a time is enough for Hamed. Hamed now deals in oysters. In the trade he had a partner--a fair lad of Scandinavian origin named Adolphus. All these orientals have extraordinary faith in the medicinal properties of the gall of out-of-the-way creatures. That of a wallaby is prized; of a "goanna" absolutely precious; while in respect of a crocodile, only a man who has leisure to be ill and is determined to doctor himself on the reckless principle of "blow the expense," could afford any such luxurious physic. It is reckoned next in virtue to a text from the Koran written on board: "Wash off the ink, drink the decoction, and lo! the cure is complete." So, too, if the Lama doctor has no herbal medicines he prescribes something symbolic. He writes the names of the remedies on scraps of paper, moistens the paper with saliva, and rolls them into pills, which the patient tosses down with the same perfect confidence as though they were genuine medicaments, his faith leading him to believe that swallowing a remedy or its name is equally efficacious. A "goanna" scrambled for safety up a small tree. Adolphus undertook to kill it. Hamed insisted on preemption of the gall, while yet the quaking reptile certainly had the best title to it; but Hamed stood below and some distance off, for he was nervous. Adolphus climbed the tree, killed the "goanna" offhand, and threw it so that it fell close to Hamed, and Hamed fell in a spasm of fright, upon recovering from which he chased fair, fleet-footed, laughing Adolphus for half an hour--murder in his pearly eyes, a mangrove waddy in his hand, frothy denunciations on his lips, and nothing on his body but the green sweater. Peace was restored on the presentation to him of the all-healing gall; and then Hamed apologised, almost tearfully, explaining, "That goanna, when you chuck heem, close broke heart of me!" A dissolution of partnership was then and there decided on, and Hamed thus detailed his sentiments to me:-- "That boy, I like heem too much. Good-for-working boy. Me and heem make 'em three-four beg oyster every day. He bin say: 'You carn be mate for me!' He go along two Mulai boy. Dorphy [Adolphus] carn mek too much now--one sheer belonga him, Mulai boy two sheers. Carn beat me--one sheer one man." Hamed has clean-cut notions on the disadvantages of multiplicity of partners. Hamed has been to Europe, and there--he does not mention the country--he was initiated into the mysteries of making Irish stew. In an outburst of thankful confidence for some little entertainment at the table he let out the secret in these terms: "Eerish sdoo you make 'em. Four potats, two ungin, hav-dozen garleek, one hav-bucket water." At first it appeared that he had obtained his knowledge from a passionate vegetarian, but upon reflection we concluded that in his opinion meat was so essential an item that it was to be taken for granted. Any one wishing to try the recipe would be safe in adding "meat to taste." Hamed revels in chillies, fiery, red, vitriolitic little things that would bring tears to the eyes of a molten image. Even his recipe for porridge (likewise obtained during his ever-memorable European travels) is not complete without them: "Alonga one hand oot-meal, pannikan water, one hav-handful chillies. My word, good fellow; eatem up quick; want 'em more." Possibly Hamed might be considered by some folks a "common" man. He is far from that, and the very opposite from commonplace, for some of the magic of the coral seas has tinctured his blood. His career as a pearl-shell diver has been illuminated by the discovery of pearls--big and precious. In his youth and buoyancy he gambled them away. Now that his heart is subdued and slow he still looks for pearls, and tempts coy Fortune with dramatic sincerity and most untempting things. He wants one pearl more, that he may acquire the means of travelling to his native land. Hamed of Jeddah would die there. So strenuous is his desire for one smile on the part of Fortune that Hamed's favourite topic is pearls, and of the good old days when, if a man found a patch where the grass was not too thick, he might pick up as many as a hundred shells in a day. Under conditions and circumstances all in favour, the diver relies upon an inevitable infirmity on the part of the oyster for the revelation of its whereabouts. "When man he dibe," says Hamed, "that go'lip quick he shut 'em mout. Carn see 'em. Subpose open mout, man quick he see 'em--shove-em alonga beg." At the peril of its life the oyster gapes. Hamed cherishes thoroughly Oriental theories, too, for the wooing of Chance, who (for Chance is very real and personal to him), he declares, presides over the fortune and the fate of divers. "Last night I bin drim. My word--good drim. Subpose you gibe one fowl he make lucky--we get good pearl. Must be white fowl. Black fow!"--(and here he lowered his voice to a mysteriously confidential whisper) "no good; spoil 'em lucky!" Months have elapsed since the sacrifice of the white fowl and the pouring of its blood to the accompaniment of droning supplications on the face of the contemptuous sea, and albeit the divination was cheerfully suspicious, the sulky jade still look askance, and Hamed is still far from Jeddah. HAMED PREACHES When Hamed of Jeddah left just before Christmas with four "begs" of

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