noisy when awake—always chaffing, scolding,
scoffing, laughing, ripping, and cursing, and carrying
on about something or other. I never saw such
a bird for delivering opinions. Nothing escapes
him; he notices everything that happens, and brings
out his opinion about it, particularly if it is a
matter that is none of his business. And it
is never a mild opinion, but always violent—violent
and profane—the presence of ladies does
not affect him. His opinions are not the outcome
of reflection, for he never thinks about anything,
but heaves out the opinion that is on top in his mind,
and which is often an opinion about some quite different
thing and does not fit the case. But that is
his way; his main idea is to get out an opinion, and
if he stopped to think he would lose chances.
I suppose he has no enemies among men. The whites
and Mohammedans never seemed to molest him; and the
Hindoos, because of their religion, never take the
life of any creature, but spare even the snakes and
tigers and fleas and rats. If I sat on one end
of the balcony, the crows would gather on the railing
at the other end and talk about me; and edge closer,
little by little, till I could almost reach them; and
they would sit there, in the most unabashed way, and
talk about my clothes, and my hair, and my complexion,
and probable character and vocation and politics,
and how I came to be in India, and what I had been
doing, and how many days I had got for it, and how
I had happened to go unhanged so long, and when would
it probably come off, and might there be more of my
sort where I came from, and when would they be hanged,—and
so on, and so on, until I could not longer endure
the embarrassment of it; then I would shoo them away,
and they would circle around in the air a little while,
laughing and deriding and mocking, and presently settle
on the rail and do it all over again.
They were very sociable when there was anything to
eat—oppressively so. With a little
encouragement they would come in and light on the table
and help me eat my breakfast; and once when I was
in the other room and they found themselves alone,
they carried off everything they could lift; and they
were particular to choose things which they could make
no use of after they got them. In India their
number is beyond estimate, and their noise is in proportion.
I suppose they cost the country more than the government
does; yet that is not a light matter. Still,
they pay; their company pays; it would sadden the
land to take their cheerful voice out of it.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity.
Another man’s,
I mean.
—Pudd’nhead
Wilson’s New Calendar.
Copyrights
Following the Equator from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
