Frederick Arthur Neale

“ In India they call the sea-breeze the doctor, and gasp and look out for its approach with all the anxiety that a suffering patient evinces for the arrival of some skilful physician. The cook has been the doctor with sailors beyond even the memory of that gifted individual, the oldest nautical inhabitant, and doctor he will remain so long as England has a plank to float upon the waters, and a flag to brave the battle and the breeze. ”

“ When all the trees have been so served, then the hut and the baskets, the mats, the peasant and his family, all disappear from the field of action, and the olive groves relapse into solitude, made sadder still by the plaintive cooing of the turtle dove, who is possibly telling his mate that the winter is nigh—and that they had better return to their winter quarters in the mosque at the entrance gate of the nearest town. ”

“ The dawn is just breaking, and larks leaving their warm nests for flights of song, when the peasant rouses his family, and they get their frugal breakfast off a few dried fruits, some bread, and a cup of water. Then each one laden according to his or her capability with mats or baskets, they scatter themselves under the trees immediately surrounding the huts. The younger children climb up the trees, to shake the uppermost branches, which are almost too fragile to admit of even their weight. ”

“ Having no watch to keep at night, he is an early riser; and a huge bucket of salt water, soap, and a scrubbing brush make his polished skin shine like ebony. Breakfast is no important tax upon his abilities, except perhaps as regards the cabin, and here it is sometimes a perplexing mental question as to whether salt pork or salt beef fried with a liberal supply of onions, and perhaps seasoned with a little curry powder, would prove most savoury for the cabin gourmands. ”

“ The wind blows up in heavy puffs from seaward, aiding the gatherers not a little: mats are spread underneath, and the father, mother, and eldest daughter pick up the fruit as it falls, and pile it up into the baskets. ”

“ Well, I also, in my life’s experience, have planted olives and watched them grow; and if I were to return to the spot, doubtless by this time I might reap some of the fruit of my labour. Who knows? perhaps the contents of this jar were gathered from those very identical trees! The thought is a pleasant one to myself, and will impart an extra relish to the flavour. That was in a large oil district in Syria, where the whole of the high land was devoted to the cultivation of the olive tree, both for the sake of the fruit and the oil it yields ”

“ Talk about agility being confined to the monkey tribe, or lamplighters shinning up and down the lamp-posts,—why, the toddy-man far surpasses the latter and fully equals the former. To see him climb up a cocoa-nut tree somewhere between sixty and seventy feet in height, and to witness his lightning-like descent, despite the coarse nature of the bark of the tree, is marvellous. It is difficult to conceive how human flesh and blood can accomplish such feats without being literally made mincemeat of. ”

“ The sound produced by the turning of the mill and the crushing of the olives is of a monotonous wheezing sort, sometimes swelling into loud notes, and then suddenly subsiding into silence. The smell is disagreeable and overpowering, and both smell and noise extend over a considerable distance amongst the surrounding hills and valleys in the height of the olive season. When pressing the inferior oils for lamps, the sieve is dispensed with, and the thick matter is allowed to settle to the bottom of ponderous earthenware jars, whence the oil is ladled out for nightly use. ”

“ In such a house lives yonder toddy-man, and he says that it keeps out both rain and heat. The young buds are a delicate vegetable. The cocoa-nut shells are manufactured into drinking vessels and measures; the solid fruit within the shell, besides being a delicate relish of delicious flavour, and constituting the main support of hundreds of poor natives in Ceylon and other parts of India, is compressed into an excellent transparent oil, used by Europeans for lamps, and by the natives to mix with sweetmeats or curry, whilst their women apply it to the hair ”

“ Scooped out of the bottom stone is a deep, narrow duct, through which the oil bruised out from the olives oozes through a fine sieve into large wooden troughs, whence the oil is poured into skins or immense glass bottles firmly secured or corked, and hung up or warehoused, out of the reach of destructive rats and mice. ”

“ Every day, just at the close of evening, the peasant loads the day’s produce upon horses, mules, asses, and even oxen, and conveys them in safety to the proprietor’s house on the estate: returning with his beasts of burthen in time for a good night’s rest, to brace him up against to-morrow’s labours. ”

“ There are very few plants that require less care or trouble than the olive does. Indigenous to the soil, it is of a hardy as well as a fruitful nature, but is governed by the same rule which applies to many other fruit or berry-producing trees and plants ”

“ The olive harvest is the latest crop of the year, being usually gathered in through the northern districts of Syria about the end of October or the first week in November. Then the peasant and all the available members of his family find active occupation for a full week or ten days, according to the size of the plantation they have to work upon. ”

“ The toddy-man carries a sharp knife in a girdle round his waist, and slung over his shoulder a large brass pot, into which he pours the toddy as he passes from tree to tree, and, possessing perfect knowledge of the exact quantity which his line of tope will produce, the brass receptacle is always large enough for the supply. ”

“ If there is one thing more than another in which he excels, it is the manufacturing of that, by sailors, dearly-loved dish—“duff” or “dough”—without which British tars would go to rack and ruin, and which, being usually as solid and heavy as a leaden bullet, might give a rhinoceros an indigestion, but is satisfying and a mere trifle to the English sailor. Here, in this caboose, the doctor receives deputations, who, pannakin in hand, suggest that a little hot water would greatly facilitate the weekly operation of eradicating bristles, constitutionally of a wild boarish nature. ”

“ Hence also, at stated periods, this great purveyor to the necessities and comforts of the floating community issues the daily rations of coffee, tea, meat, potatoes, pease-pudding, duff, &c.; and, seated upon the ledge of the caboose-door, with a knife-board across his knees to answer for a table, the doctor condescendingly partakes of every meal, mingling freely in the conversation and jest of his brother sailors who are squatted on the deck all around, receiving their encomiums, and like them, ever and anon cracking a biscuit with his elbow, which has defied every other applicable force. ”

“ The largest of these belts, which open and shut with a powerful iron hasp, passes under the toddy-man’s armpits, and is so large as to admit of his leaning back against it sufficiently to enable him to give every successive throw or climb he makes upwards a sufficient impetus from the clutch of his powerful hands and the encircling strength of his arms. ”

“ The only assistance or helping medium employed by the toddy-man consists of two long and strong belts made out of coir, twisted into stout ropes, and covered over with hides, to prevent the friction too speedily wearing away these supports, on the durability and strength of which the toddy-man’s life or safety of limb depends. ”

“ With these safeguards he throws up his arms as high as he can, and, getting a firm hold, hauls himself up rapidly: the naked toes of his feet help him materially in climbing up against the side of the tree, the two girths that bound him round the tree gliding up easily with him, and, when he at length reaches the top, constituting a species of easy-chair for him ”

“ The doctor’s life on board is rather a monotonous one. His costume is occasionally varied by the state of the weather, and includes a rough tarpaulin coat, in which he invests himself on very rainy or cold wintry days. ”

“ Long practice, however, and the natural suppleness of the Indians’ limbs, enable them to accomplish what constitutes them, almost to a man, acrobats; and from early childhood they are reared to gymnastic exercises, which impart immense muscular power. ”

“ The mulberry trees have had their branches lopped off—as a supply of winter fuel—and sufficient silkworm eggs are preserved against the crop for next year.
In the summer, the wheat, barley, and other grain is gathered and winnowed in the centre of vast fields ”

“ They use a very primitive mill, constructed of a couple of ponderous mill-stones or grinding stones, the upper one of which is turned by means of a stout beam inserted into a bore in the stone, one end being secured to the neck of a mule or bullock, which walks round and round under the lash and is always blindfolded to prevent its getting dizzy. ”

“ The doctor’s only assistant is “Jimmy Ducks,” the hapless orphan cabin-boy, who is so perpetually occupied with one thing or another, from lighting the caboose fire at four o’clock in the morning to washing out the skipper’s socks at eleven p.m., that he can only find time to lave himself once a week (when the doctor kindly assists in scouring him) , and generally makes the caboose his dormitory for the few hours mercifully allowed him to rest his weary and oftentimes very sore limbs. ”

“ The afternoon and evening, weather permitting, he usually de votes to literature and anecdote, and great is the enthusiasm with which the other sailors receive his often-repeated story of how in such and such a year, at some small town in the West Indies—Cook being then a mere hop o’ my thumb—he and a lot of others contrived to entice and entrap a whole battalion of turkeys and a fleet of geese by means of skilfully baited fish-hooks ”