Phil Robinson

“ With a persistent insolence it returns to your nose, perching irreverently upon the feature, until sudden death cuts short its ill-mannered career. In this matter my sympathies are rather with that Roman Emperor who impaled on pins all the flies he could catch, than with Uncle Toby who, when he had in his power a ruffianly bluebottle, let it go out of the window, — to fly into his neighbor’s house and vex him. The only consolation is that the neighbor probably killed it.
The sun is hardly up yet, so the doors are open. From the garden come the sounds of chattering hot-weather birds. ”

“ But as the sun strengthens all nature begins to confess the heat, and even the crow caws sadly. On the water the sun dances with such a blinding sparkle that the panoplied crocodile, apprehensive of asphyxia, will hardly show his scales above the river, and the turtles shut up their telescope necks, shrewdly suspecting a sunstroke. On the shaded hillside the herded pigs he dreamily grunting, and in the deep coverts the deer stretch themselves secure. The peasants in the fields have loosed their bullocks for a respite ”

“ For him ingenious youth devises rare traps, cunning pyramids of beer-boxes with a rope attached — curious penalties to make him suffer, — for the coolie, after the sun has set, becomes a demoralized machine that requires winding up once every twenty minutes, and is not to be kept going without torture. And thus for eight shillings a month he embitters your life, making the punkah an engine wherewith to oppress you. ”

“ But why loiter to enumerate the coolie’s small revenges, the mean tricks by which, when you rise, he flips you in the eye with the punkah fringe, disordering your hair and sweeping it this way and that, — the petty retaliation of finding out a hole in the tattie, and flinging water through it on to your matting, angering the dog that was lying in the cool, damp shade? These and such are the coolie’s revenges, when the hot weather by which he lives embitters him against his kind. But at night he develops into a fiend, for whom a deep and bitter loathing possesses itself of the hearts of men. ”

“ The chattering garden is hushed, small birds escape to shelter, the larger fly up into the air, or on to the highest coigns of vantage, and look round for the enemy. The crow, encouraged by success, again warns the world, and his brethren come flocking round, anxious to pester something, but not quite certain as to the danger that threatens. But the crow is equal to the occasion, and by wheeling in a circle round the inoffensive kite, and making a sudden swoop towards it, points out to them the object of his feigned terror. ”

“ But in the cities the heat of noon is worse. There is wanting even the relief of herbage and running water. The white sunlight lies upon the roads, so palpable a heat that it might be peeled off; the bare, blinding walls, surcharged with heat, refuse to soak in more, and reject upon the air the fervor beating down upon them. In the dusty hollows of the roadside the pariah dogs lie sweltering in dry heat; beneath the trees sit the crows, their beaks agape; the buffaloes are wallowing in the shrunken mud-holes, — but not a human being is abroad of his own will. ”

“ He is a sweet little songster — do you know him? — a dapper bird, dressed, as a gentleman should be in the evening, in black and white, with a shapely figure, a neatly turned tail, and all the gestures of a bird of the world. Choosing a low bough, one well leafed, he screens himself from the world, and for an hour pours out upon the hot evening air a low, sweet, throbbing song. ”

“ It is Cardan, I think, who advises men to partake sometimes of unwholesome food if they have an extraordinary liking for it; it is not always well, he would tell us, to be of an even virtue. What a poor thing, for instance, were an oyster in constant health; ladies’ caskets would then want their pearls. Who does not at times resent the appearance of a friend who is comfortably fat, come weal or woe? The uniform hilarity of Mark Tapley recommends itself to few. But to the punkah-coolie, how inexplicable our theorizing on the evil of monotonous good! ”

“ In the bazaars the every-day crowd is noisy, along the roads the red-aproned bheesties sprinkle their feeble handfuls, and the world is out to enjoy such pleasures as it may on May-day “in the plains.” ”

“ It seems as if at every swoop they would strike the crouching kite from his perch, but they know too well to tempt the curved beak, the curved talons, and though approaching near they never touch him. The kite has only to make the motion of flight, and his tormentors widen their circles. ”

“ He cannot trust himself to believe the metal in his hand is gold. Given enough, he commits a surfeit, and tempted with a little he lusts after too much. Indulgence with the coolie means license, and a conditional promise a carte blanche. And thus he provokes ill-nature. Usually it depends upon the master whether service be humiliation; but the punkah-coolie is such “a thing of dark imaginings” that he too often defies sympathy.
I have three coolies, and I call them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, for they have stood the test of fire. And Shadrach is an idiot. ”

“ It is upon him that the strong man, furious at the sudden cessation of the breeze, makes armed sallies. It is on him that the mosquito-bitten subaltern, wakeful through the oil-lit watches of the night, empties the vial of his wrath and the contents of his wash-hand basin: who shares with the griff’s dogs the uncompromising attentions of boot-jacks and riding-whips. ”

“ The vespæ of India, though, from their savage garniture of colors and their ghastly elegance, very formidable to look on, are but feeble folk compared with their banded congener of England, the ruffian in glossy velvet and deep yellow, who assails one at all hours of the summer’s day, lurking in fallen fruit, making grocers’ shops as dangerous as viper-pits, an empty sugar-keg a very cockatrice den, and spreading dismay at every picnic. ”

“ They are all in the idlest of humors, and, their day’s work over, are sauntering about in the air and from tree to tree, or congregating in vagrom do-nothing crowds — the elders idle, the younger mischievous. ”

“ In the west has risen a brown cloud, and the far trees tell of a rising wind. It nears swiftly, driving before it a flock of birds. The wind must be high, for the kite cannot keep its balance, and attempts in vain to beat up against it. The crow yields to it without a struggle, and goes drifting eastward ”

“ Out of windows the sight is limited to a few yards, beyond which may be only mistily made out the forms of strong trees bowing before the fierce blast, with their boughs all streaming in one direction. ”

“ The mynas pace the lawn, exchanging commonplaces with their fellows by their side, or those who pass homeward overhead. The little birds are slipping into the bushes, where they will pass the hours of sleep; while from everywhere come the voices of Nature making arrangements for the night. ”

“ In the country the peasant is brisk again, and trudges away from his work cheerily; bands of women affect to make merry with discordant singing as they pass along the fields; the miry cattle are being herded in the villages. ”

“ The darkness is like that mysterious murk which rested on the fabled land of Hannyson — “alle covered with darkness withouten any brightnesse or light: so that no man may see ne heren ne no man dar entren in to hem. ”

“ They have only just arrived from Syria, — indeed, in their far-off breeding cliffs, there are still young birds waiting for their wings before leaving for the East, — and they lose no time in announcing their arrival. ”