Kumara

“ Naturalists do not seem to have finally decided as to the original home of the kumara, or sweet potato (Batatas) , but the evidence gathered by De Candolle seems to show that Central America is the part where it grows spontaneously, and therefore must be its native habitat. ”

“ Kumárapála, a.d. 1143–1174. nephew Yaśodhavala on his throne. That Kumárapála conquered the chiefs of Sámbhar and Málwa is beyond question. Among his names is the proud title Avantí-nátha Lord of Málwa.
The Kumárapálaprabandha gives the following limits of Kumárapála’s sway. The Turushkas or Turks on the north; the heavenly Ganges on the east; the Vindhya mountains on the south; the Sindhu river on the west.97 Though in tradition Kumárapála’s name does not stand so high as a builder as the name of Siddharája Jayasiṃha he carried out several important works. ”

“ I pointed out how Karema could not possibly make me his heir if I left the country, and I promised that not one word{180} would I say of his present behaviour; but all without effect, and again he raised his spear as if to kill me, but again Kifura stopped him.
“Listen, Dala of the Adiana,” said Kifura. “Why should you kill this white man? Mine he is, and mine he will continue; if you kill him, my words will go to Karema, and you will never be chief in his place. Take counsel with me and be wise. The men who are with you, will their words be as your words?” ”

“ And when I go to my own people they will say Kifura is indeed a warrior; the women will dance, and they shall sing that there is no man among the Balaba like unto him, for never before has a man of the Balaba brought a white man as a slave.”
There was a further discussion between these two worthies as to the question of my being killed. At last it was settled that Chaka and I were to remain in the hands of the Balaba, and that Dala was to return to Karema and say we both were dead. ”

“ Sunday Morning, March 2.
I am writing early because we are going to-day to Kamakura. You have probably heard of the big bronze Buddha—fifty feet high—well, that is there. A friend has arranged an interview for us with the most distinguished or most learned of the Buddhist priests in Japan—who belongs to the most philosophical of all the sects, the Zen, which believes in the simple life and is more or less Stoical; this is the sect that had the greatest influence on the warrior class in the good old days. Kamakura is on the other side of Yokohama, an old Shogun capital ”

“ Arrived at Chopi, inquire for the residence of the Katikiro or commander-in-chief, who will show you great respect, give you cows and pombe, and send messengers on to Kamrasi to acquaint him of your intention to visit him. This is the richest part of Kamrasi's possessions, and by a little inquiry you will learn much about the lake. Kamrasi's brother Rionga lives on a river island within one march of this. They are deadly enemies and always fighting, so if you made a mistake and went to Rionga's first, as the Turks would wish you to do, all travelling in Unyoro would be cut off. ”

“ We took in water at Dring, but the only supplies obtained were coconuts.
Kamorta is 15 miles long, and of a general width of 4 miles: it attains in the extreme south-west a height of 735 feet, and in the centre rises 435 feet, but the average elevation is about 200 feet. It is of the same geological structure as Nankauri, but is covered with far less forest, and its extensive grassy downs are dotted with patches of scrub, bracken, and pandani. The presence of casuarinas high up in the middle of the island is peculiar. ”

“ When we were with Motunda, on the 20th October, he told us frankly that all the native provisions were hidden in Kirk's Range, and his village being the last place where a supply of grain could be purchased before we reached the ship, we waited till he had sent to his hidden stores. The upland country, beyond the mountains now on our right, is called Deza, and is inhabited by Maravi, who are only another tribe of Manganja. The paramount chief is called Kabambe, and he, having never been visited by war, lives in peace and plenty. Goats and sheep thrive ”

“ Kings' sons could fight only with their peers, like the knights of old, and Dhritarashtra therefore knighted the unknown warrior, or rather made him a king on the spot, so that Arjuna might have no excuse for declining the fight. To awkward questions which were put to him, the haughty Kama replied that rivers and warriors knew not of their origin and birth their prowess was their genealogy; but the Pandavas declined the fight, and Kama retired in silence and in rage. ”

“ Whatever Kumasi may be in the future, to-day it is a busy centre of life and trade. Where the fetish tree stood, the ground beneath its branches soaked with human blood and strewn with human bones, is now the centre of the town where the great buildings of the merchant princes of West Africa are rising. ”

“ One day while we were all marching along slowly and sadly, no one having any heart for the songs or shouts with which the African usually enlivens his day’s march, I was astonished by seeing a sudden panic seize the carriers, who pitched their loads on the ground and scampering off to the handiest trees commenced to climb them. Hatibu shouted to me to follow him, as with the agility of a monkey he swung himself on to the lower branches of an acacia tree, regardless of the thorns, and I, hardly knowing what I was doing, hastened to place myself beside him. ”

“ Up the steep sides of Mount Hor, Kanana climbed, without waiting to look for a path. He saw nothing, heard nothing. He was all eagerness to reach the summit, in the faint hope that it might not be too late to see the departing caravan of Raschid Airikat.
Unless a camel is fresh, unusually large and strong, or constantly urged, it rarely makes more than two miles an hour. It was not over ten hours since the robber sheik had left the oasis, and some of the camels were very old and exhausted. ”

“ Further, one has so many special stores and such a special outfit that to move us took no less than 160 porters. In well-populated Kumaon there was no particular difficulty, but in Garhwal, especially by the short cut that we took to the Dhaoli Valley, villages were few and far between.
Our journey through the heart of Kumaon, although it took place towards the end of April, when the weather was getting rather too warm, was most interesting. The country is charming, hilly and well-wooded, with wonderfully fertile valleys and very neat and well-kept cottages. ”

“ Nash’s estate, is situated high above the Pindari river, on the borders of Kumaon and Garhwal.
Once across the Pindari, one is in Garhwal and in another country. First it becomes immediately more mountainous, as it is on the southern slopes of the great Trissul-Nanda Devi group; and, further, it is inhabited by a different and much more simple people. But though much pleasanter, they are also less industrious. The Kumaoni undoubtedly likes bettering himself, but these people are very primitive. ”

“ Indeed these foot-hills are clothed in sub-tropical jungle, which, though not so luxurious as in the more humid climate of the eastern Himalaya, are still very fine. The main routes from the plains into Kumaon lead either through the picturesque hill station of Naini Talor still more directly to the old capital of Almora. The country is all interesting, and the people evidently well-to-do. Their villages and cottages, though not particularly trim from a European standpoint, are generally neat and well-built and often very picturesquely situated ”

“ Karmania is better wooded and produces better fruit than the country either of the Ikhthyophagi or the Oreitai. It is also more grassy, and better supplied with water. They anchor next at Badis, an inhabited place in Karmania, where grew cultivated trees of many different kinds, with the exception of the olive, and where also the soil favoured the growth of the vine and of corn. [82] Weighing thence they ran 800 stadia, and came to an anchor off a barren coast, whence they descried a headland projecting far out into the sea, its nearest extremity being to appearance about a day’s sail distant. ”

“ A small crop is taken in the second, and perhaps in the third year, and the spot is then deserted and allowed to grow up with jungle. The same spot is cultivated again after 10 or 12 years in Malabar, but in North Canara the wild hill tribes generally clear patches in the virgin forest. Dr. Cleghorn reports that kumari renders the land unfit for coffee-cultivation, destroys valuable timber, and makes the locality unhealthy, dense underwood being substituted in the abandoned clearings for tall trees under which the air circulated freely. ”

“ The race below him was in plain view now, and in a few rods more they would pass out of his sight in the little side cañon through which the road led up to the top of the cliff. To ride back to that place would take too long, also, and the man quickly realized that it was no time to delay.
To kill a Navajo meant trouble for everybody around, for the whole tribe would take it up, and wreak vengeance upon any white settlers they could find, hence that was not to be thought of except in the last extremity. But Cameron knew that he could kill the Navajo's pony and save the girl. ”

“ Caravans were continually resting for the day under the shadow of Mount Hor. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that a caravan had camped there, and had gone. They always move at night; not so much because it is cooler as because a camel will not eat at night, no matter how hungry he may be, and must be given the daylight or he will deliberately starve.
A moment later Kanana was upon his feet again with a triumph in his eyes which clearly indicated his satisfaction. ”

“ On the western borders of Nepal lies the British district of Kumaon, and joined to it and overlapping its northern boundary the district of British Garhwal, the river Sarda fixing the boundary between Kumaon and the western districts of the Nepal kingdom. Lower Kumaon is a very charming district of sub-Himalayan hill country; the lowest slopes of these foot-hills abut on the plains of India, and many merge into the great Terai, or forest belt, which is almost continuous from the Duns of Dehra and Sirhind to the Brahmaputra. ”

“ He stalks about Kumasi in his brightly coloured, toga-like cloth still, very sure that he is a man of great importance among the tribes, and his chiefs march through the streets in chairs on men's heads, with tom-toms beating, immense gaily coloured umbrellas twirling, their silken' cloths a brilliant spot in the brilliant sunshine, their rich gold ornaments marking them off from the common herd, and all their people who are not Christian still give them unquestioned devotion. ”

“ They are the white man and the negro of a common stock. They are the patrician and the plebeian of one race, or the nobility and the yeomanry of one tribe. They are like different phases of the same moon. The kulu-kamba is simply a high order of chimpanzee. It is quite true that two varieties of one species usually have the same vocal characteristics, and this appears to be the strongest point in favor of assigning them to separate species, but it is not impossible that even this may be waived. ”

“ Kanana noted the direction the speck was taking, and he made a wide path for it; he crouched among the sand-shrubs when it came too near.
First a small party of horsemen passed him, the advance guard of a moving tribe. Then came the main body of men upon camels and horses; but the only sounds were made by the feet of the animals and the clanking of the weapons. The she-camels with their young followed; then the sheep and goats driven by a few men on foot; next, the camels laden with the tents and furniture; last of all the women and children of the tribe accompanied by another armed escort. ”

“ Of the doings of the Kauravas, during the twelve years that we have been following the fortunes of their cousins, little is recorded, and that little is not to their credit. Knowing full well where the Pandavas were passing their term of exile in the forests, Duryodhana, upon the advice of Karna, went thither in great state with a view of meanly feasting his eyes upon the wretchedness of his hated kinsmen, and of intensifying their misery by the cruel contrast between his own grandeur and their destitution. This was the real, if unworthy, motive of the journey to the forest of Kamyaka ”

“ These kumera pits, being dug generally in the stiff clay on the hill tops, have, in most cases, retained their shape perfectly; and many seem as fresh and new as if they had been dug but a few years. They are oblong in shape, with the sides regularly sloped. Many collections of these provision stores have outlived Maori tradition, and the natives can only conjecture to whom they belonged. Out of the centre of one of them which I have seen, there is now growing a kauri tree one hundred and twenty feet high, and out of another a large totara. ”

“ At about noon we heard yells; drums were beating and horns blowing in all directions. For the moment I thought that Kalloe had raised the country against Kamrasi, as I observed many hundred men dressed for war, scouring the beautiful open park, like hounds upon a scent. The Turks beat their drum and called their men under arms beneath the ensign planted outside the village,—not knowing the intention of the unusual gathering. It shortly transpired that Kamrasi had heard of the escape of Kalloe, and, enraged at the loss of his prey, he had immediately started about a thousand men in pursuit. ”

“ We came down the river in boats from Kamrasi's to Chopi, but the boatmen gave much trouble, therefore it would be better for you to go overland. Kamrasi will most likely send Kidgwiga, an excellent officer, to escort you to his palace, but if he does not, ask after him; you could not have a better man.
"Arrived at Kamrasi's, insist upon seeing all his fat wives and brothers. Find out all you can about his pedigree, and ask for leave to follow up the lake from its JUNCTION with the Nile to Utumbi, and then crossing to its northern bank follow it down to Ullegga and Koshi. ”