ONCE I suggested to you that the greatest facts of life are, in English, expressed by the smallest words, and, with that dainty, hesitating manner that is so captivating, you almost consented to agree. Look, for instance, at these words: God, sin, good, bad, day, night, sun, moon, light, dark, heat, cold, earth, sky, sea, world, peace, war, joy, pain, eat, drink, sleep, love, hate, birth, death. They cover a good deal of ground, and you can easily add to them. A philologist would tell you why the most profound conceptions, the most important abstract facts, are denoted by simple words, but the explanation might not interest you. The circle of my acquaintances does not include a philologist; my nearest approach to such dissipation is a friend who pretends to be a lexicographer. Now look at that word, it is long enough in all conscience, but the idea which it represents only makes one tired.

Whilst a good reason could be found for expressing original principles in monosyllables, I wonder if any one can say why that fantastic product of this century, the (so-called) educated Indian, revels in the use and misuse of all the longest words he can find to convey his, sometimes grotesque, but nearly always commonplace, thoughts, when he tries to put them in English. Curiously enough, this transcendental language, which is the peculiar pride of the Indian babu, leaves on the mind of the listener no concrete idea, no definite conception of what the speaker wants to say; but it does invariably conjure up a figure typical of the class which employs this barbarous tongue as a high-sounding medium in which to disguise its shallow thoughts. And then one feels sorry for the poor overthrown words, the maimed quotations, and the slaughtered sentences, so that one realises how happy is that description which speaks of the English conversation of East Indians as a mÊlÉe, wherein the words lie about “like dead men on a battle-field.” There must be something in the Indian’s character to account for this; and, as a great stream of words pours from the narrow channel of his mind, and gives expression to his turgid thoughts in an avalanche of sound, so you will see the same extravagance of outward display in the manner of his life, in his strange garments, his sham jewellery, and his pitiful and disastrous attempts to ape what he thinks is the riotous “fastness” of the quite white man. Behind this outward seeming, there is also, in many cases, nothing, and sometimes even less than that. Misapplied English education has a good deal to answer for, and, if the babu has a soul, it may demand a reckoning from those who gave it a speech in which to make known the impossible aspirations of a class that is as rich in wordy agitation as it is poor in the spirit and physique of a ruling race. Many babus cannot quench revolt. Perhaps the babu is the “thing too much” in India; they could do without him. And yet he and education, combined, make a growing danger that may yet have to be counted with. But enough of the babu; I cannot think how he got into my letter.

My visit to this strange and beautiful country is over. For the last time a steamer is hurrying me down one of those great waterways which, until recent times, have been the only means of getting into this mysterious land. The dying day supplied a feast of colour, of momentarily changing pictures that, however familiar, seem always new, always resplendent with amazing lights, delicate half-tints, and soft shadows, such as only a moisture-charged atmosphere and a fiery sun can produce. Does the thought of such an evening ever come back to you, or are you trying to accustom yourself to the greys and neutral tints of the life of resignation? Ah! The moon is just rising; the scene is quite enchanting, and I must try to tell you exactly what I see.

The river is six or seven hundred yards wide. It is high tide, and, to the eye, the picture has but three component parts—sky, wood, and water. Sky and water are divided by a belt of wood which borders the river. The continuous belt of trees, of varying height, growing from out the river and up the bank, makes a deeply indented line of vegetation. This belt is unbroken, but it rises into plumes and graceful fronds, where some loftier palm or giant jungle-tree towers above its neighbours, and all its foliage shows clear as an etching against the grey-blue background. Again, the belt dips and leaves broken spaces of sky, where the foliage suddenly dwarfs. The sky is dark grey just above the trees, but the grey changes to blue as the eye travels upward, and overhead the zenith is sapphire, cloudless sapphire spangled with stars. The water is like burnished gun-metal, and, under the shore, there is a shadow as dark and wide as the line of trees which throws it. The moon, a perfect circle of brilliant light, not silver nor gold, but the colour produced by silvering over a golden ground, has just risen, and rides a short space above the trees. In the deepest shadow, exactly where water and land meet, there is a narrow streak of amazingly bright light; then a space of darkness, covered by the shadow of the trees, and then a veritable column of gold, the width of the moon, and the length of the moon’s distance above the trees. The column is not still, it is moved by the shimmer of the water, and it dazzles the eyes. The effect is marvellous: this intense brilliance as of molten gold, this pillar of light with quivering but clearly-defined edges, playing on a mirror of dark burnished steel. Then that weird glint of yellow flame, appearing and disappearing, in the very centre of the blackest shadow, and, above all, the Queen of Night moves through the heavens in superb consciousness of her own transcendent beauty, calmly satisfied to recognise that the sapphire firmament, and all the world of stars, are but the background and the foils to her surpassing loveliness.

As the moon rises, the reflection in the river lengthens, widens, breaks into ripples of amber, and shoots out arrows of paler light. Soon there is a broad pathway of glittering wavelets, which opens out into a great silvery road, and the light of the risen moon dispels the grey fog that hung over the belt of jungle, and tinges with silver the few fleecy clouds that emphasise the blueness of their background. Then a dark curtain gradually spreads itself across the sky, dims the moonlight, veils the stars, and throws a spell over the river, hiding its luminous highway, and casting upon the water the reflection of its own spectre-like form.

The fog clung to the river, but when we reached the sea the moon reigned alone, paling the stars and filling the air with a flood of delicious light. I was leaning over the side of the ship, wondering where I could ever see such a sight again, when a man of the country came and stood by me. I said something to him of the beauty of the night, and he answered, “Yes, there are flowers in the moon.”

I asked him what he meant, and this is what he told me:—

“It was a night like this, and I was going with my mother, my wife, and child to a neighbouring island to visit some relatives. We were travelling by a small steamer, and in the early hours of the morning were coasting along the shore of the island. The moon was then setting, but it was extraordinarily brilliant, and I tried to find a spot in the shadow where I could sleep. As I settled myself comfortably, I noticed that my mother was standing, looking over the bulwark. It might have been an hour later when I awoke, and, as we were near the port, I went to rouse my people and collect my luggage. I could not find my mother anywhere. The rest of my party and all the other passengers were asleep till I roused them, and no one had seen or heard anything unusual. We all of us searched the ship in every direction, but without success, and the only conclusion was that the poor old lady had somehow fallen overboard. By this time the vessel had reached the anchorage, and there was nothing to be done but to go ashore. I took my family to the house of our friends, some miles from the landing-place, and then wondered what to do next. The village we had come to was on the shore, and not very far from the place where I had last seen my mother on board the ship. I determined, therefore, to drive to a spot as nearly opposite that place as I could get, and then to walk along the beach, and ask at the huts of the Chinese fishermen whether they had seen a body in the water. The first two or three cottages I came to were empty, but I made my way to a solitary hut which I saw standing in the centre of a tiny bay. In that hut, to my surprise and great joy, I found my mother and two Chinese fishermen. The men told me that they had gone out before daylight to set their nets, and in the light of the moon, then almost on the horizon, they saw a woman, as they described it, “standing in the water,” so that, though her head only was visible, she seemed to be upright, and they imagined she must be supported somehow, or resting her feet on an old fishing stake, for the water was fifteen or twenty feet deep there. She did not cry out or seem frightened, only rather dazed. They rowed to the spot and pulled her into the boat, and just then the moon sank out of sight. The old lady had lost her skirt, but otherwise seemed little the worse, and, as far as the fishermen could see, she was not resting on any support. When I asked her how she got into the sea, she said she could not tell, but she was looking at the moon, and she saw such lovely flowers in it that she felt she must try to get to them. Then she found herself in the water, but all the time she kept looking at the flowers till the fishermen pulled her into their boat and brought her on shore. I took her to the house where we were staying, and I have left her in the island ever since, because I dare not let her travel by sea again.”