I am a heritage because I
brin you years of thought
and tbe lore of tLrne ^
I impart yet I can Dot speaks
I have traveled among tbe
peoples oj- tbe eartb ^ I
am a rover-^ Qfl-tlpeb
I strc(y frorr? tbe /ire side,
of tbe oi^e u;bo loves and
cberlsbeb rr?e-ujbo
n?e ojben I an?
me v^rdi?t please send
me, borve - &mov rr?y
brothers^ on tbe bool^
shelves of ..............
ALfTZLPSANTtTLL
<K f.
RUDYARD KIPLING
VOLUME IV
IN BLACK AND WHITE
THE WRITINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE OF
RUDYARD KIPLING
IN BLACK AND
WHITE
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
JJAW
ON THE CITY WALL
THE WRITINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE OF
RUDYARD KIPLING
IN BLACK AND
WHITE
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1898
Copyright, 1893,
By MACMILLAN AND Co.
Copyright, 1897,
By RUDYARD KIPLING
Stack
Anna*
PR
PREFACE
IN Northern India stood a monastery called The
Chubara of Dhunni Bhagat. No one remembered
who or what Dhunni Bhagat had been. He had
lived his life, made a little money and spent it all,
as every good Hindu should do, on a work of
piety the Chubara. That was full of brick cells,
gaily painted with the figures of Gods and kings
and elephants, where worn-out priests could sit
and meditate on the latter end of things : the paths
were brick-paved, and the naked feet of thousands
had worn them into gutters. Clumps of mangoes
sprouted from between the bricks; great pipal
trees overhung the well-windlass that whined all
day ; and hosts of parrots tore through the trees.
Crows and squirrels were tame in that place, for
they knew that never a priest would touch them.
The wandering mendicants, charm-sellers, and
holy vagabonds for a hundred miles round used to
make the Chubara their place of call and rest.
Mahommedan, Sikh, and Hindu mixed equally un-
der the trees. They were old men, and when man
has come to the turnstiles of Night all the creeds
v
PREFACE
in the world seem to him wonderfully alike and
colourless.
Gobind the one-eyed told me this. He was a
holy man who lived on an island in the middle of
a river, and fed the fishes with little bread pellets
twice a day. In flood-time, when swollen corpses
stranded themselves at the foot of the island, Go-
bind would cause them to be piously burned, for
the sake of the honour of mankind, and having
regard to his own account with "God hereafter.
But when two-thirds of the island was torn away
in a spate, Gobind came across the river to Dhunni
Bhagat's Chubara, he and his brass drinking-vessel
with the well-cord round the neck, his short arm-
rest crutch studded with brass nails, his roll of
bedding, his big pipe, his umbrella, and his tall
sugar-loaf hat with the nodding peacock feathers
in it. He wrapped himself up in his patched
quilt made of every colour and material in the
world, sat down in a sunny corner of the very
quiet Chubara, and, resting his arm on his short-
handled crutch, waited for death. The people
brought him food and little clumps of marigold
flowers, and he gave his blessing in return. He
was nearly blind, and his face was seamed and
lined and wrinkled beyond belief, for he had lived
in his time, which was before the English came
within five hundred miles of Dhunni Bhagat's
Chubara.
vi
PREFACE
When we grew to know each other well, Go-
bind would tell me tales in a voice most like the
rumbling of heavy guns over a wooden bridge. His
tales were true, but not one in twenty could be
printed in an English book, because the English
do not think as natives do. They brood over
matters that a native would dismiss till a fitting
occasion; and what they would not think twice
about a native will brood over till a fitting occa-
sion : then native and English stare at each other
hopelessly across great gulfs of miscomprehension.
" And what," said Gobind one Sunday evening,
" is your honoured craft, and by what manner of
means earn you your daily bread *? "
"I am," said I, "a kerani one who writes
with a pen upon paper, not being in the service
of the Government."
" Then what do you write *? " said Gobind.
" Come nearer, for I cannot see your countenance,
and the light fails."
" I write of all matters that lie within my un-
derstanding, and of many that do not. But chiefly
I write of Life and Death, and men and women,
and Love and Fate, according to the measure of
my ability, telling the tale through the mouths of
one, two, or more people. Then by the favour
of God the tales are sold and money accrues to
me that I may keep alive."
" Even so," said Gobind. " That is the work
vii
PREFACE
of the bazar story-teller ; but he speaks straight to
men and women and does not write anything at
all. Only when the tale has aroused expectation
and calamities are about to befall the virtuous, he
stops suddenly and demands payment ere he con-
tinues the narration. Is it so in your craft, my
son ? "
" I have heard of such things when a tale is of
great length, and is sold as a cucumber, in small
pieces."
" Ay, I was once a famed teller of stories when
I was begging on the road between Koshin and
Etra, before the last pilgrimage that ever I took
to Orissa. I told many tales and heard many more
at the rest-houses in the evening when we were
merry at the end of the march. It is in my heart
that grown men are but as little children in the
matter of tales, and the oldest tale is the most be-
loved."
" With your people that is truth," said I. " But
in regard to our people they desire new tales, and
when all is written they rise up and declare that
the tale were better told in such and such a man-
ner, and doubt either the truth or the invention
thereof."
" But what folly is theirs ! " said Gobind, throw-
ing out his knotted hand. " A tale that is told is
a true tale as long as the telling lasts. And of
their talk upon it you know how Bilas Khan,
viii
PREFACE
that was the prince of tale-tellers, said to one
who mocked him in the great rest-house on the
Jhelum road: 'Go on, my brother, and' finish that
I have begun,' and he who mocked took up the
tale, but having neither voice nor manner for the
task, came to a standstill, and the pilgrims at sup-
per made him eat abuse and stick half that night."
" Nay, but with our people, money having
passed, it is their right ; as we should turn against
a shoeseller in regard to shoes if those wore out.
If ever I make a book you shall see and judge."
" And the parrot said to the falling tree, Wait,
brother, till I fetch a prop ! " said Gobind with a
grim chuckle. " God has given me eighty years,
and it may be some over. I cannot look for more
than day granted by day and as a favour at this
tide. Be swift."
" In what manner is it best to set about the
task," said I, "O chiefest of those who string
pearls with their tongue ? "
" How do I know ? Yet " he thought for a
little " how should I not know *? God has made
very many heads, but there is only one heart in all
the world among your people or my people. They
are children in the matter of tales."
" But none are so terrible as the little ones, if a
man misplace a word, or in a second telling vary
events by so much as one small devil."
"Ay, I also have told tales to the little ones,
ix
PREFACE
but do thou this " His old eyes fell on the
gaudy paintings of the wall, the blue and red
dome, and the flames of the poinsettias beyond.
" Tell them first of those things that thou hast
seen and they have seen together. Thus their
knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell
them of what thou alone hast seen, then what
thou hast heard, and since they be children tell
them of battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants,
and angels, but omit not to tell them of love and
such like. All the earth is full of tales to him who
listens and does not drive away the poor from his
door. The poor are the best of tale-tellers; for
they must lay their ear to the ground every night."
After this conversation the idea grew in my
head, and Gobind was pressing in his inquiries as
to the health of the book.
Later, when we had been parted for months, it
happened that I was to go away and far off, and
I came to bid Gobind good-bye.
" It is farewell between us now, for I go a very
long journey," I said.
"And I also. A longer one than thou. But
what of the book *? " said he.
" It will be born in due season if it is so or-
dained."
"I would I could see it," said the old man,
huddling beneath his quilt. "But that will not
be. I die three days hence, in the night, a little
x
PREFACE
before the dawn. The term of my years is ac-
complished."
In nine cases out of ten a native makes no mis-
calculation as to the day of his death. He has
the foreknowledge of the beasts in this respect.
" Then thou wilt depart in peace, and it is good
talk, for thou hast said that life is no delight to
thee."
" But it is a pity that our book is not born.
How shall I know that there is any record of my
name "
"Because I promise, in the forepart of the book,
preceding everything else, that it shall be written,
Gobind, sadhu, of the island in the river and
awaiting God in Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara, first
spoke of the book," said I.
"And gave counsel an old man's counsel.
Gobind, son of Gobind of the Chumi village in
the Karaon tehsil, in the district of Mooltan. Will
that be written also *? "
" That will be written also."
"And the book will go across the Black Water
to the houses of your people, and all the Sahibs
will know of me who am eighty years old ? "
"All who read the book shall know. I cannot
promise for the rest."
" That is good talk. Call aloud to all who are
in the monastery, and I will tell them this thing."
They trooped up, faquirs, sadhus, sunny asis, by-
xi
PREFACE
ragis* nihangs, and mullahs, priests of all faiths and
every degree of raggedness, and Gobind, leaning
upon his crutch, spoke so that they were visibly
filled with envy, and a white-haired senior bade
Gobind think of his latter end instead of transitory
repute in the mouths of strangers. Then Gobind
gave me his blessing, and I came away.
These tales have been collected from all places,
and all sorts of people, from priests in the Chubara,
from Ala Yar the carver, Jiwun Singh the carpen-
ter, nameless men on steamers and trains round the
world, women spinning outside their cottages in
the twilight, officers and gentlemen now dead and
buried, and a few, but these are the very best, my
father gave me. The greater part of them have
been published in magazines and newspapers, to
whose editors I am indebted ; but some are new on
this side of the water, and some have not seen the
light before.
The most remarkable stories are, of course, those
which do not appear for obvious reasons.
xn
CONTENTS
PAGE
DRAY WARA YOW DEE i
NAMGAY DOOLA 17
"THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT" .... 35
THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA 46
THE FINANCES OF THE GODS 60
AT HOWLI THANA . .' 67
IN FLOOD TIME 75
MOTI GUJ MUTINEER 90
WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 101
NABOTH 139
THE SENDING OF DANA DA 145
THROUGH THE FIRE 161
THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 168
THE AMIR'S HOMILY 204
AT TWENTY-TWO 210
JEWS IN SHUSHAN 227
GEORGIE PORGIE 233
xiii
CONTENTS
PAGE
LITTLE TOBRAH 247
GEMINI 252
THE LIMITATIONS OF PAMBE SERANG . . 266
ONE VIEW OF THE QUESTION 274
FROM "MANY INVENTIONS."
ON THE CITY WALL 302
THE ENLIGHTENMENTS OF PAGETT, M. P. . 340
ILLUSTRATIONS
ON THE CITY WALL FRONTISPIECE
THE JUDGMENT OF DUNGARA .... PAGE 52
THE SENDING OF DANA DA 158
IN BLACK AND WHITE
DRAY WARA YOW DEE
For jealousy is the rage of a man : therefore he will not
spare in the day of vengeance. Prov. vi. 34.
\ LMONDS and raisins, Sahib ? Grapes from
JT\. Kabul? Or a pony of the rarest if the
Sahib will only come with me. He is thirteen
three, Sahib, plays polo, goes in a cart, carries a
lady and Holy Kurshed and the Blessed Imams,
it is the Sahib himself! My heart is made fat and
my eye glad. May you never be tired ! As is
cold water in the Tirah, so is the sight of a friend
in a far place. And what do you in this accursed
land ? South of Delhi, Sahib, you know the say-
ing "Rats are the men and trulls the women."
It was an order *? Ahoo ! An order is an order
till one is strong enough to disobey. O my
brother, O my friend, we have met in an auspicious
hour ! Is all well in the heart and the body and
the house *? In a lucky day have we two come
together again.
1
IN BLACK AND WHITE
I am to go with you ? Your favour is great.
Will there be picket-room in the compound ? I
have three horses and the bundles and the horse-
boy. Moreover, remember that the police here
hold me a horse-thief. What do these Lowland
bastards know of horse-thieves *? Do you remem-
ber that time in Peshawur when Kamal hammered
on the gates of Jumrud mountebank that he
was and lifted the Colonel's horses all in one
night ? Kamal is dead now, but his nephew has
taken up the matter, and there will be more horses
amissing if the Khaiber Levies do not look to it.
The Peace of God and the favour of His
Prophet be upon this house and all that is in it !
Shafizullah, rope the mottled mare under the tree
and draw water. The horses can stand in the sun,
but double the felts over the loins. Nay, my
friend, do not trouble to look them over. They
are to sell to the Officer fools who know so many
things of the horse. The mare is heavy in foal ;
the gray is a devil unlicked; and the dun but
you know the trick of the peg. When they are
sold I go back to Pubbi, or, it may be, the Valley
of Peshawur.
O friend of my heart, it is good to see you
again. I have been bowing and lying all day to
the Officer Sahibs in respect to those horses; and
my mouth is dry for straight talk. Auggrhl
Before a meal tobacco is good. Do not join me,
2
DRAY WARA YOW DEE
for we are not in our own country. Sit in the
verandah and I will spread my cloth here. But
first I will drink. In the name of God returning
thanks, thrice! This is sweet water, indeed
sweet as the water of Sheoran when it comes from
the snows.
They are all well and pleased in the North
Khoda Baksh and the others. Yar Khan has
come down with the horses from Kurdistan six
and thirty head only, and a full half pack-ponies
and has said openly in the Kashmir Serai that
you English should send guns and blow the Amir
into Hell. There are fifteen tolls now on the
Kabul road ; and at Dakka, when he thought he
was clear, Yar Khan was stripped of all his Balkh
stallions by the Governor ! This is a great in-
justice, and Yar Khan is hot with rage. And of
the others : Mahbub AH is still at Pubbi, writing
God knows what. Tugluq Khan is in jail for the
business of the Kohat Police Post. Faiz Beg
came down from Ismail-ki-Dhera with a Bokhariot
belt for thee, my brother, at the closing of the year,
but none knew whither thou hadst gone : there
was no news left behind. The Cousins have taken
a new run near Pakpattan to breed mules for the
Government carts, and there is a story in Bazar of
a priest. Oho ! Such a salt tale ! Listen
Sahib, why do you ask that *? My clothes are
fouled because of the dust on the road. My eyes
3
IN BLACK AND WHITE
are sad because of the glare of the sun. My feet
are swollen because I have washed them in bitter
water, and my cheeks are hollow because the food
here is bad. Fire burn your money ! What do
I want with it? I am rich and I thought you
were my friend; but you are like the others a
Sahib. Is a man sad ? Give him money, say the
Sahibs. Is he dishonoured? Give him money,
say the Sahibs. Hath he a wrong upon his head ?
Give him money, say the Sahibs. Such are the
Sahibs, and such art thou even thou.
Nay, do not look at the feet of the dun. Pity
it is that I ever taught you to know the legs of
a horse. Footsore? Be it so. What of that?
The roads are hard. And the mare footsore ?
She bears a double burden, Sahib.
And now I pray you, give me permission to
depart. Great favour and honour has the Sahib
done me, and graciously has he shown his belief
that the horses are stolen. Will it please him to
send me to the Thana? To call a sweeper and
have me led away by one of these lizard-men ?
I am the Sahib's friend. I have drunk water in
the shadow of his house, and he has blackened my
face. Remains there anything more to do ? Will
the Sahib give me eight annas to make smooth the
injury and complete the insult ?
Forgive me, my brother. I knew not I know
not now what I say. Yes, I lied to you! I
4
DRAY WARA YOW DEE
will put dust on my head and I am an Afridi !
The horses have been marched footsore from the
Valley to this place, and my eyes are dim, and my
body aches for the want of sleep, and my heart is
dried up with sorrow and shame. But as it was
my shame, so by God the Dispenser of Justice
by Allah-al-Mumit it shall be my own revenge !
We have spoken together with naked hearts
before this, and our hands have dipped into the
same dish and thou hast been to me as a brother.
Therefore I pay thee back with lies and ingrati-
tude as a Pathan. Listen now! When the
grief of the soul is too heavy for endurance it
may be a little eased by speech, and, moreover,
the mind of a true man is as a well, and the peb-
ble of confession dropped therein sinks and is no
more seen. From the Valley have I come on
foot, league by league, with a fire in my chest
like the fire of the Pit. And why ? Hast thou,
then, so quickly forgotten our customs, among
this folk who sell their wives and their daughters
for silver ? Come back with me to the North
and be among men once more. Come back,
when this matter is accomplished and I call for
thee ! The bloom of the peach-orchards is upon
all the Valley, and here is only dust and a great
stink. There is a pleasant wind among the mul-
berry trees, and the streams are bright with snow-
water, and the caravans go up and the caravans go
5
IN BLACK AND WHITE
down, and a hundred fires sparkle in the gut of
the Pass, and tent-peg answers hammer-nose, and
pack-horse squeals to pack-horse across the drift
smoke of the evening. It is good in the North
now. Come back with me. Let us return to our
own people ! Come !
Whence is my sorrow ? Does a man tear out
his heart and make fritters thereof over a slow fire
for aught other than a woman? Do not laugh,
friend of mine, for your time will also be. A woman
of the Abazai was she, and I took her to wife to
staunch the feud between our village and the men
of Ghor. I am no longer young ? The lime has
touched my beard ? True. I had no need of the
wedding? Nay, but I loved her. What saith
Rahman : " Into whose heart Love enters, there is
Folly and naught else. By a glance of the eye she
hath blinded thee; and by the eyelids and the
fringe of the eyelids taken thee into the captivity
without ransom, and naught else" Dost thou re-
member that song at the sheep-roasting in the
Pindi camp among the Uzbegs of the Amir?
The Abazai are dogs and their women the ser-
vants of sin. There was a lover of her own people,
but of that her father told me naught. My friend,
curse for me in your prayers, as I curse at each
praying from the Fakr to the Isha, the name of
Daoud Shah, Abazai, whose head is still upon his
6
DRAY WARA YOW DEE
neck, whose hands are still upon his wrists, who
has done me dishonour, who has made my name
a laughing-stock among the women of -Little
Malikand.
I went into Hindustan at the end of two months
to Cherat. I was gone twelve days only; but
I had said that I would be fifteen days absent.
This I did to try her, for it is written : " Trust not
the incapable." Coming up the gorge alone in the
falling of the light, I heard the voice of a man
singing at the door of my house ; and it was the
voice of Daoud Shah, and the song that he sang
was " Dray ivara yow dee " " All three are one."
It was as though a heel-rope had been slipped round
my heart and all the Devils were drawing it tight
past endurance. I crept silently up the hill-road,
but the fuse of my matchlock was wetted with the
rain, and I could not slay Daoud Shah from afar.
Moreover, it was in my mind to kill the woman
also. Thus he sang, sitting outside my house, and,
anon, the woman opened the door, and I came
nearer, crawling on my belly among the rocks. I
had only my knife to my hand. But a stone slipped
under my foot, and the two looked down the hill-
side, and he, leaving his matchlock, fled from my
anger, because he was afraid for the life that was
in him. But the woman moved not till I stood in
front of her, crying : " O woman, what is this that
thou hast done *? " And she, void of fear, though
7
IN BLACK AND WHITE
she knew my thought, laughed, saying : " It is a
little thing. I loved him, and tkou art a dog and
cattle-thief coming by night. Strike ! " And I,
being still blinded by her beauty, for, O my friend,
the women of the Abazai are very fair, said : " Hast
thou no fear ? " And she answered : " None
but only the fear that I do not die." Then said
I : " Have no fear." And she bowed her head,
and I smote it off at the neck-bone so that it leaped
between my feet. Thereafter the rage of our peo-
ple came upon me, and I hacked off the breasts,
that the men of Little Malikand might know the
crime, and cast the body into the water-course
that flows to the Kabul river. Dray wara yaw
dee! Dray wara yaw dee! The body without
the head, the soul without light, and my own
darkling heart all three are one all three are
one!
That night, making no halt, I went to Ghor and
demanded news of Daoud Shah. Men said: "He
is gone to Pubbi for horses. What wouldst thou
of him ? There is peace between the villages."
I made answer : " Aye ! The peace of treachery
and the love that the Devil Atala bore to Gurel."
So I fired thrice into the gate and laughed and
went my way.
In those hours, brother and friend of my heart's
heart, the moon and the stars were as blood above
me, and in my mouth was the taste of dry earth.
8
DRAY WARA YOW DEE
Also, I broke no bread, and my drink was the rain
of the Valley of Ghor upon my face.
At Pubbi I found Mahbub AH, the writer, sit-
ting upon his charpoy, and gave up my arms ac-
cording to your Law. But I was not grieved, for
it was in my heart that I should kill Daoud Shah
with my bare hands thus as a man strips a bunch
of raisins. Mahbub Ali said : " Daoud Shah has
even now gone hot-foot to Peshawur, and he will
pick up his horses upon the road to Delhi, for it
is said that the Bombay Tramway Company are
buying horses there by the truck-load ; eight horses
to the truck." And that was a true saying.
Then I saw that the hunting would be no little
thing, for the man was gone into your borders
to save himself against my wrath. And shall he
save himself so ? Am I not alive ? Though he
run northward to the Dora and the snow, or south-
erly to the Black Water, I will follow him, as a
lover follows the footsteps of his mistress, and com-
ing upon him I will take him tenderly Aho ! so
tenderly! in my arms, saying: "Well hast thou
done and well shalt thou be repaid." And out of
that embrace Daoud Shah shall not go forth with
the breath in his nostrils. Auggrh I Where is the
pitcher *? I am as thirsty as a mother-mare in the
first month.
Your Law ! What is your Law to me ? When
the horses fight on the runs do they regard the
9
IN BLACK AND WHITE
boundary pillars; or do the kites of Ali Musjid
forbear because the carrion lies under the shadow
of the Ghor Kuttri ? The matter began across
the Border. It shall finish where God pleases.
Here, in my own country, or in Hell. All three
are one.
Listen now, sharer of the sorrow of my heart,
and I will tell of the hunting. I followed to Pe-
shawur from Pubbi, and I went to and fro about
the streets of Peshawur like a houseless dog, seek-
ing for my enemy. Once I thought that I saw
him washing his mouth in the conduit in the big
square, but when I came up he was gone. It may
be that it was he, and, seeing my face, he had fled.
A girl of the bazar said that he would go to
Nowshera. I said : " O heart's heart, does Daoud
Shah visit thee ? " And she said : " Even so." I
said : " I would fain see him, for we be friends
parted for two years. Hide me, I pray, here in
the shadow of the window shutter, and I will wait
for his coming." And the girl said : " O Pathan,
look into my eyes ! " And I turned, leaning upon
her breast, and looked into her eyes, swearing that
I spoke the very Truth of God. But she answered j
" Never friend waited friend with such eyes. Lie