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It proved to be a piece of nut used by "Dhobies" or Indian Washermen to mark the clothing committed to their destruction-care, I should say. On every article of clothing returned by the "Dhobie" there is in one corner a small brown mark, corresponding to the stitched mark used by Laundries in England, by which the owner of the article washed is identified.
Our clothes were washed by a man called a dhobie; he used to come with his donkey, and carry them off to the river, where he beat them with a flat stick on a wooden slab over and over again till they were clean, and then dried them in the sun. "When any out-door work was to be done, we hired labourers of the lowest caste, who were called coolies.
I suspect I am getting bitter and ironical, and it will be wise to stop, for we are fickle creatures, the best of us, and it is quite possible that, in the mild twilight of life, in the old country, I shall find myself speaking benevolently of the Dhobie, and secretly wishing I could hear his plaintive monotone again counting out my linen at four rupees a hundred.
Greater and better men than the Dhobie are employed in the same way. Such are the consolations of philosophy, "But there was never yet philosopher Who could endure the toothache patiently," much less the Dhobie. He is not tolerable. Submit to him we must, since resistance is futile; but his craven spirit makes submission difficult and resignation impossible.
Then he seizes his weapon of offence, and, dipping the rag end into the handie, gives the plate a masterly wipe, and lays it on the table upside down, or dries it with a damask table napkin. The butler encourages him for some reason to use up the table napkins in this way. I suppose it is because he does not like to waste the dhobie on anything before it is properly soiled.
If you put a jagged piece of tin into the hand of a baby hujjam, he will scrape his little sister's face with it. In India, as you know, every caste has its own "points," and you can distinguish a Barber as easily as a dhobie or a Dorking hen. He is a sleek, fair-complexioned man, dressed in white, with an ample red turban, somewhat oval in shape, like a sugared almond.
Son has followed father through countless generations in cultivating this passion for destruction, until it has become the monstrous growth which we see and shudder at in the Dhobie. But I find in him, at least, an illustration of another human infirmity. He takes in hand to eradicate the dirt which defiles the garment.
My theory of the Dhobie is a mere speculation, a hypothesis deduced from broad, general principles. I do not pretend to have established it by scientific observation, and am very tolerant towards other theories, especially one which is supported by many competent authorities, and explains the Dhobie by supposing a league between him, the dirzee and the Boy.
As the lightning scorns the oak, as the fire triumphs over the venerable pile, as the swollen river scoffs at the P. W. D., while arch after arch tumbles into its gurgling whirlpools, so the Dhobie, dashing your cambric and fine linen against the stones, shattering a button, fraying a hem, or rending a seam at every stroke, feels a triumphant contempt for the miserable creature whose plodding needle and thread put the garment together.
One night he was coming back very late and, before he saw where he was, suddenly came upon a crowd of witches standing under a hollow mowah tree at the foot of the field that the dhobie has taken. Just as he caught sight of them they seized hold of him and flung him down and did something which he could not remember for he lost his senses when they threw him down.
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