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There is a strange crowd gathered here to-day, too; I can hear their shouting and their tom-toming come floating up from among the ruins and the dark-green foliage as I look down from my beautiful eyrie on top of the Kootub upon their pygmy forms, thronging the walks and roads, brown and busy as swarms of ants.
Just because folks don't know what's going on up yonder it kind of relaxes 'em. I don't say the Kanakas do anything they shouldn't, except get drunk, and joy-ride down waterfalls, and keep up an infernal tom-toming. But it sort of gets on your nerves. And I wouldn't call Naapu straitlaced, either. Everybody seems to feel called on to liquor up, this time o' year.
The other muchwas follow close behind, with every inch of white sail spread and all a-flutter with flags and streamers: it would be difficult to imagine a prettier spectacle, and the tom-toming and the happiness beaming on the faces of the crews are almost infectious. One feels almost compelled to wave one's hat and cry, "Hip, hip, hooray!"
Vigorous tom-toming encourages the combatants to do their best, and they flop one another over merrily, in the dampened clay, to the applause of a delighted crowd of lookers-on.
Cymbals and sleigh-bells galore keep up a merry jingle, and tom-toming parties make their noisy presence known all along the line. Still more gorgeous and interesting than the gilded ox-gharries of the ordinary zemindars are miniature chariots drawn by pairs of well-matched, undersized oxen covered with richly spangled trappings, and with horns curiously gilded and tipped with tiny bells.
With the incessant bustle of the thronging, brightly-vestured crowd, and the accompaniment of the wild discordant tom-toming of a band of turbaned musicians, it formed a scene which almost persuaded one to put once more confidence in the brightly-coloured descriptions of the "Arabian Nights."
Shelter, and the usual rude accommodation, supplemented on this occasion by a wandering luti and his vicious-looking baboon, as also a company of riotous charvadars, who insist on singing accompaniments to the luti's soul-harrowing tom-toming till after midnight, are obtained at the caravansarai of Deh Mollah.
Offerings of food and spirits were placed before these images; a band of people accompanied by the rest of the population used to make a thorough round of the town, up and down each street and round every house, dancing, singing, screaming and tom-toming, in fact making all the noise they knew how to and a Calabar Effik is very gifted in the power of making noise.
By and bye the various sounds died out. The tom-toming ceased in the village. My servants suspended their low muttered gossip round the cook's fire, wrapped themselves in their white cloths, and dropped into slumber. 'Toby, 'Nettle, 'Whisky, 'Pincher, and my other terriers, resembled so many curled-up hairy balls, and were in the land of dreams.
One sees buildings and courts the decorations and general appearance of which leave the beholder in doubt as to whether they are theatre or temple. Music and tom-toming would seem rather to suggest the former, but upon entering one sees fakirs and Hindoo devotees, streaked with clay, fanciful paintings and hideous idols, and all the cheap pomp and pageantry of idolatrous worship.
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