The Writings in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling

^7 7 5" V. 1 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924057346615 RUDYARD KIPLING Volume XV FROM SEA TO SEA K iff Part I THE WRITINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE OF RUDYARD KIPLING FROM SEA TO SEA Letters of Travel 8fr PART I " Write me as one thai loved his feltow-men" NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1906 Copyright, i8gg, iSgp,' By Rudtard Kipling PREFACE In these two volumes I have put together the bulk, of the special correspondence and occasional articles written by me for the " Civil and Military Gazette " and the " Pioneer " between 1887-1889. I have been forced to this action by the enterprise of various publishers who, not content with disin- terring old newspaper work from the decent se- clusion of the office files, have in several instances seen fit to embellish it with additions and inter- polations. RuDYARD Kipling. ^^5'Hll?} :• CONTENTS LETTERS OF MARQUE I PAGE Of the Beginning of Things. Of the Taj and the Globe- trotter. The Young Man from Manchester and Certain Moral Reflections 3 II Shows the Charm of Rajputana and of Jeypore, the City of the Globe-trotter. Of its Founder and its Embel- lishment. Explains the Use and Destiny of the Stud- bred, and Fails to Explain Many More Important Matters 11 III Does not in any Sort Describe the Dead City of Amber, but Gives Detailed Information about a Cotton-Press . z i IV The Temple of Mahadeo and the Manners of such as see India. The Man by the Water-troughs and his Knowl- edge. The Voice of the City and what It Said. Per- sonalities and the Hospital. The House Beautiful of Jeypore and its Builders 29 vii CONTENTS V PAGE Of the Sordidness of the Supreme Government on the Revenue Side ; and of the Palace of Jeypore. A Great King's Pleasure-house, and the Work of the Servants of State 39 VI Showing how Her Majesty's Mails went to Udaipur and Fell out by the Way 49 VII Touching the Children of the Sun and their City, and the Hat-marked Caste and their Merits, and a Good Man's Works in the Wilderness 60 VIII Divers Passages of Speech and Action whence the Nature, Arts, and Disposition of the King and his Subjects may be Observed . 74 Of the Pig-drive which was a Panther-killing, and of the Departure to Chitor 83 X A Little of the History of Chitor, and the Malpractices of a She-elephant 93 XI Proves Conclusively the Existence of the Dark Tower Visited by Child Rowland, and of "Bogey" who Frightens Children 106 XII Contains the History of the Bhumia of Jhaswara, and the Record of a Visit to the House of Strange Stories, De- monstrates the Felicity of Loaferdom, which is the viii CONTENTS PAGE Veritable Companionship of the Indian Empire, and Proposes a Scheme for the Better Officering of Two Departments 121 XIII A King's House and Country. Further Consideration of the Hat-marked Caste 137 XIV Among the Houyhnhnms 150 XV Treats of the Startling Eifect of a Reduction in Wages and the Pleasures of Loaferdom. Paints the State of the Boondi Road and the Treachery of Ganesh of Situr . 162 XVI The Comedy of Errors and the Exploitation of Boondi. The Castaway of the Dispensary and the Children of the Schools. A Consideration of the Shields of Ra- jasthan and Other Trifles 174 XVII Shows that there may be Poetry in a Bank, and Attempts to Show the Wonders of the Palace of Boondi . 191 XVIII Of the Uncivilised Night and the Departure to Things Civilised. Showing how a Friend may Keep an Ap- pointment too Well 206 XIX Comes Back to the Railway, after Reflections on the Management of the Empire; and so Home Again, with Apology to all who have Read Thus Far . 217 ix CONTENTS FROM SEA TO SEA I PAGE Of Freedom and the Necessity of using her. The Motive and the Scheme that will come to Nothing. A Dis- quisition upon the Otherness of Things and the Tor- ments of the Damned 231 II The River of the Lost Footsteps and the Golden Mystery upon its Banks. The Iniquity of Jordan. Shows how a Man may go to the Shway Dagon Pagoda and see it not, and to the Pegu Club and hear too much. A Dis- sertation on Mixed Drinks 242 III The City of Elephants which is Governed by the Great God of Idleness, who Lives on the Top of a Hill. The History of Three Great Discoveries and the Naughty Children of Iquique 256 IV Showing how I came to Palmiste Island and the Place of Paul and Virginia, and Fell Asleep in a Garden. A Disquisition on the Folly of Sightseeing .... 266 V Of the Threshold of the Far East and the Dwellers Thereon. A Dissertation upon the Use of the British Lion 278 VI Of the Well-dressed Islanders of Singapur and their Di- versions ; Proving that all Stations are Exactly Alike. Shows how one Chicago Jew and an American Child can Poison the Purest Mind 286 X CONTENTS VII PACE Shows how I Arrived in China and Saw Entirely Through the Great Wall and out upon the Other Side . 294 VIII Of Jenny and her Friends. Showing how a Man may go to see Life and meet Death there. Of the Felicity of Life and the Happiness of Corinthian Kate. The Woman and the Cholera 308 IX Some Talk with a Taipan and a General : Proves in what Manner a Sea Picnic may be a Success . 319 X Shows how I came to Goblin Market and took a Scunner at it and Cursed the Chinese People. Shows further how I Initiated all Hong-Kong into our Fraternity . 335 XI Of Japan at Ten Hours' Sight, Containing a Complete Account of the Manners and Customs of its People, a History of its Constitution, Products, Art, and Civili- sation, and Omitting a Tiffin in a Tea-house with O-Toyo 348 XII A Further Consideration of Japan. The Inland Sea, and Good Cookery. The Mystery of Passports and Con- sulates, and Certain Other Matters 365 XIII The Japanese Theatre and the Story of the Thunder Cat. Treating also of the Quiet Places and the Dead Man in the Street 375 xi CONTENTS XIV PACE Explains in what Manner I was Taken to Venice in the Rain, and Climbed into a Devil Fort ; a Tin-pot Exhi- bition, and a Bath. Of the Maiden and the Boltless Door, the Cultivator and his Fields, and the Manufac- ture of Ethnological Theories at Railroad Speed. Ends with Kioto 387 XV Kioto and how I Fell in Love with the Chief Belle There after I had Conferred with Certain China Merchants who Trafficked in Tea. Shows further How, in a Great Temple, I Broke the Tenth Commandment in Fifty-three Places and Bowed down before Kano and a Carpenter. T^kes Me to Arashima 404 XVI The Party in the Parlour who Played Games. A Com- plete History of all Modern Japanese Art ; a Survey of the Past, and a Prophecy of the Future, Arranged and Composed in the Kioto Factories 423 XVII Of the Nature of the Tokaido and Japanese Railway Con- struction. One Traveller Explains the Life of the Sahib- log, and Another the Origin of Dice. Of the Babies in the Bath-tub and the Man in D. T 437 XVIII Concerning a Hot-water Tap, and Some General Conver- sation 452 XIX The Legend of Nikko Ford and the Story of the Avoid- ance of Misfortune 465 XX Shows how I grossly Libelled the Japanese Army, and Ed- ited a Civil and Military Gazette which is not in the least Trustworthy 477 xii ILLUSTRATIONS THE PALACE AND FORT AT AMBER . Frontispiece THE SHWAY DAGON AT RANGOON ... 244 IN lYEMITSU TEMPLE AT NIKKO .... 474 LETTERS OF MARQUE LETTERS OF MARQUE Nov.- Dec, 1887 I Of the Beginning of Things. Of the Taj and the Globe-trotter. The Young Man from. Man- chester and Certain Moral Reflections. EXCEPT for those who, under compulsion of a sick-certificate, are flying Bombaywards, it is good for every man to see some Httle of the great Indian Empire and the strange folk who move about it. It is good to escape for a time from the House ofRimmon — be it office or cutchery — and to go abroad under no more exacting master than personal inclination, and with no more definite plan of travel than has the horse, escaped from pasture, free upon the countryside. The first re- sult of such freedom is extreme bewilderment, and the second reduces the freed to a state of mind which, for his sins, must be the normal portion of the Globe-trotter — the man who " does " king- 3 FROM SEA TO SEA doms in days and writes books upon them in weeks. And this desperate facility is not as strange as it seems. By the time that an Englishman has come by sea and rail via America, Japan, Singa- pur, and Ceylon, to India, he can — these eyes have seen him do so — master in five minutes the intricacies of the "Indian Bradshaw," and tell an old resident exactly how and where the trains run. Can we wonder that the intoxication of success in hasty assimilation should make him overbold, and that he should try to grasp — but a full account of the insolent Globe-trotter must be reserved.

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