A WILDERNESS LABORATORY 165 



words well articulated. The day before we had 

 greeted him and chaffingly admonished him to 

 marry them well. 



"God only could promise that," he had re- 

 plied with a quick smile. 



Others of the little village I knew: Rahim the 

 milkman, and Mahabol, with the head and beard 

 of a Sikh on the legs of a Bengalee, and a thin 

 Bengalee at that. The audience which pressed 

 close behind, looked and smelled Calcutta and 

 Darjeeling, and a homesickness which was pain 

 came over me, to be once more among the great 

 Himalayas. The flickering torch showed all my 

 retinue threaded along the outer rim of onlook- 

 ers; my following who formed a veritable racial 

 tower of Babel. There was Nupee the Aka- 

 wai, and Vingi the Machusi and Semmi the 

 Wapiano — red Indians from forest and savan- 

 nah. Near them the broad, black African face 

 of little Mame, all eyes and mouth in the dim 

 light. Then de Freitas the Portuguese, and all 

 the others of less certain lineage. 



Meanwhile Persaid had brought forth an oily, 

 vile-smeUing liquid with which he coated a 

 square yard of earth, and then with pounded 

 maize and rice he marked out a mystic figure 



