88 RACIAL SMELL 



then came out. After taking a few deep breaths he 

 exclaimed: "What a relief to get out! In another 

 ten minutes I should have collapsed. The smell! " 



To which his servant promptly replied: "Ah, 

 Sahib, now you will understand what I suffer every 

 Sunday when I have to go right to the middle of the 

 church to call you out! " 



Never, he told me, had he been so astonished, so 

 flabbergasted in his life as by this speech, and he 

 could only stare in silence at the man. The extra- 

 ordinary readiness, the candour, the spontaneity, and 

 even the glee, with which he brought out his words 

 made it impossible for his master to doubt his perfect 

 sincerity. He had taken it for granted that his 

 master would understand, and after his own un- 

 happy experience at the native meeting would be 

 ready to sympathise with his servant's sufferings in 

 the performance of that painful Sunday duty. But 

 what an amazing revelation it was! How almost 

 incredible it seemed that a congregation of English 

 ladies and gentlemen, fresh from their morning's 

 ablutions, in their fresh clean clothes, should offend 

 the natives of the country with their European or 

 Caucasian smell, even as they offend us! And what 

 did it mean ? Why, that we white-skinned Westerns, 

 lords of creation, have our smell just as the blacks 

 and bi-coloured races and the lower animals have 

 theirs; that we are unconscious of this fact with 

 regard to ourselves — our own race — but are quite 

 conscious of it with regard to the others. And he, 

 a doctor, proud to think himself of a scientific bent 



