William Ambrose Cull letter diary, 1915-1918 - Page 21
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[Page 21]
early sunshine, represented as many fishing yaghts, while dancing round us were dozens of crude little craft, with crews of infernally crude looking niggers.
Colombo, seen from the ship, is a delectable place of palms and shrubbery *: which opinion was quite readily confirmed by those few who were fortunate eneough to have spent a couple of hours there. Before noon we had commenced coaling: after coaling through-out the night, we were able by 5 o'clock on the afternoon of the 26th to commence another stage of our voyage.
It was as good as a play watching the niggers coaling: as the coal barges came alongside, one simply roared with laughter for the barges were packed with these chattering, black-faced, milky-toothed beggars, whose professed civilization has not, at least, to any very appreciable degree, affected their manner of dress.
They commenced their begging almost immediately they came alongside: without a doubt begging is a profession with them. Silver simply rained down upon the barges for a time. only for a while though: the cunning black beggars then thought to revive this foolish generosity, by lustily rendering that which seems to me to be both their 99th Psalm, and National Anthem :– "Ta Ra Ra Bom De A".
Their singing brought no coin so that they called out and signed to us to throw "Munish" in the water and watch them "die" (dive) for it.
They are very clever at this diving, never miss a coin. For hours then we would listen to this monotonous chant of "die, die, die, die, me die Mistah".
It was fine sport watching them squabbling over the ownership or just division of the coins.
Their shrill voice tones and extravagent wealth of gesticulation would certainly have lead one to believe (had they been Europeans instead of niggers) that some blood-letting affray was imminent.
Not so with them: in another moment all the heat of the discussion was over, the ownership or division of the coin was satisfactorily settled, and they too had joined in the general chorus, "Munish Mistah, Munish Mistah" They always carry with them a little of the betel nut and leaf, which they chew in order to preserve their teeth.
It was at Colombo that we dropped our third mail.