by John Buchan
“I want to know the answer to that question, too,” he said. “What does the white man get from the Tropics? His strenuousness goes out of him, and he becomes a heavy-eyed cumberer of the ground. At Musuru I am always thinking about reforming the world, while down in this place the world can go to pieces for all I care. What do we get from living among palm-trees and gorgeous colours in the atmosphere of a Turkish bath?”
“Nothing,” said Mr Wakefield. “The Tropics are a purgatory appointed by Heaven for the purging of our immortal souls. They are a sphere of duty in which for their sins many honest men are compelled to labour — nothing more!”
“I wonder if women are more Oriental than men?” it was Marjory who spoke. “Because, you know, all this makes me happy. I seem to get the creases out of my soul in this hot sun and this glory of flowers. In what people call strenuous weather I would much rather stay in bed. But to-day one really believes that veins of fire run through the earth, and that nothing is dead, not even the rocks. One feels the world so much bigger and fuller and richer and more mysterious. Don’t you think so, Barbara?”
Mrs Deloraine, who had been gazing at a huge bouquet of orchids presented to her by one of the servants, lifted an abstracted eye.
“What an intoxication colour is!” she murmured. “Look at these scarlet bells and that great purple chalice. I had no idea such depth of richness could be found in the world. Our senses are starved in the north, with nothing but dean thin scents around us and pale rain-washed greys and blues. There is no passion in our Nature, for it is all too well subordinated to the needs of man. But here we have a world which has no thought of humanity. These scarlet blossoms flame for other than mortal eyes. You cannot think of Pan in one of our hazel thickets — the thought is almost indecent. But I can well imagine his slanted eyes looking out from behind that tangle of vines.”
“I, too, feel that,” said Mrs Yorke. “In the North the life-force in the earth is enough for our needs and no more, but here there is a generous overflow. I feel as if life were longer and kinder and easier, but also that I matter less in the scheme of things than I thought. I am a little home-sick, too, for I am a daughter of the South, and the hot air brings back my childhood.” Mrs Yorke sighed with a tender melancholy.
“I feel the wickedness more than the kindness,” said Mrs Deloraine. “It is an unmoral world, this warm-scented place, and there is a shrieking cruelty behind the splendour. Natura Maligna and Natura Benigna have walked hand in hand in these glens. Look at the flowers! No Wordsworth could read any lesson of peace in them.”
Lady Flora arose and examined the bouquet; then, selecting a huge purple blossom, she fastened it in Mr Wakefield’s coat. She walked a few steps back and surveyed her handiwork.
“I want you to look wicked, Mr Wakefield, but it’s quite impossible. You only look benevolent and embarrassed. Barbara, you may wear orchids if you please, for I think you are the only one of us who could stand them. Letty would look a sorceress at once, and Marjory is one without them.”
Astbury had wandered to the door and was looking up the steep slopes of greenery they had descended.
“What a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk business it is, and how little one would imagine a place like Musuru atop of it all! I think Miss Haystoun is right, and that the Tropics should increase our vitality, but we must be very vital beings to begin with. A hot sun or a keen frost will make a strong man stronger, but they will kill a weakling. So with the Tropics in my view. An eager fellow can live in them for years and be none the worse, but your waster dies. That is why a lean sandy-haired Scot is perfectly happy in West Africa, while a Portuguese sickens at once, though the one is a Northerner and the other a Latin. In my case, the Tropics make me sleepy, and I don’t mind admitting it. But they also fill me with a vast bovine contentment, which I suppose is a kind of condensed and stored vitality. They are the only really restful places in the world, for you feel that your life is such a speck on the great wheel of things. I remember after the Boer War coming home by the East Coast in a cargo-boat and landing at a little port called Inhambane. There was a long sweep of white sand, a line of green palms, and a lot of whitewashed, green - shuttered, thatched houses in groves of bananas. I was rowed up a little river among quiet villages under palm - trees, where the people always seemed to be chanting a low, slow Arab song. It was very hot, and I lay comfortably in the stern, watching the oily current and the black arms of the rowers and the snow-white gown of the steersman and the deep blue sky between the feathery tops of the palms. And then I sank for two heavenly hours into Nirwana. I had never been to Nirwana before, but now I badly want to go back again. In London my working-rooms face on a dingy grey street with a mouldy old cab-horse standing at the corner. Sometimes, when I look out, that river at Inhambane comes over me so badly that I hardly know what to do. For, if you once get the Tropics into your blood, however much you may hate ‘em and disapprove of ‘em, you can’t forget ‘em. And some day you will go back.”
Marjory, swinging lazily in a low wicker chair, announced her agreement. “I am of the belief of the old sailor who said nothing was impossible ‘south’ard o’ the line.’ Your horizon is far wider and you live in touch with the great elementary things. Barbara, I am going to repeat some verses you once wrote. Listen, everybody: —
‘In the ancient orderly places, with a blank and orderly mind,
We sit in our green walled gardens and our com and oil increase;
Sunset nor dawn can wake us, for the face of the heavens is kind;
We light our taper at even and call our comfort peace.
Peaceful our clear horizon, calm as our sheltered days
Are the lilied meadows we dwell in, the decent highways we tread.
Duly we make our offerings, but we know not the God we praise,
For He is the God of the living, but we, His children, are dead.
I will arise and get me beyond this country of dreams,
Where all is ancient and ordered and hoar with the frost of years,
To the land where loftier mountains cradle their wilder streams,
And the fruitful earth is blessed with more bountiful smiles and tears, —
There in the home of the lightnings, where the fear of the Lord is set free,
Where the thunderous midnights fade to the turquoise magic of morn,
The days of man are a vapour, blown from a shoreless sea,
A little cloud before sunrise, a cry in the void forlorn —
I am weary of men and cities and the service of little things,
Where the flamelike glories of life are shrunk to a candle’s ray.
Smite me, my God, with Thy presence, blind my eyes with Thy wings,
In the heart of Thy virgin earth show me Thy secret way!’”
The verses were received with a murmur of approval by Mrs Yorke and Mr Astbury. Mr Wakefield contented himself with observing that he was glad there was some one to say a good word for the Tropics, but that personally he should be unhappy till he was back at Musuru. As the afternoon had grown cooler a start was made, which was a little delayed by an attempt on the part of Lady Flora to explore with her mule a track which led down to the edge of the stream. The result was that she could not turn her animal, which had to be towed back ignominiously by the whole staff of the bungalow.
The ascent proved less arduous than had been expected. Mrs Yorke, stricken with humanitarian feelings, declined to burden her mule, and in the company of Lady Flora walked gallantly up the steepest part, with the face which her ancestors may have worn when they rolled the tea-chests into Boston harbour. As the air grew colder and pines and cedars reappeared, comfort descended once more on the party, and even Mr Wakefield ceased to puff. The scent of heath was so homely that the experiences of the day were forgotten, and each felt as if the walk had lain through some English wood with a conventional country-house to return to. But on emerging on the lawn from the long avenue the sudden sight of Musuru brought all to a halt. T
he glow of sunset was on the white walls, and the whole had the airy perfection of a house seen in a dream.
“What a place to stumble upon by accident!” exclaimed Mr Astbury. “Imagine a party of hunters who knew nothing about it and believed they were in the depths of savagery! Suddenly, climbing this long hill, they come on walks and flower-gardens. They think they are going mad, and look down at their dirty, torn clothes to reassure themselves. And then they reach the top and come in sight of the house. It would take a long time to persuade them that it was not an Aladdin’s palace.”
“Enter the party,” said Lady Flora, pointing to three riders and a regiment of boys who had halted at the far side of the lawn. Presently three sunburnt men had joined the rest, and were assailed with inquiries, whose makers, like Pilate, did not stay for an answer.
“What sport?” Lady Flora asked Hugh.
“Good. Fifteen head of buck and two lions. I got one and Akhub the other, but I was chivvied by both. And you? Did you find Melissinde?”
“No. She doesn’t live in the valley. We’ve been all day in the Tropics listening to Barbara’s poetry. I want to see your lions, and you’ve got to give me a skin. Since you broke our compact you must pay toll, you know.”
It was a milder evening than had yet been enjoyed at Musuru, and after dinner the party sat in the inner hall watching a young moon climbing that immense arch of sky which is only given by a hill-top prospect.
“I feel as if I were in a lighthouse,” Lady Warcliff said, with an air which invited contradiction. “I almost expect to hear the horn of some great ship down below in the fog. If only each hot country had been given a habitable mountain, they would be the only places in the world to live in. On the ordinary upland you dominate the flat country because you are higher up, but here we also look down on the plain because we are wholesome and cool and sane and they are fevered. We are a lighthouse to the whole of Equatoria, and if there were fifty other lighthouses in the Empire there would be no tropical problem.”
Lady Flora and Hugh had discovered a small couch out of the area of both firelight and lamplight and close to the windows, which were lit from without by the pale glimmer of the moon. Here they had a vantage-ground for seeing the faces of the others.
“I do so wish,” whispered the girl, “that they wouldn’t all talk in paragraphs. Either let them chatter in a friendly way or let Mr Carey or Lord Appin say all that has got to be said themselves.”
“Hush,” said Hugh, for Carey from the fireplace was beginning to speak.
“So far,” he said, “we have discussed the relation of Imperialism to current politics at home. We have looked, too, at the essential features of the new constitution which must some day take the place of the old. And now we come to the details of administration, and the first and greatest of these problems is that of our tropical dependencies. For whatever the development of the free Colonies, they can never share in it. The central executive of the Empire will change its character, but it can never change its task. The direct responsibility for tropical administration will always rest with it. The burden of the Tropics can never be shared with local and responsible legislatures; for they can never be wholly settled by the white man, but must remain largely in the hands of races for whom autonomy is unthinkable, at any rate for the next century or two.
“If that is so, clearly the Tropics will furnish all the administrative problems which are not concerned with the common services of the Empire. The work of our imperial executive will be the joint problems of the whole Empire plus the day-to-day administration of our tropical dependencies in Asia, Africa, and America. This last will be no light business, and must be taken seriously. I am not a great believer in the cant of expert knowledge in politics. Efficiency is apt to be either a meaningless catchword or a stupid worship of professionalism. But our tropical administration must be based on expert knowledge, for in our everyday life in Europe we have no experience, no inherited body of ideas, which is in any way applicable. It is a thing by itself, governed by other rules than those which sway popular government.
“We have already decided that it will be the test of the capacity of democracy for empire if it can accept the abrogation of its claim over some part of the territory under its control and trust its servants. I do not believe that democracy will be found wanting. The danger, to my mind, is far more that its trusted servants may be inadequate to the task. For it is above all things work which demands a clear eye and a steady head, and in which supineness and pedantry will spell disaster. The great administrative questions of the future will be tropical questions. The Tropics will be the training-ground of our great officials. It is high time, therefore, that we tried to get at some scientific understanding of our responsibilities. If expert knowledge and not a mere handful of moral platitudes is to be our guide, we must take steps to systematise and develop that knowledge.
“We are not without precedents. Both France and Germany have set the example in founding schools of what they call “colonial science.” And four centuries ago our own Hakluyt urged something of the same kind. The risk is that we allow ourselves to be misled by the case of India, where we have made a great success by a kind of accident. We send out raw boys to that service, and in a year or two they are efficient administrators. Yes, but the same rule will not hold everywhere. India is a long-settled country, which runs by herself. We control, amend here and there, give her the benefit of our protection, but we do not really interfere. The social machine in its essentials is independent of us. It is quite a different matter in lands where the fabric of civilisation has to be built up from the beginning. There you have no rules to go by, except your own wits; and knowledge is the only dividing line between success and failure. We must take up the business very seriously, and equip ourselves resolutely for the work. I do not propose to weary you with suggestions, for it is no part of our programme to burrow among details. But two points I would insist upon. The first is, that we must take steps to give our people the best possible training for the work they are going to. I want to see imperial colleges established where young men will be taught tropical medicine, and surveying, and natural history and ethnology, where, in a word, the long experience of the Empire will be concentrated into precepts. And the second is, that we must provide for reciprocity between the home and the foreign services, so that the man in the Colonial or the Foreign Office may have first-hand experience of his own to guide him, and the man at the outposts may know the ways of the home office, and may keep in touch with home politics. At present the two branches are cursed with a confusion of tongues, and speak a different language, though they may mean the same thing. A boy who goes into the civil service in England would under my scheme go out automatically in five years to a minor post in some dependency, and return after some years of service to a higher post at home. By this means our governors and our permanent secretaries would be of the same class, with the same training, each sympathising with and understanding the other’s work. There would be some kind of solidarity in imperial administration, and when the wheels go smoothly they go faster and farther.”
Lord Appin had joined the group at the window, and was gently pinching Lady Flora’s ear.
“You know the Tropics, Francis,” he said. “I don’t suppose there is any hot country on earth you haven’t been to. Tell me, are they ever going to change their character? Will white men and women ever be able to live in them in reasonable comfort? Or are they to be a permanent Purgatory to which we resort for our souls’ good?”
“We discussed that question at lunch to-day,” said Lady Flora. “Mr Wakefield said they were merely Purgatory, but most of us thought them more like the Garden of Eden. They make Barbara and Letty feel wicked, and Mr Astbury sleepy, and they make me very, very thirsty.”
“Well, what do you propose to do with them, Francis?” said Lord Appin again. “Are they to be a kind of Botany Bay for penitential souls, or, in your own words, are they some day to blossom as the rose?”
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Carey smiled. “I think Alastair and Sir Edward are the best authorities,” he said. “We will ask them what they think. My own opinion is, that we can improve them all, even the worst parts, up to a certain point. That is to say, we can make them habitable by white men and women for a year or two at a stretch. But that is not enough to secure continuity in development, and here is where the doctrine of the vantage-grounds appears, which Sir Edward was explaining to me the other morning. Teddy, expound, please.”
That gentleman rose courageously from a long arm-chair where he had been stretching legs wearied with the day’s riding. Leaning against the mantelpiece, somewhat in the fashion of a giraffe against a palm-tree, he embarked on his explanation.
“I was much struck by what Lady Warcliff said after dinner to-night. She wanted a lighthouse like Musuru in every tropical colony, and she said that if you had such a thing their problems would be settled. Well, I mean the same thing, only I call it a vantage-ground instead of a lighthouse. We needn’t trouble about the seaside strips of land, because either they are swamps and don’t matter much, or the sea winds make them fairly healthy. We can also leave India out. It is fully developed, and we know exactly how much it takes out of the white man to plant him there. What I want to say concerns Africa mainly, since it is here that we have the great undeveloped speculative dependencies.
“Let us call our possessions in Africa four — north, east, west, and south. The first gives us Egypt and the Sudan hinterland up to Gondokoro; the second is the coast around Mombasa, this plateau, and the trough of Equatoria; West Africa is the coast around the Gulf of Guinea and the hinterland of Nigeria; South Africa is everything from Lake Nyasa and the Congo to the Cape. Now some of these are white men’s countries, and in time are going to be colonies. Some day we shall have the federation of South Africa, and then the lowlands around the Zambesi — what we call North-west and North-east Rhodesia and Nyasaland — will fall to be administered by the federal government. So, also, we shall have the free colony of East Africa, with its capital on this plateau, administering the lowlands west and east of it. That is one possible development. The other is that the colonies occupy only the healthy country and leave the lowlands as dependencies under the central executive. It doesn’t particularly matter to my argument what is going to happen. The point is that wherever you have an unhealthy tropical tract you have somewhere in the near neighbourhood a patch of white man’s country.
