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G. Harvey Ralphson - "Boy Scouts in Mexico"

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The Mirror of Kong Ho

E >> Ernest Bramah >> The Mirror of Kong Ho




Beyond that point it is difficult to convey an accurately grouped and
fully spread-out design of the encounter. In itself the scheme and
intention of counterfeiting the domestic life and rivalries of two
opposing bands of insects was pleasantly conceived, and might have
been carried out with harmonious precision, but, after the manner of
these remote tribes, the original project had been overshadowed and
the purity of the imagination lost beneath a mass of inconsistent
detail. To this imperfection must it be laid that when at length this
person was recalled from the obscurity of the pagoda and the alluring
society of a maiden of the village, to whom he was endeavouring to
expound the strategy of the game, and called upon to engage actively
in it, he courteously admitted to those who led him forth that he had
not the most shadowy-outlined idea of what was required of him.

Nevertheless they bound about his legs a frilled armour, ingeniously
fashioned to represent the ribbed leanness of the insect's shank,
encased his hands and feet in covers to a like purpose, and pressing
upon him a wooden club indicated that the time had come for him to
prove his merit by venturing alone into the midst of the eleven brown
adversaries who stood at a distance in poised and expectant attitudes.

Assuredly, benignant one, this sport of contending locusts began, as
one approached nearer to it, to wear no more pacific a face than if it
had been a carnage of the hurl-headlong or the curved-hook varieties.
In such a competition, it occurred to him, how little deference would
be paid to this one's title of "Established Genius," or how
inadequately would he be protected by his undoubted capacity of
leaping upwards, and even in a sideway direction, for no matter how
vigorously he might propel himself, or how successfully he might
endeavour to remain self-sustained in the air, the ill-destined moment
could not be long deferred when he must come down again into the midst
of the eleven--all doubtless concealing weapons as massive and
fatally-destructive as his own. This prospect, to a person of
quiescent taste, whose chief delight lay in contemplating the
philosophical subtleties of the higher Classics, was in itself devoid
of glamour, but with what funereal pigments shall he describe his
sinking emotions when one of his own band, approaching him as he went,
whispered in his ear, "Look out at this end; they kick up like the
very devil. And their man behind the wicket is really smart; if you
give him half a chance he'll have your stumps down before you can say
'knife.'" Shorn of its uncouth familiarity, this was a charitable
warning that they into whose stronghold I was turning my
footsteps--perhaps first deceiving my alertness with a proffered
friendship--would kick with the ferocity of untamed demons, and that
one in particular, whose description, to my added despair, I was
unable to retain, was known to possess a formidable knife, with which
it was his intention to cut off this person's legs at the first
opportunity, before he could be accused of the act. Truly, "To one
whom he would utterly destroy Buddha sends a lucky dream."

Behind lay the pagoda (though the fact that this one did admittedly
turn round for a period need not be too critically dwelt upon), with
three tiers of maidens, some already waving their hands as an
encouraging token; on each side a barrier of prickly growth
inopportunely presented itself, while in front the eleven kicking
crickets stood waiting, and among them lurked the one grasping a
doubly-edged blade of a highly proficient keenness.

There are occasional moments in the life of a person when he as the
inward perception of retiring for a few paces and looking back in
order to consider his general appearance and to judge how he is
situated with regard to himself, to review his past life in a spirit
of judicial severity, to arrange definitely upon a future composed
entirely of acts of benevolence, and to examine the working of destiny
at large. In such a scrutiny I now began to understand that it would
perhaps have been more harmonious to my love of contemplative repose
if I had considered the disadvantages closer before venturing into
this barbarian region, or, at least, if I had used the occasion
profitably to advance an argument tending towards a somewhat fuller
allowance of taels from your benevolent sleeve. Our own virtuous and
flower-strewn land, it is true, does not possess an immunity from
every trifling drawback. The Hoang Ho--to concede specifically the
existence of some of these--frequently bursts through its restraining
barriers and indiscriminately sweeps away all those who are so
ill-advised as to dwell within reach of its malignant influence. From
time to time wars and insurrections are found to be necessary, and no
matter how morally-intentioned and humanely conducted, they
necessarily result in the violation, dismemberment or extirpation of
many thousand polite and dispassionate persons who have no concern
with either side. Towns are repeatedly consumed by fire, districts
scourged by leprosy, and provinces swept by famine. The storms are
admittedly more fatal than elsewhere, the thunderbolts larger, more
numerous, and all unerringly directed, while the extremities of heat
and cold render life really uncongenial for the greater part of each
year. The poor, having no money to secure justice, are evilly used,
whereas the wealthy, having too much, are assailed legally by the
gross and powerful for the purpose of extorting their riches. Robbers
and assassins lurk in every cave; vast hoards of pirates blacken the
surface of every river; and mandarins of the nine degrees must make a
livelihood by some means or other. By day, therefore, it is
inadvisable to go forth and encounter human beings, while none but the
shallow-headed would risk a meeting with the countless demons and
vampires which move by night. To one who has spent many moons among
these foreign apparitions the absence of drains, roads, illustrated
message-parchments, maidens whose voices may be heard protesting upon
ringing a wire, loaves of conflicting dimensions, persons who strive
to put their faces upon every advertisement, pens which emit fountains
when carried in the pocket, a profusion of make-strong foods, and an
Encyclopaedia Mongolia, may undoubtedly be mentioned as constituting a
material deficiency. Affairs are not being altogether reputably
conducted during the crisis; it can never be quite definitely asserted
what the next action of the versatile and high-spirited Dowager
Empress will be; and here it is freely contended that the Pure and
Immortal Empire is incapable of remaining in one piece for much
longer. These, and other inconveniences of a like nature, which the
fastidious might distort into actual hardships, have never been
denied, yet at no period of the nine thousand years of our
civilisation has it been the custom to lure out the unwary, on the
plea of an agreeable entertainment, and then to abandon him into the
society of eleven club-bearing adversaries, one of whom may be
depicted as in the act of imparting an unnecessary polish to the edge
of his already preternaturally acute weapon, while those of his own
band offer no protection, and three tiers of very richly-dressed
maidens encourage him to his fate by refined gestures of approval.

Doubtless this person had unconsciously allowed his inner meditations
to carry him away, as it may be expressed, for when he emerged from
this strain of reverie it was to discover himself in the chariot-road
and--so incongruously may be the actions when the controlling
intelligence is withdrawn--even proceeding at a somewhat undignified
pace in a direction immediately opposed to an encounter with the brown
locusts. From this mortifying position he was happily saved by
emerging from these thought-dreams before it was too late to return,
and, also, if the detail is not too insignificant to be related, by
the fact that certain chosen runners from his own company had reached
a point in the road before him, and now stood joining their
outstretched arms across the passage and raising gravity-dispelling
cries. Smiling acquiescently, therefore, this person returned in their
midst, and receiving a new weapon, his own club having been
absent-mindedly mislaid, he again set forth warily to the encounter.

Yet in this he did not altogether neglect a discreet prudence. The
sympathetic person to whom he was indebted for the pointed allusion
had specifically declared that they who used their feet with the
desperate savagery of baffled spectres guarded the nearer limits of
their position, the intention of his timely hint assuredly being that
I should seek to approach from the opposite end, where, doubtless, the
more humane and conciliatory grass-hoppers were assembled. Thus guided
I now set forth in a widely-circuitous direction, having the point
where I meant to open an attack clearly before my eyes, yet seeking to
deliver a more effective onslaught by reaching it to some extent
unperceived and to this end creeping forward in the protecting shadow
of the long grass and untrimmed herbage.

Whether the one already referred to had incapably failed to express
his real meaning, or whether he was tremulous by nature and
inordinately self-deficient, concerns the narration less than the fact
that he had admittedly produced a state of things largely in excess of
the actual. There is no longer any serviceable pretext for maintaining
that those guarding any point of their position were other than mild
and benevolent, while the only edged weapon displayed was one
courteously produced to aid this person's ineffectual struggles to
extricate himself when, by some obscure movement, he had most ignobly
entangled his pigtail about the claws of his sandal.

Ignorant of this, the true state of things, I was still advancing
subtly when one wearing the emblems of our band appeared from among
the brown insects and came towards me. "Courage!" I exclaimed in a
guarded tone, raising my head cautiously and rejoiced to find that I
should not be alone. "Here is one clad in green bearing succour, who
will, moreover, obstinately defend his stumps to the last extremity."

"That's right," replied the opportune person agreeably; "we need a few
like that. But do get up on your hind legs and come along, there's a
good fellow. You can play at bears in the nursery when we get back, if
you want."

Certainly one can simulate the movements of wild animals in a
market-garden if the impersonation is thought to be desirable, yet the
reasonable analogy of the saying is elusive in the extreme, and I
followed the ally who had thus betrayed my presence with a deep-set
misgiving although in the absence of a more trustworthy guide, and in
the suspicion that some point of my every ordinary strategy had been
inept, I was compelled to mould myself identically into his advice.

Scarcely had he left me, and I was endeavouring to dispel any idea of
treachery towards those about by actions of graceful courtesy, when
one--unworthy of burial--standing a score of paces distant, (to whom,
indeed, this person was at the moment bowing with almost passionate
vehemence, inspired by the conviction that he, for his part, was
engaged in a like attention,) suddenly cast a missile--which, somewhat
double-facedly, he had hitherto held concealed in his closed
hand--with undeviating force and accuracy. So unexpected was the
movement, so painfully-impressed the vindictive contact, that I should
have instinctively seized the offensively-directed object and
contemptuously hurled it back again, if the consequence of the blow
had not deprived my mind of all retaliatory ambitions. In this
emergency was manifested a magnanimous act worthy of the incense of a
poem, for a person standing immediately by, seeing how this one was
balanced in his emotions, picked up the missile, and although one of
the foremost of the opposing band, very obligingly flung it back at
the assailant. Even an outcast would not have passed this without a
suitable tribute, and turning to him, I was remarking appreciatively
that men were not divided by seas and wooden barriers, but by the
unchecked and conflicting lusts of the mind, when the unclean and
weed-nurtured traitor twenty paces distant, taking a degraded
advantage from this person's attitude, again propelled his weapon with
an even more concentrated perfidy than before. At this new outrage
every brown cricket shrank from the attitude of alert vigour which
hitherto he had maintained, and as though to disassociate themselves
from the stain of complicity all crossed over and took up new
positions.

Up to this point, majestic head, in order to represent the adventure
in its proper sequence, it has been advisable to present the details
as they arose before the eyes of a reliable and dispassionate gazer.
Now, however, it is no less seemly to declare that this barbarian
sport of leaping insects is not so discreditably shallow as it had at
first appeared, while in every action there may be found an apt but
hidden symbol. Thus the presence of the two green locusts in the midst
of others of a dissimilar nature represents the unending strife by
which even the most pacific are ever surrounded. The fragile erection
of sticks (behind which this person at first sought to defend himself
until led into a more exposed position by one garbed in white,) may be
regarded as the home and altar, and adequately depicts the hollowness
of the protection it affords and the necessity of reliantly emerging
to defy an invader rather than lurking discreditably among its
recesses. The missile is the equivalent of a precise and immediate
danger, the wooden club the natural instinct for defence with which
all living creatures are endowed, so that when the peril is for the
time driven away the opportunity is at hand for the display of
virtuous amusements, the exchanging of hospitality, and the beating of
professional drums as we would say. Thus, at the next attack the one
sharing the enterprise with me struck the missile so proficiently that
its recovery engaged the attention of all our adversaries, and then
began to exhibit his powers by running and leaping towards me.
Recognising that the actual moment of the display had arrived, this
person at once emitted a penetrating cry of concentrated challenge,
and also began to leap upwards and about, and with so much energy that
the highly achieved limits of his flight surprised even himself.

As for the bystanders, esteemed, those who opposed us, and the members
of our own band, although this leaping sportiveness is a competition
more regarded and practised among all orders than the pursuit of
commercial eminence, or even than the allurements of the sublimest
Classics, it may be truly imagined that never before had they
witnessed so remarkable a game cricket. From the pagoda a loud cry of
wonder acclaimed the dexterity of this person's efforts; the three
tiers of maidens climbed one upon another in their anxiety to lose no
detail of the adventure, and outstanders from distant points began to
assemble. The brown enemy at once abandoned themselves to a panic, and
for the most part cast themselves incapably to the ground, rolling
from side to side in an access of emotion; the two arbiters clad in
white conferred together, doubtless on the uselessness of further
contest, while the ally who had summoned me to take a part instead of
being encouraged to display his agility in a like manner continued to
run slavishly from point to point, while I overcame the distances in a
series of inspired bounds.

In the meanwhile the sounds of encouragement from the ever-increasing
multitude grew like the falling of a sudden coast storm among the ripe
leaves of a tea-plantation, and with them the voices of many calling
upon my name and inciting me to further and even higher achievements
reached my ears. Not to grow small in the eyes of these estimable
persons I continued in my flight, and abandoning all set movements and
limits, I began to traverse the field in every direction, becoming
more proficient with each effort, imparting to myself a sideway and
even backward motion while yet in the upper spaces, remaining poised
for an appreciable period, and lightly, yet with graceful ease,
avoiding the embraces of those who would have detained me. Undoubtedly
I could have maintained this supremacy until our band might justly
have claimed the reward, had not the flattering cries of approval
caused an indiscreet mistake, for the alarm being spread in the
village that a conflagration of imposing ferocity was raging, an
ornamental chariot conveying a band of warriors clad in brass armour
presently entered into the strife, and discovering no fire to occupy
their charitable energies they misguidedly honoured this offensive
person by propelling a solid column of the purest and most refreshing
water against his ignoble body when at the point of his highest
flight. This introduction of a thunderbolt into the everyday life of
an insect must be of questionable authenticity, yet not feeling
sufficiently instructed in the lesser details of the sportiveness to
challenge the device, I suffered myself to be led towards the pavilion
with no more struggling than enough to remove the ignominy of an
unresisting surrender, pleasantly remarking to those who bore me along
that to a person of philosophical poise the written destiny was as
apparent in the falling leaf as in the rising sun, pointing the saying
thus: "Although the Desert of Shan-tz is boundless, and mankind number
a million million, yet in it Li-hing encountered his mother-in-law."
Changing to meet another of our company setting forth with a club to
make the venture, I was permitted for a moment to engage him;
whereupon thrusting into his hand a leather charm against ill-directed
efforts, and instructing him to bind it about his head, I encouraged
him with the imperishable watch-word of the Emperor Tsin Su, "The
stars are indeed small, but their light carries as far as that of the
full moon."

At the steps of the pagoda so great was the throng of those who would
have overwhelmed me with their gracious attention, that had not this
person's neck become practically automatic by ceaseless use of late,
he would have been utterly unequal to the emergency. As it was, he
could only bestow a superficial hand-wave upon a company of
gold-embroidered musicians who greeted his return with appropriate
melody, and a glance of well-indicated regret that he had no fuller
means of conveying his complicated emotions, in the direction of the
uppermost tier of maidens. Then the awaiting Sir Philip took him
firmly towards the inner part of the pavilion, and announced, so
adroitly and with such high-spirited vigour had this one maintained
the conflict, that it had been resolutely agreed on all sides not to
make a test of his competence any further.

Thereupon a band of very sumptuously arrayed nymphs drew near with
offerings of liquid fat and a variety of crimson fruit, which it is
customary to grind together on the platter--unapproachable in the
result, certainly, yet incredibly elusive to the unwary in the manner
of bruising, and practically ineradicable upon the more delicate
shades of silk garment. In such a situation the one who is now
relating the various incidents of the day may be imagined by a
broad-minded and affectionate sire: partaking of this native fruit and
oil, and from time to time expressing his insatiable anguish that he
continually fails to become more proficient in controlling the oblique
movements of the viands, while the less successful crickets are
constrained to persevere in the combat, and the ever-present note of
evasive purport is raised by a voice from behind a screen exclaiming,
"Out afore? That he may have been, but do ee think we was a-going to
give he out afore? No, maaster, us doant a-have a circus every day
hereabouts."

Thus may this imagination of competitive locusts be set forth to the
end. If a fuller proof of what an unostentatious self-effacement
hesitates to enlarge upon were required, it might be found in the
barbarian printed leaf, for the next day this person saw a public
record of the strife, in which his own name was followed by a
numerical emblem signifying that he had not stumbled or proved
incompetent in any one particular. Sir Philip, I beheld with pained
surprise, had obtusely suffered himself to be caught out in the
committal of fifty-nine set offences.

With a not unnatural anticipation that, as a result of this
painstaking description, this person will find two well-equipped camps
of contending locusts in Yuen-ping on his return.

KONG HO.




LETTER XII


Concerning the obvious misunderstanding which has entwined
itself about a revered parent's faculties of passionless
discrimination. The all-water disportment and the two, of
different sexes, who after regarding me conflictingly from the
beginning, ended in a like but inverted manner.



VENERATED SIRE,--Your gem-adorned letter containing a thousand
burnished words of profuse reproach has entered my diminished soul in
the form of an equal number of rusty barbs. Can it be that the
incapable person whom, as you truly say, you sent, "to observe the
philosophical subtleties of the barbarians, to study their dynastical
records and to associate liberally with the venerable and dignified,"
has, in your own unapproachable felicity of ceremonial expression,
"according to a discreet whisper from many sources, chiefly affected
the society of tea-house maidens, the immature of both sexes, doubtful
characters of all classes, and criminals awaiting trial; has evinced
an unswerving affinity towards light amusement and entertainments of a
no-class kind; and in place of a wise aloofness, befitting a wearer of
the third Gold Button and the Horn Belt-clasp, in situations of
critical perplexity, seems by his own ingenuous showing to have
maintained an unparalleled aptitude for behaving either with the
crystalline simplicity of a Kan-su earth-tiller, or the misplaced
buffoonery of a seventh-grade body-writher taking the least
significant part in an ill-equipped Swatow one-cash Hall of Varied
Melodies." Assuredly, if your striking and well-chosen metaphors were
not more unbalanced than the ungainly attitude of a one-legged
hunchback crossing a raging torrent by means of a slippery plank on a
stormy night, they would cause the very acutest bitterness to the
throat of a dutiful and always high-stepping son. There is an apt
saying, however, "A quarrel between two soldiers in the market-place
becomes a rebellion in the outskirts," and when this person remembers
that many thousand li of mixed elements flow between him and his
usually correct and dispassionate sire, he is impelled to take a mild
and tolerant attitude towards the momentary injustice brought about by
the weakness of approaching old age, the vile-intentioned mendacity of
outcasts envious of the House of Kong, and, perchance, the irritation
brought on by a too lavish indulgence in your favourite dish of stewed
mouse.

Having thus re-established himself in the clear-sighted affection of
an ever mild and perfect father, and cleansed the ground of all
possible misunderstandings in the future, this person will concede the
fact that, not to stand beneath the faintest shadow of an implied
blemish in your sympathetic eyes, he had no sooner understood the
attitude in which he had been presented than he at once plunged into
the virtuous society of a band of the sombre and benevolent.

These, so far as his intelligence enables him to grasp the position,
may be reasonably accepted as the barbarian equivalent of those very
high-minded persons who in our land devote their whole lives secretly
to killing others whom they consider the chief deities do not really
approve of; for although they are not permitted here, either by
written law or by accepted custom, to perform these meritorious
actions, they are so intimately initiated into the minds and councils
of the Upper Ones that they are able to pronounce very severe
judgments of torture--a much heavier penalty than merely being
assassinated--upon all who remain outside their league. As some of the
most objurgatory of these alliances do not number more than a score of
persons, it is inevitable that the ultimate condition of the whole
barbarian people must be hazardous in the extreme.

Having associated myself with this class sufficiently to escape their
vindictive pronouncements, and freely professed an unswerving
adherence to their rites, I next sought out the priests of other
altars, intending by a seemly avowal to each in turn to safeguard my
future existence effectually. This I soon discovered to be beyond the
capacity of an ordinary lifetime, for whereas we, with four hundred
million subjects find three religions to be sufficient to meet every
emergency, these irresolute island children, although numbering us
only as one to ten, vacillate among three hundred; and even amid this
profusion it is asserted that most of the barbarians are unable to
find any temple exactly conforming to their requirements, and after
writing to the paper to announce the fact, abandon the search in
despair.

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