Where the Pavement Ends Part 39

"_Va-se'mbora_!" thundered Angus Jones in the face of the populace.

"_Va-se'mbora!_"--Which means in the vernacular: Chase yourself!...

THE WICKS OF MACa.s.sAR

A naturalist, by what Andrew Harben told me, is a man that goes around looking for things that happen by nature. The more natural they are the better pleased is he. And some day if he looks far enough he's liable to fetch up against something that just naturally makes a meal off him and he goes looking no farther.

Anyway this is what I gathered from Andrew Harben. He's all right now and when last I saw him he was pounding chain cables by the Cape Town breakwater--such being the most denatured employment he could find.

But he used to be a naturalist himself and interested in most curious facts like bugs and poison plants and wild animals, until once they brought him so close to an unnatural finish that they cured him for all time to come....

"Keep away from it," says Andrew Harben, giving me advice while he chipped the rust flakes lovingly into my eyes. "Whenever you have a feeling that you'd like to be a great scientific investigator and discover what's none of your business," he says, "go and pry into a keg of dynamite with a chisel. It's quicker and more homelike. But leave the strange places and the strange secrets of the earth to university professors and magazine writers, they being poor devils and mostly so scrawny that nothing would bite them anyway. You mightn't believe I once went around sampling rocks and fleabites and tribal customs and things in all kinds of queer corners. I did, 'he says,' but I do not any more.

And yet I made one remarkable scientific discovery before I quit. It is a valuable fact in nature and I will hand it to you for what it's worth, free gratis."

Which he did, and I'm doing the same.

It was while his ambition was young and strong that Andrew Harben took a job from the Batavia Government to watch a screw-pile light by the Borneo sh.o.r.e of Maca.s.sar. His tastes running as they did, you got to admit his judgment, no other place around the earth having quite so much nature laid on it to the square inch. Mud and mangroves and sloughs and swamps make a cozy home that suits a lot of queer inhabitants, mostly of a kind you and me would be highly wishful to avoid. But Andrew Harben he opened up his specimen cases and set out his little pickle bottles full of alcohol and was happy, laughing quite humorous to himself at the idea of getting paid thirty guilders a month for such a privilege.

The lantern at Andrew Harben's light must have been brought out by the first Dutch navigator. A great iron scaffolding in the middle of his shack held a tub of oil. Then there were eight flat wicks that led up through a perforated sheet of iron from the oil tub, each cropping out overhead by an old-fashioned thumbscrew feed. And around the wicks was built the eight-sided gla.s.s cupola. Yes, it was a kind of overgrown street lamp of a light, but mighty important in those waters just the same.

The keeper's business was to have the oil tub always full and to climb around and give the thumb-screws a twist every hour of the night. So long as he kept his wicks trimmed and burning n.o.body cared what else he did on the side. The skipper of the lighthouse tender that landed Andrew Harben made this clear.

"Z' last mans what lived here got eats by z' crocodile," he said. "All but z' feets of one, which we buried. Zat wa.s.s awright, only zey let z'

lights go out and zere wa.s.s wrecks. Oh, such wrecks because of zese dam currents. Now, please, if you got mad, be so good to stay anyways by z'

lights until we bring anozzer mans, if it is all z' same to you."

"Don't worry about me," said Andrew Harben, who was a big, hearty chap.

"I shan't go mad, no fear. The poor fools probably hadn't enough brains to keep from rattling loose. You see, I'm a scientist, I shall explore the wonders of natural history. My work here in Borneo shall make me famous and, who knows, may make my fortune as well. There was Philson, who found how the nipa palm can be made to yield pure maple sirup at a cost of one cent per gallon, and Biggins, who learned that the distilled juice of the female mustard spider is a specific for the pip--both humble investigators like myself. No. I'll have enough to keep me busy, never fret."

"Yes," remarked the skipper, a most intelligent halfcaste, Andrew Harben told me, being educated at the Agricultural School at Buitenzorg, "yes, I zink maybe you will. So you are a natural 'istory? In zat case a crocodile may not like your flavior, you zink? Perhaps you are right. I will stop back in a month to see if zis iss z' truth?"

"How many men have held this job?" asked Andrew Harben.

"Oh, I 'ave forgot 'ow many," said the skipper, with a face like wood, which is the custom of half-castes when they lie.

Andrew Harben might have lived ash.o.r.e if he'd wanted, because there was a plank walk set on steel screw piles that led from the lighthouse right into the mangroves. But he preferred the idea of sitting out there in the evenings to watch the monkeys and the crabs play along the mud flats by the river mouth. This shack was his box seat.

He was so took up with getting settled in the new roost that he never thought to overhaul his supplies till the skipper was gone. Grub and oil were all right, he found, but one thing was all wrong. Those eight wicks that fed the lights had been used up short. Even when he filled the tub level he hadn't more than an inch to spare all around. And there wasn't an extra wick in the place.

Andrew Harben ran out and yelled at the tender that was just heading up for Mangkalihat, but he couldn't make them hear, and the skipper thought he was only pa.s.sing compliments.

So he was, in a way, being sore. This thing about the wicks was just blamed carelessness on the part of the three Dutch marines who had held the place temporary to his arrival. Also it was likely to prove expensive to shipping and a lot of trouble to him. "How the devil can I keep those footy little lights going for a month without no wicks?" said Andrew Harben.

The more he looked and thought the less he liked it. Maca.s.sar is a regular crossroads. Junks from Kw.a.n.gchow toddle by after sandalwood and birds' nests, and country wallahs go smelling their way--and smelling is right--around to Banjermasin after benzoin and rice, and tramps of all breeds with Australian coal and ironwood, and topsail schooners with anything at all from pepper to dead Chinamen--a parade like Collins Street of an afternoon.

Andrew Harben considered, and he saw what a mess he would start thereabout if he ever let his lights go out. It made him peevish, because he hadn't come to be bothered with such matters, and he started to piece out those wicks. All he could find in the way of stuff was his socks. He tied them on to the loose ends of the wicks, and they drew oil all right, but he only had six, being a frugal man in his habits. Not another thing could he rummage up around the shack to help him, no yarn, nor twine, nor goods of any kind.

"Shall we be stuck by such naturalistic obstacles?" said Andrew Harden, and he took his pants, which were canvas, and hacked them with a knife.

By raveling off about four inches from each leg he got enough cotton thread to patch the other two wicks with. It left him kind of high-watered, you might say. Yes, he was well ventilated around his ankles, and not having any more socks to his feet he was going to be quite cool. But the strait was safe for the time, and he could now turn his attention to real business.

He used to start easy every morning on his natural history by digging out a few billions of dead moths that had snowed in his lights all night. Then he'd hurry ash.o.r.e over his plank bridge and collect snails and fuzzy worms and similar crawlers by the tide mark. Later he'd work into heavier stuff--bats and leeches and centipedes and such like fascinating reptiles--or maybe dodge a panther or a wild pig or a boa constrictor in the jungle. Finally he'd taper off on ticks, which took to him most amazing, and fire ants and scorpions and mosquitoes as big as your finger. If there is one thing more evident than another in Borneo it's insects, and Andrew Harben did say he often swum home at dusk through solid waves of them. Taking that as meant, you can still see he would be by no means lonesome.

And pretty soon he had company of another kind too, being native. These were a tribe of simple Bugis that lived infrequent through the back country in a state of innocence you would hardly imagine, and they were very hairy and most friendly to Andrew Harben, which was queer. One family had a hang-out near the river, and it wasn't long before old Allo and his seven sons were serving him in all kinds of little ways. As soon as they understood his idea about animals and specimens they took a highly informing interest, Andrew Harben said.

They knew a good deal about natural history in their own way, and they gave him spiders and adders and things like that, very nice and all particular deadly. One day they took him into the jungle and introduced him to a caterpillar that drops off the trees on you so its hairs stick in your skin. Andrew Harben was swelled with pride at this invention.

But that night the poison festered and he swelled in another manner. He had sense enough to lock himself in the shack so as to keep from jumping in the drink when the fever took him. Those caterpillars very near finished Andrew Harben, but he managed to keep the lights going and the Bugis came around to call next morning so kind and sympathetic. They were most neighborly, the Bugis.

"Ya--ya," they said, which was Dutch in a fashion and meant anything you like--such as buck up, old scout; the worst is yet to come.

They told him about a harmless snake that carried a superfluous or third eye in its back. He went hunting that curious snake and found it, but he didn't like the looks of its head. It had a broad head with a b.u.t.ton on the neck that might or might not have been an eye. Of course he could not doubt when old Allo and all his seven sons a.s.sured him positively that the snake was safe as a tame kitten. But just for luck he grabbed it cautious and gave it a gla.s.s tube to chew on while he pressed the b.u.t.ton.

"Ya--ya!" said the tribe--meaning who so surprised as them--and when Andrew Harben came to examine the tube he found enough venom to kill forty men, which was doing pretty well for one harmless little snake....

Yes, business was good, but pretty soon he had to worry about his wicks again. The socks were about used up, and socks never give a good light anyhow, Andrew Harben said. He'd been raveling off his pants for more splices until he blushed to look at himself. This was painful to his modesty but worse for his comfort, account of giving up so much protection. Every time he stripped off another inch of pant leg he opened up new territory for the insects which took to his bare limbs quite joyous.

Andrew Harben began to wonder where it would end and what he would do when he had no more pants to ravel. The way these lights burned up wicks was scandalous, and the tender wasn't due back for more than a week yet.

He tried to get help from the Bugis, but he couldn't seem to make them understand. They didn't carry socks themselves, nor pants neither, nor much of anything but their long hair which they wore braided in a kind of club behind.

"Am I a scientist?" said Andrew Harben. "And can I not wrest the answer I need from nature herself?"

It cheered him up a lot to think of it that way. He remembered how other investigators had condescended to useful discoveries like imitation shoe b.u.t.tons and synthetic doormats and Kennebunk sealskins.

"I will find a new material for lamp wicks," he said, "thus endearing myself to posterity as well as saving the lives of the merchant marine."

So he tested all manner of strange stuff in a most scientific manner, like coir and palm fibers and grapevines and corn silk. But it wasn't any use. He couldn't get anything that would sop up oil and hold a light for half a minute.

He was still cussing his luck and thinking hard things of science when the Allo family showed up with a piece of news that made him forget all the rest in a hurry. It seems they had located a flying frog in the depths of the jungle somewhere.

Now few people have ever seen the flying frog of Borneo, and those who have are called nasty names by those who haven't. It wears a skin web between its fore and hind legs and is most rare. Andrew Harben was grateful because here he saw his big chance for fame. He would pickle the beast and write a book about it to make the university professors and the magazine writers sit up. And maybe if the statements were tough enough and somebody attacked him for a nature faker he might get the use of half a dozen new letters to the hind end of his name.

So he went out with the Allo tribe once again and they led him up a creek to the place where the flying frog lives. Sure enough there was a frog; he saw it quite clear. He only had to hop across on a log and take it in his little net. He hopped and the log turned under him, as was likely it would, being no log at all but a most monstrous great alligator. Andrew Harben went overboard, and the Bugis raised a yell.

"Ya--ya!" they said, meaning here's fun.

But Andrew Harben could dive as well as an alligator, which he did and got away downstream. This was the first time he could be thankful about his pants. They were now no bigger than a swimming suit, and he struck out with great speed and finally reached sh.o.r.e below with the loss of nothing but one shoe, which the alligator did not like.

Going back alone through the jungle, he lost his way and along toward evening what should he do but stumble plump on the whole nest of Allos where they lived. This was a place highly interesting to an investigator and would have been even more so to the little gunboats of different flags that police the sea. It was no hut but a proper palace, with a stockade and towers and flagpoles all complete and every blessed thing about it snaffled off some ship or other.

He saw strakes, beams, keelsons, masts, rigging, and cabin doors enough to build a fleet with; and the windows were ports and the chimneys all funnels. The women were cooking dinner in pots made of ship's bells turned upside, and they were dressed in yards and yards of Chinese silks all watered impromptu by sea water, and lace curtains from some captain's berth and various other flotsam while the little children toddled around in American flour bags. Yes, those Allos could wear plenty of garments when they were home, which was good manners, but more particular indicated they'd collected so much wealth they didn't know what else to do with it.