Chapter XIX: The Hindu Guide a Saint Would Be

Last evening I wrote you about my perturbed state of mind regarding quarantine here in Singapore.

After _chota hazri_ this morning I thought for a couple of hours, then ate breakfast, after which I met a Hindu in my hotel (there are thirty thousand Indians in Singapore), who looked at me as if he were desirous of opening a conversation.

I stopped, saluted, and said to him: "Did you wish to speak to me?"

"Only to ask you if you wanted a guide for Singapore today. I can show you all the sights of Singapore and explain them to you in understandable English."

"By jove!" I exclaimed. "I believe you can. You speak English like an educated Englishman. What do you want for your day's services? You look like ---- ----." I named an eminent American statesman, and he did look like him, too, except for color. I asked the guide if he knew of this statesman of whom he reminded me.

He said he didn't.

"Well," I said, "he is one of the most brilliant men on earth today."

The fellow smiled and showed a splendid set of teeth--a Hindu guide is susceptible to compliments.

"How much do you want for your day's services?" I again asked him.

"Three dollars."

"I'll give you a dollar and a half," I said.

"Pay me anything you like and then you'll pay me more than I am worthy of," he said.

We started off in a gharry, and he surely was a character.

Keen, bright, the most interesting guide I've ever struck--a Hindu.

We talked Hinduism till twelve o'clock, riding around Singapore; and if you think foreign missionaries aren't up against it in their job of converting India from Hinduism, or Brähmanism, you can think again.

He was a great solace to me.

"There are," he told me, "four great tenets to Hinduism:

"First--Don't question the mysteries. No one can solve them.

"Second--Don't worry about the future. No one knows what it has in store."

He frankly told me that the other two had slipped his memory, but he had cinched those two.

With me, number two was enough for today, with my job of thinking on hand.

That guide was a wonder. He was intelligent. There is not one Christian in ten thousand who could give a better argument for his faith than that guide gave me for his faith. He was about as refreshing a character as I have ever met.

He took me through a Hindu temple and laughed at Christians' "ignorance" in condemning the Hindus' idols. Hindus didn't worship the idols; but the Great Being the idols were to remind the worshiper of; they were only links between the worshipers and the Great Being.

He expects to be born over again and to answer in his new existence for the sins he has committed in this life; and the great end to be striven for, is to fly off into nothing and nobody.

"Why," I said, "that's Buddhism."

"Buddhism," he scoffed, "Buddhism is only an offshoot from Hinduism, borrowed from Hinduism." There were saints and sages among Hindus, he told me. Saints could die, sages never. He had tried to be a saint, but gave it up. No one was worthy of what they got, he the least of all. Here he was getting $1.50 a day. If I had offered him anything he would have taken it--10c, 20c, and even then he wouldn't be worthy of it.

"Why in blazes didn't you tell me that before we closed for $1.50?" I asked him.

"I told you my price was $3.00, but that I would take anything you offered me. My offer stands," he said; "you offered me $1.50. At $1.50 I am riding around on a cushioned seat with a gentleman for four hours, as a day's work. Out there, digging in the street, in the hot sun, dressed only in a loin cloth, is a sweating, toiling brother Hindu, putting in ten hours a day for thirty cents. He is entitled to $1.50 for his day's work, more than I am entitled to thirty cents for my day's work."

He was a sinner and admitted it. A most unworthy sinner, and expected to get what was coming to him.

I dismissed him at lunch time to eat my lunch and prepare myself for three o'clock.