earth showing through the webbing of green. The trees growing on it were so tall that their doubtlessly stout trunks were like long spindly wireless masts. We passed, in midstream, an antique oil tanker, completely coated with rust, called The Golden Dragon.
* * *
If you had been set on retirement from the world in the traditional South Seas manner of the ‘nineties, you need have gone no further thanMergui. Or at least, so it seemed at first sight. It was immediately clear that this place had been purged of the vulgar agitations common to most ports. The jetty had fallen into the harbour and no one had bothered to recover it. Ships anchored a hundred yards off shore, and sampans – when there were any about – unloaded passengers. They were dumped on a sloping wasteland of slime-covered boulders, up which they scrambled and slithered to reach the quayside. Semi-wrecks lay about the harbour with vitals bursting through their rotting planks. The wharves – mostly empty – were pleasantly styled go-downs. A civil-supplies building – a place of most eerie dilapidation – had convolvulus and flowering bean plants crawling over its façade, and through the paneless upper windows you could see bats hanging from the rafters. On the quayside a large iron tank bore the notice ‘to drink’, and a honey and white fishing eagle balanced on its edge, peering wistfully into the inner depths. The junks anchored along the front had small platforms built into their sterns where their guardian spirits could conveniently perch. Well-dressed young men came up and said ‘Where are you going?’ then walked on, without awaiting an answer.
What, too, could have been more romantic than the traditional products of this island – esculent birds’ nests and pearls? True there was also a bit of rubber and some tin; but not enough of either to bring about any rise in the commercial temperature of the place. But, alas, one outstanding characteristic of Mergui eclipsed all others, and would certainly have broken the resolve of the most tenacious escapist. This was the smell. In Eastern travels one becomes so familiar with the smell of open drains that in the end it loses its power to offend. A selective mechanism comes into action. One can sniff appreciatively at the fragrances of drying tobacco leaves, aromatic resins and incenses while ignoring that of excrement. In Mergui such a discrimination was not possible. The whole of an otherwise charming promenade down by the sea befouled with a carpet of fish, spread out to decay sufficiently to be regarded as edible in the form of gnapi. ‘Most malodorous’, as the old Portuguese Father put it, with understatement. ‘The common people use a variety … which neither dogs nor cats will touch. This obviates the necessity of putting awatch over it. This class stinks so badly that people unaccustomed to such a bad smell have to hold their noses when they pass the place where it lies.’ Father Manrique’s observation was exact. The packs of ill-starred pariahs which infest Mergui’s streets, hunting continually for the wherewithal to keep life in their hideous bodies, salute the gnapi beds continually in the usual canine way, but make no attempt to eat it.
Mergui’s dog population might prove a further deterrent to the would-be South Seas recluse. There are more dogs than humans; they are a slinking, evil breed, cursed with every conceivable affliction. Their suppurating wounds, their goitres, their tumours are hideously evident on their hairless bodies. Bitches suffering from some ghastly elephantiasis go trailing morbidly swollen paps in the dust. Many were earless, partially blind and had paralysed or dislocated limbs. There had been couplings with horrid pathological results it was impossible not to see. One dog’s hindquarters were completely out of action. It could only drag itself along by its front legs and whenever it stopped, being unable to sit down, it turned round several times
* * *
If you had been set on retirement from the world in the traditional South Seas manner of the ‘nineties, you need have gone no further thanMergui. Or at least, so it seemed at first sight. It was immediately clear that this place had been purged of the vulgar agitations common to most ports. The jetty had fallen into the harbour and no one had bothered to recover it. Ships anchored a hundred yards off shore, and sampans – when there were any about – unloaded passengers. They were dumped on a sloping wasteland of slime-covered boulders, up which they scrambled and slithered to reach the quayside. Semi-wrecks lay about the harbour with vitals bursting through their rotting planks. The wharves – mostly empty – were pleasantly styled go-downs. A civil-supplies building – a place of most eerie dilapidation – had convolvulus and flowering bean plants crawling over its façade, and through the paneless upper windows you could see bats hanging from the rafters. On the quayside a large iron tank bore the notice ‘to drink’, and a honey and white fishing eagle balanced on its edge, peering wistfully into the inner depths. The junks anchored along the front had small platforms built into their sterns where their guardian spirits could conveniently perch. Well-dressed young men came up and said ‘Where are you going?’ then walked on, without awaiting an answer.
What, too, could have been more romantic than the traditional products of this island – esculent birds’ nests and pearls? True there was also a bit of rubber and some tin; but not enough of either to bring about any rise in the commercial temperature of the place. But, alas, one outstanding characteristic of Mergui eclipsed all others, and would certainly have broken the resolve of the most tenacious escapist. This was the smell. In Eastern travels one becomes so familiar with the smell of open drains that in the end it loses its power to offend. A selective mechanism comes into action. One can sniff appreciatively at the fragrances of drying tobacco leaves, aromatic resins and incenses while ignoring that of excrement. In Mergui such a discrimination was not possible. The whole of an otherwise charming promenade down by the sea befouled with a carpet of fish, spread out to decay sufficiently to be regarded as edible in the form of gnapi. ‘Most malodorous’, as the old Portuguese Father put it, with understatement. ‘The common people use a variety … which neither dogs nor cats will touch. This obviates the necessity of putting awatch over it. This class stinks so badly that people unaccustomed to such a bad smell have to hold their noses when they pass the place where it lies.’ Father Manrique’s observation was exact. The packs of ill-starred pariahs which infest Mergui’s streets, hunting continually for the wherewithal to keep life in their hideous bodies, salute the gnapi beds continually in the usual canine way, but make no attempt to eat it.
Mergui’s dog population might prove a further deterrent to the would-be South Seas recluse. There are more dogs than humans; they are a slinking, evil breed, cursed with every conceivable affliction. Their suppurating wounds, their goitres, their tumours are hideously evident on their hairless bodies. Bitches suffering from some ghastly elephantiasis go trailing morbidly swollen paps in the dust. Many were earless, partially blind and had paralysed or dislocated limbs. There had been couplings with horrid pathological results it was impossible not to see. One dog’s hindquarters were completely out of action. It could only drag itself along by its front legs and whenever it stopped, being unable to sit down, it turned round several times
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