UP COUNTRY
The days are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp,
And the office punkahs creak!
And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole,
And a whiff of the jungle reek!
Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys,
With office stool and pew,
For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the far
Trail,
Dig out, dig out on the old trail—
The trail that is always new.A Parody.It has been said that a white man, who has lived twelve consecutive months in
complete isolation, among the people of an alien Asiatic race, is never wholly
sane again for the remainder of his days. This, in a measure, is true; for the life
he then learns to live, and the discoveries he makes in that unmapped land, the
gates of which are closed, locked, barred, and chained against all but a very few
of his countrymen, teach him to love many things which all right-minded people
very properly detest. The free, queer, utterly unconventional life has a
fascination which is all its own. Each day brings a little added knowledge of the
hopes and fears, longings and desires, joys and sorrows, pains and agonies of the
people among whom his lot is cast. Each hour brings fresh insight into the
mysterious workings of the minds and hearts of that very human section of our
race, which ignorant Europeans calmly class as 'niggers.' All these things come
to possess a charm for him, the power of which grows apace, and eats into the
very marrow of the bones of the man who has once tasted this particular fruit of
the great Tree of Knowledge. Just as the old smugglers, in the Isle of Man, were
wont to hear the sea calling to them; go where he may, do what he will, the voice
of the jungle, and of the people who dwell in those untrodden places, sounds in
the ears of one who has lived the life. Ever and anon it cries to him to come
back, come back to the scenes, the people, the life which he knows and