Tide Marks by H.M. Tomlinson — Read

_July 1._-The hotel omnibus which met me at Sourabaya station last night was like a processional car. The horse's harness was covered with bells, and I jingled off like an Oriental bride. When I woke this morning and moved, a lizard flicked from sight behind a wall mirror. It was just as though the wall had cracked in a ghostly way. There was no crack when I looked again. On the floor an army of ants was doing to death a large caterpillar. The giant heaved and threw the mites, but he was doomed. The unhurried resolution and certitude of his enemies shocked me. I felt like God on his dais watching a victory, and was half inclined to abolish the lot-drop a boot on the tragic drama like a comet. It was so obtuse and loutish an affair. But what could I do? My comet would only have worsened the distressing mess. I was glad I was not God; I felt no responsibility. A hot day; and the streets of Sourabaya sprawl into infinity. As usual, the most interesting quarter of this East Indian city is the Chinese. The shops of the narrow streets by the canal, and the canal, the Kali Maas, with its gaudy sampans, are pleasing with curious stratagems and devices. I might have bought one porcelain bowl, of a blue which conquered me, but a gramophone in that shop was revolving Flowery Land music, and I was hypnotized.

The bowl was remembered again only when I had wandered off. It was too hot to go back. Besides, the bowl was probably fraudulent. I met a Mohammedan funeral. Behind it was an Arab on a bicycle. He wore a red fez, white linen jacket, zebraic shirt and tie, cerise pantaloons, brown boots, and his purple socks were racked taut with suspenders. I found a big store with many English books. Yet I noticed the usual distinction made there between Dutch and English travelers. The Dutch, in translation, get the best of everything of ours. There, amid the coffee berries, rice, tennis shoes, tinned tripe, and white shirts, was a great assortment of our literature; but it was unapproachable in its Dutch guise. For me there was only tinned tripe. I will not mention titles and names, but I went through hundreds of books in English, hoping for the best, with the ready guilders in my willing hand. A bald-headed man might as well have searched the rows of bottles and pots in a hairdresser's shop devoted to the ladies. But it was possible in that shop for a connoisseur to find exactly what he wanted in a display of the choicest brands of English tennis racquets.