As I strolled, people turned to stare at me from all sides. When I paused at a crossroads, where women were drawing water from a well, several children stopped to stare at me. Then older persons, seeing a gathering crowd, stopped also. In fifty heartbeats a hundred Indians, all staring sullenly with big, sad, black eyes, surrounded me. To have two hundred glassy white eyeballs staring fixedly at one out of black faces makes one uneasy, to say the least But one must put up with it in India, for they stare thus at a foreigner wherever he goes. When Hippalos came ashore, his red hair aroused even more and harder stares than I received.
When a swarm of beggars came creeping and hobbling forward, displaying stumps and scars, I thought it time to move on. I wandered through a street of coppersmiths, and a street lined with the cribs of courtesans, who called invitations in soft, childish voices. These last would not have attracted me, even if my strength had been upon me; it would have been too much like mounting a small child.
At last, along the river front, I found a tavern with an inn attached: small, cramped, and dirty, as everything seemed to be in India, but still a tavern. I squeezed into a seat and looked about me. Most of those present were Arabs with beards, head cloths, and hooked noses; there were only a few Indians, and those mainly of lower degrees.
A boy appeared, whom I asked in my best Indian for a mug of wine. He looked blank. I repeated the request, slowly and carefully. The boy went away, and soon a short, fat Indian appeared. I made the same request. Again that blank stare, with a mutter that I could not understand. Then I heard a shout from a corner:
"O xene, legeis ta hellênika?"
"Well, thank all the gods and spirits!" I cried. "There's somebody I can talk to. Who are you, sir?"
The man responded: "Come on over; we have room. Your servant is Otaspes son of Phraortes, of Harmozia in Karmania. This is my friend, Farid son of Amid. And you, sir?"
I introduced myself. The Persian who had spoken crossed his hands on his breast and bowed; his Arab companion touched his fingertips to his breast, lips, and forehead. The Persian was a stout man of medium height, with a long, straight nose in a square face, black hair growing low on his forehead, heavy, black brows that met above his nose, and a close-cut black beard. He said:
"You thought you were asking for palm wine; but you really asked for 'the black one.' They do sound alike, and our host was naturally puzzled."
Otaspes spoke to the taverner, who brought my mug. It was the horrible concoction, made from fermented palm juice, which they drink in India; but at times any drink is better than none.
"How," I asked, "do you come to speak Greek, and what are you doing in India?"
"That is a long story," said Otaspes. "But your servant traded for many years in Seleuceia and so came to know Greek. Then I returned to Harmozia with a Babylonian bride. The family took umbrage at that. Then the syndicate to which we belonged decided they needed a resident factor to handle the Indian end of our trade, so I took the post."
"How do you like it here?" ,
He shrugged. "It's India, even though it pays well. I shan't be sorry to retire on my gains. This is the unhealthiest damned coast in the world during the rainy season. We have lost all three of our children, one after another."
"Is this the rainy season?"
"This is the fag end of it. A month ago it rained all the time; now it only rains half the time. But about you: is it true what I've heard, that you have sailed directly hither from the Strait of Dernê?"
"Where did you hear that?"
Otaspes gave a silent little laugh. "My dear fellow! What earthly good should I be as a factor if I did not learn such things? The story of Rama's return from the dead was all over town within an hour of your arrival last night." He turned to the Arab. "It occurs to me, friend Farid, that we are seeing the opening of a new commercial era in the Arabian Sea. If Captain Eudoxos can do it, so can others; so will others. So think not to avert the new competition by cutting his throat or burning his boat." The Persian laughed silently again and translated his remark to me, while the Arab looked at me with such a venomous glare that I knew he had been thinking just that.
"Much better," continued Otaspes, "to build yourselves bigger ships and get in on the new trade at the start I might be tempted to try a bit of throat-cutting myself, but I hope soon to leave for home. So this Egyptian competition won't concern me. Come to dinner at my house tomorrow, Captain, an hour before sundown. My house is near the Souppara Gate. Anybody will point it out; just say: 'Kahang Parsi ka ghar hai?' Agreed?"
"You're extremely kind," I said. "Agreed."
Inside the hilltop fortress, the king's house—one could hardly call it a palace—was larger and better built than those of the common folk, but it was of the same mud-brick construction. Along the front of the house ran a terrace, shaded by a thatched roof upheld by wooden pillars. The king used this terrace for audiences, since it never gets cold enough in this part of India to force people indoors.
Protocol at this court was highly informal. Eight soldiers attended the king; but these were merely men in loincloths, with a spear and a buckler each. Instead of standing at attention, they squatted or lounged, and one was peacefully snoring against the house wall. A small crowd of petitioners and litigants milled on the muddy ground in front of the terrace.
To one side, near the end of the terrace, four musicians sat, twanging and tootling. Their music had a nervous, apprehensive sound, as if the musicians were about to burst into hysterical tears. Two dancing girls swayed and spun. They were comely wenches, altogether nude save for strings of pearls and other ornaments around their wrists, ankles, necks, and waists. Their dancing consisted of slow little shuffling steps, while they jerked their necks and arms so that their bangles clashed.
To one side of the king stood a flunkey holding a white umbrella, ready to hoist it over the king's head in case His Majesty chose to walk out from under the roof of the terrace. I found that all Indian kings are accompanied by such umbrella carriers, since in India a white umbrella is as much a symbol of royalty as a crown is in more westerly lands.
On the other side squatted the royal timekeeper. His clock was a basin in which floated a bronze cup with a small hole in its bottom. When the cup filled and sank, the timekeeper whacked a drum or blew a blast on a horn made from a conch shell. Then he emptied the cup and started over. The Indian hour is only three quarters as long as ours, so that a day and a night comprise thirty-two hours instead of twenty-four.
As the king finished each case, his minister or major domo pointed to somebody in the crowd and shouted to him to come forward. There would be arguments and counterarguments, which became shouting matches, until the king shouted down both parties and gave his decision. People wandered in and out, and nobody thought anything of interrupting or contradicting the king.
We listened to one such case, and then another—a criminal case, this time, wherein a merchant was accused of poisoning a competitor. The king heard the stories and sentenced the culprit to be trampled by one of the royal elephants. Then the minister beckoned us forward.
Sitting on a heap of cushions on the floor of the terrace, King Kumara of Barygaza was a small, cross-eyed man with a skin wrinkled by years of seafaring. He wore the usual skirt, a couple of ropes of pearls around his neck, and a turban with a spray of peacock feathers stuck in the folds. He chewed a cud made of the nut of an Indian palm, wrapped in leaves. Now and then he spat a crimson stream into the royal spittoon. This habit stains the Indians' teeth black, which gives an odd effect when one of them permits himself a rare smile.