Page:Under the Sun.djvu/124

100 speech in a finer race does not affect the level of their minds, for they cannot even think splendidly.

But this peculiar coolie of mine was an interesting study, for he owned a cow. How he got it I cannot guess, for he did not look like a person with rich relatives to remember him in a will; and with his own money he could not have bought it. Nor could he have stolen it, for his legal ownership was ostentatiously displayed at all hours. Yet it was not a cow to be very proud of. It was not a big cow, and gave no milk. Nor did it drag anything about it — a cart or vehicle of any kind. But it was very cheerful. It played bopeep with my terrier between the pillars of the porch, and from pure light-heartedness used to scour about the compound, with its tail, from an ecstasy of mirthfulness, curled up into a knot on its back. It trotted about a good deal in the mornings; and when its owner was not pulling my punkah, he was generally running about slowly and indefinitely after it. The cow always went much faster than the coolie, for I never saw him catch it except when it was standing still; and when he came up with it he never seemed to know what he should do next. He used to pull it about in a possessive manner, and jerk its rope as if he wished it to move — first in the direction of the compound gate, and the cow would cheerfully trot alongside of him; but on a sudden there would be a violent jerk, and the cow would find the coolie pulling in the opposite direction, whither it would, without demur, follow him. Whatever the change of programme, the cow acquiesced in it with the utmost heartiness; and thus, after having blithely proceeded a little in each direction, it generally found itself pretty much where it started from. The coolie would then