Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/240

 his creed is resignation. Fatalism lulls him like opium, though, kinder than that pernicious drug, it leaves no torment of reaction to succeed its soothing trance. Hard work, hard fare, hard bed, hard words, hard lines in general, a tropical sun and the atmosphere of a jungle, it is all in the day's work with ''him! Backcsheesh he will accept with a smile if he can get it, or he will do without, consoling himself that it is kismet'', for "There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet," With this philosopher, indeed, "a contented mind is a perpetual feast," otherwise how could he sustain his stalwart proportions on a morsel of black bread and a slice of water-melon? His dissipations, too, are mild as his daily meals. A screw of weak tobacco, folded in a paper cigarette, wraps him in a foretaste of his anticipated paradise; a mouthful of thick, black, bitter coffee stands him in lieu of beer, porter,