Confessions of Aleister Crowley

273 {448} unexplored and impenetrable jungle. In the clearing are villages inhabited by very primitive folk of a different race to the bulk of the population. I saw a good deal of these people. They go in many cases naked. At the most, they wear a rudimentary loin cloth. They have a language of their own which possesses a few affinities with outer dialects. It possesses less than three hundred words, some two hundred and fifty of which are classed as obscene. The men are armed with bows and arrows, or occasionally spears, some of which show great skill of metallurgy and workmanship as well as a knowledge of certain branches of mechanics, and a marked sense of beauty. The women are free from the ordinary Hindu inhibitions, and their breasts are the most beautiful that I have ever seen, not excepting those of the women ofTehuantepec. They are small and well proportioned. Even when the women are mothers, they do not lose their form. The whole breast stands firm and points upwards. To the eye of the artist, the female breast of the European is a hideous deformity. Even in the case of the most beautiful women, it breaks the line of the body, and it makes one think of a cow. But these women bear their breasts in triumph. One thinks of the phallophorus in a pagan procession. Men and women alike are admirably proportioned, muscular and active. Their habit of carrying loads on the head --- a coolie carries thirty pounds, which, considering the heat of the plains, is equivalent to the fifty pounds of the hillman --- gives them perfect balance and makes them light on their feet. The skin is of that superb velvety black with is really rich deep purple. Primitive as these people are, they are as capable of aesthetics and the popes and princes of the Renaissance. They love with rapacious intensity, adorned with all the arts of Aphrodite. These folk are considered "wild men of the woods" by the sophisticated Hindus of the town. Yet there is a third proportional. In the jungle live people known as Jewans, whom I hesitate to describe as a tribe, because nothing is known of their habits. Even their appearance has not been satisfactorily described. It is said by some that no white man has ever seen one, though others say that one or two have done so. Even the folk of the villages on the confines of the jungle have no knowledge of them, yet they carry on with them a regular traffic. Certain places outside the village are marked out, usually by white stones, and here they deposit rice and other products of cultivation at nightfall. In the morning these goods are found to have been replaced by various products of the jungle. It is said that this commerce has never been degraded by dishonesty. Attempts have been made to catch the Jewans in the act of making the exchange, but they have always proved too wary. The maharajah did not shoot, but appointed a forest officer named d'Elbroux to introduce me to the bears and tigers. The only animal I was {449} not allowed to shoot was the elephant. One has to be a viceroy or a travelling royalty to indulge in that sport. D'Elbroux, in his youth, had come to grips with a bear. He had been very badly mauled, and many of his features had been replaced by metal plates. He told me that he had lain in the jungle wounded for more than two days before help arrived. My only noteworthy shooting adventure was this. D'Elbroux had prepared a machan. There were some seven hundred beaters. The first animal that broke was a bear, whom I settled with a shot from the 10-bore. The second barrel jarred off and the surprise knocked me on my back. The bullet struck a tree as thick as a telegraph pole, and cut it in two, so that it fell across the machan and very nearly killed one of the men.