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Excerpt from Legend and Legerdemain Among the Lheoti by C.E. Hopwood (Norton Anthology of Unfashionable Authors, vol. 2)

Hester Stanhope -- Isabelle Eberhardt -- Gertrude Bell -- Alexandra David-Neel... the women who have left their mark on the history of travel and exploration set out with ambitions as diverse as their backgrounds. Why do we so rarely find the name of Constance Elizabeth Hopwood (1885-19??) listed among these giants? Surely it is not for narrowness of aspiration. Theosophist and Fabian, naturalist, journalist, occultist and violist, Hopwood's journeys in and around the Far East in the early portion of the century encompassed bold aims -- to unite the rationalism, scientific progress and hygiene of the West with the mysticism, simplicity and spiritual wisdom of the East. Equal parts pedagogery and poetry, the chronicle of her travels among the Lheoti expresses her immense eagerness to both give and receive enlightenment, and her relentless determination to bring the ancient mystical tradition of the T'achal monks back to Europe. At the age of forty, undaunted by a troublesome dermatological complaint that necessitated the constant wearing of worsted stockings filled with tar, Constance Hopwood set out for the highlands of Lheoti for her scrimmage with destiny.

While many of Hopwood's earlier works (Songs and Sonnets of Socialism, What Is This Thing Called Nirvana?, My Singapore, A Woman's Practical Guide to Drainage) were hotly discussed by her contemporaries, her masterwork Legend and Legerdemain Among the Lheoti was not published during her lifetime. It was not until 1987, when the Sino-Indian junta that currently controls Lheoti, a tiny principality caught like a shred of watercress between the molars of Kashmir and the gumline of Tibet, first allowed an Anglo-Canadian group of scholars to study the ruins of the great T'achal monasteries, that the manuscript was discovered under a heap of rubbish outside the great cave of Mo Shi. Instantly recognized as a find of international import, the book was quickly rushed into print by the Strident Press, and subsequently rushed out of print eight months later. To gain a wider audience for this work of unparalleled significance, the editors of the Norton Anthology of Unfashionable Authors are proud to present here the twenty-fifth and final chapter of Constance Hopwood's Legend and Legerdemain Among the Lheoti.

November 15, 1925

It is sometime before dawn when I feel the cat-like step of the faithful Thet Ling outside my tent. "Chowla," he says, his voice trembling with urgency. "You must arise immediately. The bendwan wishes to see you."

Instantly I am in full possession of consciousness. In the bitter cold I shiver into my mulberry woollen robes, wrap my sleep-tousled plaits around my head and hurriedly consume a small portion of onion pancake and some ale. Thet Ling's outline is straight and unmoving in the mist when I emerge. "Thet Ling. You are not wearing your scarf."

"Yes, chowla."

"Someone worked very, very hard to make that scarf for you."

"Yes, chowla."

"A very agreeable lady. Of clan Robertson, if I remember aright."

'Indeed, chowla."

"Tuberculosis is no laughing matter, Thet Ling."

"I am not laughing, chowla; truly we must hurry. The bendwan will be displeased."

Ah, my faithful Thet Ling! As loyal as a lion, but as stubborn as a child sometimes. I follow him up the track towards the monastery. Our ponies grazing in the outer circle of the camp seem to impersonate hummocks of verdure themselves. The drone of the morning prayers that the lesser monks chant to encourage the sun, winds down to us like the hazy muttering of bees. Tonight will be the new moon; tonight will be celebrated the Kamakindabyaa, the Feast of Devouring.

Three new moons have I waited to be admitted to the Kamakindabyaa here at Mo Shi. Three new moons have I been denied, by virtue of my foreignness, my femaleness and who can say, perhaps by virtue of my forwardness. But it is by dint of this forwardness that I have gone so far, that I have learned more about the inner workings of the T'achal than any European ever has and perhaps ever shall, and I shall not abandon it now. I shall not leave Mo Shi until I have been initiated to the Kamakindabyaa.

The head of the Mo Shi monastery, that same bendwan that we rush up the perilous stony track to avoid incommodating, is a grudging badgerish sort of man, whose shiny pate is a living emblem of his hardness of mind. The salmon and cerise robes of the head monk do not flatter his muddy complexion. Always he sits impassive on his cedar throne munching the wedges of toffee I bring, watching flies dawdle in and out the open window more often than he watches my face as I demonstrate to him how impossible, how immoral, how wasteful and short-sighted it is for him to deny me the Great Rite.

"Thet Ling! I have forgotten the toffee!"

"That is no matter today, chowla. Can you move no faster?"

Even the faithful Thet Ling refuses to impart even the most circumstantial details of this ceremony. "It is massu [taboo]. Not even for you, beloved chowla." While I have been trying to use this enforced idleness to the best advantage -- I may flatter myself with the knowledge that Mo Shi village now boasts the best network of latrines in the hemisphere, and even the outermost margins of my sketchbook are covered with pastels of local vegetation -- the delay has chafed like wet boots the tenderest spot in my psyche: the need to bring the Lheoti message of universal peace and cosmic acceptance to the woefully restless West.

Thet Ling leaves me on the terrace of the monastery and hurries into the still-dark interior. This is where I scribble these few notes on this most exciting of mornings -- but hist, the oncoming clatter of pattens tells me that my faithful guide returns.

The badger bendwan is engaged upon his breakfast when we enter, so he may be in a better frame of mind. Probing the depths of his black enamel bowl with two careful fingers, he favors me with a nod.

"'May the turtles of Heaven walk slowly around your pond today,' chowlor," I say after rising from the ritual obeisance.

"'May your cats catch many moths.'" This courtesy is the extent of his conversation for some minutes, while Thet Ling frets near the door and I wriggle my toes to aid circulation under the generous hem of my robes.

"You wish to be initiated into Kamakindabyaa, Madame Hopwood."

"You know this from many turnings of the days."

"You are from outside the mountains. It is forbidden."

"This is an old answer, my Lord. The moon is new." He offers no reply, so I begin my well-worn attack.

"Is it not said in the Book of Futurity that even the louse that inhabits the housemaid's lowest garments shall enter the Thirteenth Terrace on the appointed day? How can one who suffers the pangs of conscience and who understands the teachings, who has crossed many leagues of sea and grass and cobbles, parched for knowledge, yearning for the wisdom that only the cave of Mo Shi grants, whose advice on the manuring of fields has increased the village barley harvest fivefold... how can such a one be denied? Shall you stand on the Final Day before the throne of Nagetha -- Nagetha the snake queen, as female as I -- and tell her that you refused enlightenment to one who supplicated, who studied, who loved in her heart all the words of the T'achal and their belongings? Nagetha would not be pleased to hear you say that a woman is unworthy."

"Nagetha?" His brow contracts into a cliff of disapproval. "You compare your worthless mortality to the Shining Python?"

"Have you ever known a woman who could hold her breath so long as I?" (For some reason this is a faculty of much merit among the Lheoti; as indifferent as my health is in other respects, hardy lungs have always been a Hopwood family forte.) "I have practiced the lecham [ritual leaping]; at your brother's house of Thamphen I have been meditating these three years on the Mysteries and delivered a baby twisted buttockwards! I have offered mice and honey on the proper days. There is no man in your monastery, bendwan, more devout, nor more worthy."

An inaudible inquiry rustles like parchment between Thet Ling and his so-called spiritual superior. Then the badger says to him, "By your will, and by your charge." Suddenly, my faithful companion and guide is hustling me into the outer hall and down the passage towards the kitchens.

"You must scrub well, chowla," say Thet Ling. "If you do not scrub, they will scrub you. It is not easy to procure the privilege of self-scrubbing."

"That is excellent, my son," I reply, with a significant glance down to the basset-like folds around my ankles.

"You must scrub and scrub and scrub. The tar is no good for the Kamakindabyaa."

I cannot but remind him of the intensity of my discomfort when, snowed in at Stat-ah-minh for two weeks, we ran out of the precious semi-liquid. "I screamed like a stoat. It was not a pleasant experience for either of us, I think."

"You will not feel in the Feast, it is my promise. You will not be hampered by flesh. Please, into the tub."

So I "scrub and scrub and scrub." The soap is only a little coarser than the kind you find in railway lavatories; had I known, I could have brought my own supply of virgin castile.

But the ritual is right, as it must be. I do feel more sanctified and refreshed after this rough cleansing. When I have dressed, Thet Ling brings me a wooden platter covered with various herbs, like those that appear in the rich goat stews that the merchants favor. I have many kind memories of those meals!

"Beecha parv' belan," Thet Ling tells me. This might be literally translated as: "It is the flavoring." I think of our Hebrew brethren and the feast of unleavened bread, and find myself once again entranced by the picturesque exactitude of metaphor that characterizes T'achal liturgy. "Every bite, please."

"Please smear."

And what is this before my astonished eyes? A barrel of butter! The symbolism is unmistakable -- the initiate is to be enveloped in the most precious of substances, the dairy products that are so difficult to obtain in highland country, where only the leanest and most niggardly of cattle will thrive. Really, I am flattered, but it does seem somewhat wasteful when most babies won't taste a dab of cream from one year to the next... Perhaps when I have gained the ear of the bendwan more fully I can induce him to make a change, but in the meantime, when in Rome!

The fury of the bells that summons us to the cave suddenly puts me in mind of Papa, roaring doom upon the unfortunate nurserymaid who allowed infantine me to linger in a gipsy encampment and have my hand read. "Such heathenish doings shall not be permitted!" Ah, from which of the Celestial Terraces does this dear patriarch look down onto his wayward daughter's "doings" today?

I have been alone in the butter room for many hours, yes, a prey to excited gratification, but also filled with a solemn sense of the honor -- the responsibility -- the yoke of election laid upon my shoulders to bring the precious balm of Lheotian ritual to pour across the wounds of Whitechapel, the chancres of Kensington, even perhaps the illustrious though benighted bruises of Balmoral. It has been a long journey, and at times, an arduous one. The silver fishline of Memory casts back to the night we had to make soup from Thet Ling's boots in the foothills of Triteya, as the saucy brown mountain rats circled ever nearer... I fashioned a primitive snare with my reticule and a pair of stay laces, baited with the meager gleanings of peppermint dust culled from the corners of every pocket I owned. The Emperor himself could not have tasted a daintier dish that night than our rodent repast!

The faithful Thet Ling is anxious enough for both of us as he and his brother monks come to lead me to the great cave; his head swivels this way and that, like a clockwork dog. I cannot help teasing him, even at this holy moment: "Who are you expecting to see arrive, the Dalai Lama?"

"I expect no one," he says, and offers me a radiant grin.

The great cave, a somber fissure of sandstone barely visible in the dusk, is not far from the main building. Other hands are already busy at work preparing for Kamakindabyaa, which, Thet Ling tells me, must be accomplished before moonrise. The bendwan is nowhere in evidence. This does not surprise me. Alas that even in the pure ethers of Lheoti, the disagreeable aromas of personal dislike must cloud our inhalations! And how thankful must I be for the selfless ministrations of the faithful Thet Ling, whose earnest prayers have helped to procure this blessing! "By your will, and by your charge," indeed!

Knives, ladles, skewers, a most handsome toasting fork -- the ceremonial implements are laid out with the swift and silent efficiency of piety. The cords are honest, workmanlike hemp -- strong enough to restrain in earnest instead of in semblance. I do not protest at how tightly I am bound; no doubt the attendants are unfamiliar with the tenderness of European skin. I would not have them think me a weak, complaining woman. In any case, they have been considerate enough to leave my hands loose enough so that I can still scrawl a bit here.

The cauldron itself is a little bigger than a hip bath, pure iron. The Lheoti discovered the secret of smelting ore sometime in the fifth century by my calculations; this mighty tureen might have been one of the first fruits of their industry.

What awe the serious faces, the leaping flames, the rising aroma of spices inspires! What thoughts of the limitless mystery of life they inspire -- the cauldron, the womb, the cradle of the Gods! They are cutting up yams now.

Here, inexplicably, Hopwood falls silent. Perhaps the esoteric grandeur of her initiation in the cave of Mo Shi humbled even her boundless eloquence, and rendered a return to England and publication of her memoirs an empty husk of anti-climax. The faithful Thet Ling, bound by what instructions of his relentlessly determined mistress we know not, sealed his lips upon her whereabouts. Mere material goods being no substitute for his dearest chowla, Thet Ling divested himself of all impulse toward idolatry by selling her nickel-plated compass to a passing naval officer upon his return to Hong Kong in the spring of 1926.

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