Radio Mirror (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

RADIO MIRROR poetry and song. Bob found it to be a headache of the more dangerous kind. Wherever he goes, Bob's camera goes too. Every "Believe-It" he finds must be photographed, for two reasons — first, to serve as copy for his cartoon when he gets back home; second, to silence possible doubters. Necessary part of his equipment though it is, his camera gets him into all kinds of trouble. His attempt to photograph the Gardens of the Shalimar, in Kashmir, was totally misunderstood by the natives there, just as his previous efforts at the University of Cairo had been. Bob looked up from focussing the camera to find an angry mob surging around him, shouting and shaking their fists. At first, he thought the natives were angry because there is a mosque in the Gardens. He respects all religions and tries to obey the rules wherever he is, so he turned away from the mosque and tried to take pictures of another part of the Garden. But the mob kept getting angrier and uglier. One ragged, lowering native who appeared to be stirring up most of the trouble finally made Bob understand that they didn't want pictures taken because there were Mohammedan women in the garden with their veils off. Bob tried to point out that he'd be glad to wait until the women put their veils on, but being a prudent sort of person, he began a dignified retreat as he talked. His heckler went right along with him, shouting epithets at the top of his voice and paying no attention to Bob's apologies. You can push a Ripley just so far, and then he loses his temper. The native jostled Bob once too often, and Bob pushed him head over heels into a fountain they were passing. Then came the biggest surprise of the whole incident. Bob was all ready to run, fearful that one of the heckler's friends would plunge a knife into his back. Instead, every Mohammedan in the place howled with laughter, proving that human nature is human nature the world over. They hadn't liked the tough guy any better than Bob had, and were tickled to death to see him taken down a peg. But there weren't any Saddhus in the Vale of Kashmir, nor beside the Shalimar. Bob located the famous Bo Tree under which, according to the legend, Gautama sat and became the Living Buddha. There, in this holy place, if anywhere, he should find these religious zealots. But no, there were none. And then, as he walked away from the Bo Tree, down the white, dusty road toward him he saw coming a queer, misshapen, unbelievable creature who used his arms for a pair of fore-legs, like a great ape! A Saddhu! The hair rising on the nape of his neck, Bob stopped the man and questioned him through an interpreter. Was he a cripple? No; he was not a cripple; he was the Monkey Man of Buddh-Gaya, he answered proudly. As a boy he had taken a solemn oath never to walk upright like a human being, and he had never broken it. Now, after forty-odd years, the palms of his hands were as calloused as the soles of his bare feet, his arms had grown as long as his scrawny brown legs, and his back was permanently bent so he could never straighten up again. Once Bob had found his first Saddhu, it seemed it was an easy matter to find still more members of this unbelievable sect. At Allahabad, on the banks of the sacred Ganges he saw another, one, this time, who turned his body into a living pin cushion. He was less spectacular because there are plenty of side-show performers in America who can do the same thing. After repeatedly sticking pins through their cheeks and tongues the holes stay open, so it doesn't hurt them. In Calcutta he found another, the EverSitting Man, who for fifty years has sat with his legs folded until they have withered away to the bone. And not far away he came upon still another, named Urdhabahu, who has done the same thing to his arms, holding them straight up over his head, night and day, until his shoulder and elbow joints have become as solid as rock and the arms themselves as stiff as pokers, mere skin on bones. Poor, tortured, horrible, misguided creatures— fanatics from whom Buddha himself, who expressly forbade such things in his religion, would turn his face away with a shudder! That was the trip. For anyone else it would have been an experience worth telling and retelling for a lifetime, but to Bob, after twenty years of ships and trains, it's just another business jaunt. "Nope," he insisted. "Most of the tall tales you hear from travelers just don't happen. Those things that happened to me are true, but then they're not really adventures ... I remember a brave trophy-hunter I met this trip. It was at Shepheard's Hotel in Egypt. He told me about the giant tiger he had just killed in the African jungles. He stalked it for weeks. At last he caught sight of it and fired. Streaming blood, its fangs bared, the tiger charged him. It was fifty feet away — twenty — ten! But he wasn't the least bit nervous. Nervous? Him? He was as steady as a rock, and at the last minute he shot again. The tiger fell dead right in his tracks, so close to him that he could touch it. "The only thing wrong with the whole story is that there are no jungles in Africa and no tigers, believe it or not." AFTER A DAY in the open — how does Jr\_ your skin feel when you start to freshen up for the evening? All dry and "tight" — Your powder "catches". . . looks splotchy . . . uneven. There's a quick answer to that. A special cream melts all that harsh surface roughness Mrs. F. Grover Cleveland "After a long ride has made my skin : feel dry and tight, Pond's Vanishing Cream makes it soft and smooth again." into supple smoothness. Does it in just one application. How melting softens ... 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