On the Distinguishing Characteristics of the Drau

The resemblance of the Drau to the Elves is sufficiently close to deserve investigation, and sufficiently convenient to have discouraged it. A narrow frame, elongated ears and much the same disposition of the facial bones have supported genealogies which their authors would have rejected as scandalously incomplete had an inheritance depended upon them. I have compared eleven Drau skeletons with the Elven collections at the Royal Collegium. There are substantial agreements, especially in the wrist; there are also differences in the attachment of the jaw muscles and the construction of the ribs. These establish that the resemblance extends beneath the skin, but they do not establish descent. Professor Aldane has nevertheless announced a common ancestry, assisted by a confidence which I should gladly possess if it could be acquired without injury to my judgement.

The skin supplies the most conspicuous distinction: its grey scales are thin, flexible plates, overlapping most regularly upon the back and outer limbs, and becoming exceedingly small about the mouth and finger-joints. Beneath them lies tissue abundantly supplied with sensation. A Drau can feel the passage of a fine thread across the forearm through movements communicated at the roots of the scales; a plate lifted against its overlap causes pain quite disproportionate to the apparent injury. This matters wherever Drau work beside machinery. A rough woollen cuff may be a persistent torment, and a metal shaving beneath a scale requires more attention than a foreman generally thinks suitable for so small an object. At the Ostbury locomotive works I required the manager to wear one beneath his collar while explaining his objections to lined sleeves. He declined the experiment. The sleeves were supplied, which spared us both a longer discussion.

Scales have encouraged the further assertion that the Drau possess a reptilian constitution. External covering is a poor warrant for pronouncing upon the regulation of internal heat. My observations show that resting Drau maintain a bodily temperature within a comparatively narrow range across conditions in which their skin becomes markedly cooler. They bear damp cold with less distress than Humans, yet lose working endurance rapidly in hot, confined rooms. The precise means by which they conserve heat remains uncertain. Their difficulty in disposing of it is easier to observe: perspiration is most evident about the scalp, palms and certain folds where the scales are reduced. I suspect that the covering restricts evaporation over much of the body, though I cannot yet assign its share beside differences in circulation. Comparisons at a furnace must also distinguish bodily endurance from familiarity with the work. A Dwarven stoker of forty years’ experience and a newly employed Drau porter furnish an excellent comparison of two employees; they furnish a wretched experiment upon two peoples.

Drau sight has suffered almost equally from enthusiastic description. The reflective layer behind the retina returns light through the sensitive structures and permits useful vision under illumination in which an unaided Human can distinguish very little. Total darkness defeats them. I demonstrated this in a shuttered chamber, after a railway surveyor assured me that his Drau guide could see underground without a lamp. The guide agreed with me immediately and explained that he had repeatedly told the surveyor so. Under sudden bright illumination Drau eyes recover slowly, and the shaded lamps used in several Drau settlements allow a person to pass between houses without repeatedly surrendering useful sight. At my first examination I ordered the lamp brought closer to a subject’s face and then recorded his diminished accuracy. He asked whether I also tested hearing by firing a pistol beside the ear. I removed the lamp and struck out the observation.

Their celebrated tracking deserves a more exact account than praise of an instinct. Excellent dim-light vision assists them, while the sensitivity of the fingertips permits examination of bruised vegetation and disturbed surfaces; neither faculty explains the interpretation of what is found. That interpretation is taught: I watched a Drau instructor ask her pupils how long a bent reed would retain moisture upon its newly exposed underside, then send them back to inspect reeds broken at known intervals. Her school possessed no clock. I lent one, expecting a gratifying improvement in precision, and discovered that my instrument lost time whenever its case grew wet. The instructor’s estimates proved the better ones that afternoon. Human surveyors and Dwarven miners acquire comparable bodies of local inference, although their instruments and objects differ. Among the Drau, formal instruction in tracking begins sufficiently early that an adult’s practised judgement may conceal the labour by which it was acquired.

The same mistake attends descriptions of Drau memory. Their genealogies and customary decisions are often transmitted orally, but an oral record need not depend upon an individual’s uncorrected recollection. At Vesh Hollow I heard a disputed boundary recital delivered before two custodians who interrupted at recognised points, requiring the speaker to supply the names of witnesses and the grounds of earlier amendments. I objected that agreement among custodians could perpetuate an error. The senior custodian asked how the Royal Collegium dealt with professors who copied one another. I described our procedures with as much dignity as the circumstances allowed. Such systems have vulnerabilities, particularly when deaths remove several trained custodians together; their existence nevertheless obliges us to examine the safeguards actually employed. Literacy alone tells us little about the quality of a people’s reasoning.

Of Drau longevity and reproductive frequency I can offer no satisfactory general figures: the available registers divide families whenever an official changes their legal designation, and occasionally count the same settlement twice under different names. Oral genealogies may help repair these defects, provided we establish what their intervals mean rather than silently converting generations into Human years. Here the contrast with the other sapient peoples is chiefly a contrast in our knowledge. We possess measurements gathered over long periods for some, casual reports for others, and a regrettable inclination to give both the same grammatical certainty. Any fuller comparison will require their assistance, accurate records, and scholars willing to endure correction from the people they propose to describe. I have found the assistance readily available when properly requested.