When consciousness returned the sun was high in the heavens, yet the light
was dim, and had that indefinable ghastly quality that is observed during
a partial eclipse. The sun itself appeared singularly small, as if it were
at an immensely greater distance than usual. Rising with some difficulty
to my feet, I looked about me. I was in an open space among some trees
growing on the slope of a mountain range whose summit on the one hand was
obscured by a mist of a strange pinkish hue, and on the other rose into
peaks glittering with snow. Skirting the base at a distance of two or
three miles flowed a wide river, and beyond it a nearly level plain
stretched away to the horizon, dotted with villages and farmhouses and
apparently in a high state of cultivation. All was unfamiliar in its every
aspect. The trees were unlike any that I had ever seen or even imagined,
the trunks being mostly square and the foliage consisting of slender
filaments resembling hair, in many instances long enough to reach the
earth. It was of many colors, and I could not perceive that there was any
prevailing one, as green is in the vegetation to which I was accustomed.
As far as I could see there were no grass, no weeds, no flowers; the earth
was covered with a kind of lichen, uniformly blue. Instead of rocks, great
masses of metals protruded here and there, and above me on the mountain
were high cliffs of what seemed to be bronze veined with brass. No animals
were visible, but a few birds as uncommon in appearance as their
surroundings glided through the air or perched upon the rocks. I say
glided, for their motion was not true flight, their wings being mere
membranes extended parallel to their sides, and having no movement
independent of the body. The bird was, so to say, suspended between them
and moved forward by quick strokes of a pair of enormously large webbed
feet, precisely as a duck propels itself in water. All these things
excited in me no surprise, nor even curiosity; they were merely
unfamiliar. That which most interested me was what appeared to be a bridge
several miles away, up the river, and to this I directed my steps,
crossing over from the barren and desolate hills to the populous plain.
For a full history of my life and adventures in Mogon-Zwair, and a
detailed description of the country, its people, their manners and
customs, I must ask the reader to await the publication of a book, now in
the press, entitled _A Blackened Eye_; in this brief account I can give
only a few of such particulars as seem instructive by contrast with our
own civilization.
The inhabitants of Mogon-Zwair call themselves Golampis, a word signifying
Sons of the Fair Star. Physically they closely resemble ourselves, being
in all respects the equals of the highest Caucasian type. Their hair,
however, has a broader scheme of color, hair of every hue known to us, and
even of some imperceptible to my eyes but brilliant to theirs, being too
common to excite remark. A Golampian assemblage with uncovered heads
resembles, indeed, a garden of flowers, vivid and deep in color, no two
alike. They wear no clothing of any kind, excepting for adornment and
protection from the weather, resembling in this the ancient Greeks and the
Japanese of yesterday; nor was I ever able to make them comprehend that
clothing could be worn for those reasons for which it is chiefly worn
among ourselves. They are destitute of those feelings of delicacy and
refinement which distinguish us from the lower animals, and which, in the
opinion of our acutest and most pious thinkers, are evidences of our close
relation to the Power that made us.
Among this people certain ideas which are current among ourselves as mere
barren faiths expressed in disregarded platitudes receive a practical
application to the affairs of life. For example, they hold, with the best,
wisest and most experienced of our own race, and one other hereafter to be
described, that wealth does not bring happiness and is a misfortune and an
evil. None but the most ignorant and depraved, therefore, take the trouble
to acquire or preserve it. A rich Golampi is naturally regarded with
contempt and suspicion, is shunned by the good and respectable and
subjected to police surveillance. Accustomed to a world where the rich man
is profoundly and justly respected for his goodness and wisdom (manifested
in part by his own deprecatory protests against the wealth of which,
nevertheless, he is apparently unable to rid himself) I was at first
greatly pained to observe the contumelious manner of the Golampis toward
this class of men, carried in some instances to the length of personal
violence; a popular amusement being the pelting them with coins. These the
victims would carefully gather from the ground and carry away with them,
thus increasing their hoard and making themselves all the more liable to
popular indignities.
When the cultivated and intelligent Golampi finds himself growing too
wealthy he proceeds to get rid of his surplus riches by some one of many
easy expedients. One of these I have just described; another is to give
his excess to those of his own class who have not sufficient to buy
employment and so escape leisure, which is considered the greatest evil of
all. "Idleness," says one of their famous authors, "is the child of
poverty and the parent of discontent"; and another great writer says: "No
one is without employment; the indolent man works for his enemies."
In conformity to these ideas the Golampis--all but the ignorant and
vicious rich--look upon labor as the highest good, and the man who is so
unfortunate as not to have enough money to purchase employment in some
useful industry will rather engage in a useless one than not labor at all.
It is not unusual to see hundreds of men carrying water from a river and
pouring it into a natural ravine or artificial channel, through which it
runs back into the stream. Frequently a man is seen conveying stones--or
the masses of metal which there correspond to stones--from one pile to
another. When all have been heaped in a single place he will convey them
back again, or to a new place, and so proceed until darkness puts an end
to the work. This kind of labor, however, does not confer the satisfaction
derived from the consciousness of being useful, and is never performed by
any person having the means to hire another to employ him in some
beneficial industry. The wages usually paid to employers are from three to
six _balukan_ a day. This statement may seem incredible, but I solemnly
assure the reader that I have known a bad workman or a feeble woman to pay
as high as eight; and there have been instances of men whose incomes had
outgrown their desires paying even more.
Labor being a luxury which only those in easy circumstances can afford,
the poor are the more eager for it, not only because it is denied them,
but because it is a sign of respectability. Many of them, therefore,
indulge in it on credit and soon find themselves deprived of what little
property they had to satisfy their hardfisted employers. A poor woman once
complained to me that her husband spent every _rylat_ that he could get in
the purchase of the most expensive kinds of employment, while she and the
children were compelled to content themselves with such cheap and coarse
activity as dragging an old wagon round and round in a small field which a
kind-hearted neighbor permitted them to use for the purpose. I afterward
saw this improvident husband and unnatural father. He had just squandered
all the money he had been able to beg or borrow in buying six tickets,
which entitled the holder to that many days' employment in pitching hay
into a barn. A week later I met him again. He was broken in health, his
limbs trembled, his walk was an uncertain shuffle. Clearly he was
suffering from overwork. As I paused by the wayside to speak to him a
wagon loaded with hay was passing. He fixed his eyes upon it with a
hungry, wolfish glare, clutched a pitchfork and leaned eagerly forward,
watching the vanishing wagon with breathless attention and heedless of my
salutation. That night he was arrested, streaming with perspiration, in
the unlawful act of unloading that hay and putting it into its owner's
barn. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to six months' detention in
the House of Indolence.
The whole country is infested by a class of criminal vagrants known as
_strambaltis_, or, as we should say, "tramps." These persons prowl about
among the farms and villages begging for work in the name of charity.
Sometimes they travel in groups, as many as a dozen together, and then the
farmer dares not refuse them; and before he can notify the constabulary
they will have performed a great deal of the most useful labor that they
can find to do and escaped without paying a _rylat_. One trustworthy
agriculturist assured me that his losses in one year from these
depredations amounted to no less a sum than seven hundred _balukan_! On
nearly all the larger and more isolated farms a strong force of guards is
maintained during the greater part of the year to prevent these outrages,
but they are frequently overpowered, and sometimes prove unfaithful to
their trust by themselves working secretly by night.
The Golampi priesthood has always denounced overwork as a deadly sin, and
declared useless and apparently harmless work, such as carrying water from
the river and letting it flow in again, a distinct violation of the divine
law, in which, however, I could never find any reference to the matter;
but there has recently risen a sect which holds that all labor being
pleasurable, each kind in its degree is immoral and wicked. This sect,
which embraces many of the most holy and learned men, is rapidly spreading
and becoming a power in the state. It has, of course, no churches, for
these cannot be built without labor, and its members commonly dwell in
caves and live upon such roots and berries as can be easily gathered, of
which the country produces a great abundance though all are exceedingly
unpalatable. These _Gropoppsu_ (as the members of this sect call
themselves) pass most of their waking hours sitting in the sunshine with
folded hands, contemplating their navels; by the practice of which
austerity they hope to obtain as reward an eternity of hard labor after
death.
The Golampis are an essentially pious and religious race. There are few,
indeed, who do not profess at least one religion. They are nearly all, in
a certain sense, polytheists: they worship a supreme and beneficent deity
by one name or another, but all believe in the existence of a subordinate
and malevolent one, whom also, while solemnly execrating him in public
rites, they hold at heart in such reverence that needlessly to mention his
name or that of his dwelling is considered sin of a rank hardly inferior
to blasphemy. I am persuaded that this singular tenderness toward a being
whom their theology represents as an abominable monster, the origin of all
evil and the foe to souls, is a survival of an ancient propitiatory
adoration. Doubtless this wicked deity was once so feared that his
conciliation was one of the serious concerns of life. He is probably as
greatly feared now as at any former time, but is apparently less hated,
and is by some honestly admired.
It is interesting to observe the important place held in Golampian affairs
by religious persecution. The Government is a pure theocracy, all the
Ministers of State and the principal functionaries in every department of
control belonging to the priesthood of the dominant church. It is
popularly believed in Mogon-Zwair that persecution, even to the extent of
taking life, is in the long run beneficial to the cause enduring it. This
belief has, indeed, been crystallized into a popular proverb, not capable
of accurate translation into our tongue, but to the effect that martyrs
fertilize religion by pouring out their blood about its roots. Acting upon
this belief with their characteristically logical and conscientious
directness, the sacerdotal rulers of the country mercilessly afflict the
sect to which themselves belong. They arrest its leading members on false
charges, throw them into loathsome and unwholesome dungeons, subject them
to the crudest tortures and sometimes put them to death. The provinces in
which the state religion is especially strong are occasionally raided and
pillaged by government soldiery, recruited for the purpose by conscription
among the dissenting sects, and are sometimes actually devastated with
fire and sword. The result is not altogether confirmatory of the popular
belief and does not fulfil the pious hope of the governing powers who are
cruel to be kind. The vitalizing efficacy of persecution is not to be
doubted, but the persecuted of too feeble faith frequently thwart its
beneficent intent and happy operation by apostasy.
Having in mind the horrible torments which a Golampian general had
inflicted upon the population of a certain town I once ventured to protest
to him that so dreadful a sum of suffering, seeing that it did not
accomplish its purpose, was needless and unwise.
"Needless and unwise it may be," said he, "and I am disposed to admit that
the result which I expected from it has not followed; but why do you speak
of the _sum_ of suffering? I tortured those people in but a single, simple
way--by skinning their legs."
"Ah, that is very true," said I, "but you skinned the legs of one
thousand."
"And what of that?" he asked. "Can one thousand, or ten thousand, or any
number of persons suffer more agony than one? A man may have his leg
broken, then his nails pulled out, then be seared with a hot iron. Here is
suffering added to suffering, and the effect is really cumulative. In the
true mathematical sense it is a _sum_ of suffering. A single person can
experience it. But consider, my dear sir. How can you add one man's agony
to another's? They are not addable quantities. Each is an individual pain,
unaffected by the other. The limit of anguish which ingenuity can inflict
is that utmost pang which one man has the vitality to endure."