I thought I was
being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town--the
market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
more knocks.
It was an awful crowd--Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
people living a simple, unsophisticated life.
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