Yet nothing bore traces of gross
uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
old-time pomp--not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
carried by men. There was plenty of everything--enough for all--but all
had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life.
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