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0121 Across Asia : vol.1
Across Asia : vol.1 / Page 121 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000221
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RECORDS OF THE JOURNEY

beggars and a great many of them own no land. When they do, it seems to be inadequate. Sufferings and privations have left their mark on these poor beings, whose lean and in many cases poorly developed bodies bear evidence of insufficient nourishment. They live by themselves, despised by the people in the neighbouring villages. There is no question of intermarriage with people outside their tribe. — The village has 40-50 houses with about 4 inhabitants each. The tilled area is about ioo mou. There are no horned cattle, but about 5o horses and 3o asses that are used for their begging trips and about i sheep per household. The name of the village, Painap (where the water ends), does not seem to have anything in common with their history, but originated owing to the water spreading here round the fields. Four villages have the same name, one of them being inhabited by the Abdals. Here, too, they maintain that they know no other than the Sart language, whereas the people in the other villages called Painap assert that they use some other language among themselves. This secrecy regarding their language and religious differences is strange.

After making some anthropological measurements and taking a few photographs we January 29111. started back from Painap about noon. Another fall of snow had increased the white mantle Faizabad.

on the ground and the landscape looked almost northern when I mounted my horse in brilliant sunshine. But the sun soon disappeared behind heavy leaden clouds and it began to snow again with a piercing east wind. The land all along the road is tilled and very densely populated. The houses mostly stand separately in the middle of their own fields. Here and there, however, there are groups of about a dozen houses. The building materials are neither scoured nor baked bricks, but lumps of clay broken from the surface of the ground after it has been ploughed, watered and sun-dried for successive fixed periods. The field area is inconceivably small, i —2 mou of field per house seems to be quite usual. Their fertility varies a great deal, in some places according not only to the cultivation of the soil, but also to its quality. In places it seems to contain a good deal of salt. In the best places wheat gives a tenfold crop. The population has, of course, to find subsidiary occupations, but there is great poverty. In this poor country practically all occupations yield but a miserable livelihood. Much cotton is grown in some places, but that, too, yields only a modest profit. With one tcherak of seed the crop does not seem to exceed 4 tcheraks. It is a puzzle how a couple of mou can support a family in such circumstances, but apparently they do. One house, outside which I gave the horses a breather, was occupied by a Sart with 3 wives and i 8 children. His area of land amounted to 2 mou; on one he grew maize, on the other cotton. As a sideline he buys cotton and sells it as cotton yarn. A large part of the population goes to Russian Turkestan, where much more money can be earned, and returns with some savings. To cap it all come the Chinese taxes, which, in accordance with the mandarin's unwritten laws, are often extorted to an amount several times their value and present an obstacle to any well-being. — In 7 hours we reached Faizabad, a recently built little town, where a district mandarin has been resident for 4 years. Like the Shenguan in Kashgar he is subordinated to the mandarin (Fuguan) in Yangi-Shahr. There are 4 Begs in the district (i for the town, or rather the bazaar) with 40 Yuzbashi each.

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