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| 0190 |
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 |
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become accustomed to the darkness, I saw that the room
was divided into halves by a depressed path four feet wide,
running from the outside door to a store-room, and bor-
dered on either side by posts supporting the roof of reeds
and mud. On my side, where there was no furniture save
a box, sat the peasant and his three sons. On the other, a
young woman, looking like a withered hag, nursed her baby,
and a girl, who at twenty was the mother of three children,
worked not ungracefully as she sat cross-legged before a
wooden spinning-wheel. A third, a girl of fifteen, put weeds
on the fire below a big iron bowl of milk; and then cleaned
a red earthenware jar, a rare possession, by dropping hot
sizzling stones into the water which half filled it. The
family ate their supper of hot bread and milk in relays,
using a single unwashed wooden bowl and spoon, aided by
the fingers. First the two older boys ate; next the father,
taking his rosy four-year-old son affectionately in his arms,
fed himself and the child alternately; then two demure little
girls had their turn; and finally the women modestly retired
to the store-room to eat what was left. The peasants' diet,
so they told me, is almost invariable, morning, noon, and
night, and month after month. Meat, at the local rate of a
dollar for a whole sheep, is too expensive to be eaten oftener
than three or four days a month. The peasant and his sons
care for several hundred sheep and goats, but they all, like
the house, the fields, the cows, the trees, and well-nigh the
people themselves, belong to a "Bai," or rich man, who
lives in Sanju. The peasants have all the milk, and what-
ever fruit and vegetables they can raise. Half the grain,
after next year's seed has been taken out, goes to them
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