ADDRESSES 209 



garians. As you pass by the great wheat fields you will see 

 men and women with their sickles slowly and laboriously 

 reaping the golden harvest. Ask them whether they could 

 not do the work much more rapidly and easily with the 

 cradle, and they will answer, "Doubtless." Ask them why 

 they do not use it, they will reply, "Good Lord! it is not 

 our custom." And that is the end of all controversy with 

 an Oriental. To change the custom of his fathers is as 

 impious an act as to defile the bones of his ancestors or 

 curse his grandmother. 



One is sometimes in despair of any progress in the East- 

 ern world. The beginning must be made at the root. Edu- 

 cate the youth, and they are as ready for improvement as 

 any people. In some places on the rich lands of the Danube, 

 modern implements of harvesting have been introduced, 

 and the produce doubled, because the farmer is no longer 

 afraid of sowing more than he can gather. The women do a 

 great deal of work in the fields, and may be seen laboring 

 side by side with the men. The position occupied by them 

 may be fairly well illustrated by the following story: A 

 gentleman riding one day in the country overtook a man 

 who had laden his wife with a heavy bundle of sticks. He 

 remonstrated with him, saying, "My good man, it is too 

 bad that you should load your wife down in this way. 

 What she is carrying is a mule's burden." — "Yes, your 

 excellency," the man replied, "what you say is true. It is 

 a mule's burden. But then you see Providence has not sup- 

 plied us with mules, and he has supplied us with women." 



It is the same all through the East. Sir Thomas Munro, in 

 his "Travels to the City of the Caliphs," relates as a reason 

 why an Indian should be exempt from paying his tax that 



