By the Way 145 



lay and looked over his shoulder in a way I 

 shall never forget at the machine that had 

 mangled and thrown him aside, and now steamed 

 remorselessly on. The reader, who is so inclined, 

 may see in this an apologue, the blatant civilisa- 

 tion of the West, the picturesque and uncom- 

 plaining East but there I cannot follow. One 

 has only to see a little of the latter to realise 

 that whatever Asia has lost by contact with the 

 West is as nothing compared with the resulting 

 benefits. It is impossible to be blind to the 

 fact that in the unsophisticated Orient, justice 

 and humanity, whatever, in fact, is connoted by 

 the word " righteousness," hardly exist. 



As for the picturesque camel, there is small 

 danger of his becoming declasse for many a cycle 

 of years. It is almost regrettable that this is so ; 

 indeed, one could wish that by some epizootic 

 disease the whole race of baggage -animals could 

 be swept off the face of the earth, for everywhere 

 they are a poor ill-used lot, and nowhere more so 

 than in Persia. There is an oft -quoted line of 

 Firdousi's 



" Oppress not the ant that carrieth her load of grain." 



Yet no one is likely to forget the droves of 

 "oppressed" donkeys with their gigantic loads, 

 or the spectacle of the same wretched beast stag- 



K 



