Benjamin Disraeli - "The Infernal Marriage"

Alpheus Spring Packard - "Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882"

Emma Goldman - "Marriage and Love"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

From Pole to Pole

S >> Sven Anders Hedin >> From Pole to Pole




All this journey we waded and plunged through snowdrifts. One day I sent
a horseman on in front to examine the road, and only the horse's head
and the rider could be seen above the snow. Another time there was no
Kirghiz tent as usual, and we bivouacked round a fire behind a wall of
snow in a temperature of 29 deg. below freezing-point. The Kirghizes who
should have furnished us with a tent had been delayed on a pass by an
avalanche of snow which overwhelmed forty sheep. Six men had struggled
on to meet us, but two had stuck fast and were abandoned in the snow. Of
the four who arrived in a sorry condition, one had his foot frozen and
another had become snow-blind. The Kirghizes usually protect their eyes
by a long lock of horse-hair hanging down over the forehead from beneath
the cap, or blacken the eye cavities and nose with charcoal.

Wolves swarm in these mountains, and we often saw the spoor of these
blood-thirsty robbers. Hunger makes them very daring, and they do great
damage to the flocks of the Kirghizes, as they will kill even when they
do not wish to eat. A single wolf had recently worried 180 sheep
belonging to a Kirghiz. A travelling Kirghiz was attacked in this
neighbourhood by a pack of wolves, and when the body was found a couple
of days later only the skull and skeleton were left. Another Kirghiz,
who was mounted, was attacked and killed, horse and all. Two of my
guides had fallen in with twelve wolves the winter before, but
fortunately they were armed and killed two of them, which were at once
devoured by their comrades.

It is not difficult to imagine the terrible plight of an unarmed Kirghiz
attacked by wolves. They track him by scent and pursue him. Their
wicked eyes glow with fury and blood-thirstiness. They wrinkle up their
upper lips to leave their fangs exposed. Their dripping tongues hang out
of their jaws. The traveller hears their sneaking steps behind him, and
turning round can distinguish in the dusk their grey coats against the
white snow. He grows cold with fright, and putting up a prayer to Allah,
springs and dashes through the drifts in the hope of reaching the
nearest village of tents.

Every now and again the wolves halt and utter their awful prolonged
howl, but in an instant they are after the man again. Every minute they
become bolder. The man flies for his life. They know that he cannot hold
out long. Now they catch hold of a corner of his fur coat, but let go
when he throws his cap at them. They pounce upon it and tear it in
pieces. This only whets their appetites. The poor man staggers on until
he can hardly put one foot before another, and is almost at his last
gasp. This is the moment, and the wolves throw themselves upon him from
all sides. He screams, and fights with his hands; he draws out his knife
and stabs into the pack in front of him, but a large wolf springs upon
him from behind and brings him to the ground. There he has at any rate
his back protected, but the eyes and teeth of the wolves gleam above him
in the darkness, and he stabs at them with his knife. They know that he
will tire of this game soon. Two wolves tear open his boots to get at
his feet. He cannot reach them with his knife, so he sits up, and at the
same moment the leader seizes him by the neck so that the blood spurts
out over the white snow. The wolves have now tasted blood and nothing
can restrain them. The man is beside himself and throws himself about
thrusting desperately with his knife. The wolves attack him from behind
and he falls again on his back. Now his knife moves more slowly. The
wolves yelp, bark and pant, and the froth hangs round their teeth. The
unfortunate man's eyes grow dim and he closes them, consciousness leaves
him and he drops the knife from his hand, and the largest wolf is about
to plunge his fangs into his throat. But suddenly the leader stops and
utters a short bark, which in wolf's language is equivalent to an oath,
for at the foot of an adjacent hill are seen two mounted Kirghizes, who
have come out to seek their comrade. The wolves disappear like magic.
The poor man lies quite motionless in his tattered furs, and the snow
around is stained red with blood. He is unconscious, but is still
breathing and his heart beats. His friends bind up his wounds with
their girdles and carry him on the back of a horse to the tent, where he
soon comes back to life beside the flames of the evening fire.

Of course the Kirghiz must hate wolves. But the animals are cunning and
seldom expose themselves to gunshot. Woe to the wolf that is wounded or
caught! He is not killed, but the most cruel tortures are devised for
him.

When heavy winter snow falls in the Alai valley, the wolves return to
the higher wilds of the Pamir where the snow lies less deep, and here
they chase the wild sheep, _Ovis Poli_, as it is named after its
discoverer, Marco Polo. It has large, round, elegantly curved horns and
is somewhat larger than the wild sheep of Tibet. The wolves chase Marco
Polo's sheep by a cunningly devised method. They hunt up a herd and
single out some less cautious or less quick-footed member. This animal
is forced by a watch posted ready beforehand to take refuge on a
projecting rock which is surrounded by wolves. If they can get up to the
sheep they take him easily, but if not, they wait till his legs give way
with weariness and he falls into the jaws of his pursuers.

Many a time I have met wolves in various parts of Asia, and many sheep,
mules, and horses of mine have they destroyed. How often has their
dismal howl sounded outside my tent, as though they were calling for my
flesh and blood!

We had ridden 300 miles when we came to a small Russian frontier fort
which rears its simple walls on the middle of the "Roof of the World,"
beside one of the headwaters of the Amu-darya. On the other side of the
frontier lies the Eastern Pamir, in the dominion of the Emperor of
China.


"THE FATHER OF ICE-MOUNTAINS"

Wherever one may be in the Eastern Pamir one sees the Mus-tagh-ata, the
"Father of Ice-Mountains," rear its rounded summit above all the other
peaks (see map, p. 56). Its height is 25,800 feet, and accordingly it is
one of the loftiest mountains in the world. On its arched crest snow
collects, and its under layers are converted by pressure into ice. The
mountain is therefore crowned by a snow-covered ice-cap. Where there are
flat hollows round the summit, in these also snow is piled up as in
bowls. It glides slowly down with its own weight, and by pressure from
above is here also converted into ice. Thus are produced great tongues
of ice, which move downwards exceedingly slowly, perhaps only a few
yards in the year. They are enclosed between huge steep ridges, from
which time after time gravel and blocks of stone fall down on to the ice
and are carried down to lower levels. The further the ice descends the
warmer becomes the air, and then the ice melts in the sun. As it melts
below, the stream of ice is forced down from above, so that its lowest
margin is always to be found in the same place. The gravel and boulders
are brought down thither and piled up together so as to form great
mounds and ridges, which are called moraines. The ice-stream itself is
called a glacier. Many such tongues of ice fringe Mus-tagh-ata on all
sides. They are several miles long and half a mile to a mile broad. The
surface is very uneven and consists of innumerable knobs and pyramids of
clear ice.

I made several excursions on the glaciers of Mus-tagh-ata on foot or on
yaks. One must be well shod so as not to slip, and one must look out for
crevasses. Once we were stopped by a crevasse several yards broad and
forty-five feet deep. When we stooped over the brim and looked down, it
had the appearance of a dark-blue grotto with walls of polished glass,
and long icicles hung down from the edges. Streamlets of melted ice run
over the surface of the glacier, sometimes flowing quietly and gently as
oil in the greenish-blue ice channels, sometimes murmuring in lively
leaps. The water can be heard trickling and bubbling at the bottom of
the crevasses, and the surface brooks often form fine waterfalls which
disappear into chasms of ice. On warm days when the sun shines, thawing
proceeds everywhere, and the water trickles, bubbles, and runs all about
the ice. But if the weather is dull, cold, and raw, the glaciers are
quieter, and when winter comes with its severe cold they are quite hard
and still, and the brooks freeze into ice.

The yaks of the Kirghizes are wonderfully sure-footed, and one can ride
on them over slippery hillocky ice where a man could not possibly walk.
The yak thrusts down his hoofs so that the white powdered ice spurts up
around him, and if the slope is so steep that he cannot get foothold, he
stretches out all four legs and holds them stiff and rigid as iron and
thus slides down without tumbling. Sometimes I rode over moraine heaps
of huge granite blocks piled one upon another. Then I had to take a firm
grip with my knees, for the yak springs and jumps about like a lunatic.

Accompanied by specially selected Kirghizes, I tried four times to climb
to the top of the "Father of Ice-Mountains," but always without success.
Our camp was pitched high up among the moraines. Islam Bay, six
Kirghizes, and ten yaks were in readiness before sunrise, and we took
with us ample provisions, fur coats, spades and alpenstocks, food and a
tent. At first we climbed up over gravel, and then over snow which
became deeper the higher we went. As the air became rarer, respiration
was more difficult, and even the yaks halted frequently to recover their
breath. The Kirghizes walked on foot and urged the animals up towards
the giddy heights. It took us the whole day to reach a point 20,700 feet
above sea-level. At this point we halted for the night, intending to
push on higher in the morning, but two of the Kirghizes were so overcome
with weariness and headaches that they asked to be allowed to go down
again. The others shovelled away the snow and pitched the little tent
within a wall of snow. A fire was kindled and the tea-kettle put on, but
our appetites were poor, as we were suffering from mountain sickness.
The ten yaks stood tethered in the snow outside, and the Kirghizes
curled themselves up in their skin coats like hedgehogs. The full moon
soared like a silvery white balloon just above the top of the mountain,
and I left the tent to enjoy this never-to-be-forgotten spectacle. The
glacier below us lay in shadow in its deep bed, but the snow-fields were
dazzling white. The yaks stood out jet black against the snow, their
nostrils steaming, and the snow crunching under them. Light white clouds
floated rapidly from the mountain under the moon. At last I returned to
the tent. The fire had died down, and the recently melted snow had
frozen into ice. There was a smell of damp and smoke inside, and the men
groaned and complained of headache and singing in the ears. I crawled
under my furs, but could not sleep. The night was quiet, but at times a
dull report was heard when a crevasse was formed in the ice or a boulder
fell from the mountain-side.

When I crawled out from under my furs in the morning, a violent
snowstorm was sweeping along the flanks of the mountain. Through the
dense cloud of whirling snow we could not see our way, and it would have
been death to mount to still higher regions. We might be glad if we
could struggle down again alive in such weather, so down we started
through the drifts, down headlong. We all needed a thorough rest after
this experience.

On another occasion we had a perilous adventure on the rounded ice-cap
of Mus-tagh-ata. We were marching upwards as usual, suspecting no
danger, when the foremost yak, which carried two large bundles of fuel,
suddenly sank through the snow and disappeared. Fortunately he was held
fast by his horns, a hind leg, and the faggots, and there he hung
suspended over a dark yawning chasm. The snow had formed a treacherous
bridge over a large crevasse in the ice, and this bridge gave way under
the weight of the yak. We had all the trouble in the world to haul him
up again with ropes.


A KIRGHIZ GYMKHANA

At the foot of Mus-tagh-ata there is a level and extensive valley, where
grass thrives luxuriantly. The black tents of the Kirghizes stand
scattered about like spots on a panther's skin. I hired one of these
tents for the summer of 1904, and spent several very interesting months
in studying the habits and mode of life of the people. If the weather
was fine, I made long excursions on horseback or on a yak, and compiled
a map of the surrounding country. If rain poured down, I kept inside my
own tent, or visited my Kirghiz neighbours and talked with them, for by
that time I had learned to speak their language.

Round the large hive-shaped tents fierce dogs keep watch, and small
naked sunburnt children tumble about in play. They are charmingly sweet,
and it is hard to believe that they will grow up into tall rough
half-wild Kirghizes. But all children are attractive and lovable before
life and mankind have hardened them. In the tent sit the young women,
spinning thread or weaving cloth; the older women are busy with the sour
milk and butter behind a partition in the tent, or perhaps they are
sitting round a pot, cooking meat. A fire is always burning in the
middle of the tent, and the smoke finds its way out through a round
opening in the top. The young men are out with the sheep or are looking
after the yaks grazing in the mountains. The older men repair saddles
and boots, make harness for horses or household utensils. Sometimes they
go hunting after wild sheep and goats. When the sun sets the sheep are
driven into folds near the tent; the women milk the ewes and yak-cows.
During the night a watch is kept on account of the wolves. The Kirghizes
are Mohammedans, and are often heard intoning Arabic prayers outside the
tents.

Not many days had passed before I was on friendly terms with all the
Kirghizes. They perceived that I wished them well, and was glad to live
among them. They came from far and near and gave me presents--sheep and
milk, wild sheep they had shot, and mountain partridges. All my servants
except Islam Bay were Kirghizes, and they followed me willingly wherever
I chose to travel.

One day the chiefs of the Kirghizes decided to hold a grand festival in
my honour. It was to be a _baiga_, or gymkhana, and early in the morning
small parties of horsemen were seen gathering to the great plain where
the wild sport was to take place.

When the sun was at its height I was escorted to the arena by forty-two
Kirghizes, who rode beside and behind me. In their best clothes,
coloured mantles with girdles and embroidered caps, and with their
daggers and knives, fire steel, pipe and tobacco box rattling at their
sides, they presented a stately and festal appearance. Among them might
be noticed the chief of the Kirghizes who lived on the eastern side of
Mus-tagh-ata. His long mantle was dark blue, his girdle light blue; on
his head he had a violet cap with a gold border, and at his side dangled
a scimitar in a black scabbard. The chief himself was tall, with a thin
black beard, scanty moustaches, small oblique eyes and high cheek bones,
like most Kirghizes.

The plain in front of us was black with horsemen and horses; there was
bustle, neighing, and stamping on all sides. Here the high chief, Khoat
Bek, a hundred and eleven years old, sits firmly and surely in his
saddle, though bent by the weight of years. His large aquiline nose
points down to his short white beard, and on his head he wears a brown
turban. He is surrounded by five sons, also grey-bearded old men,
mounted on tall horses.

Now the performance began. The spectators rode to one side, leaving an
open space in front of us. A horseman dashed forward with a goat in his
arms, dismounted, and let the poor animal loose near to us. Another
Kirghiz seized the goat by the horn with his left hand, cut off its head
with a single blow of his sharp knife, allowed the blood to flow, and
then took the goat by the hind legs and rode at full speed round the
plain. A troop of riders appeared in the distance and drew near at a
furious pace. The hoofs of eighty horses beat the ground and the
deafening noise was mingled with wild cries and the rattle of stirrup
irons. They rushed swiftly past us in a cloud of dust, making a current
of air like a storm of wind. The first rider threw the dead goat, which
was still warm, in front of me, and then they whirled off like thunder
over the plain.

"Ride back a little, sir," called out some chiefs, "there will be wild
work now." We had hardly time to draw back far enough before the excited
troop came rushing along, with their horses in a lather, like an
avalanche from the mountains. Round the goat there was an inextricable
confusion of men and horses, only partially visible in the dust. They
were struggling for the goat, and the one who gets it is the winner.
They crush together and tear and push; horses shy, rear, or fall down,
while other horses leap over them. Holding on to their saddles the
horsemen bend down towards the ground and feel for the hide. Some have
fallen off and are in danger of being tramped upon, while others are
hanging half under their horses.

Still worse becomes the tumult when a couple of men on yaks push
themselves into the scrimmage. The yaks prod the horses' loins with
their horns. The horses are irritated and kick, and the yaks defend
themselves; then there is a perfect bullfight in full swing.

A strong fellow has now succeeded in getting a firm hold of the goat.
His horse knows what to do, and backs with his rider out of the
scrimmage and flies swiftly as the wind in a wide course round the
plain. The others pursue him, and as they turn back they look as if they
mean to ride over us with irresistible force. At the last moment,
however, the horses stop as if turned to stone; and then the struggle
begins again. Many have their faces covered with blood, others have
their clothes torn, caps and whips lie scattered over the arena, and one
or two horses are lamed.

"It is very well for us who are old that we are not in the crush," I
said to Khoat Bek.

"Ah, it is nearly a hundred years ago since I was as old as you are
now," the old man answered with a smile.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] A team of three horses abreast.

[9] The word "darya" means "river."




VI

FROM PERSIA TO INDIA (1906)


TEBBES TO SEISTAN

Now we can return to Tebbes and continue our journey to India.

The camels are laden, we mount, the bells ring again, and our caravan
travels through the desert for days and weeks towards the south-east. At
length we come to the shore of a large lake called the Hamun, which lies
on the frontier between Persia and Afghanistan. The Amu-darya forms the
boundary between Bukhara and Afghanistan, the northern half of which is
occupied by the Hindu-kush mountains. The name means "slaughterer of
Hindus," because Hindus who venture up among the mountains after the
heat of India have every prospect of being frozen to death in the
eternal snow. Large quantities of winter snow are melted in spring, and
then rivers and streams pour through the valleys to collect on the
plains of southern Afghanistan into a large river called the Hilmend,
which flows into the Hamun. As there are no proper boats or ferries on
the lake, we had here to take farewell of the camels who had served us
so faithfully and had carried us and our belongings through such long
stretches of desert. We were sorry to part with them, but there was
nothing for it but to sell them to the only dealer who would take them
off our hands.

Reeds and rushes grow in abundance along the flat shores of the Hamun,
but no trees. The natives build their huts of reeds, and also a curious
kind of boat. Handfuls of dry, yellow reeds of last year's growth are
tied together into cigar-shaped bundles, and then a number of such
bundles are bound together into a torpedo-like vessel several yards
long. When laden this reed boat floats barely four inches above the
water, but it can never be filled and made to sink by the waves. It is
true that the bundles of reeds might be loosened and torn apart by a
high sea, but the natives take good care not to go out in bad weather.

It took fourteen of these reed boats to accommodate our party and its
belongings. A half-naked Persian stood at the stern of each boat and
pushed the vessel along by means of a long pole, for the lake though
twelve miles broad is only five or six feet deep. A fresh breeze skimmed
the surface when we came out of the reeds into the open lake, and it was
very refreshing after weeks of the dry oppressive heat of the desert.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM TEHERAN TO BALUCHISTAN
(pp. 46-54 and 72-81).]

After crossing the Hamun we had not more than a couple of hours' ride to
the capital of Seistan, Nasretabad. Five months before us another guest
had arrived, the plague; and just at the time the black angel of death
was going about in search of victims. He took the peasant from the
plough and the shepherd from his flock; and the fisherman, who in the
morning had gone cheerily to set his nets in the waters of the Hamun, in
the evening lay groaning in his hut with a burning fever.

Asia is the birth-place of the ruling peoples, the Aryans, and of the
yellow race; it is the cradle of the great religions, Buddhism,
Christianity, and Mohammedanism; and it is also the breeding-place of
fearful epidemic diseases which from time to time sweep over mankind
like devastating waves. Among these is the "Black Death," the plague
which in the year 1350 carried off twenty-five millions of the people of
Europe. Men thought that it was a divine punishment. Some repented and
did penance; others gave themselves up to drunkenness and other
excesses. They had then no notion of the deadly bacteria, and of the
serum which renders the blood immune from their attacks.

In 1894 a similar wave swept from China through Hong Kong to India,
where three millions of human beings died in a few years. I remember a
small house in the poor quarter of Bombay which I visited in 1902. The
authorities had given orders that when any one died of the plague a red
cross should be painted beside the doorpost of the house. And this small
house alone had forty crosses.

And now in 1906 the plague had reached Seistan. From the roof of the
house where I lived with some English officers, we could see the
unfortunate people carrying out their dear ones to the grave. We could
see them wash the bodies in a pool outside the walls, and then resume
their sad procession. The population of the small town seemed in danger
of extermination, and at length the people fled in hundreds. An English
doctor and his assistant wished to help them by means of serum
injections, but the Mohammedan clergy, out of hatred of the Europeans,
made the people believe that it was the Christians who had let loose the
disease over the country. Deluded and excited, the natives gathered
together and made an attack on the British Consulate, but were repulsed.
Then they went back to their huts to die helplessly.

They tried as far as possible to keep the cases of death secret and
carried out the corpses at night. Soon the deaths were so frequent that
it was impossible to dig proper graves. Those, therefore, who thought of
the hyaenas and jackals, digged their own graves beforehand. Processions
round the mosque of the town were instituted, with black flags and a
sacrificial goat at the head, and the mercy of Allah was implored. But
Allah did not hear, and infection was spread among the people who
flocked together to the processions.

Under the microscope the deadly microbes appear only as quite small
elongated dots, though they are magnified twelve hundred times. They
live in the blood of rats, whose parasites communicate the infection to
human beings. It is therefore most important to exterminate all rats
when an outbreak of plague occurs. The disease is terribly infectious.
In a house where the angel of death descends and carries off a victim,
all the inmates die one after another. Stupidly blind, the natives did
not understand what was good for them, and could not be induced to burn
infected clothes and the whole contents of a plague-stricken house. They
would not part with their worldly goods and preferred to perish with
them.

In one house dwelt a poor carpenter with his wife, two half-grown sons
and a daughter. For two days the father had been oppressed by a feeling
of weakness, and then, his body burning with fever, he lay raving in a
corner on the floor of stamped earth. He was indifferent to everything
and wished only to be left in peace. If his wife threw a rug over him he
groaned, for the lymph glands, which swell up in large tumours, are
exceedingly painful. In a couple of days the microbes penetrate from the
tumour into the blood and the unfortunate man dies of blood poisoning.
The vermin under the man's clothes leave the body as soon as the blood
ceases to flow. Then is the danger greatest for the survivors who stand
mourning round the deathbed, for the vermin seek circulating blood and
carry infection from the corpse with them. It is useless to warn the
natives of the danger, for they do not believe a word of it--and so die
in their turn.

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