1705034150 The day wears on and it grows warmer. The coolies take off their coats and walk stripped to the waist. Then sometimes in a man resting for an instant, his load on the ground but the pole still on his shoulders so that he has to rest slightly crouched, you see the poor tired heart beating against the ribs: you see it as plainly as in some cases of heart disease in the out-patients’ room of a hospital. It is strangely distressing to watch. Then also you see the coolies’ backs. The pressure of the pole for long years, day after day, has made hard red scars, and sometimes even there are open sores, great sores without bandages or dressing that rub against the wood; but the strangest thing of all is that sometimes, as though nature sought to adapt man for these cruel uses to which he is put, an odd malformation seems to have arisen so that there is a sort of hump, like a camel’s, against which the pole rests. But beating heart or angry sore, bitter rain or burning sun notwithstanding, they go on eternally, from dawn till dusk, year in year out, from childhood to the extreme of age. You see old men without an ounce of fat on their bodies, their skin loose on their bones, wizened, their little faces wrinkled and apelike, with hair thin and grey; and they totter under their burdens to the edge of the grave in which at last they shall have rest. And still the coolies go, not exactly running, but not walking either, sidling quickly, with their eyes on the ground to choose the spot to place their feet, and on their faces a strained, anxious expression. You can make no longer a pattern of them as they wend their way. Their effort oppresses you. You are filled with a useless compassion.

1705034151

1705034152 In China it is man that is the beast of burden.

1705034153

1705034154 “To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without the possibility of arresting one’s course, —is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither, —is not that a just cause for grief?”

1705034155

1705034156 So wrote the Chinese mystic.

1705034157

1705034158 Notes

1705034159

1705034160 coolie, an unskilled hired laborer or porter. The word is probably derived from the Hindu word kuli or quli .

1705034161

1705034162 pleasing object . The first and the second paragraphs tell what things are pleasing in the coolie.

1705034163

1705034164 indigo to turquoise, deep violet-blue to light green-blue.

1705034165

1705034166 trudges, walks wearily, with his feet dragging the ground.

1705034167

1705034168 causeway, a raised walk or road, across wet and marshy ground.

1705034169

1705034170 suit. The short coat and the trousers make a suit of clothes.

1705034171

1705034172 all of a piece, all of the same color, because taken from one piece of cloth.

1705034173

1705034174 patching, putting a piece of cloth on to mend or repair a hole or rent in the clothing.

1705034175

1705034176 extinguisher, a hollow cone for extinguishing, putting out, a candle or other flame.

1705034177

1705034178 preposterously, unusually; absurdly; very, very.

1705034179

1705034180 string of coolies, line of coolies one following the other.

1705034181

1705034182 bales, packages of merchandise usually done up in canvas and corded or metal-hooped.

1705034183

1705034184 agreeable picks up the word pleasing in the second line of the first paragraph.

1705034185

1705034186 padi .Paddy is the more usual English form of this word, but padi is the correct Malay form.Padi is the Malay for rice , whether growing or cut, whether in the straw or in the husk. By extension, especially in the adjectival use, the word has come to mean rice in general.

1705034187

1705034188 good-natured, inclined to please or to be pleased.

1705034189

1705034190 frank, undisguised; open; outspoken; sincere; candid.

1705034191

1705034192 drilled into you, taught repeatedly to you; told time and again to you; disciplined into you.

1705034193

1705034194 oriental, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, and others of the Far East or the Orient. The Orient is the place where the sun rises, in the east.

1705034195

1705034196 inscrutable, wholly mysterious, incapable of being penetrated or searched into or understood; incomprehensible; not given to expressing their emotions frankly or candidly. The Occidentals or foreigners from the West generally regard us Orientals of the East as a race of people who do not show our emotions on our faces and are therefore inscrutable or not easily understood by them.

1705034197

1705034198 banyan tree, an East Indian moraceous tree, the branches of which send out numerous aërial roots that grow down to the soil and form props or additional trunks, often until a single tree covers so large an area that it will shelter thousands of men; so called by the British in allusion to the use of the space sheltered by the tree as a market-place by the native merchants, or banians.

1705034199

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