C H A P T E R X L V I I
MOGÔK
( i ) TH E TOWN
AS I look out of my. window on the night of my
arrival at Mogôk, I see before me, spread out
in the valley bottom, the town of rubies, mist-clad,
pricked with fire ; and out of the mist, ^effulgent, the
great electric arcs of the company, in scattered échelon,
blaze like sapphires. The Alpine forms of mountains
rise up in vague outline above the valley. The raingl
cleared sky is lit with a galaxy of stars. A silence as
of death lies over the town, where every human emotion
is afoot. The miner suddenly grown rich, the gambler
poised between the strokes of fate, the sorter dreaming
o f his England, the tired digger, the easy beautyjïall
of these lie here buried in the mist. It is a curious
spectacle, with nothing in it of the East ; northern, rather,
with its blue mists and its peaks strung like supernatural
battlements against the stars.
In the morning, when I wake and open my window
to look again on the spectacle, I see a grey sky stamped
with a settled melancholy ; a sky that means, it would
seem, neither to cry nor to smile ; and down in the
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valley the town of rubies, clothed in and roofed over
with grey iron, in a veil of mist. All about it are the
peaked mountains, pale and unreal at their summits,
green at their thresholds.
It is the day of the big bazaar, and the market-place
is astir, and quick with traffic. Along the yellow road,
all hammered matrix of rubies, sit the market-women,
with great hats on their heads, and the produce of
their gardens spread before them. Fruits and vege-
TH E MARKET-WOMEN
tables abound. Here are' small tomatoes done up in
little cane cylinders, through the pattern of which the
red fruit glints, baskets of scarlet raspberries, piles
of flowers,' and a variety of strange products, from
mushrooms to bamboo-roots. Down these lanes the
crowd sways, laughing, talking, bargaining, while the
sun streams down on the gay colours of their
clothes. It is the East, the indubitable E a s t; but
clean, neat, and prosperous ; the Far Silken East of
the little-known peoples. Of those who come and go,
some are clad in blue and red, in breast-cloth, coat,
stomacher, and leggings; with crescent silver neck-
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