Paklin

“ Ostrodumov muttered something between his teeth, while Paklin shook his head and repeated, now without the faintest trace of a smile, 'No! I'm not always laughing! I'm anything but a light-hearted person! ”

“ And really, how is a man to go through life without letting off just a few squibs every now and again? So life in St. Petersburg became insupportable to Paklin and he longed to remove to Moscow. Speculations of all sorts—ideas, fancies, and sarcasms—were stored up in him like water in a closed mill. The floodgates could not be opened and the water grew stagnant. With the appearance of Mashurina the gates opened wide, and all his pent-up ideas came pouring out with a rush. He talked about St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg life, the whole of Russia. ”

“ Mashurina and Ostrodumov lifted their heads simultaneously.
“My dear Alexai Dmitritch,” Paklin began, “you are upset, and for a very good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in what country we are living? Amongst us a drowning man must himself create the straw to clutch at. Why be sentimental over it? One must look the devil straight in the face and not get excited like children—”
“Oh, don’t, please!” Nejdanov interrupted him desperately, frowning as if in pain. “We know you are energetic and not afraid of anything—”
“I—not afraid of anything?” Paklin began. ”

“ Nejdanov was inwardly annoyed, Markelov angry and indignant, just as indignant, though in a different way, as he had been at the Subotchevs’; Solomin was observant.
Paklin was in high spirits and delighted Golushkin with his sharp, ready wit. The latter had not the slightest suspicion that the “little cripple” every now and again whispered to Nejdanov, who happened to be sitting beside him, the most unflattering remarks at his, Golushkin’s, expense. He thought him “a simple sort of fellow” who might be patronised ”

“ A silence ensued.
“I ran across Skoropikin today,” Paklin was the first to begin. “Our great national critic, aesthetic, and enthusiast! What an insufferable creature! He is forever boiling and frothing over like a bottle of sour kvas. A waiter runs with it, his finger stuck in the bottle instead of a cork, a fat raisin in the neck, and when it has done frothing and foaming there is nothing left at the bottom but a few drops of some nasty stuff, which far from quenching any one’s thirst is enough to make one ill. He’s a most dangerous person for young people to come in contact with.” ”

“ Nejdanov asked slowly.
“It is easy to see from your very words, from your whole behaviour. Today, for instance, at Golushkin’s, who said that he failed to see any elements that we could rely on? You! Who demanded to have them pointed out to him? You again! And when that friend of yours, that grinning buffoon, Mr. Paklin, stood up and declared with his eyes raised to heaven that not one of us was capable of self-sacrifice, who approved of it and nodded to him encouragingly? Wasn’t it you? Say what you like of yourself ... think what you like of yourself, you know best ... ”

“ A year and a half before, she had left her own people, a family of poor nobles in South Russia, and had come to Petersburg with six roubles in her pocket; she had entered a lying-in institution, and by unceasing hard work had gained the coveted diploma. She was a single woman . . . and a very chaste single woman. Nothing wonderful in that, some sceptic will say, remembering what has been said of her exterior. Something wonderful and rare, let us be permitted to say.
Paklin laughed again when he heard her retort. ”

“ Even in the dark the approach of a palki is made known by the rhythmic cries of the bearers. Soon it arrived in front of the red brick-house and the bearers, halting, asked loudly if a strange lady, richly attired and decked with jewels, was within. From an upper window the master of the house answered them, while the girl and her kindly hostess listened anxiously downstairs. The pseudo palki-bearers next informed the listeners that they were the servants of a very wealthy man and had been conveying his daughter to her parents-in-law’s house. ”

“ The chief imports to Pak-hoà ̄ are cotton and woollen goods, opium and rice, whilst the exports are sugar, ground-nut oil, aniseed, betel-vine leaves, and other spices. Lovers of sport will find plenty of woodcock, partridges, wild-ducks, and other water-fowl in the neighbourhood of Pak-hoà ̄. Opposite to the town, in the south of the bay, is a very celebrated pagoda, one of the most remarkable in China. From its centre grows a magnificent plane-tree, in which nest thousands of sparrows. ”

“ The Pakchan is, however, navigable by steamers from the junction of the Malliwan to Victoria Point. In the dry season, the tide is felt ten miles above Krà, where its rise and fall is eight feet. From Krà, eastward, the country is covered with forests of bamboos and trees, and is very rugged, till the water shed, a small grassy plain, is reached, some eight miles above Krà. The river Krà runs west from this place, and joins the Pakchan at Krà, while the Bankren, a quarter of a mile farther on, flows east-ward, joining the river Tsoompeou at Tasan, and then flows into the Gulf of Siam. ”

“ All the gum-benzoin which is sold at Bangkok comes from the northern extremity of the state of Louang Prabang, and from a district tributary both to Cochin China and Siam, and peopled rather by Tonquinites than Laotians.
PAKLAIE—THE MEKON.
On the 24th of June I arrived at Paklaïe, lat. 19° 16′ 58′′, the first small town on my northward route. It is situated on the Mekon, and is a charming place; the inhabitants seem well off; the houses elegant and spacious,—larger, indeed, than I have seen before in this country ”

“ It is on the basis of these facts that we make bold to assert without the least fear of contradiction that we, Muslims of PAKSTAN, do possess a separate and distinct nationality from the rest of India, where the Hindu nation lives and has every right to live. ”

“ This ceremony brought the separate history of the Kalkas to a close, since from that time they have been engulfed in the Chinese Empire.
During the Kin dynasty of China the Keraits, as has been pointed out, were for a time supreme in Mongolia, and it was during that period that one of the earliest recognized sovereigns, Merghus Buyuruk Khan, sat on the throne. In an engagement with a neighbouring Tatar tribe their khan was captured and sent as a propitiatory present to the Kin emperor, who put him to death by nailing him on a wooden ass. ”

“ Men, flocks, and tents have vanished, and nought remains to mark the visit of this wandering race, but the curling smoke of their unquenched fires, or the birds of prey hovering over the carcase of some dying camel, or feeding on the remains of their late repast. The Mongols are irreclaimable nomads, though some tribes of them, as the Tsakhars, Ortous, and Solous, cultivate the soil. The four khanates of the Kalkas are called Outer Mongolia, and comprise within their borders, several well built towns, though none of any size, compared with the cities in China. ”

“ The name Kling, applied to settlers of Indian origin, makes its appearance in the Portuguese narratives immediately after the conquest of Malacca (1511) . At the present day most, if not all of the Klings of Singapore come, not from the "Northern Circars," but from Tanjore, a purely Tamil district. And thus it is that so good an authority as Roorda van Eijsinga translates Kalīng by 'Coromandel people.' They are either Hindūs or Labbais (see LUBBYE) . The latter class in British India never take domestic service with Europeans, whilst they seem to succeed well in that capacity in Singapore. ”

“ The Raja of Gorkha was, however, afraid of driving the Palpa family to extremities, and compelling it to seek refuge in the territories of the Company, which had received from the Nawab Vazir the sovereignty of the low countries belonging to Palpa, and might be disposed to give its powerful support. ”

“ The Chinese, then, undoubtedly impress the Tibetans, but I am bigoted enough to think that their methods are not practically so successful as our own. Tibet is a protected Chinese State; Kashmir is a protected Indian State. In Tibet the Chinese Resident has, to support him, several hundreds of Chinese soldiers, and in the present year 2,000. In Kashmir the British Resident has not even a personal guard of British soldiers or even of British-Indian soldiers. In Tibet the Chinese are replacing the Tibetan by Chinese police; in Kashmir all the police are of the Kashmir State. ”

“ Westwards from this the boundary of Kashmír and Chinese Turkestán runs for 350 miles (omitting curves) through a desolate upland lying well to the north of the Muztagh-Karakoram range. Finally in the north-east corner of Kashmír the frontier impinges on the great Central Asian axis of the Kuenlun. From this point it turns southwards and separates Chinese Tibet from the salt Lingzi Thang plains and the Indus valley in Kashmír, and the eastern part of the native state of Bashahr, which physically form a portion of Tibet. ”

“ For the first fifteen miles of its course, the Pakchan is an ordinary mountain torrent, but as it receives the drainage brought down by numerous affluents from the hills which bound its valley, it gradually broadens, tilt at Krà it is 250 feet wide. ”

“ In Central Asia they are highly renowned for their beauty. The men have pretty thick, but never long beards. The Karakalpaks, who are sometimes falsely ranked with the Kirghis, are at present only to be met with in the Khanat of Khiva, to which they moved at the beginning of this century. A man of this tribe relates to me that they lived earlier on the banks of the Yaxartes, and certainly near its mouth, whilst another portion abides in the neighbourhood of the Kalmucks, probably in the government of the Semipalatinsk. ”

“ Then we came to a new land, and the first thing that one of the regular residents said was: "This place isn't India at all. They ought to have made it a Crown colony." Judging the Empire as it ought to be judged, by its most prominent points—videlicet, its smells—he was right; for though there is one stink in Calcutta, another in Bombay, and a third and most pungent one in the Punjab, yet they have a kinship of stinks, whereas Burma smells quite otherwise. It is not exactly what China ought to smell like, but it is not India. ”

“ The Mongol Khalkhas are the most numerous, the most wealthy, and the most celebrated in history. They occupy the entire north of Mongolia. Their country is of vast extent, including nearly 200 leagues from north to south, and about 500 from east to west. We will not repeat here what we have already said about the Khalkha district; we will merely add that it is divided into four great provinces, subject to four separate sovereigns. These provinces are sub-divided into eighty-four banners, in Chinese called Ky, in Mongol Bochkhon. Princes of different ranks are at the head of each banner. ”

“ For the last three years all that north part of Kashmir, and right away south-west to the Punjab borders, has been honoured with visits from plausible Russian gentlemen who may come down by the ordinary caravan routes, or, on the other hand, may not. They turn up quite suddenly with tooth-brushes and dressing-cases, and they can’t have come from the south. They fool around in Bardur, and then go down to Gilgit, and, I suppose, on to the Punjab. They’ve got excellent manners, and they hang about the clubs and give dinners and charm the whole neighbourhood. ”

“ On the other hand the hill country in the north-east is purely Hindu, except on the borders of Tibet, where the scanty population professes Buddhism. While Hinduism is the predominant faith in the south-east, quite a fourth of the people there are Musalmáns. Sikhs nowhere form a majority. The districts in the [Pg 116] eastern part of the Central Plains where they constitute more than one-fifth of the population are indicated in the map. In six districts, Lahore, Montgomery, Gujránwála, Lyallpur, Hoshyárpur, and Ambála the proportion is between 10 and 20 p.c. ”

“ Pakhtu and Shuthun, a dialect of Shiná, by the Gabriáli. The people of Hunza are dreaded robbers and kidnappers; they, together with the people of Nagyr, speak a language, Khajuná, which philologists have not yet been able to classify, but which I believe to be a remnant of a pre-historic language. They are great wine-drinkers and most licentious. They are nominally Muláis, a heresy within the Shiah schism from the orthodox Sunni Muhammadan faith, but they really only worship their Chief or Raja, commonly called “Thàm.” The present ruler’s name is Mohammad Khan. ”

“ As we made the round of the monastery we came in the gallery of the court upon a poor fellow who lay ill and seemed to be suffering. I asked him how he was, and he told me that on August 18, the day when Rabsang and Adul came to meet us, he was taking eleven mules and two horses laden with tsamba and barley to Parka, the Gova of which was the owner of the caravan. Where the Pachung river enters the eastern lagoon he was attacked at eleven o’clock in the morning by twelve robbers, who rushed down from the direction of the Pachung valley. ”

“ At the north-eastern angle of that frontier, the Dihang river, the connecting link between the Tsanpo of Tibet and the Brahmaputra of Assam, bursts through the main axis of the range. At the opposite or north-western angle, the Indus in like manner pierces the Himalayas, and turns southwards on its course through the Punjab. This wild region is in many parts impenetrable to man, and nowhere yields a passage for a modern army. Ancient and well-known trade routes exist, by means of which merchandise from the Punjab finds its way over heights of 18,000 ft. ”