Mujik

“ If life is of the most comfortable and of the most luxurious among rich people, the Russian moujik lives the most primitive existence in his izba. In winter, to keep himself warm, he sleeps on the tile-covered stove. The Russian peasant woman has a child every year, but terrible epidemics decimate these numerous{169} families; scarlatina and diphtheria make awful ravages. In the villages there is a public bath where the moujik goes, but as on coming out he dresses again in his dirty sheepskin, his object seems but half attained. This bath has not the luxury of the sulphur baths at Tiflis ”

“ But the moujik makes up for his indulgence by the severity of his fast. He eats no meat, eggs, milk, or butter; and as good fish is expensive, he takes it salt, dried, or stale. If he falls ill, no power on earth can induce him to break his fast. He would rather die than to commit the sin of taking a mouthful of beef or wine. As there are four Lents a year in the Greek Church, I for one do not begrudge the Russian peasant his little indulgences between. ”

“ We stood and watched the people for a long time. They were so happy it was a pleasure to look at them. Towards the end of the week, however, the effects of the carnival began to show themselves in a rather unpleasant way.
The moujik has few wants. If he has money enough to buy his sheepskin coat once in six or eight years, and his black bread each day, it is all he desires. What can he do with any extra kopecks he may have? He spends them for vodka, of course, and during the carnival he drinks steadily all the time. ”

“ His life was a prosperous one, and he laid by money enough to fill two pots. The one he buried in his corn-kiln, the other under the gate of his farmyard. Well, the moujik died, and never said a word about the money to any one. One day there was a festival in the village. A fiddler was on his way to the revel when, all of a sudden, he sank into the earth—sank right through and tumbled into hell, lighting exactly there where the rich moujik was being tormented. ”

“ Thus in the “Moujik and Anastasia Adovna,” [152] it is no longer a king of the waters, but a devil’s imp, [153] who bargains with the thirsting father for his child, and the swan-maiden whose shift the devoted youth steals bears the name of Adovna, the daughter of Ad or Hades. In “The Youth,” [154] a moujik, who has lost his way in a forest makes the rash promise to a man who enables him to cross a great river; “and that man (says the story) was a devil.” ”

“ They walk rapidly [30] with a movement at once excited and exhausted, all hustling along without seeing anything, like somnambulists, with anæstheticized eyes wide open in a celestial dream. And hundreds of moujiks, having the same look of ecstasy follow them; all of them old, sordid, with long grey beards and long grey hair escaping from their felt hats ”

“ It is genuinely dominated by artists of the first rank; it is invigorated by a real discipline; and the results achieved approach the miraculous. The pity is that the moujik can never learn that one, at any rate, of the mysterious transactions which pass high up over his head, and for which he is robbed, is in itself honest and excellent. An alleviating thought for the moujik, if only it could be knocked into his great thick head! For during the performance of the Russian Imperial Ballet at the Paris Opéra, amid all the roods of toilettes and expensive correctness, one thinks of the moujik ”

“ The moujik saw all this and made a note [116] of it. The day began to dawn; he harnessed his horse and drove into the village. In one of the houses he heard cries and wailing. In he went—there lay two dead lads.
“‘Don’t cry,’ said he; ‘I can bring them to life.’
“‘Do bring them to life, kinsman,’ said their relatives. ‘We’ll give you half of all we possess.’
“The moujik did everything as the corpse had instructed him, and the lads came back to life. Their relatives were delighted, but they immediately seized the moujik and bound him with cords, saying: ‘No, no, trickster! ”

“ Like some hungry monster the muskeg mouths its victims with oozing saliva, supping slowly, and seemingly revels in anticipation of the delicate morsel of human flesh. The watchers heard the gurgling mud, like to a great tongue licking, as it wrapped round the doomed man's body, sucking him down, down. ”

“ It was the blunt-nosed Mugger of Mugger-Ghaut, older than any man in the village, who had given his name to the village; the demon of the ford before the railway bridge, came—murderer, man-eater, and local fetish in one. He lay with his chin in the shallows, keeping his place by an almost invisible rippling of his tail, and well the Jackal knew that one stroke of that same tail in the water would carry the Mugger up the bank with the rush of a steam-engine. ”

“ The long heavy beard so dear to the heart of the moujik and which all the persecutions of Peter the Great failed to induce him to dispense with, is in itself a mark of race, as nothing could be smoother than the chin of the Mongol, the Chinese, or the Japanese. ”

“ Muglad — — Is a district about 50 miles square, two days easy from Shakka and two days from Bahr El Arab. There are many feriks, but no permanent villages; the people all go to Bahr El Arab as soon as the water gets scarce and the harvest is collected. They store grain on the tops of trees for consumption and seed when they return in the rainy season. Population all Homr (Ageira) , there are many Rizeigat and a few Maalia when I was there, but they have returned to Shakka. There is lots of gum in the district, but they do not collect it. Wells can be made at 10 feet, but they make none. ”

“ In some parts of India the mugger is held sacred, and is fed by its devotees like the cobra. The pujah is an act of propitiation. A power of evil is recognised in the personality of the mugger, and its hideous appearance goes a long way to support the belief. The only individual who prefers a request is the barren woman. She seems to think that it can assist her, a strange belief considering that the reptile is her deadly enemy. Many women going to the river or the tank to draw water have been seized and carried off. ”

“ When Mauki goes to war with villages beyond his realm, he invariably gets out this head, and alone in his grass palace, contemplates it long and solemnly. At such times the hush of death falls on the village, and not even a pickaninny dares make a noise. The head is esteemed the most powerful devil-devil on Malaita, and to the possession of it is ascribed all of Mauki's greatness. ”

“ Get up that combination—a hot day, a dank, humid, and suffocating greenhouse given up to the musk-plant, and you will have the full effect of only one full-blown musky. The odour of the plant, heavy when close, is delicate when diffused; the scent of the musk-rat, on the other hand, is heavy when diffused, and insupportable when near. The marvellous diffusibility of this odour is illustrated in many ways. It has long been maintained that the musk-rat has only to pass over a closely corked bottle of wine to destroy its contents. ”

“ Some of the maggots of human intestinal myiasis are not perhaps amenable to artificial culture up to the stage of final metamorphosis; and they do not appear to have developed a breed or new species with a distinct habit of life. All the credible accounts of human intestinal myiasis point towards some fly which is plural-brooded, and of which the larvæ develop rapidly and promptly quit the body all at once ”

“ Mujahid was in this state of embarrassment when a man came up to him and said, "You are welcome, Mujahid; my master, Abounadar, has been long expecting you;" and so saying, he conducted him into a magnificent garden, where the dervise was seated. Mujahid, struck with the riches which he saw every where around him, would have thrown himself at his feet, but Abounadar would not permit him, and interrupted him when he was about to make a merit of bringing back the chandelier which he presented to him, by saying, "You are an ungrateful wretch. Do you think to impose upon me? ”

“ The moujik at least may manage to learn something—in the drink-shop, or who knows where?—in prison, or in the barracks; but the baba—what can she know? She has seen nothing, heard nothing. As she has grown up, so she will die.... They are like little blind puppies who go running here and there and ramming their heads against all sorts of filth.... ”

“ If of the proper metal, he falls but to rise again, and should the first wish be out of reach, fastens on one of its companions. There is where blood tells. If the least taint of cur is in it the first blow sends its recipient yelling to his kennel, there to whine for the remainder of life over bruised ribs."
Muggs thought a single toss was sufficient, and retreat then only prudence. If the bones on one side were broken, he saw no reason to expose the other. Dying successful was only procuring meat for others to enjoy. ”

“ As Mujahid advanced towards manhood, he became the terror of the neighbouring potentates. He commanded his father’s armies, and invariably led them to conquest. The son of Moobarik witnessed his success with envy, and the fires of vengeance still smouldered in his bosom. He had a beautiful sister, whose detestation of the prince was no less ardent than his own ”

“ The Rajput's eyes were still ablaze with pagan flame, from watching Maga.
"To see whether thou hast manhood behind that swagger!" answered Kagig, and led the way. No man ever yet explained the racial aversions.
"Kopek!—dog, thou!" growled the Rajput, but Kagig took no notice and led on, followed by Monty and the rest of us. Maga and the gipsies came last, swarming behind us up the ladder through a hole among the beams, and clambering on to the roof over boxes piled in the draughty attic. Up under the stars a man was standing with an arm stretched out toward Tarsus. ”

“ Thus it would seem that not only the mouches, but likewise the maggots were deemed to be among Maggie’s millions, fighting like the Hosts of Michael against filth, decay, and death.
The connection between flies or mouches, and the elves or elven, seems to have been appreciated in the past, for The Golden Legend likens the lost souls of Heaven, i.e., the elven of popular opinion, to flies: “By the divine dispensation they descend oft unto us in earth, as like it hath been shewn to some holy men. They fly about us as flies, they be innumerable, and like flies they fill the air without number.” ”

“ Now they lift up their lathis (clubs) , and, at last, one falls backward into the mud, and the other runs away. When he comes back the dispute is settled, as the iron-bound bamboo of the loser witnesses. Yet they are not grateful to the Mugger. No, they cry ‘Murder!’ and their families fight with sticks, twenty a-side. My people are good people—upland Jats—Malwais of the Bet. They do not give blows for sport, and, when the fight is done, the old Mugger waits far down the river, out of sight of the village, behind the kikar-scrub yonder. ”

“ Or. 'green-gram'; Hind. mūng, [Skt. mudga] . A kind of vetch (Phaseolus Mungo, L.) in very common use over India; according to Garcia the mesce (māsh?) of Avicenna. Garcia also says that it was popularly recommended as a diet for fever in the Deccan; [and is still recommended for this purpose by native physicians (Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. i. 191) ] .
c. 1336.—"The munj again is a kind of māsh, but its grains are oblong and the colour is light green. Munj is cooked along with rice, and eaten with butter. ”

“ Schlesinger and Weichselbaum’s case shows that there are forms of myiasis intestinalis which, after prolonged sickness, lead to death, and that in consequence of the formation of intestinal abscesses stricture of the intestine may arise from the subsequent formation of a scar.
The question of the mode of infection is interesting; in this mouth, nose and anus must be considered. The most frequent way is certainly by means of food on which flies have laid their eggs, or which is permeated with young maggots. ”

“ Beg is the characteristic affix of the Mughal's name, as Khān is of the Pathān's. Among the Mahommedans of S. India the Moguls or Mughals constitute a strongly marked caste. [They are also clearly distinguished in the Punjab and N.W.P.] In the quotation from Baber below, the name still retains its original application. The passage illustrates the tone in which Baber always speaks of his kindred of the Steppe, much as Lord Clyde used sometimes to speak of "confounded Scotchmen."
In Port. writers Mogol or Mogor is often used for "Hindostān," or the territory of the Great Mogul. ”

“ Mowgli threw out his hand, and as Hathi wheeled the moonlight showed a long white scar on his slaty side, as though he had been struck with a red-hot whip. “Men came to take him from the trap,” Mowgli continued, “but he broke his ropes, for he was strong, and went away till his wound was healed. Then came he, angry, by night to the fields of those hunters. ”

“ That made matters rather worse, for what the Jackal hinted at was that the Mugger must have eaten his food on that land march fresh and fresh every day, instead of keeping it by him till it was in a fit and proper condition, as every self-respecting mugger and most wild beasts do when they can. Indeed, one of the worst terms of contempt along the River-bed is "eater of fresh meat." It is nearly as bad as calling a man a cannibal. ”

“ Thus fifteen grains of musk, with three grains of camphire, and six grains of salt of hartshorn, may be made into a bolus with a little syrup, and given as above.
If the fever should happen to intermit, which it frequently does towards the decline, or if the patient’s strength should be wasted with colliquative sweats, &c. it will be necessary to give him the Peruvian bark. Half a drachm, or a whole drachm, if the stomach will bear it, of the bark in fine powder, may be given four or five times a-day in a glass of red port or claret. ”