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DAWN OF THE BAGHDAD RAILWAY 65
becoming more intelligible to us, and the conversation
usually took the same form :—
" Who is your father ? "
"He is a Pasha in a far country."
" Where are your husbands ? "
" We have no husbands."
"How is that?"
"In our country the women are better than the
men, and the men are afraid of us."
Then our clothes are fingered all over and the cost
of every thing on us is asked. We rise to go, and
they hang on to us and implore us to come again.
But the sun has already begun to dip on his down
ward course, and we must hurry after him.
Then would follow hours when no attempt at
cultivation, or sign of herds and flocks, would be
visible, and the desert country was only relieved
by wonderful effects of mirage, in which we would
chase elusive pictures of mountains and lakes and
streams.
One had time to take it all in: the wonderful
exhilarating air, the silent stretches, the long,
monotonous days of the shepherd boys, marked only
by the gathering in of their flocks at night.
How will it be when the Monster comes, roaring
and snorting through these silent plains, polluting
this clear air with his dust and smoke ? At first
these haughty, resentful shepherds will stand aloof
from the invasion, the yellow dogs will bark in vain
at the intrusion. Then slowly its daily appearance
will come to them as the sun comes in the morning
and the stars at night. Unconsciously it also will
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