Consequently I
have a great desire to tell him of my expedition into the baggage van.
But the secret is not mine. I must do nothing that might get Kinko into
trouble.
And so I am silent, and to-night I will, if possible, take a few
provisions to my packing case--to my snail in his shell, let us say.
And is not the young Roumanian like a snail in his shell, for it is as
much as he can do to get out of it?
We reach Khodjend about three in the afternoon. The country is fertile,
green, carefully cultivated. It is a succession of kitchen gardens,
which seem to be well-kept immense fields sown with clover, which yield
four or five crops a year. The roads near the town are bordered with
long rows of mulberry trees, which diversify the view with eccentric
branches.
Again, this pair of cities, old and new. Both of them had only thirty
thousand inhabitants in 1868 and they have from forty-five to fifty
thousand now. Is it the influence of the surroundings which produces
the increase of the birth rate? Is the province affected by the
prolific example of the Celestial Empire? No! It is the progress of
trade, the concentration of merchants of all nations onto these new
markets.
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