We stood and watched the peasants for a minute or so longer.
The men were cutting the larger stems, and chopping them into more manageable lengths of about twelve feet The women worked behind them, stripping the main stems of branches; and separating fruit or seed-pods as they found them. The stems were then thrown to one side, the leaves or fruit to another. With every slash of the knife quantities of sap issued forth, and trickled from the plants already cut. The area of soil directly in front of the weed-bank was flooded with the spilled sap, and the peasants were working in mud up to twelve inches deep.
Amelia and I walked on, carefully maintaining a distance from the peasants and walking on soil that was dry. Here we saw that the spilled sap was not wasted; as it oozed down from where the peasants were working it eventually trickled into a wooden trough that had been placed in the soil, and flowed along in a relatively liquid state, accumulating all the way.
“Did you recognize the language?” I said.
“They spoke too quickly. A guttural tongue. Perhaps it was Russian.”
“But not Tibetan,” I said, and Amelia frowned at me.
“I based that guess on the nature of the terrain, and our evident altitude,” she said. “I think it is pointless continuing to speculate about our location until we find someone in authority.”
As we moved along the weed-bank we came across more and more of the peasants, all of whom seemed to be working without supervison. Their conditions of work were atrocious, as in the more crowded areas the spilled sap created large swamps, and some of the poor wretches were standing in muddy liquid above their waists. As Amelia observed, and I could not help but agree, there was much room for reform here.
We walked for about half a mile until we reached a point where the wooden trough came to a confluence with three others, which flowed from different parts of the weed-bank. Here the sap was ducted into a large pool, from which it was pumped by several women using a crude, hand-operated device into a subsidiary system of irrigation channels. From where we were standing we could see that these flowed alongside and through a large area of cultivated land. On the far side of this stood two more of the metal towers.
Further along we saw that the peasants were cutting the weed on the slant, so that as we had been walking parallel to their workings we eventually found what it was that lay beyond the bank of weeds. It was a water-course, some three hundred yards wide. Its natural width was only exposed by the cropping of weeds, for when we looked to the north, in the direction from which we had walked, we saw that the weeds so choked the waterway that in places it was entirely blocked. The total width of the weed-bank was nearly a mile, and as the opposite side of the waterway was similarly overgrown, and with another crowd of peasants cutting back the weed; we realized that if they intended to clear the entire length of the waterway by hacking manually through the weeds then the peasants were confronted with a task that would take them many generations to accomplish.
Amelia and I walked beside the water, soon leaving the peasants behind. The ground was uneven and pitted, presumably because of the roots of the weeds which had once grown here, and the water was dark-coloured and undisturbed by ripples. Whether it was a river or a canal was difficult to say; the water was flowing, but so slowly that the movement was barely perceptible, and the banks were irregular. This seemed to indicate that it was a natural watercourse, but its very straightness belied this assumption.
We passed another metal tower, which had been built at the edge of the water, and although we were now some way from where the peasants were cutting back the weed there was still much activity about us. We saw carts carrying the cut weed being manhandled along, and several times we came across groups of peasants walking towards the weed-bank. In the fields to our left were many more people tilling the crops.
Both Amelia and I were tempted to go across to the fields and beg for something to eat—for surely food must be there in abundance—but our first experience with the peasants had made us wary. We reasoned that some kind of community, even be it just a village, could not be far away. Indeed, ahead of us we had already seen two large buildings, and we were walking faster, sensing that there lay our salvation.
v
We entered the nearer of the two buildings, and immediately discovered that it was a kind of warehouse, for most of its contents were huge bales of the cut weed, neatly sorted into types. Amelia and I walked through the ground area of the building, still seeking someone to whom we could talk, but the only people there were more of the peasants. As all their fellows had done, these men and women ignored us, bending over their tasks.
We left this building by the way we had entered: a huge metal door, which was presently held open by an arrangement of pulleys and chains. Outside, we headed for the second building, which was about fifty yards from the first. Between the two stood another of the metal towers.
We were passing beneath this tower when Amelia took my hand in hers, and said: “Edward, listen.”
There was a distant sound, one attenuated by the thin air, and for a moment we could not locate its source. Then Amelia stepped away from me, towards where there was a long metal rail, raised about three feet from the ground. As we walked towards it, the sound could be identified as a queer grating and whining sound, and looking down the rail towards the south we saw that coming along it was a kind of conveyance.
Amelia said: “Edward, could that be a railway train?”
“On just one rail?” I said. “And without a locomotive?”
However, as the conveyance slowed down it became clear that a railway train was exactly what it was. There were nine coaches in all, and without much noise it came to a halt with its front end just beyond where we had been standing. We stared in amazement at this sight, for it looked to all appearances as if the carriages of a normal train had broken away from their engine. But it was not this alone that startled us. The carriages seemed to be unpainted, and were left in their unfinished metal; rust showed in several places. Furthermore, the carriages themselves were not built in the way one would expect, but were tubular. Of the nine carriages, only two—the front and the rear—bore any conceivable resemblance to the sort of trains on which Amelia and I regularly travelled in England. That is to say that these had doors and a few windows, and as the train halted we saw several passengers descending. The seven central carriages, though, were like totally enclosed metal tubes, and without any apparent door or window.
I noticed that a man was stepping down from the front of the train, and seeing that there were windows placed in the very front of the carriage I guessed that it was from there he drove the train. I pointed this out to Amelia, and we watched him with great interest.
That he was not of the peasant stock was evident, for his whole manner was assured and confident, and he was neatly dressed in a plain grey outfit. This comprised an unadorned tunic or shirt, and a pair of trousers. In this he seemed no differently dressed from the passengers, who were clustering around the seven central carriages. All these people were similar in appearance to the peasants, for they were of the reddish skin coloration, and very tall. The driver went to the second carriage and turned a large metal handle on its side. As he did this, we saw that on each of the seven enclosed carriages large doors were moving slowly upwards, like metal blinds. The men who had left the train clustered expectantly around these doors.
Within a few seconds, there was a scene of considerable confusion.
We saw that the seven enclosed carriages had been packed to capacity with men and women of peasant stock, and as the doors were wound open these stumbled or clambered on the ground, spilling out all around the train.