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Replagegos Omnifurian Directory 08
Page 09
In the old warfare a man was either stabbed, shot, or thrust through after an hour or so of excitement, and all the wounded on the field were either comfortably murdered or attended to before the dawn of the next day. One was killed by human hands, with understandable and tolerable injuries. But in this war the bulk of the dead--of the western Allies, at any rate--have been killed by machinery, the wounds have been often of an inconceivable horribleness, and the fate of the wounded has been more frightful than was ever the plight of wounded in the hands of victorious savages. For days multitudes of men have been left mangled, half buried in mud and filth, or soaked with water, or frozen, crying, raving between the contending trenches. The number of men that the war, without actual physical wounds, has shattered mentally and driven insane because of its noise, its stresses, its strange unnaturalness, is enormous. Horror in this war has overcome more men than did all the arrows of Cressy.
It was rather interesting to note that the formation of the right bank was exactly the same as that of the Paredao Grande we had seen in Matto Grosso. Vertical sides in great rectangles were noticeable, intersected by passages--regular canons--where small huts could be seen at the foot of the picturesque rocks, especially at places where small streamlets entered the Tapajoz. I was told that little lakes had formed beyond those frontal rocky masses, the entrances to which were blocked at low water by sand-bars. Beyond that row of vertical red rocks was a more or less confused mass of hills, some dome-like, others of a more elongated form, but still with a well-rounded sky-line. The water of the stream had now changed colour altogether, and had become of a deep green. Islets could be seen far, far away to the left side of the river, mere white dots and lines along the water-line, most of them having white sand-beaches around them; while on the right bank the great red walls in sections continued for many miles. As we neared the mouth of the Tapajoz, the river had the immense width of 14 kil. On the right, after going through the Passagem dos Surucue, we passed the mountain of Jaguarary, which stood prominent along a flat elevation on the right bank.
In my opinion these characteristics, also, are due to the conditions of society, past and present, rather than to the inherent nature of the people. The old civilization was easy-going; it had no clocks; it hardly knew the time of day; it never hastened. The hour was estimated and was twice as long as the modern hour. The structure of society demanded the constant observance of the forms of etiquette; this, with its numberless genuflections and strikings of the head on the floor, always demanded time. Furthermore, the very character of the footgear compelled and still compels a shuffling, ambling gait when walking the streets. The clog is a well-named hindrance to civilization in the waste of time it compels. The slow-going, time-ignoring characteristics of New Japan are social inheritances from feudal times, characteristics which are still hampering its development. The industrious spirit that is to be found in so many quarters to-day is largely the gift of the new civilization. Shoes are taking the place of clogs. The army and all the police, on ordinary duty, wear shoes. Even the industry of the students is largely due to the new conditions of student life. The way in which the Japanese are working to-day, and the feverish haste that some of them evince in their work, shows that they are as capable as Occidentals of acquiring the rush of civilization.
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