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Updated: June 17, 2025
It was in vain he urged the poverty of agricultural laborers at that season, and the temptation which an abundance of game afforded to half-starved men and their wretched families. "Nonsense, Alfred!" said old Mr. Gray. "I would not grudge you the money if you did not want it for a bad purpose. You must not excuse men who go out with guns and fire at their fellow-creatures in the dark."
Not a movement, not a quiver of the eyelid betrayed one single emotion which he may have felt neither loathing nor sympathy, only placid indifference. He was just a half-starved menial, thankful to accomplish any task for the sake of satisfying a craving stomach. Marat stretched out his shrunken limbs in the herbal water with a sigh of well-being. "And the ring, citizen?" Mole suggested presently.
We were again held up at Krusevatz and bearded the officials. They promised to put on a special carriage for us when the next luggage-train should come in, some time that evening. Nothing for it but to lunch and to kill time. We watched the mountain batteries pass on their way to the Bulgarian frontier. One or two big cannon trailed by, drawn by oxen. Many horses looked wretched and half-starved.
Yet amid these accumulated distresses, the poor as well as the rich, the vulgar as well as the noble, in the event of a tournament, which was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast.
By the time the Europeans arrived, their French chef had prepared an excellent dinner, the native escort and servants squatting in groups round steaming dishes provided ready cooked by half-starved villagers. When the feasting was over, and all seemed quiet, a busy scene was in reality being enacted in the background.
It was some while before any of them could be taken; but being weak and half-starved, one of them was at last surprised and made a prisoner. He was sullen at first, and would neither eat nor drink; but finding himself kindly used, and victuals given to him, and no violence offered him, he at last grew tractable, and came to himself.
One day the people would examine the books, at another throw them aside, say their stomachs were empty, and run away to look for food. The Bari people at Gondokoro were described as being more tractable than those of Kich, being of a braver and more noble nature; but they were all half-starved not because the country was too poor to produce, but because they were too lazy to cultivate.
They were tall, thin lads, who looked as if they might have been half-starved when they were little; their skin had a bluish tinge, and stood the cold badly. They were quick and active, they could overtake the quickest calf, they could walk on their hands and smoke at the same time, and not only vault but really jump obstacles.
Their homes were squalid, their children half-starved and raggedly clothed in grotesque garments hastily fashioned out of the cast-off clothes of charitable neighbours. But it was not in vain that these women toiled every weary day until exhaustion compelled them to case.
There was a river, but it had overflowed its banks and made the central land impassable, the fences had been broken down by it, and the fields of corn laid low; a few wretched peasants were wandering about there; they looked half-clad and half-starved. "A miserable valley, indeed!" exclaimed the prince; but as he said it a man came down from the hills with a great bag of gold in his hand.
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