But the chiefs passed over the taxation idea; they stuck to the main point, though their eyes were clouded with bewilderment.
“How can a man own land?” said one, more in amazement than in question. And, “But how can a man pay another man for helping him to build a house, except by helping him as much in building another house? And when all have helped one another equally, then no man would have two houses unless every man had two houses, and that would be foolish, for half the houses would be empty,” reasoned another, slowly.
It was then that the remarkable intelligence of these people began to dawn on me. For, given the experience from which he was reasoning, I consider this one of the most intelligent and logical methods of meeting a new idea that I have known. A case of almost pure logic, given his starting point.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Gogoli—bewitched by a demon of the mountains; insane.
CHAPTER VII
CAN A MAN OWN A HOUSE?—WE SING FOR OUR HOSTS OF PULTIT—DAWN AND A MEETING ON THE TRAIL—THE VILLAGE OF THETHIS WELCOMES GUESTS—LIFE OR DEATH FOR PEROLLI.
But my delight in this discovery of their intelligence received a violent blow almost at once, for another man—tall, keen featured, black bearded, his face framed in the folds of a white turban, red and blue stones gleaming dully in the links of the silver chains on his breast; I will never forget him—leaned forward in the firelight and said: “Such things can never be. Even a child knows that it would be foolish to own a house in which he did not live. Of what use is a house, except to live in? As it is, each man has the house in which he lives, and there are houses for all, and they belong to the tribe that built them. It is impossible that a man can own a house. It is not the nature of men to own houses, and we will never do it, for the nature of man is always the same. It is the same to-day as it was before the Romans came, and it will always be the same. And no man will ever own a house.”
“Glory to your lips!” they said to him. “It is so.”
The woman, who had been sitting quietly listening to this, now rose and very quietly, without saying farewell, slipped out of the firelight, and in a moment, by the sound of the closing door, I knew she had left the house. But there was something about my last glimpse of her back that makes me believe she is still clamoring for her house, and will be until long after her baby sons are grown and married. Unless she gets it sooner.