Chapter XIII: Appendix: A Serai

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

(SUGGESTED BY KERMIT SAYING TO ME WHILE WE SAT IN THE SERAI AT SHAMBA BAZAAR THAT PERHAPS MARCO POLO HAD BEEN THERE)

The day is gently drawing to a close;
The caravan, slow-plodding through the dusk,
With tinkling bells and creaking leather,
Leaves the rough jungle by the broad brown river
And turns into the cultivated land.
It jogs along by fields, bright green, mud-walled
And fringed with shimmering willows,
Which look to be embroidered on the landscape
Like figures in some ancient tapestry.
At length the dusty column sights a village
Whose rough gray walls are set in lofty poplars
Which seem to stroke the sky with slender fingers.
Down the long street it jingles,
Through the bazaar where ill-wove matting roofs
Add to the gathering gloom;
Where smells of every sort hang in the air,
And bare, brown babies splash in muddy gutters.
At last the dingy old serai is reached.
The tired ponies pass its battered gate,
Then packs are stripped and all is wild confusion;
Shouted commands and loud and shrill abuse,
And stallions neighing, blend in one great babble.
And now the horses fed, the baggage piled,
The fires begin to glow, and round them gather
Dim half-seen figures in the flickering light,
Who squat and eat and puff their gurgling hookahs.
Now in a near-by stall a singer twangs
On some stringed instrument of old design,
And drones an endless plaintive melody.
Out on the near-by roofs the women steal,—
Black silent figures ’gainst the flat gray sky.
So comes the night, and so has come the night
Through dim unreckoned countless generations
To those who travel the old trails of Asia.
In this same way old Marco the Venetian travelled,
And even then the trails were very old.
So Asia does, so she has done since time,
And when our great hotels are piles of stones
And all our railroads briar-grown embankment,
So Asia still will do.