THREE:Another kind of cart which is used in the North to carry merchandise, and also for passengers, is much stronger than the cab, but, like it, is mounted on two wheels. The frame is of wood, and there is generally a cover of matting to keep off the heat of the sun. This cover is supported on posts that rise from the sides of the cart; but while useful against the sun, it is of no consequence in a storm, owing to its facility for letting the water run through. The teams for propelling these carts are more curious than the vehicles themselves, as they are indifferently made up of whatever animals are at hand. Oxen, cows, horses, mules, donkeys, and sometimes goats and dogs, are the beasts of burden that were seen by the boys in their rambles in Pekin and its vicinity, and on one occasion Fred saw a team which contained a camel harnessed with a mule and a cow. Camels come to Pekin from the Desert of Gobi, where great numbers of them are used in the overland trade between China and Russia. They are quite similar to the Arabian camel, but are smaller, and their hair is thicker, to enable them to endure the severe cold of the northern winter. In the season when tea is ready for export, thousands of camels are employed in transporting the fragrant herb to the Russian frontier, and the roads to the northward from Pekin are blocked with them."I regard that statement of his as highly significant," resumed Gregg, after a slight pause. "For, of course, if the Clockwork man really is, as suggested, a semi-mechanical being, then he could only have come from the future. So far as I am aware, the present has not yet evolved sufficiently even to consider seriously the possibility of introducing mechanical reinforcements into the human body, although there has been tentative speculation on the subject. We are thousands of years away from such a proposition; on the other[Pg 54] hand, there is no reason why it should not have already happened outside of our limited knowledge of futurity. It has often occurred to me that the drift of scientific progress is slowly but surely leading us in the direction of some such solution of physiological difficulties. The human organism shows signs of breaking down under the strain of an increasingly complex civilisation. There may be a limit to our power of adaptability, and in that case humanity will have to decide whether it will alter its present mode of living or find instead some means of supplementing the normal functions of the body. Perhaps that has, as I suggest, already happened; it depends entirely upon which road humanity has taken. If the mechanical side of civilisation has developed at its present rate, I see no reason why the man of the future should not have found means to ensure his efficiency by mechanical means applied to his natural functions."
