[CHAPTER II.]
THE BALLOON.
ISA DÁS conversed much with those who came to him for advice, ever keeping in mind their spiritual profit. Sometimes he spoke directly on the subject of religion, sometimes on occurrences of the day, which he read out of a native newspaper lent to him by a friend. What the doctor's drugs were to his patient's bodies, so were his words to their souls.
One day Isa Dás told a bunniah (shopkeeper) and some others who were seated on the grass before him, smoking their hookahs, of a strange event which had occurred in Calcutta. *
* The narrative is but too true; the particulars have been taken from the newspaper account.
"Notice had been given," said he, "that a bold colonel sahib was to mount up in a balloon."
"A balloon, what may that be?" inquired a zemindar (husbandman) who had never been twenty miles from his native village.
"A balloon is a huge ball made of cloth or silk, large as a house, and filled with light gas, which causes it to rise into the clouds. A car hangs from the balloon, and in this car men have room to sit, and thus be borne aloft in the air. Many people of Calcutta gathered to see the tamasha (show), and looked with wonder at the big ball which was to carry the bold colonel into the sky."
"Wah! Wah!" cried the zemindar. "I should like to have been there to see the tamasha!"