The ride up the Tai Ghauts was one of great beauty. Here and there in the dells and hollows were little patches of grass which looked at a distance very like a green velvet carpet. Low-growing wild plants, tall trees, and creepers were matted together in one network of green, yellow, red, blue, and purple. The views looking back were lovely. The noise of mountain-torrent and trickling waters in the midday heat was most refreshing.
The ancient village of Mahabaleshwar is perched on a high table-land, and is said to be the most elevated portion of that interminable western range of Ghauts forming some of the highest ground between the Southern Ghauts and the Himâlayas. The temple of Maha Dèo stands close under a projecting rock on the very spot where, according to Brahmans here, the five sacred rivers of this region take their rise—the Krishna, the Koina, and the Yena, which flow toward the Deccan, and the beautiful Savitri and Gaiutri, which, after leaping down the mountain-sides in many picturesque cascades and waterfalls, unite with other small streams to form quite a large river, at whose mouth stands Fort Victoria. There are no lovelier scenes than some of those formed by these two rivers, and especially remarkable is the spot where they unite, flowing between deep and wooded banks till they lose themselves in a broad, quiet, placid stream.
A large reservoir is excavated in front of the temple to receive the waters of the Krishna and Koina, and in front is a huge stone cow, through whose mouth the waters flow into it. All around this reservoir is a fine stone walk, and farther on are several cells where saints who have long abandoned the world still reside unseen, but not unheard, for night after night their voices, like the feeble wail of infants, are borne on the night air, imploring the gods in behalf of the lost, erring human race. Fiends, angels, heroes, demons, and gods are all worshipped here.
The Brahman ascetics who have charge of these temples ring a bell to give notice that the deified beings have taken up their abode in their respective cells. Krishna, the last incarnation of the Hindoos, has also a couch prepared for him here. When the sound of this bell is heard all the inhabitants of this mountain-village betake themselves to a few moments' meditation. We saw some remarkably pretty women who were attached to this temple filling the lamps with oil and gathering flowers and fruit to lay before the shrines; but they seemed to be shy of Europeans, and would not notice us.
The discoverer of this spot, so far as the English are concerned, for it has long been inhabited by the Brahmans, was Colonel P. Lodwick, who, when stationed with his regiment at Satarah, undertook the exploration of these hills, and, pushing through forest, brushwood, and jungle, found himself at the edge of a high projecting rock, when a sudden turn brought him to the brink of a grand promontory formerly called "Sidney Point," but now after the true discoverer. No sooner was the discovery of this delightful and most accessible mountain-region made known than Sir James Malcolm, then governor of Bombay, hastened to establish here a convalescent hospital for European soldiers. In course of time good roads were constructed, partly by the British government and partly by the rajah of Satarah. Parsee shopkeepers soon made their appearance, and in a few years a little British colony was transplanted here. There are now a little Protestant church, reading-room, library, hotel, barracks, handsome European villas and bungalows, with bridle-paths all along the most picturesque points. There is no more beautiful and healthful sanitarium to be found anywhere in the East. We spent two delightful months, November and December, at the travellers' bungalow. The weather was perfect—clear, cold, and without any rain. With all the beauty with which a tropical climate surrounds the hillsides the temperature varied from 62° to 45° in the open air. The elevation, four thousand seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, places it beyond the influence of cholera and malaria, which are so deadly in many parts of India. The soil is scanty in some parts, but in many portions a rich mould of great depth is found, admirably adapted to agricultural purposes. The finest strawberries I ever saw in India were brought me one morning by the pundit, cultivated by the Brahmans on these hills as offerings to their gods. The hills are also covered with fine trees—the willow, the jambul with its dazzling green foliage, the iron-wood, and the arrowroot plant. There are here several kinds of jessamines—one, the night-blooming jessamine, a large and beautiful flower and peculiarly fragrant after sunset. Ferns abound: one called by the natives pryha khud, or "the lover's leap," is extraordinarily beautiful, but not very abundant. A plant resembling the yellow broom is also found here, but it far surpasses the latter in size and beauty of flowers. Bulbous and parasitical plants abound, and their flowers are much larger and far more beautiful than those found on the plains, and each plant has its season.
To the sportsman the Mahabaleshwar Hills are a treasure-trove. The shikarees, or native hunters, are always at hand to lead the adventurous into the very lairs of tigers, panthers, bears, wolves, and to the resorts of all kinds of jungle-fowl. The monkeys in this neighborhood are generally the first to give notice of the vicinity of a tiger by their loud and reiterated cries resounding from tree to tree. The wild bison, for which this region was once famous, is now found only occasionally. A spot is shown where Lieutenant Hinds, a fine, athletic, noble-looking young English officer, over six feet in stature, was killed by one of these beasts. He and his shikaree had pursued the bison for some distance. Lieutenant Hinds had just taken his aim, when, in the twinkling of an eye, the infuriated beast suddenly turned upon him, with one bound caught him upon his horns, and bore him thus wildly along through the forest, and finally dashed him headlong over some rocks. His mutilated body was found, and lies in the little Christian burial-ground here.
In returning from the Mahabaleshwar Hills we took the Satarah road, the most picturesque of the three roads which lead up to the hills. It commands extensive and diversified views of all the country around—the wild tangle of the forests, the towering peaks of the mountains, the bristling forts of the rock-bound city of the "Northern Star," the ample fields dotting the landscape like huge green emeralds, and the Savitri and the Gaintri struggling through brake and forest dingle and many a deep shade to find each the other, till they meet at last just over the wide brow of a sharp cliff, and leap together in gladness and beauty down five hundred feet, dashing and tumbling over masses of rock, till they gain the low-lying lands, then move on in quiet, dreamy irregularity to lose each the other once more—one amid the waters of the famous Krishna, and the other at Karar afar off.
We turned off the road to visit a formidable towering rock on which stands the old Mahratta fort of Pratapgarh. In the centre of it are found two lovely Hindoo temples—one to Maha Dèo, the high god, and the other to Bhawanee, who is at once the goddess of love and hatred—with the attending Brahman priests officiating there. Somewhere under this fortress lies the head of the simple-hearted Afzal Khan, the renowned Bijapoor general. Here was enacted by the hand of Sivaji, the founder of the great Mahratta empire, one of the darkest of the many tragedies with which the history of India abounds. Having induced, through false pretences, Afzal Khan to visit him unarmed and attended by one sole follower, Sivaji met the trusting foe with open arms and slew him when in the act of embracing him. Sayid Bunder, the faithful follower of the general, refused to surrender even on condition of having his life granted to him, and suffered the same fate as his master. There and then the signals agreed upon boomed forth from this old fort. The Mhawalis rushed from their places of concealment all along the hillside on the khan's retinue, stationed at the foot of the hill, and slaughtered and dispersed them. Thus Sivaji defeated the enemy and acquired at the same time great amount of treasure as well as reputation as a warrior.
Satarah, or "the Star City," is full of antiquities and historical associations; every rock and hill and fortress has its own deadly secret—sometimes more than one—of murder, bloodshed, treachery, and triumph on the part of the Mohguls, Mahrattas, or British, besides other local interests. The town lies on a high slope or plain between two ranges of hills, one on the east and one on the west. The western hills have been occupied for many hundred years by the descendants of the early Mahratta Brahmans. They are covered with temples, huge, ancient, and solemn; gods and goddesses in ivory and stone, admirably wrought, sit enshrined in each of these. The priests worship them merely for the sake of their age and number. Tall, gray-bearded monkeys abound on these hills, and while we stood gazing at one of the temples a troop of these creatures assembled on the roof and showed signs and symptoms of great excitement or displeasure.
The Satarah bazaar is peculiar and well worth visiting. The Mahratta women are as free and as unconfined in their movements almost as the English. They are darker and less good-looking than those at Wye and on the hills.