"Educated me, forsooth!" she exclaimed with scorn, her nostrils twitching; "they robbed me of my five senses, and gave me instead—accomplishments. Can you tell the time of the day from the sun, sir? Can you say when the sambhur passed whose track is at your feet, and how many wolves were in the pack that followed him? Would your sense of smell lead you to a pool of fresh water in mid-jungle? Can you feel the proximity of a crouching leopard without seeing it? What sort of education is it that neglects the senses? Oh, the highest product of your civilization—your poet-laureate, Tennyson—felt the same thing stir in his pulses when he wrote 'Locksley Hall,' and deprecated the 'poring over miserable books' with blinded eye-sight."
"'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,'" I quoted, as she paused in her rapid discourse.
"For the European, perhaps; not for the Chinaman. No, I have no feeling of gratitude towards those you speak of; for the large freedom of the Terai they gave me a brick cage in London; they gave me endless crowds of miserable men and women for these, my green brothers, who are always happy," and she put out her hand and caressed a tree that grew beside her.
"As for Christianity," she resumed, "it is but one facet in the jewel, morality. Christ was but an adept, I take it, who attained to his miraculous powers—as do our rishis and jogis—by prayer and fasting and meditation. I cannot see that Christian vices are fewer or more venial than those of our people."
"But don't you miss your books, and the keeping in touch with the progress of civilization?" I asked.
"Must I quote 'books in the running brooks' to you? What book is there like this book of God's?" and she swept her arm round her. "And if my son grow up to be brave and strong, that will be civilization enough for me."
"But your music?"
"Ah! that is the only thing I miss. But I recollect all of Schumann's songs and Schubert's, some of Beethoven's—and then I make songs of my own to fit the moods of my jungle mother, and I have some small skill in weaving words for them."
"And the man who hanged himself?"
"He was no man," she flashed; "who had not the strength of a girl, and who was as weak-eyed as the bat in daytime! You shall see a man indeed, one who fears not to track the tiger afoot, and who even beats me when he sees fit," and she called aloud, "Aho! Kali Dass, aho!"