Under the lowest branches the horns of a bubalus gleam at intervals, and the bright eyes of antelopes are visible; there are hosts of parrots; there are butterflies flittering hither and thither; lizards lazily drag themselves up or down; flies buzz and hum; and in the midst of the silence, a sound is audible as of the palpitation of a deep and mighty life.
Seated upon a sort of pyre at the entrance of the wood is a strange being—a man—besmeared with cow-dung, completely naked, more withered than a mummy; his articulations form knots at the termination of bones that resemble sticks. He has bunches of shells suspended from his ears; his face is very long, and his nose like a vulture's beak. His left arm remains motionlessly erect in air, anchylosed, rigid as a stake; and he has been seated here so long that birds have made themselves a nest in his long hair.
At the four corners of his wooden pyre flame four fires. The sun is directly in front of him. He gazes steadily at it with widely-opened eyes; and, then without looking at Anthony, asks him:—)
"Brahmin from the shores of the Nile, what hast thou to say regarding these things?"
(Flames suddenly burst out on all sides of him, through the intervals between the logs of the pyre; and—)
The Gymnosophist (continues).
"Lo! I have buried myself in solitude, like the rhinoceros. I dwelt in the tree behind me."
I have buried myself in solitude, like the rhinoceros. I dwelt in the tree behind me