A month or two later I was sitting in the verandah of an hotel in Agra. A number of American globe-trotters occupied most of the other chairs, or stood about the porch, where I noticed there was a little knot of people gathered together. I was idly staring into the street when the words, “Very clever little mongoose,” suddenly attracted my attention, and I realised that two Indian conjurers were amusing the party in the porch. I went at once to the spot, and found the mongoose-snake trick was just beginning. I watched it with great attention, and I noticed that the mongoose only seemed to give the snake one single nip, and there was very little blood drawn. The business proceeded merrily, and in all respects in accordance with what I had already seen, until, at the conclusion of the sort of Salvation-Army resurrection-march, the juggler declared that the snake was quite alive and well—but he was not, he was dead, dead as Bahram the Great Hunter. No piping or tickling or pulling of his tail could awaken the very faintest response from that limp carcass, and the conjurers shuffled their things together with downcast faces, and departed in what the spectators called “a frost.” To them, no doubt, the game was absolutely meaningless; to me it seemed that the mongoose had “exceeded his instructions.”
V
A BLUE DAY
“THERE is a green hill,” you know it well; it is not very “far away,” perhaps a little over a mile, but then that mile is not quite like other miles. For one thing it takes you up 500 feet, and as that is the last pull to reach the highest point of this range (the summit of a mountain over 5000 feet in height), the climb is steep. Indeed, one begins by going down some rough stone steps, between two immense granite boulders; then you make a half-circuit of the hill by a path cut on the level, and thence descend for at least 250 feet, till you are on the narrow saddle which joins this peak to the rest of the range. Really, therefore, in a distance of little over half a mile there is an ascent of 750 feet.
And what a path it is that brings you here! For I am now on the summit, though several times on the way I was sorely tempted to sit down and put on paper the picture of that road as it lay before my eyes. It is a narrow jungle track, originally made by the rhinoceros, the bison, and the elephant, and now simply kept clear of falling trees. It is exceeding steep, as I have said, and you may remember. It begins by following the stony bed of a mountain stream, dry in fine weather, but full of water after half-an-hour’s tropical rain. Where the path is not covered by roots or stones, it is of a chocolate colour; but, in the main, it is overspread by a network of gnarled and knotted tree-roots, which, in the lapse of ages, have become so interlaced that they hide the soil. These roots, the stones round which they are often twined, and the banks on either side, are covered by mosses in infinite variety, so that when you look upwards the path stands like a moss-grown cleft in the wood.
The forest through which this track leads is a mass of dwarfed trees, of palms, shrubs, and creepers. Every tree, without exception, is clothed with moss, wherever there is room to cling on branch or stem, while often there are great fat tufts of it growing in and round the forks, or at any other place with convenient holding. The trees are moss-grown, but that is only where the innumerable creepers, ferns, and orchids leave any space to cover. The way in which these things climb up, embrace, and hang to every tree or stick that will give them a footing is simply marvellous. Even the great granite boulders are hidden by this wealth of irresistible vegetation. Through the green foliage blaze vivid patches of scarlet, marking the dazzling blossoms of a rhododendron that may be seen in all directions, but usually perched high on some convenient tree. Then there is the wonderful magnolia with its creamy petals; the jungle apple-blossom, whose white flowers are now turning to crimson berries; the forest lilac, graceful in form, and a warm heliotrope in colour. These first catch the eye, but, by-and-by, one realises that there are orchids everywhere, and that, if the blossoms are not great in size or wonderful in colour, they are still charming in form, and painted in delicate soft tones of lilac and brown, orange and lemon, while one, with strings of large, pale, apple-green blossoms, is as lovely as it is bizarre.
As for palms, the forest is full of them, in every size, colour, and shape; and wherever the sunlight can break through the foliage will be found the graceful fronds of the giant tree-fern. Lastly, the ground is carpeted with an extravagant luxuriance of ferns and flowers and “creeping things innumerable, both small and great.” The wasteful abundance of it all is what first strikes one, and then you begin to see the beauty of the details. Masses of lycopodium, ringing all the changes through wonderful metallic-blue to dark and light green, and then to russet brown; there are Malay primroses, yellow and blue, and a most delightful little pale-violet trumpet, with crinkled lip, gazing towards the light from the highest point of its delicate stem. On either side of this path one sees a dozen jungle flowers in different shades of blue or lilac; it seems to be the prevailing colour for the small flowers, as scarlet and yellow are for the great masses of more striking blossom. And then there are birds—oh yes, there are birds, but they are strange, like their surroundings. At the foot of this hill I came suddenly on a great black-and-white hornbill, which, seeing me, slowly got up and flew away with the noise of a train passing at a distance. High up the path was a collection of small birds, flitting and twittering amongst the leaves. There were hardly two of the same plumage, but most of them carried their tails spread out like fans, and many had pronounced tufts of feathers on their heads. The birds at this height are usually silent, and, when they make any sound at all, they do not seem to sing but to call; and from the jungle all round, far and near, loud and faint, will be heard similar answering calls. I was surprised to hear, suddenly, some bars of song, close by me, and I waited for a long time, peering earnestly into the tree from which the sound came; but I saw nothing and heard nothing beyond the perpetual double note (short and long, with the accent on the latter) of a bird that must be the bore and outcast of the forest.
Coming out into the clearing which crowns the hill, I passed several kinds of graceful grasses, ten or twelve feet high, and the flight of steps which leads to the actual summit is cut through a mass of bracken, over and through which hang the strange, delicately painted cups of the nepenthes, the stems of the bracken rising from a bed made rosy by the countless blossoms of a three-pointed pale-pink starwort.
In the jungle one could only see the things within reach, but, once on the peak, one has only eyes for the grandeur and magnificence of an unequalled spectacle.