Both time and scene most appropriately combined in our favor to nourish this poetic—though, may-be, far-fetched—idea: the crumbling Cyclopean remains of many other massive ruins, which—as subsequent experience taught me—bore in their solid structure unmistakable evidence of the ancient architecture of the Hindoos, and whose solid and gigantic materials could scarcely have been misplaced save by some convulsive effort of nature: the huge disjointed and blackened fragments of rock cast in every direction around, and forming the colossal stepping-stones of our toilsome accent; all favored the impression that—
“Each ravine, each rocky spire
Of that vast mountain, stood on fire.”
The sun had set: the short twilight of the torrid zone was fast merging into darkness, still we continued to explore every nook and corner of the old ruined fort, until warned at last by Chiniah of the lateness of the hour, we reluctantly prepared to retrace our steps.
“Day-time, this bad place—night, ’tis plenty worse!” observed he. “Plenty dark come then: never can see road back to camp: then fall over these big stones. Suppose them tiger come—no rifle got—what we can do?”
“I suspect, Chiniah, your tiger is something like the ‘Jinn’ of the old fellow of the bazaar,” replied I—“a pure creature of fancy!”
Although Chiniah was not sufficiently learned in the Saxon tongue to understand, to its full extent, this figurative mode of speech, he evidently caught the purport of the general meaning of what I said, and replied rather testily that, although he knew nothing about the “Jinns,” he could—if we wished it—show us the tiger’s lair; which, although unsuccessfully watched by his former master, was undoubtedly the usual abode of the “Pharka Bagh,” or “Tiger of the Hill,” of whose existence there could not be the slightest doubt, from the many traces of him which they had then observed—such as hair, skulls, bones, and other remnants of the victims of his hunger, or his wrath.
“Come along, then,” said I: “and since we have not been able to discover any signs of the ‘Jinn,’ show us now where this tiger of yours has pitched his tent?”
Readily did Chiniah comply with this behest: his veracity had been apparently called in question; and he seemed, moreover, gladly to avail himself of the opportunity of descending from the summit of the hill, around which darkness was fast spreading its leaden mantle, when—as he justly observed—there might be considerable difficulty, as well as danger, in finding our way back to camp.