HPB-Caves-5: Difference between revisions

Besides, the full moon was about to rise at eight p.m. Three hours' ascent of the mountain, on such a moonlit, tropical night as would tax the descriptive powers of the greatest artists, was worth any sacrifice. Public opinion begins to name aloud our own V. V. Vereshtchagin<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin] (1842-1904) – one of the most famous Russian war artists, who has lived several years in India. – Ed.</ref> among the few artists who was able to fix upon canvas the subtle charm of a moonlit night in India...

Having dined hurriedly in the dak bungalow (post station) we  demanded for our sedan chairs, and, drawing our roof-like ''topees'' over our eyes, we started at 8 p.m. Eight ''coolies'', clad, as usual, in “vine-leaves” made of rag, took possession of each chair and hurried up the mountain, uttering the shrieks and yells no true Hindu can dispense with. Each chair was accompanied besides by a relay of eight more porters. So we were sixty-four, without counting the Hindus on horseback and their servants – an army sufficient to frighten any stray leopard or jungle tiger, in fact any animal, except our fearless “cousins” on the side of our great-grandfather Hanuman. As soon as we turned into a thicket at the foot of the Mountain, several dozens of these kinsmen joined our procession. Thanks to the achievements of Rama's ally, monkeys are sacred in India, almost untouchable. The Government, emulating the earlier wisdom of the East India Company, forbids everyone to molest them, not only when met with in the forests, which in all justice belong to them, but even when they invade the city gardens. Leaping from one branch to another, chattering like magpies, and making the most formidable grimaces, they followed us almost all the way, like so many midnight kikimoras<ref>Kikimora (Rus. кикимора) – a female house spirit in Slavic mythology, who spins at night, being mainly evil. – Ed.</ref>. Sometimes they hung on the trees in full moonlight, like rusalkas<ref>Rusalka (Rus. русалка) – a female human-like nature spirit in Slavic mythology with wide variaty of meanings, being mainly the keeper and watcher upon fields, forests and rivers. Since 20th century used as a translation of Western mermaid, applying the same image. – Ed.</ref>; sometimes they preceded us, awaiting our arrival at the turns of the road as if showing us the way. They never left us. One monkey babe fell down on my knees. In a moment his mother, jumping without any ceremony over the coolies' shoulders, came to his rescue, hitched him to her chest, and, after making the most ungodly grimace at me... ran away at once.

Higher and higher we ascended by the steep winding path, and the forest grew perceptibly thicker, darker, and more impenetrable... Some of the thickets were as dark as graves. Passing under hundred-year-old banyans it was impossible to distinguish one's own finger at the distance of two vershoks [8.89&nbsp;cm, 3.5 in]. It seemed to me that in certain places it would not be possible to advance without feeling our way, but our ''coolies'' never made a false step, but hastened onwards. Not one of us uttered a word. It was as if we had agreed to be silent at these moments. We felt as though wrapped in the heavy veil of darkness, and no sound was heard but the short, irregular breathing of the porters, and the cadence of their quick, nervous footsteps upon the stony soil of the path... One felt sick at heart and ashamed of belonging to that human race, one part of which makes of the other mere beasts of burden. These poor wretches are paid for their work 4 annas<ref>Anna – a currency unit formerly used in British India, equal to 1⁄16 of a rupee. – Ed.</ref> a day all the year round. Four annas, which is less then 8 kopeykas<ref>Kopeyka (Rus. копейка) – 1/100 of a Ruble in Russian currency. – Ed.</ref>, for going 8 miles [12.87&nbsp;km] upwards and eight miles downwards not less than twice a day; altogether 32 miles [51.5&nbsp;km] up and down a mountain 1,500 feet [457.2&nbsp;m] high, carrying a burden of 6 poods [98.28&nbsp;kg, 216.66 pounds]!.. However, India is a country where everything is adjusted to never changing customs, and 4 annas a day is a fair wage for any kind of  labor. Call a skilled day laborer-jeweler, and he will sit with his legs tucked up beneath him, without any tools other than tongs and a tiny iron stove, and will create for you, out of your gold and according to the given drawing, an ornament worthy workshop of fairies. For this, that is, for 10 hours of work, he will ask 4 annas...

Several times we met with lonely pedestrians, men and even young women, coming down Mataran on their way home after a day's work. It often happens that some of them never reach home. The police unconcernedly report that the missing man has been carried off by a tiger, or killed by a snake. All is said, and he is soon entirely forgotten. One person, more or less, out of the 240 millions who inhabit India does not matter much! But there exists a very strange superstition amoung the Deccan nations grouped around this mysterious, and only partially explored, mountain. The natives assert that, in spite of the considerable number of victims, there has never been found ''a single skeleton''. The corpse, whether intact or mangled by tigers, is immediately carried away by the monkeys, who, in the latter case, gather the scattered bones, and bury them skillfully in deep holes, that no traces ever remain. Englishmen laugh at this superstition, but the police do not deny the fact of the entire disappearance of the bodies. When the sides of the mountain were excavated, in the course of the construction of the railway, separate bones, with the marks of tigers' teeth upon them, broken bracelets, and other adornments, were found at an incredible depth from the surface. The fact of these things being broken showed clearly that they were not buried by men, because, neither the religion of the Hindus, nor their greed, would allow them to break and bury silver and gold... Is it possible, then, that, as amongst men one hand washes the other, so in the animal kingdom one species conceals the crimes of another?

Having spent the night in a Portuguese inn, woven like an eagle's nest out of bamboos, and clinging to the almost vertical side of a rock, we rose at daybreak, and, having visited all the ''points de vue<ref>Points of interest, sights (Fr.). – Ed.</ref>'' famed for their beauty, made our preparations to go back. By daylight the panorama was still more splendid than by night; volumes would not suffice to describe it. Had it not been that on three sides the horizon was shut out by rugged ridges of mountain, the whole of the Deccan plateau would have appeared before our eyes. Bombay was so distinct that it seemed quite near to us, and the firth that separates the town from Salsetta shone like a tiny silvery streak. It winds like a snake on its way to the port, surrounding Kanari and other islets, which look the very image of green peas scattered on the white cloth of its bright waters, and, finally, joins the blinding line of the Indian Ocean in the extreme distance. On the outer side is the northern Konkan, terminated by the Tal-Ghats, the needle-like summits of the Jano-Maoli rocks, and, lastly, the battlemented ridge of Funell, whose bold silhouette stands out in strong relief against the distant blue of the dim sky, like a giant's castle in some fairy tale. Further on looms Parbul, whose flat summit, in the days of old, was the seat of the gods, whence, according to the legends, Vishnu spoke to mortals. And there below, where the defile widens into a valley, all covered with huge separate rocks, each of which is crowded with historical and mythological legends, you may perceive the dim blue ridge of mountains, still loftier and still more strangely shaped. That is Khandala, which is overhung by a huge stone block, known by the name of the Duke's Nose. On the opposite side, under the very summit of the mountain, is situated Karli or Koorli, which, according to the opinion of archeologists, is the most ancient and best preserved of Indian cave temples.

One who has traversed the passes of the Caucasus again and again; one who, from the top of the Cross Mountain, has beheld beneath one’s feet thunderstorms and lightnings; who has visited the Alps and the Rigi; who is well acquainted with the Andes and Cordilleras, and knows every corner of the Catskills in America, may be allowed, I hope, the expression of a humble opinion. The Caucasian Mountains, I do not deny, are more majestic than Ghats of India, and their splendour cannot be dimmed by comparison with these; but their beauty is of a type, if I may use this expression. At their sight one experiences true delight, but at the same time a sensation of awe. One feels like a pigmy before these Titans of nature. But in India, the Himalayas excepted, mountains produce quite a different impression. The highest summits of the Deccan, as well as of the triangular ridge that fringes Northern Hindustan, and of the Eastern Ghats, do not exceed 3,000 feet [914.4&nbsp;m]. Only in the Ghats of the Malabar coast, from Cape Comorin to the river Surat, are there heights of 7,000 feet [2133.6&nbsp;m] above the surface of the sea. So that no comparison can be drawn between these and the hoary headed patriarch Elbrus, or Kazbek, which exceeds 15-16 thousands feet [4,572 – 4,876.8&nbsp;m].<ref>Elbrus is 5642&nbsp;m (18,510.5 feet) and Kazbek is 5033&nbsp;m (16,512.47 feet), according to modern data. – Ed.</ref> The chief and original charm of Indian mountains wonderfully consists in their capricious shapes. Sometimes these mountains, or, rather, separate volcanic peaks standing in a row, form chains; but it is more common to find them scattered, to the great perplexity of geologists, without visible cause, in places where the formation seems quite unsuitable. Spacious valleys, surrounded by high walls of rock, over the very ridge of which passes the railway, are common. Look below, and it will seem to you that you are gazing upon the studio of some whimsical Titanic sculptor, filled with half finished groups, statues, and monuments... Here is an dream-land bird, seated upon the head of a monster 600 feet [182.88&nbsp;m] high, spreading its wings and widely gaping its dragon's mouth; by its side the bust of a man, surmounted by a helmet, battlemented like the walls of a feudal castle; there, again, new monsters devouring each other, statues with broken limbs, disorderly heaps of huge balls, lonely fortresses with loopholes<ref>''Loopholes'' – openings or slits in wall through which archers may defend the castle. – Ed.</ref>, ruined towers and bridges. All this scattered and intermixed with shapes changing incessantly like the dreams of delirium... And the chief attraction is that nothing here is the result of art, everything is the pure sport of Nature, which, however, has occasionally been turned to account by ancient builders. The art of man in India is to be sought in the ''interior'' of the earth, not on its ''surface''. Ancient Hindus seldom built their temples otherwise than in the bosom of the earth, as though they were ashamed of their efforts, or did not dare to rival the sculpture of nature. Having chosen, for instance, a pyramidal rock, or a cupola shaped hillock like Elephanta, or Karli, they scraped away inside, according to the Puranas, for centuries, planning on so grand a style that no modern architecture has been able to conceive anything to equal it. Fables (?) about the Cyclops seem even truer in India than in Egypt.

The pass of Bhor Ghat is safely accomplished and we are in Khandala. Our bungalow here is built on the very edge of a ravine, which nature herself has carefully concealed under a cover of the most luxuriant vegetation. Everything is in blossom, and, in this unfathomed recess, a botanist might find sufficient material to occupy him for a lifetime. Palms have disappeared; for the most part they grow only near the sea. Here they are replaced by bananas, mango trees, ''pipals'' (ficus religiosa), fig trees, and thousands of other trees and shrubs, unknown to such outsiders as ourselves. The Indian flora is too often slandered and misrepresented as being full of beautiful, but scentless, flowers. At some seasons this may be true enough, but, as long as jasmines, the various balsams, white tuberoses, and golden ''champa<ref>''Champa'' or ''champak'' – Indian name for plumeria or frangipani tree. – Ed.</ref>'' – the king amoung all blooming trees, because the size of the flowers – are in blossom, this statement is far from being true. The head may spin only from the smell of ''champa'', which usually grows in mountainous areas and bloom like aloe once every hundred years; and this year hundreds of such trees were in bloom in Matheran and Khandala.

It was long past midnight, but we still sat listening to this legend and others of a similar kind. At length the innkeeper sent a servant to warn us of the dangers that threatened us if we lingered too long on the verandah on a ''moonlit'' night. The programme of these dangers was divided into three sections: (1)&nbsp;snakes, (2)&nbsp;beasts of prey, and (3)&nbsp;dacoits. Besides the cobra and the “rock-snake,” the surrounding mountains are full of a kind of very small mountain snake, called ''furzena'', the most dangerous of all. Their poison kills human with the swiftness of lightning. The moonlight attracts them, and whole parties of these uninvited guests crawl up to the verandahs of houses, in order to “warm” themselves; in any case here it is warmer for them than on the ground. The verdant and perfumed abyss below our verandah happened, too, to be the favorite resort of tigers and leopards, who come thither to “quench their thirst” at the broad brook which runs along the bottom, and then wander until daybreak under the windows of the bungalow. Lastly, there were the mad dacoits, whose dens are scattered in mountains inaccessible to the police, who often shoot Europeans simply to afford themselves the pleasure of sending to one’s forebears one of the hateful ''bellatis'' (foreigners). Three days before our arrival the wife of a Brahmin disappeared, carried off by a tiger, and two favorite dogs of the commandant were killed by snakes. We declined to wait for further explanations, but hurried to our rooms. At daybreak we were to start for Karli, 6 miles [9.66&nbsp;km] from this place.