Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East, Oliver Optic [read along books TXT] 📗

turn the snakes remaining in the baskets were released, and allowed to feast on the milk as others were removed. There was a great crowd of sapwallahs in charge of them, and none of them were permitted to escape. The reptiles showed their temper as they were taken from the milk by spreading their hoods; but they were so skilfully manipulated that they had no chance to bite.

"I think I have had enough of this thing," said Mr. Woolridge, with a look of disgust on his face. "There is no fun at all in it, and I should like to make them a target for my revolver."

"It is about time for tiffin, and we had better return to the hotel," added Lord Tremlyn. "I shall keep you busy this afternoon; and while you are resting you shall take in a Nautch dance, which is one of the institutions of this country. After that we shall go to the island of Elephanta."

The live boys of the party were rather pleased with the spectacle, though they had had enough of it; while the ladies, whose flesh had been "crawling" at the uncanny sight, were glad to escape. They all reached the hotel, and were hungry enough after the long jaunt of the forenoon to appreciate the "tiffin."

CHAPTER XIX THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA

The influence of Lord Tremlyn and Sir Modava was enough to procure anything in Bombay, and an apartment that served as a special banquet hall had been prepared at their command, and their guests were introduced to it immediately after tiffin. As the viscount had suggested, they were considerably fatigued after the long jaunt of the forenoon, though they were refreshed by the luncheon they had taken. The hall was furnished with sofas and easy-chairs for the occasion, and they were made very comfortable.

The performers were seated on the floor of the room when the company took their places. A man with a slouched turban and something like a sheet wound around his body, reaching nearly to his ankles, the only clothing he wore, entered the hall. At the entrance of the party the girls rose from the floor and saluted them deferentially.

There were six of them, very modestly dressed, only their arms and feet being bare. Their black hair was parted in the middle, and combed back behind the ears, after the fashion of many years ago in the United States. They all wore ornaments in their ears, and around their ankles. The material of their dresses was various, some of it quite rich, with pearls and gold in places. They looked quite serious, as though they were about to engage in a religious ceremony, though it had no such connection. Some of them were decidedly pretty, though their style of beauty was not entirely to the taste of the Americans. They had black eyes, and they looked the visitors full in the face, and with entire self-possession.

"Now what are these girls, Sir Modava?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

"They are professional dancers, and that is their sole occupation," replied he. "They are engaged by rich people when they give parties, and for weddings and other festive occasions."

"Is that man the only musician?"

"He is the only one for this entertainment, and he plays the tom-tom with his fingers. I am afraid you do not appreciate our native music, and we did not engage any more of it. They are about to begin."

The musician beat the tom-tom, and the girls rose from the floor, shook out their dresses as any lady would, and then it appeared that the ornaments on their ankles were bells, which rattled as though it were sleighing-time as they moved about. They formed in a semicircle before the audience; one of them stepped forward, and turned herself around very slowly and gracefully, with a quivering of the body, like the gypsy girls of Spain, which caused her bells to jingle.

With eyes half-closed, and with a languishing expression on her dusky face, she made a variety of gestures, posturing frequently as she continued to turn. When this one seemed to have exhausted her material, another advanced to the front, and proceeded to exhibit her variety of gestures and postures, which were but slightly different from those of the first one, though she went through the movements of a snake-charmer. In like manner all the performers went through their several parts, imitating various musicians on different native instruments.

Two of them went through a very lively performance, leaping and whirling very rapidly. The exhibition concluded with a round dance, which was thought to be very pretty, perhaps because it was exceedingly lively. Mrs. Belgrave and Mrs. Blossom had never been to a theatre in their lives, never saw a ballet, and were not capable of appreciating the posturing, though the animated dance pleased them. The Nautch girls retired, and the "Nautch," as such an occasion is called, was ended.

"Perhaps you have seen snakes enough for one day," said Lord Tremlyn; "but I thought you ought to see the performance of the snake-charmers. We will have it here instead of in the open street; and it is quite different from the show you witnessed this forenoon."

As he spoke the door opened, and a couple of old and rather snaky-looking Hindus, folded up in a profusion of cloths, rather than garments, entered the apartment. Sir Modava conducted them to a proper distance from the audience, who could not help distrusting the good intentions of the vicious-looking reptiles. Each of them carried such a basket as the party had seen in the square. The men seemed to be at least first cousins to the serpents the baskets contained, for their expression was subtle enough to stamp them as belonging to the same family.

The performers squatted on the floor, and each placed a basket before him, removing the cover; but the serpents did not come out. The charmers then produced a couple of instruments which Sir Modava called lutes, looking more like a dried-up summer crookneck squash, with a mouthpiece, and a tube with keys below the bulb. Adjusting it to their lips, they began to play; and the music was not bad, and it appeared to be capable of charming the cobras, for they raised their heads out of the baskets.

The melody produced a strange effect upon the reptiles, for they began to wriggle and twist as they uncoiled themselves. They hissed and outspread their hoods, and instead of being charmed by the music, it seemed as though their wrath had been excited. They made an occasional dart at the human performers, who dodged them as though they had been in their native jungles, with their business fangs in order for deadly work. But the Hindu gentleman explained that they could bite, though they could not kill, after their poison fangs had been removed.

Then one of the performers stood up, and seizing his snake by the neck, he swung him three times around his head, and dropped him on the floor. There he lay extended at his full length, as stiff as though he had taken a dose of his own poison.

"I have killed my serpent!" exclaimed the Hindu with a groan. "But I can make him into a useful cane."

Sir Modava interpreted his remarks, and the fellow picked up his snake, and walked before the audience, using it as a staff, and pretending to support himself upon it. Then he held out the reptile to the visitors, and offered to sell his cane; but they recoiled, and the ladies were on the point of rushing from the room when Sir Modava ordered him off. He retreated a proper distance, and then thrust the head of the creature beneath his turban, and continued to crowd him into it till nothing but his tail was in sight. Then he took off his head covering, and showed the reptile coiled up within it.

Lord Tremlyn looked at his watch, and then carried a piece of money to the chief charmer, which he received with many salaams, in which his companion joined him, for the fee was a very large one. He suggested that the party had had enough of this performance, to which all the ladies, with Mr. Woolridge, heartily agreed. The carriages were at the door of the hotel, and the company were hurriedly driven to the Apollo Bunder, where they found a steam-launch in waiting for them. Lord Tremlyn had arranged the excursions so that everything proceeded like clockwork, and Captain Ringgold wondered what he should have done without his assistance.

The island of Elephanta was about five miles distant, and in half an hour the party landed. Upon it were a couple of hills, and it was entirely covered with woods. One of the first things to attract the attention was a singular tree, which seemed to be a family of a hundred of them; for the branches reached down to the ground, and took root there, though the lower ends were spread out in numerous fibres, leaving most of the roots above the soil.

"This is a banyan-tree," said Sir Modava. "It is a sort of fig-tree, and you see that the leaves are shaped like a heart. It bears a fruit of a rich scarlet color, which grows in couples from the stems of the leaves. They are really figs, and they are an important article of food. In time the trunk of the tree decays and disappears, and temples are made of the thick branches. Some of these trees have three thousand stems rooted in the ground, many of them as big as oaks: and these make a complete forest of themselves. One of them is said to have sheltered seven thousand people; but I never saw one as big as that."

The party proceeded towards the caves, but had not gone far before they were arrested by the screams of some of the ladies, who were wandering in search of flowers. Louis Belgrave was with his mother and Miss Blanche. Sir Modava, who was telling the rest of the company something more about the banyan-tree, rushed to the spot from which the alarm came. There he found Louis with his revolver in readiness to fire.

"Snakes!" screamed Mrs. Belgrave.

In front of them, asleep on a rock, were two large snakes. The Hindu gentleman halted at the side of the lady, and burst out into a loud laugh.

"The snakes of India seem to be determined that you shall see them," said he. "But you need not fire, Mr. Belgrave; for those snakes are as harmless as barnyard fowls, and they don't know enough to bite."

"I see that they are not cobras," added Louis, as he returned the revolver to his pocket. "But what are they?"

"Those are rock snakes."

"But I don't like the looks of them," said Mrs. Belgrave, as she continued her retreat towards the path.

"I think they are horrid," added Miss Blanche.

"But they do no harm, and very likely they do some good in the world," said Sir Modava; "but there are snakes enough that ought to be killed without meddling with them."

"You see that rock," said the viscount; "and it is a very large one. Can you make anything of its shape? I suppose not; nobody can. But that rock gave a name to this island, applied by the Portuguese two or three hundred years ago. It is said to have been in the form of an elephant. If it ever had that shape it has lost it."

"'Snakes!' screamed Mrs. Belgrave."--Page 184.

After penetrating a dense thicket, the tourists discovered a comely flight of stairs, cut out of the solid rock of which the hill is composed, extending to a considerable distance, and finally leading into the great pillared chamber forming a Hindu temple, though a level space planted with trees must first be crossed.

They entered the cave. On the left were two full columns, not yet crumbled away as others were, which gave the observers a complete view of what a vast number of others there were. Next beyond them were three pilasters clinging to the ceiling. This part of the cavern was in the light from the entrance; but farther along, considerably obscured in the darkness of the subterranean temple, were scores, and perhaps hundreds, of others. The pillars were not the graceful forms of modern times, and many of them had lost all shape.

This temple is said to have been excavated in the ninth century. The walls are covered with gigantic figures in relief. The temple is in the form of a cross, the main hall being a hundred