Page:Karl Gjellerup - The Pilgrim Kamanita - 1911.djvu/61



I again reached the village in which my followers had taken up their quarters for the night, I did not hesitate to wake them; and, at least a couple of hours before sunrise, the caravan was on its way.

On the twelfth day, about the hour of noon, we reached a very charming valley in the wooded region of the Vedisas. A small river, clear as crystal, wound slowly through the green meadows; the gentle slopes were timbered with blossoming underwood which spread an aromatic odour all around; somewhere about the middle of the extended valley bottom, and not far from the little river, there stood a nyagrodha tree, whose impenetrable leafy dome cast a black shadow on the emerald mead beneath, and which, supported by its thousand secondary trunks, formed a grove, wherein ten caravans like mine could easily have found shelter.

I remembered the spot perfectly from our journey out, and had already decided on it as a camping-place. So a halt was made. The tired oxen waded out into the stream and drank greedily of the cooling waters, the better, by and by, to enjoy the tender grass on the banks. The men refreshed themselves with a bath, and, collecting some withered branches, proceeded to light a fire at which to cook their rice; whilst I—also reanimated by a bath—flung myself down at full length where the shadows lay 51