Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/542

476 and the silence of the night was broken only by the voice of the dashing stream that leaped down the gorge, as if in haste to mingle with the placid waters of the Bowany in its course through the plains. The musaljee's torch threw a fitful glare upon the bearers, enabling them to pick their way down the steep mountain-pass. Hoolicul stood out against the starry sky, black, frowning, and sombre. The steep bank on our left, from which our path was cut, was shrouded with shrubs and trees, upon whose leaves our torch cast a glancing, flashing light, that made the gloom beyond seem more impenetrable. It was a place and an hour to call up the memory of fearful tales of night attacks made by the prowling panther or the more ferocious tiger; but the loud cries with which our bearers made the silent leafy arches ring, would have been protection enough in less-frequented ways than this.

As the day began to break, the scene grew more cheerful. The mountain-top, first to announce the coming dawn, framed itself into distinctness, and the hill-side on our left became visible as an overhanging wall of wood, with luxuriant creepers climbing the trunks, hanging in festoons from branches, and trailing till they