Page:Twenty-one Days in India.djvu/172

160 become a Bheel, the sparrowhawk an eagle, the grass of the field a vast, reedy growth in which an elephant becomes a mere field-mouse. Out of the leaves come strange bird-notes, a strange silence broods over us; it is broken by strange rustlings and cries; it closes over us again strangely. Nature swoons in its glory of sunshine and weird music; it has put forth its powers in colossal timber and howling beasts of prey; it faints amid little wild flowers, fanned by breezes and butterflies.

My heart beats in strange anapaests. This dream-world of leaf and bird stirs the blood with a strange enchantment. The Spirit of Nature touches us with her caduceus:—

Our tents are played upon by the flickering shadows of the vast pipal-tree that rises in a laocoön turtuosity of roots out of an old well. The spot is cool and pleasant. Round