Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/301

 to shoot the Byā birds; they are sacred, and so tame. One of my servants has brought me a young bird, it flies to my hand when I call it. There is a pretty fable which says, "The old birds put a fire-fly into their nests every night to act as a lamp." Perhaps they sometimes feed their young on fire-flies, which may be the origin of the story. It is pleasing to imagine the sacred birds swinging in their pretty nests pendant from the extreme end of a branch, the interior lighted by a fire-fly lamp. The Byā bird is the Indian yellow-hammer; the nests I speak of are almost within reach of my hand, and close to the house. For the shape of the nests, see the sketch entitled "The Spring Bow." They are of grass beautifully woven together, and suspended by a long thin tapering end, the entrance hanging downwards. In the nests containing the young, there is no division, the swelling on the side is the part in which the young ones nestle together. Some of the nests appear as if they were cut short off: these are purposely built so, and contain two apartments, which are, I suppose, the places where the parent birds sit and confabulate on the aspect of affairs in general. The birds are very fond of hanging their nests from slender twigs, over a pool of water, as in the sketch, the young birds thus being in greater safety.

The wood of the babūl (acacia Arabica) is extremely hard, and is used by the Brahmans to kindle their sacred fire, by rubbing two pieces of it together, when it is of a proper age, and sufficiently dried. It produces the Indian gum Arabic. The gold earrings made in imitation of the flower of the babūl, worn by Indian women, and by some men also, are beautiful.

My ayha is ill with cholera: there is no hope of her recovery. The disease came across the Jumna, about four miles higher up than our house, and is regularly marching across the country to the Ganges: as it proceeds no fresh cases occur in the villages it leaves behind.

The old peepul moans and rustles in the wind so much, that deceived by the sound, we have often gone into the verandah joyously exclaiming "There is the rain!" To our sorrow it was only the leaves of the tree agitated by the wind.