Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/358

 *powers me. I see a man crossing the parched and dusty compound, with a lota (brass bowl) and a phleme in his hand, to bleed eleven gynees (dwarf cows), and two horses,—all ill of infectious fever! I must return to my book and my sofa, and dream away the hours.

Shall I ever see again those beautiful scenes which I now see? Shall I ascend again that Mont Anvert, and look down upon the Mer-de-glace? Twenty mosquitoes, of which I have just caught one, say, No; but I say, Yes; and I hope once more to behold the lovely vistas in the New Forest, and once again to muse by the sad sea waves on the Western shore.

17th.—My ayha was decorated last night with earrings, made of freshly gathered jasmine flowers, strung double on a wire, and hanging down to her shoulders; the scent was so powerful, I could not endure it in the room. Under her chādar they had a good effect; she wore the bela, the double Arabian jasmine (jasminum sambac pleno; jasminum, from the Arabian ysmyn).

The flowers are most overpoweringly sweet, pure white, and double. Native women are extremely fond of decorating themselves with necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, formed of freshly gathered flowers.

The champa is a flowering tree (michelia champaca), sweet-scented michelia. From the bud of the champa flower is taken the pattern of the champa-kullee necklaces the Indian women wear; kullee, a bud.

21st.—We have had heavy storms, with hailstones of most surprising magnitude; I wish the wind would change; the new moon has "the old moon in her arms," and if the wind change not now, we shall still have to endure this dreadful weather. The garden is a cake of parched white earth, all split and cracked.

What plagues these servants are! This morning, one of the cows being very ill, I ordered a mixture for her; at sunset it had not been given to her, because, to use the man's own words, "he wished to send a man into the district, to dig up a certain sort of rat, which rat, having been mixed up with hot spices, he would give to the cow, and she would be well!"

Very provoking! the animal will die on account of not having