Ruskin Bond's Book of Nature

by Ruskin Bond

  How Far Is the River?

  Between the boy and the river was a mountain. I was a small boy, and it was a small river, but the mountain was big.

  The thickly forested mountain hid the river, but I knew it was there and what it looked like; I had never seen the river with my own eyes, but from the villagers I had heard of it, of the fish in its waters, of its rocks and currents and waterfalls, and it only remained for me to touch the water and know it personally.

  I stood in front of our house on the hill opposite the mountain, and gazed across the valley, dreaming of the river. I was barefooted, not because I couldn’t afford shoes, but because I felt free with my feet bare, because I liked the feel of warm stones and cool grass, because not wearing shoes saved me the trouble of taking them off.

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning and I knew my parents wouldn’t be home till evening. There was a loaf of bread I could take with me, and on the way I might find some fruit. Here was the chance I had been waiting for: it would not come again for a long time, because it was seldom that my father and mother visited friends for the entire day. If I came back before dark, they wouldn’t know where I had been.

  I went into the house and wrapped the loaf of bread in a newspaper. Then I closed all the doors and windows.

  The path to the river dropped steeply into the valley, then rose and went round the big mountain. It was frequently used by the villagers, woodcutters, milkmen, shepherds, mule-drivers—but there were no villages beyond the mountain or near the river.

  I passed a woodcutter and asked him how far it was to the river. He was a short, powerful man, with a creased and weathered face, and muscles that stood out in hard lumps.

  ‘Seven miles,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I am going there,’ I said.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It will take you three hours to reach it, and then you have to come back. It will be getting dark, and it is not an easy road.’

  ‘But I’m a good walker,’ I said, though I had never walked further than the two miles between our house and my school. I left the woodcutter on the path, and continued down the hill.

  It was a dizzy, winding path, and I slipped once or twice and slid into a bush or down a slope of slippery pine needles. The hill was covered with lush green ferns, the trees were entangled in creepers, and a great wild dahlia would suddenly rear its golden head from the leaves and ferns.

  Soon I was in the valley, and the path straightened out and then began to rise. I met a girl who was coming from the opposite direction. She held a scythe with which she had been cutting grass, and there were rings in her nose and ears and her arms were covered with heavy bangles. The bangles made music when she moved her wrists. It was as though her hands spoke a language of their own.

  ‘How far is it to the river?’ I asked.

  The girl had probably never been to the river, or she may have been thinking of another one, because she said, ‘Twenty miles,’ without any hesitation.

  I laughed and ran down the path. A parrot screeched suddenly, flew low over my head, a flash of blue and green. It took the course of the path, and I followed its dipping flight, running until the path rose and the bird disappeared amongst the trees.

  A trickle of water came down the hillside, and I stopped to drink. The water was cold and sharp but very refreshing. But I was soon thirsty again. The sun was striking the side of the hill, and the dusty path became hotter, the stones scorching my feet. I was sure I had covered half the distance: I had been walking for over an hour.

  Presently I saw another boy ahead of me, driving a few goats down the path.

  ‘How far is the river?’ I asked.

  He smiled and said, ‘Oh, not far, just round the next hill and straight down.’

  Feeling hungry, I unwrapped my loaf of bread and broke it in two, offering one half to the boy. We sat on the hillside and ate in silence.

  When we had finished, we walked on together and began talking; and talking, I did not notice the smarting of my feet, and the heat of the sun, the distance I had covered and the distance I had yet to cover. But after some time my companion had to take another path, and once more I was on my own.

  I missed the village boy; I looked up and down the mountain path but no one else was in sight. My own home was hidden from view by the side of the mountain, and there was no sign of the river, I began to feel discouraged. If someone had been with me, I would not have faltered; but alone, I was conscious of my fatigue and isolation.

  But I had come more than half way, and I couldn’t turn back; I had to see the river. If I failed, I would always be a little ashamed of the experience. So I walked on, past stone huts and terraced fields, until there were no more fields or huts, only forest and sun and loneliness. There were no men, and no sign of man’s influence—only trees and rocks and grass and small flowers—and silence.

  The silence was impressive and a little frightening. There was no movement, except for the bending of grass beneath my feet, and the circling of a hawk against the blind blue of the sky.

  Then, as I rounded a sharp bend, I heard the sound of water.

  I gasped with surprise and happiness, and began to run. I slipped and stumbled, but I kept on running, until I was able to plunge into the snow-cold mountain water.

  And the water was blue and white and wonderful.

  A Mountain Stream

  Early in summer the grass on the hills is still a pale yellowish green, tinged with brown, and that is how it remains until the monsoon rains bring new life to everything that subsists on the stony Himalayan soil. And then, for four months, the greens are deep, dark and emerald bright.

  But one day, taking a narrow path that left the dry Mussoorie ridge to link up with Pari Tibba, I ran across a patch of lush green grass, and I knew there had to be water there.

  The grass was soft and springy, spotted with the crimson of small, wild strawberries. Delicate maidenhair, my favourite fern, grew from a cluster of moist, glistening rocks. Moving the ferns a little, I discovered the spring, a freshet of clear sparkling water.

  I never cease to wonder at the tenacity of water—its ability to make its way through various strata of rock, zigzagging, back-tracking, finding space, cunningly discovering faults and fissures in the mountain, and sometimes travelling underground for great distances before emerging into the open. Of course, there’s no stopping water—no matter how tiny that little trickle, it has to go somewhere!

  Like this little spring. At first I thought it was too small to go anywhere, that it would dry up at the edge of the path. Then I discovered that the grass remained soft and green for some distance along the verge, and that there was moisture beneath the grass. This wet stretch ended abruptly; but, on looking further, I saw that it continued on the other side of the path, after briefly going underground again.

  I decided to follow its fortunes as it disappeared beneath a tunnel of tall grass and bracken fern. Slithering down a stony slope, I found myself in a small ravine, and there I discovered that my little spring had grown, having been joined by the waters of another spring bubbling up from beneath a patch of primroses.

  A short distance away, a spotted forktail stood on a rock, surveying this marriage of the waters. His long, forked tail moved slowly up and down. He paid no attention to me, being totally absorbed in the movements of a water spider. A swift peck, and the spider vanished, completing the bird’s breakfast. Thirsty, I cupped my hands and drank a little water. So did the forktail.

  There was now a rivulet to follow, and I continued down the ravine until I came to a small pool that was fed not only by my brook (I was already thinking of it as my very own!), but also by a little cascade of water coming down from a rocky ledge. I climbed a little way up the rocks and entered a small cave, in which there was just enough space for crouching down. Water dripped and trickled off its roof and sides. And most wonderful of all, some of these drops created tiny rainbows,
for a ray of sunlight had struck through a crevice in the cave roof making the droplets of moisture radiant with all the colours of the spectrum.

  When I emerged from the cave, I saw a pair of pine martins drinking at the pool. As soon as they saw me, they were up and away, bounding across the ravine and into the trees.

  The brook was now a small stream, but I could not follow it much further, because the hill went into a steep decline and the water tumbled over large, slippery boulders, becoming a waterfall and then a noisy little torrent as it sped toward the valley.

  Climbing up the sides of the ravine to the spur of Pari Tibba, I could see the distant silver of a meandering river, the song river, and I knew my little stream was destined to become part of it; and that the river would be joined by another that could be seen slipping over the far horizon, and that their combined waters would enter the great Ganga, further downstream. This mighty river would, in turn, wander over the rich alluvial plains of northern India, finally debauching into the ocean near the Bay of Bengal.

  And the ocean, what was it but another droplet in the universe, in the greater scheme of things? No greater than the glistening drop of water that helped start it all, where the grass grows greener around my little spring on the mountain.

  Over the years, this brook at the bottom of the hill has become a familiar. From where I live I can always hear its murmur, but I am no longer conscious of the sound except when I return from a trip to the plains.

  I have grown so used to the constant music of water that when I leave it behind I feel naked and alone, bereft of my moorings. It is like getting accustomed to the friendly rattle of teacups every morning, and then waking one day to a deathly stillness and a fleeting moment of panic.

  Below the house is a forest of oak and maple and rhododendron. The narrow path that first led me to the brook twists its way down through the trees over an open ridge where red sorrel grows wild and then down steeply through a tangle of thorn bushes, creepers and rangal-bamboo.

  At the bottom of the hill the path leads on to a grassy verge, surrounded by wild rose. The brook runs close by the verge, tumbling over smooth pebbles, over rocks worn yellow with age, on its way to the plains and to the little Song river and finally to the Ganga.

  When I first discovered the brook it was April and the wild roses were flowering, small white blossoms lying in clusters. There were still pink and blue primroses on the hill slopes and, an occasional late-flowering rhododendron provided a splash of red against the dark green of the hill.

  The spotted forktail, a bird of the Himalayan streams, was much in evidence during those early visits. It moved nimbly over the boulders with a fairy tread and continually wagged its tail. Both of us had a fondness for standing in running water. Once, while I stood in the brook, I saw a snake swim past, a slim brown snake, beautiful and lonely.

  In May and June, when the hills are always brown and dry, it remained cool and green near the stream where ferns and long grasses continued to thrive. It was a secluded spot. Few people came here. Sometimes a milkman or a coal-burner would cross the brook on his way to a village; but the nearby hill station’s summer visitors had not discovered this haven of wild and green things.

  The monkeys—langurs, in fact, with white and silver-grey fur, black faces and long swishing tails—had discovered the place but they kept to the trees and sunlit slopes. They grew quite accustomed to my presence and carried on about their work and play as though I did not exist.

  The young ones scuffled and wrestled like boys while their parents attended to each other’s toilets, stretching themselves out on the grass, beautiful animals with slim waists and long sinewy legs and tails full of character. They were clean and polite, much nicer than the red monkeys of the plains.

  During the rains the brook became a rushing torrent, bushes and small trees were swept away and the friendly murmur of the water became a threatening boom. I did not visit the place too often then. There were leeches in the long grass and they would fasten themselves onto my legs and feast on my blood.

  But it was still worthwhile tramping through the forest to feast my eyes on the foliage that sprang up in tropical profusion—soft, spongy moss; great stag-fern on the trunks of trees; mysterious and sometimes evil-looking lilies and orchids; wild dahlias and the climbing convolvulus opening its purple secrets to the morning sun.

  When the rains were over, it was October and the birds were in song again. I could lie in the sun on sweet-smelling grass and gaze up through a pattern of oak leaves into a blind-blue heaven. And I would thank my god for leaves and grass and the smell of things, the smell of mint and myrtle and bruised clover, and the touch of things, the touch of grass and air and sky.

  And then after a November hailstorm it was winter and I could not lie on the frost-bitten grass. The sound of the brook was the same but I missed the birds; the grey skies came clutching at my heart and the rain and sleet drove me indoors.

  It snowed—the snow lay heavy on the branches of the oak trees and piled up in the culverts—and the grass and the ferns and wild flowers were pressed to sleep beneath a cold white blanket: but the brook flowed on, pushing its way through and under the whiteness, towards another spring, another river.

  The Leopard

  I first saw the leopard when I was crossing the small stream that ran through the forest at the bottom of the hill on which I lived when I first came to Mussoorie. The ravine was so deep that for most of the day it remained in shadow. This encouraged many birds and animals to emerge from cover during the hours of daylight. Few people ever passed that way. It was one of the few natural sanctuaries left near Mussoorie.

  Nearly every morning, and sometimes during the day, I heard the cry of the barking deer. And in the evening walking through the forest, I disturbed parties of kaleej pheasants. The birds went gliding into the ravines on open, motionless wings. I saw pine martins and a handsome red fox. I recognized the footprints of a bear.

  As I had not come to take anything from the jungle, the birds and animals soon grew accustomed to my face. Or possibly they recognized my footsteps. After some time, my approach did not disturb them. The langurs in the oak and rhododendron trees, for instance, who would at first go leaping through the branches at my approach, now ignored me, as they munched up the tender green shoots of the oak.

  But one evening as I passed, I heard them chattering in the trees and I was not the cause of their excitement.

  As I crossed the stream and began climbing the hill, the grunting and chattering increased as though the langurs were trying to warn me of some hidden danger. A shower of pebbles came rattling down the steep hillside and I looked up to see a sinewy orange-gold leopard, poised on a rock about twenty feet above me.

  It was not looking towards me but had its head thrust attentively forward in the direction of the ravine. It must have sensed my presence because it slowly turned its head and looked down at me. It seemed a little puzzled at my presence there, and when, to give myself courage, I clapped my hands sharply, the leopard sprang away into the thickets making absolutely no sound as it melted into the shadows. I had disturbed the animal in its quest for food. But a little later I heard the quickening cry of a barking deer as it fled through the forest—the hunt was still on.

  The leopard, like other members of the cat family, is nearing extinction in India and I was surprised to find one so close to Mussoorie. Probably the deforestation that had been taking place in the surrounding hills had driven the deer into this green valley and the leopard naturally had followed.

  It was some weeks before I saw the leopard again although I was often made aware of its presence. A dry rasping cough sometimes gave it away. At times I felt certain that I was being followed. And once when I was late getting home I was startled by a family of porcupines running about in a clearing. I looked around nervously and saw two bright eyes staring at me from a thicket. I stood still, my heart banging away against my ribs. Then the eyes danced away and I realized they were on
ly fireflies.

  One day, I found the remains of a barking deer that had been partially eaten. I wondered why the leopard had not hidden the remains of his meal and decided that he had been disturbed while eating. Then, climbing the hill I met a party of shikaris resting beneath the oaks. They asked me if I had seen a leopard. I said I had not. They said they knew there was a leopard in the forest. Leopard skins, they told me, were selling in Delhi at over a thousand rupees each! Of course, there was a ban on the export of its skins but they gave me to understand that there were ways and means . . . I thanked them for their information and moved on, feeling uneasy and disturbed.

  The shikaris had seen the carcass of the deer and the leopard’s pug marks and they kept coming to the forest. Almost every evening I heard their guns banging away, for they were ready to fire at almost everything.

  ‘There’s leopard about,’ they told me. ‘You should carry a gun.’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ I said.

  There were fewer birds to be seen and even the langurs had moved on. The red fox did not show itself and the pine martins who had earlier become bold, now dashed into hiding at my approach. The smell of one human is like the smell of any other.

  I thought no more of the men. My attitude towards them was similar to the attitude of the denizens of the forest—they were men, unpredictable and to be avoided if possible.

  One day after crossing the stream, I climbed Pari Tibba, a bleak, scrub-covered hill where no one lived. This was a stiff undertaking because there was no path to the top and I had to scramble up a precipitous rock face with the help of rocks and roots which were apt to come away in my groping hand. But at the top was a plateau with a few pine trees, their upper branches catching the wind and humming softly. There I found the ruins of what must have been the first settlers—just a few piles of rubble now overgrown with weeds, sorrel, dandelion and nettles.