Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA

  The influence of Lord Tremlyn and Sir Modava was enough to procure anythingin Bombay, and an apartment that served as a special banquet hall had beenprepared at their command, and their guests were introduced to itimmediately after tiffin. As the viscount had suggested, they wereconsiderably fatigued after the long jaunt of the forenoon, though theywere refreshed by the luncheon they had taken. The hall was furnished withsofas and easy-chairs for the occasion, and they were made verycomfortable.

  The performers were seated on the floor of the room when the company tooktheir places. A man with a slouched turban and something like a sheet woundaround his body, reaching nearly to his ankles, the only clothing he wore,entered the hall. At the entrance of the party the girls rose from thefloor and saluted them deferentially.

  There were six of them, very modestly dressed, only their arms and feetbeing bare. Their black hair was parted in the middle, and combed backbehind the ears, after the fashion of many years ago in the United States.They all wore ornaments in their ears, and around their ankles. Thematerial of their dresses was various, some of it quite rich, with pearlsand gold in places. They looked quite serious, as though they were about toengage in a religious ceremony, though it had no such connection. Some ofthem were decidedly pretty, though their style of beauty was not entirelyto the taste of the Americans. They had black eyes, and they looked thevisitors full in the face, and with entire self-possession.

  "Now what are these girls, Sir Modava?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.

  "They are professional dancers, and that is their sole occupation," repliedhe. "They are engaged by rich people when they give parties, and forweddings and other festive occasions."

  "Is that man the only musician?"

  "He is the only one for this entertainment, and he plays the tom-tom withhis fingers. I am afraid you do not appreciate our native music, and we didnot engage any more of it. They are about to begin."

  The musician beat the tom-tom, and the girls rose from the floor, shook outtheir dresses as any lady would, and then it appeared that the ornaments ontheir ankles were bells, which rattled as though it were sleighing-time asthey moved about. They formed in a semicircle before the audience; one ofthem stepped forward, and turned herself around very slowly and gracefully,with a quivering of the body, like the gypsy girls of Spain, which causedher bells to jingle.

  With eyes half-closed, and with a languishing expression on her dusky face,she made a variety of gestures, posturing frequently as she continued toturn. When this one seemed to have exhausted her material, another advancedto the front, and proceeded to exhibit her variety of gestures andpostures, which were but slightly different from those of the first one,though she went through the movements of a snake-charmer. In like mannerall the performers went through their several parts, imitating variousmusicians on different native instruments.

  Two of them went through a very lively performance, leaping and whirlingvery rapidly. The exhibition concluded with a round dance, which wasthought to be very pretty, perhaps because it was exceedingly lively. Mrs.Belgrave and Mrs. Blossom had never been to a theatre in their lives, neversaw a ballet, and were not capable of appreciating the posturing, thoughthe animated dance pleased them. The Nautch girls retired, and the"Nautch," as such an occasion is called, was ended.

  "Perhaps you have seen snakes enough for one day," said Lord Tremlyn; "butI thought you ought to see the performance of the snake-charmers. We willhave it here instead of in the open street; and it is quite different fromthe show you witnessed this forenoon."

  As he spoke the door opened, and a couple of old and rather snaky-lookingHindus, folded up in a profusion of cloths, rather than garments, enteredthe apartment. Sir Modava conducted them to a proper distance from theaudience, who could not help distrusting the good intentions of thevicious-looking reptiles. Each of them carried such a basket as the partyhad seen in the square. The men seemed to be at least first cousins to theserpents the baskets contained, for their expression was subtle enough tostamp them as belonging to the same family.

  The performers squatted on the floor, and each placed a basket before him,removing the cover; but the serpents did not come out. The charmers thenproduced a couple of instruments which Sir Modava called lutes, lookingmore like a dried-up summer crookneck squash, with a mouthpiece, and a tubewith keys below the bulb. Adjusting it to their lips, they began to play;and the music was not bad, and it appeared to be capable of charming thecobras, for they raised their heads out of the baskets.

  The melody produced a strange effect upon the reptiles, for they began towriggle and twist as they uncoiled themselves. They hissed and outspreadtheir hoods, and instead of being charmed by the music, it seemed as thoughtheir wrath had been excited. They made an occasional dart at the humanperformers, who dodged them as though they had been in their nativejungles, with their business fangs in order for deadly work. But the Hindugentleman explained that they could bite, though they could not kill, aftertheir poison fangs had been removed.

  Then one of the performers stood up, and seizing his snake by the neck, heswung him three times around his head, and dropped him on the floor. Therehe lay extended at his full length, as stiff as though he had taken a doseof his own poison.

  "I have killed my serpent!" exclaimed the Hindu with a groan. "But I canmake him into a useful cane."

  Sir Modava interpreted his remarks, and the fellow picked up his snake, andwalked before the audience, using it as a staff, and pretending to supporthimself upon it. Then he held out the reptile to the visitors, and offeredto sell his cane; but they recoiled, and the ladies were on the point ofrushing from the room when Sir Modava ordered him off. He retreated aproper distance, and then thrust the head of the creature beneath histurban, and continued to crowd him into it till nothing but his tail was insight. Then he took off his head covering, and showed the reptile coiled upwithin it.

  Lord Tremlyn looked at his watch, and then carried a piece of money to thechief charmer, which he received with many salaams, in which his companionjoined him, for the fee was a very large one. He suggested that the partyhad had enough of this performance, to which all the ladies, with Mr.Woolridge, heartily agreed. The carriages were at the door of the hotel,and the company were hurriedly driven to the Apollo Bunder, where theyfound a steam-launch in waiting for them. Lord Tremlyn had arranged theexcursions so that everything proceeded like clockwork, and CaptainRinggold wondered what he should have done without his assistance.

  The island of Elephanta was about five miles distant, and in half an hourthe party landed. Upon it were a couple of hills, and it was entirelycovered with woods. One of the first things to attract the attention was asingular tree, which seemed to be a family of a hundred of them; for thebranches reached down to the ground, and took root there, though the lowerends were spread out in numerous fibres, leaving most of the roots abovethe soil.

  "This is a banyan-tree," said Sir Modava. "It is a sort of fig-tree, andyou see that the leaves are shaped like a heart. It bears a fruit of a richscarlet color, which grows in couples from the stems of the leaves. Theyare really figs, and they are an important article of food. In time thetrunk of the tree decays and disappears, and temples are made of the thickbranches. Some of these trees have three thousand stems rooted in theground, many of them as big as oaks: and these make a complete forest ofthemselves. One of them is said to have sheltered seven thousand people;but I never saw one as big as that."

  The party proceeded towards the caves, but had not gone far before theywere arrested by the screams of some of the ladies, who were wandering insearch of flowers. Louis Belgrave was with his mother and Miss Blanche. SirModava, who was telling the rest of the company something more about thebanyan-tree, rushed to the spot from which the alarm came. There he foundLouis with his revolver in readiness to fire.

  "Snakes!" screamed Mrs. Belgrave.

  In
front of them, asleep on a rock, were two large snakes. The Hindugentleman halted at the side of the lady, and burst out into a loud laugh.

  "The snakes of India seem to be determined that you shall see them," saidhe. "But you need not fire, Mr. Belgrave; for those snakes are as harmlessas barnyard fowls, and they don't know enough to bite."

  "I see that they are not cobras," added Louis, as he returned the revolverto his pocket. "But what are they?"

  "Those are rock snakes."

  "But I don't like the looks of them," said Mrs. Belgrave, as she continuedher retreat towards the path.

  "I think they are horrid," added Miss Blanche.

  "But they do no harm, and very likely they do some good in the world," saidSir Modava; "but there are snakes enough that ought to be killed withoutmeddling with them."

  "You see that rock," said the viscount; "and it is a very large one. Canyou make anything of its shape? I suppose not; nobody can. But that rockgave a name to this island, applied by the Portuguese two or three hundredyears ago. It is said to have been in the form of an elephant. If it everhad that shape it has lost it."

  "'Snakes!' screamed Mrs. Belgrave."--Page 184.]

  After penetrating a dense thicket, the tourists discovered a comely flightof stairs, cut out of the solid rock of which the hill is composed,extending to a considerable distance, and finally leading into the greatpillared chamber forming a Hindu temple, though a level space planted withtrees must first be crossed.

  They entered the cave. On the left were two full columns, not yet crumbledaway as others were, which gave the observers a complete view of what avast number of others there were. Next beyond them were three pilastersclinging to the ceiling. This part of the cavern was in the light from theentrance; but farther along, considerably obscured in the darkness of thesubterranean temple, were scores, and perhaps hundreds, of others. Thepillars were not the graceful forms of modern times, and many of them hadlost all shape.

  This temple is said to have been excavated in the ninth century. The wallsare covered with gigantic figures in relief. The temple is in the form of across, the main hall being a hundred and forty-four feet in depth. Theceiling is supported by twenty-six columns and eighteen pilasters, sixteento eighteen feet high. They look clumsy, but they have to bear up theenormous weight of the hill of rock, and many of them have crumbled away.

  At the end of the colonnade is a gigantic bust, representing a Hindudivinity with three heads. Some say that this is Brahma, as the threesymbols of the creator, preserver, and destroyer, forming what is sometimesnamed the Hindu trinity. But the best informed claim that the figurerepresents Siva, the destroyer of the triad of gods. All the reliefs on thewalls relate to the worship of this divinity, while there is not a knowntemple to Brahma.

  The principal piece of sculpture is the marriage of Siva to the goddessParvati; and it is identified as such, wholly or in part, because the womanstands on the right of the man, as no female is permitted to do except atthe marriage ceremony. The party wandered through the caverns for twohours, and Sayad and Moro, the only servants brought with them, kindledfires in the darker places, to enable them to see the sculpture. Sir Modavaexplained what needed explanation. He conducted them to an opening, lightedby a hole in the hill, where they found a staircase guarded by two lions,leading into what is called the Lions' Cave.

  The tourists at the end of the two hours were willing to vote that they hadseen enough of the caverns, and they returned to the hotel in season fordinner. On his arrival Lord Tremlyn found a letter at the office. Onopening it, the missive proved to be an invitation for that evening to awedding for the whole party. They considered it for some time, and as itafforded them an opportunity to see something of native life it was decidedto accept it.