But presently, as
the sun beats with more fervor, rivulets begin to trickle from exposed
points; these grow to cataracts and roar down the precipices; masses
of undermined snow plunge into the abysses; the great winds of the
Himalaya rise and howl, and every silence of the morning becomes
a noise at noon. A little longer, and the sun again decreases; the
cataracts draw their heads back into the ice as tortoises into their
shells; the winds creep into their hollows, and the snows rest. So
here. At ten the tumult of trade will begin: at four it will quickly
freeze again into stillness. One might even carry this parallelism
into more fanciful extremes. For, as the vapors which lie on the
Himalaya in the form of snow have in time come from all parts of the
earth, so the tide of men that will presently pour in here is made up
of people from the four quarters of the globe. The Hindu, the African,
the Arabian, the Chinese, the Tartar, the European, the American, the
Parsee, will in a little while be trading or working here."
[Illustration: A DWELLING AT MAZAGON.]
"What a complete _bouleversement_," I said, seating myself on a
bale of cotton and looking toward the fleets of steamers and vessels
collected off the great cotton-presses awaiting their cargoes, "this
particular scene effects in the mind of a traveler just from America!
India has been to me, as the average American, a dream of terraced
ghauts, of banyans and bungalows, of Taj Mahals and tigers, of sacred
rivers and subterranean temples, and--and that sort of thing.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91