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"Ah, how my countryman Bergh would luxuriate in this scene!" I said as
we stood looking upon the various dumb exhibitions of so many phases
of sickness, of decrepitude and of mishap--quaint, grotesque, yet
pathetic withal--in the precincts of the Jain hospital. Here were
quadrupeds and bipeds, feathered creatures and hairy creatures, large
animals and small, shy and tame, friendly and predatory--horses,
horned cattle, rats, cats, dogs, jackals, crows, chickens; what not.
An attendant was tenderly bandaging the blinking lids of a sore-eyed
duck: another was feeding a blind crow, who, it must be confessed,
looked here very much like some fat member of the New York Ring
cunningly availing himself of the more toothsome rations in the sick
ward of the penitentiary. My friend pointed out to me a heron with a
wooden leg. "Suppose a gnat should break his shoulder-blade," I said,
"would they put his wing in a sling?"
[Illustrations: INTERIOR OF THE GREAT SHAITYA OF KARLI.]
Bhima Gandharva looked me full in the face, and, smiling gently, said,
"They would if they could.


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