-
ONE:A very solid structure, with walls like a fortress, contains the treasury of the sacred mount. Five guards in turn came to open as many padlocks, and at last the ponderous door turned slowly on its hinges. A car, an elephant, and a vehicle to which are harnessed two prancing horses, are all brought out to convey the idols when they go forth in a[Pg 81] procession. The animals are chased with almost artistic skill. The harness, starry with precious stones, all takes to pieces. TWO:
Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
-
ONE:There was nobody in the garden of the mausoleums, not even the usual obsequious and mendicant attendant. Only by the tomb of Purvez a moollah was kneeling in prayer, motionless, and wrapped in some very light white material, which the wind gently stirred and blew up. All the time I was examining the mausoleums he prayed on, prostrate, immovable; and even from afar, from the road, I could see him still, like a stone among the marble work, at the feet of the hero who sleeps his last in mid-air. TWO:In the native town the houses are lower and closer together, without gardens between. Down the narrow streets, between booths and shops, with here and there a white mosque where gay-coloured figures are worshipping, or polychrome temples where bonzes are drumming on deafening gongs, run tramways, teams of oxen, whose drivers shriek and shout, and hackney cabs, jingling and rattling. Among the vehicles there moves a compact crowd of every race and every colour: tall Afghans, in dingy white garments, leading Persian horses by the bridle for sale, and crying out the price; bustling Parsees; naked Somalis, their heads shaven and their[Pg 7] oiled black skins reeking of a sickening mixture of lotus and pepper; fakirs, with wild, unkempt hair, their faces and bodies bedaubed with saffron and the thread of the "second birth" across their bare breast; Burmese, with yellow skins and long eyes, dressed in silks of the brightest pink; Mongolians, in dark-hued satin tunics embroidered with showy colours and gold thread.Under the cool shade of evening, the softening[Pg 44] touch of twilight, all this sculptured magnificence assumes an air of supreme grandeur, and calls up a world of legends and beliefs till the temples seem to recede, fading into the vapour of the blue night.
Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus. Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar.
-
ONE:The little princess had made her way between the seats, close up to us; she was wrapped in dark-coloured gauze, with woven gold borders, so light! scarcely less light than the diaphanous material of the dress. And as I admired this wonderful silk, the Rajah had some bayadres' dresses brought out for me to see: twelve or fifteen skirts, one above another, pleated and spangled with gold, yet, hanging to one finger, scarcely the weight of a straw.>At the top of Malabar Hill, in a garden with freshly raked walks and clumps of flowers edged with pearl-shells, stand five limewashed towers, crowned with a living battlement of vultures: the great Dokma, the Towers of Silence, where the Parsees are laid after death, "as naked as when they came into the world and as they must return to nothingness," to feed the birds of prey, which by the end of a few hours leave nothing of the body but the bones, to bleach in the sun and be scorched[Pg 30] to dust that is soon carried down to the sea by the first rains of the monsoon. TWO:
Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus. Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar.
-
ONE: TWO:
Integer suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Maecenas tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
-
ONE:In the shrine of Chaumuc, the god of many faces, the four masks grin down from the sides of a square pillar of white stucco. The walls, vault, and pavement of this temple are all red, with borders of green and yellow; the colours scream in contrast to the whiteness of the images, with their staring eyes made of crystal balls that look like spectacles. TWO:In the city, which is swept and cleaned till it is hard to believe oneself among Hindoos, there are six hundred tanks, for the most part stagnant, in which the natives wash themselves and their clothes. Round others, which are gradually being appropriated to the use of the residents, and all about the houses, bamboos are planted and "flame of the forest," covered with enormous red star-shaped blossoms as solid as fruit, and trees curtained with creepers of fragile growthone long garden extending almost to the bazaar.A Mohammedan funeral now. The body was in a coffin, covered with red stuff, sparkling with gold thread. The bearers and mourners chanted an almost cheerful measure, as they marched very slowly to the[Pg 24] burial-ground by the seaside, where the dead rest under spreading banyans and flowering jasmine.
Maecenas suscipit imperdiet nisi ac hendrerit. Nam congue felis ac massa rutrum pulvinar. Donec sodales eros sed efficitur mattis. Integer tincidunt, felis a placerat maximus, eros nulla dapibus dui, at facilisis enim odio at velit. Aenean dictum eleifend mi sit amet luctus.
