Chapter XVIII

Nature! Source of all great and lovely things!
What builder can thy temples imitate?
The music of thy mountains, woods, and streams,
What harper can steal from thee? Where’s the pen,
Or pencil, that can paint thy countless charms?

BINAI.

As the hunters approached the higher mountains of Cashmere, they were warned by the guides that the creation of loud sounds might be attended with consequences of a fatal description. They mentioned many instances, which they said came within their own knowledge, wherein the echo only of a single horn was known to have loosened immense masses of ice from the sides of the upper declivities, which, driving down before them huge rocks, drifts of frozen snow, patches of earth, herds of sheep, cottages, and hamlets, tumbled into the valleys beneath them, involving whole districts in calamity. Auzeem was not surprised at this intelligence, as he had heard that some such accidents as these were not uncommon in lofty mountainous regions. It was therefore resolved that the dogs, leopards, and falcons, and their keepers, should remain in the village where they then were, until further notice; and that the escort should return to the army to caution them on their entrance into Cashmere, while Jehangire and Auzeem, attended only by the guides, should proceed to the temple of Mahadeo, with a view to propitiate the god who was held to exercise a tutelar power over the whole of that province. The mere character of pilgrims to that celebrated temple, was of itself sufficient to render the presence of any escort unnecessary, even if they had to pass through columns of the enemy marshalled in order of battle. The guides, calculating by the state of the moon, assured the emperor that the image of Mahadeo, which was already rapidly approaching its full stature, would speedily be upon the wane, and that unless he could succeed by great exertions in reaching the temple within a few days, he would be obliged to wait another month before he could render it his homage. They stated, that two days before each new moon, there appeared upon the marble altar of the temple a small grain of gold, which grew larger every day, expanding, as it increased in size, into the figure of a human being of the most exquisite beauty; that on the fifteenth day of the moon the god attained his full colossal amplitude, and during the three ensuing days, wielded unlimited authority for good or for evil; but that with the failing orb, the energies of Mahadeo also declined; his figure gradually shrank; and that when the moon ceased to be visible, the god also disappeared, to be renewed only when the crescent again returned to the sky. No person, having any great project in hand, and being within the precincts of Cashmere, ever thought of attempting to carry it into execution, without paying the tribute of his devotions at the shrine of Mahadeo. It was, doubtless, in a great measure owing to his neglect of the god, though much was also to be attributed to the dominant star of the emperor, that the subah of Cashmere had been so unfortunate in all his enterprises, since he took up his residence in that country.

Putting away, therefore, all weapons of defence, resigning Droostandaz to the special care of the commander of the escort, and exchanging their Arabian steeds for mountain ponies, Jehangire, Auzeem, and the guides, taking into their hands the staffs of pilgrims, set out in the early dawn upon their ascent to the Bember, whose summits appeared far distant in the sky, like a scarcely defined line of blue cloud. The green turfy eminences, amidst which they had been hitherto sporting, were soon left behind, yielding to wild heathery tracts of territory, occasionally covered with the thistle and the broom. These products of vegetation gradually became less luxuriant; small patches of stunted brushwood marked their higher progress, until they began to traverse the naked rocks, which at each step seemed to become of more gigantic dimensions, and to be piled upon each other, as if the object had been to erect a rampart, which was to enclose Cashmere, on that side, against the footsteps of the stranger. The whole face of the mountain appeared like a solid wall, through which it seemed a vain labour to look for any passage.

The guides, however, went on, heedless of any difficulties, leaving the rein on the necks of their ponies, who, penetrating now through narrow fissures, where the feet of the rider touched the rock on either side, now clambering up steps worn by use in the almost perpendicular cliff, now sliding down sudden descents, continued with marvellous sagacity and safety to make their way. By noon, the ridges of Bember became distinctly visible; the cold winds, which blew from its summits, rendered it unnecessary, for the pilgrims to seek refuge from the sun, whose rays, on the contrary, they found it convenient to court, in order to preserve a genial degree of warmth in their frames. They were soon involved in the hoary regions, through which, however, they had no difficulty in making progress, as preceding travellers had already beaten tracks, upon which no new snows had descended.

Upon arriving at the foot of the ridge of Pees-Punchal, the highest of the whole range of the Bember, the pilgrims dismounted, not a little fatigued with their morning’s ride. The ponies, having been unsaddled, were permitted to wander in search of such scanty herbage as they could discover, so near the clouds, while Auzeem, calling for the scrip, in which he supposed he should find the materials for an ample meal,--for which, by the bye, both the imperial pilgrim and his associates were well prepared,--found to their horror, that no scrip was forthcoming, that useful appendage to the staff having been unfortunately left behind.

No sign of human habitation being within the reach of any eye, and the passage of Pees-Punchal being of itself an affair of no small difficulty to be achieved on foot, as the pathway was so perpendicular that the ponies would have quite enough to do to surmount the ascent, with all the assistance the guides could give them, the prospects before the worshippers of Mahadeo were by no means pleasant to contemplate. An antelope or a red-deer came now and then to smile at them, but scared by the slightest movement, off the animals bounded to other ridges, rejoicing in the freedom with which Jehangire would have gladly interfered, if a decree could have controlled them. Never did he feel his sovereign authority reduced to such ridiculous imbecility, as in the valley of the seven streams, and at the foot of the ridge of Pees-Punchal. Deeply did he lament that he had left Droostandaz behind him.

“How delightfully we should have dined upon that red stag,” he exclaimed to Auzeem, “had but Droostandaz been here!”

“Yes; but, Sire, what would have become of us before the dinner could have been dressed. Pees-Punchal, with all his snows, would have been upon us!”

“I should have willingly taken that risk. We might as well perish of a storm without, as of the tempest which now proclaims vacuity in all the internal regions of my personal fabric.”

While the emperor was thus lamenting the unseasonable absence of Droostandaz, he thought that he heard the bleat of a sheep at some distance. Looking to the quarter whence he believed the grateful voice to have come, he perceived something in motion, towards which, without reflecting a moment on his imperial dignity, he ran as fast as his limbs could bear him. He found himself speedily in chace of a small black horned sheep, which he fortunately overtook. Grasping the terrified little animal by one of its hind legs, he threw it over his shoulder, with a degree of pleasure he had seldom experienced before, and brought it in triumph to Auzeem, to whose care he resigned it. The unhappy victim was forthwith sacrificed, and cut up into slices. A light was procured from flints, which they found on the mountain; as no other materials for a fire could be discovered, they broke up their pilgrims’ staffs for the purpose, and thus enjoyed, most unexpectedly, a feast, which the emperor spoke of afterwards with peculiar delight.

“At the moment I am writing these lines,” he says in his memoirs, “I can with truth declare, that in the whole course of my life, I never experienced such exquisite relish in food as in that simple meal, so opportunely furnished by the carcase of a stray sheep.”

When the repast was concluded, the party ascended Pees-Punchal, not, however, without considerable difficulty and exertion. But they were more than repaid for their labour, by the prospect which was presented to them the moment they stood upon its summit. The whole valley of Cashmere lay fully revealed beneath them, its saffron meadows, its green pastures, gardens, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, forests, declivities dotted with countless herds, towns, villages, and separate cottages, all illumined by the golden glow of the sun, just dipping below the horizon.

Jehangire, leaning on the shoulder of Auzeem, gazed upon the valley in silence. The reality so far exceeded all the expectations he had formed of its beauty, that he doubted whether it was not the delusive creation of some enchanter. The cares of imperial authority, the weight alone of which he had hitherto experienced, were at once transformed into sources of rapture, when the fulness of the thought came upon his soul, that he not only possessed the faculty, in common with other men, to appreciate the charms of that Elysian scene, but that it was a portion of his own rightful empire; that to him, however misguided by evil counsel they might be for a moment, the inhabitants of that fair region were bound to look for the security of that peace and happiness which they seemed already to enjoy, and that, above all, in the midst of the paradise spread out before his eye, beat the pulses of one heart, at least, of whose fidelity he felt assured.

“Else,” he thought, communing with his friend, “why that message by the symbol she sent me--this symbol, which has never since left my bosom? Ah! Auzeem--to live with Nourmahal, in such a valley as we here behold--shut out from all the world around--to wander together by those tranquil lakes--those streams--beneath those shades--to roam with her among those hills--to inhale, with her, the delicious incense of those saffron meadows--those fields of roses--and at eve, when all nature is subsiding into repose, to listen with her to the song of the bulbul--those--those, indeed, were raptures worth an empire!”

“And for which, I suspect,” thought Auzeem to himself, “if all I have heard of Nourmahal be true, an empire must be paid.”

The guides were summoned to point out the situation of the capital, and of the fortress occupied by the subah. The former was easily distinguishable, as the large lake, in its immediate neighbourhood, lay expanded below like a mirror of liquid gold, the long rays of the descending sun resting upon it with a lingering delight, as if reluctant to resign to darkness even a temporary dominion over a region of such transcendant beauty.

The fortress was not, at first, discernible; but as the sun lowered, several spots suddenly glistening, disclosed the windows of the towers, as they reflected the level lines of fire. The whole edifice, with its cupolas, and minarets, and castellated walls, were soon bathed in a flood of splendour. A standard, however, floating in the fresh breeze, with the figures of sentinels moving on the ramparts, whose spear-tops sparkled now and then, as they caught the fading light, indicated preparations little consonant with the features of innocence, happiness, and loveliness almost lulled to sleep, by which they were surrounded.

The guides having pointed out the direction in which the temple of Mahadeo was situated, the pilgrims turned their steps thither. Unlike the other side of the mountain, the descents down which they now had to make their way were frequently encumbered by enormous trees flung down by tempests, uprooted by shocks of earthquake, and wasted by the lightnings of ages, that had torn away their branches, stripped them of their bark, and shivered them frequently into blackened masses, which assumed a thousand fantastic shapes. Some lay across the beds of torrents, where they were buttressed by piles of rocks, and intercepting the flood, sent it foaming high in air, with tremendous uproar. Others accidentally formed bridges across abysses, whence subterranean cascades resounded. Some had plunged, or were plunging, into ravines, down which no traveller had ever ventured--some, heaped one upon another, lay mouldering with time, yielding funguses of enormous dimensions, whose extraordinary shapes seemed to belong to some other planet--some, with branches stricken into the earth, rose again at some distance, shooting forth fresh descendants, proud of their yet unperished ancestry, which must have been coeval with the infancy of the world.

One awful--ever-accumulating inundation--that must have oceans for its source--swept straight downwards between the walls of a riven mountain until it passed the brow of a precipice, over which, bending like the arch that separates time from eternity, it fell in one overwhelming wave into a deep abyss, a chaos unfathomable, dimly revealed by the lightnings of the element, as it bounded from depth to depth, through the echoes of everlasting thunders below.

A temple still exists, which Jehangire, the moment he first beheld that stupendous cataract, resolved to erect on a rock hard by, a monument of the admiration with which he viewed that work of Nature--so inimitable by human power--so inexhaustible in her strength--so unlimited in her faculties of production--so marvellous as to the facility with which she executes all her designs, whether she chooses to arrange the colours on the chalice of the tulip, or to toss from her hand a Ganges.