CHAPTER I

GAY-NECK

The Story of A Pigeon

By Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Illustrated by

Boris Artzybasheff

New York

E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

Copyright, 1927

By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

_All rights reserved_

_First Printing_ _July, 1927_

_Fifth Printing_ _Dec., 1927_

_Tenth Printing_ _May, 1928_

_Fifteenth Printing_ _Oct., 1928_

_Seventeenth Printing_ _Jan., 1929_

_Eighteenth Printing_ _June, 1929_

_Nineteenth Printing_ _Nov., 1929_

_Twentieth Printing_ _Nov., 1929_

_Printed in the United States of America_

_This book was awarded the John Newbery Medal by the

Children's Librarians' Section of the American Library Association,

for the most distinguished contribution to

American Children's literature during the year 1927._

By the same author

CASTE AND OUTCAST

MY BROTHER'S FACE

THE SECRET LISTENERS OF THE EAST

THE FACE OF SILENCE

_Stories for Children_

KARI THE ELEPHANT

JUNGLE BEASTS AND MEN

HARI THE JUNGLE LAD

GAY-NECK (The Story of a Pigeon)

Published by

E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.

TO

Suresh Chandra Banerji, Esq.

DEAR SURESH:

Since Gay-Neck needs a protector I thought of you for several reasons.

First of all being a poet, an observer of nature, and a traveller, you

would be able to protect the book from being condemned. In fact, there

is no one who can do it as well as yourself.

You know the country where Gay-Neck grew. You are versed in the

lore of birds. For a pigeon, life is a repetition of two incidents: namely,

quest of food and avoidance of attacks by its enemies. If the hero of

the present book repeats his escapes from attacks by hawks, it is because

that is the sort of mishap that becomes chronic in the case of pigeons.

Now as to my sources, you well know that they are too numerous to be

mentioned here. Many hunters, poets like yourself, and books in many

languages have helped me to write Gay-Neck. And if you will permit

it, I hope to discharge at least a part of my debt by dedicating this book

to one of my sources--yourself.

I remain most faithfully yours,

DHAN GOPAL.

CONTENTS

PART I

I. BIRTH OF GAY-NECK

II. EDUCATION OF GAY-NECK

III. TRAINING IN DIRECTION

IV. GAY-NECK IN THE HIMALAYAS

V. ON GAY-NECK'S TRACK

VI. GAY-NECK'S TRUANCY

VII. GAY-NECK'S STORY

VIII. GAY-NECK'S ODYSSEY (Continued)

PART II

I. GAY-NECK'S TRAINING FOR WAR

II. WAR TRAINING (Continued)

III. MATING OF GAY-NECK

IV. WAR CALLS GAY-NECK

V. SECOND ADVENTURE

VI. GHOND GOES RECONNOITRING

VII. GAY-NECK TELLS HOW HE CARRIED THE MESSAGE

VIII. HEALING OF HATE AND FEAR

IX. THE WISDOM OF THE LAMA

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

GAY-NECK

WITH ENORMOUSLY LONG REACH HE ALMOST TOUCHED THE TOP OF THE

TREE

NO BEAST OF PREY CAN KILL HIS VICTIM WITHOUT FRIGHTENING HIM

FIRST

THAT SOUND WAS DROWNED IN THE CRY OF THE EAGLES ABOVE WHO SCREECHED

LIKE MAD, SLAYING EACH OTHER

GAY-NECK

PART I

CHAPTER I

BIRTH OF GAY-NECK

The city of Calcutta, which boasts of a million people, must have at

least two million pigeons. Every third Hindu boy has perhaps a dozen

pet carriers, tumblers, fantails, and pouters. The art of domesticating

pigeons goes back thousands of years in India, and she has contributed

two species of pigeons as a special product of her bird fanciers, the

fantail and the pouter. Love and care have been showered on pigeons for

centuries by emperors, princes and queens in their marble palaces, as

well as by the poor, in their humble homes. The gardens, grottos and

fountains of the Indian rich--the small field of flowers and fruits

of the common folks, each has its ornament and music,--many-colored

pigeons and cooing white doves with ruby eyes.

Even now any winter morning foreigners who visit our big cities may

see on the flat-roofed houses innumerable boys waving white flags as

signals to their pet pigeons flying up in the crisp cold air. Through

the blue heavens flocks of the birds soar like vast clouds. They start

in small flocks and spend about twenty minutes circling over the roofs

of their owners' homes. Then they slowly ascend and all the separate

groups from different houses of the town merge into one big flock and

float far out of sight. How they ever return to their own homes is a

wonder, for all the house-tops look alike in shape in spite of their

rose, yellow, violet and white colors.

But pigeons have an amazing sense of direction and love of their

owners. I have yet to see creatures more loyal than pigeons and

elephants. I have played with both, and the tusker on four feet in

the country, or the bird on two wings in the city, no matter how far

they wandered, were by their almost infallible instinct brought back to

their friend and brother--Man.

My elephant friend was called Kari, of whom you have heard before, and

the other pet that I knew well was a pigeon. His name was Chitra-griva;

Chitra meaning painted in gay colours, and Griva, neck--in one phrase,

pigeon Gay-Neck. Sometimes he was called "Iridescence-throated."

Of course Gay-Neck did not come out of his egg with an iridescent

throat; he had to grow the feathers week by week; and until he was

three months old, there was very little hope that he would acquire the

brilliant collar, but at last when he did achieve it, he was the most

beautiful pigeon in my town in India, and the boys of my town owned

forty thousand pigeons.

But I must begin this story at the very beginning, I mean with

Gay-Neck's parents. His father was a tumbler who married the most

beautiful pigeon of his day; she came from a noble old stock of

carriers. That is why Gay-Neck proved himself later such a worthy

carrier pigeon in war as well as in peace. From his mother he

inherited wisdom, from his father bravery and alertness. He was so

quick-witted that sometimes he escaped the clutches of a hawk by

tumbling at the last moment right over the enemy's head. But of that

later, in its proper time and place.

Now let me tell you what a narrow escape Gay-Neck had while still in

the egg. I shall never forget the day when, through a mistake of mine,

I broke one of the two eggs that his mother had laid. It was very

stupid of me. I regret it even now. Who knows, maybe with that broken

egg perished the finest pigeon of the world. It happened in this way.

Our house was four stories high--and on its roof was built our pigeon

house. A few days after the eggs were laid I decided to clean the

pigeon hole in which Gay-Neck's mother was sitting on them. I lifted

her gently and put her on the roof beside me. Then I lifted each egg

carefully and put it most softly in the next pigeon hole; which however

had no cotton nor flannel on its hard wooden floor. Then I busied

myself with the task of removing the debris from the birth-nest. As

soon as that was done, I brought one egg back and restored it to its

proper place. Next I reached for the second one and laid a gentle but

firm hand on it. Just then something fell upon my face like a roof

blown by the storm. It was Gay-Neck's father furiously beating my face

with his wings. Worse still, he had placed the claws of one of his

feet on my nose. The pain and surprise of it was so great that ere I

knew how, I had dropped the egg. I was engrossed in beating off the

bird from my head and face and at last he flew away. But too late;

the little egg lay broken in a mess at my feet. I was furious with

its clumsy father and also with myself. Why with myself? Because I

should have been prepared for the father bird's attack. He took me for

a stealer of his eggs, and in his ignorance was risking his life to

prevent my robbing his nest. May I impress it upon you that you should

anticipate all kinds of surprise attacks when cleaning a bird's home

during nesting season.

But to go on with our story. The mother bird knew the day when she

was to break open the egg-shell with her own beak, in order to usher

Gay-Neck into the world. Though the male sits on the egg pretty nearly

one third of the time--for he does that each day from morning till

late afternoon--yet he does not know when the hour of his child's

birth is at hand. No one save the mother bird arrives at that divine

certainty. We do not yet understand the nature of the unique wireless

message by which she learns that within the shell the yolk and the

white of her egg have turned into a baby-bird. She also knows how to

tap the right spot so that the shell will break open without injuring

her child in the slightest. To me that is as good as a miracle.

Gay-Neck's birth happened exactly as I have described. About the

twentieth day after the laying of the egg I noticed that the mother was

not sitting on it any more. She pecked the father and drove him away

every time he flew down from the roof of the house and volunteered to

sit on the egg. Then he cooed, which meant, "Why do you send me away?"

She, the mother, just pecked him the more, meaning, "Please go. The

business on hand is very serious."

At that, the father flew away. That worried me, for I was anxious for

the egg to hatch, and was feeling suspicious about its doing it at

all. With increased interest and anxiety I watched the pigeon hole.

An hour passed. Nothing happened. It was about the third quarter of

the next hour that the mother turned her head one way and listened to

something--probably a stirring inside that egg. Then she gave a slight

start. I felt as if a tremor were running through her whole body. With

it a great resolution came into her. Now she raised her head, and took

aim. In two strokes she cracked the egg open, revealing a wee bird, all

beak and a tiny shivering body! Now watch the mother. She is surprised.

Was it this that she was expecting all these long days? Oh, how small,

how helpless! The moment she realizes her child's helplessness, she

covers him up with the soft blue feathers of her breast.

CHAPTER II

EDUCATION OF GAY-NECK

There are two sweet sights in the bird world. One when the mother

breaks open her egg in order to bring to light her child, and the other

when she broods and feeds him. Gay-Neck was brooded most affectionately

by both his parents. This brooding did for him what cuddling does for

human children. It gives the helpless ones warmth and happiness. It

is as necessary to them as food. This is the time when a pigeon hole

should not be stuffed with too much cotton or flannel; which should be

put there more and more sparingly so that the temperature of the nest

does not get too hot. Ignorant pigeon fanciers do not realize that as

the baby grows larger he puts forth more and more heat from his own

body. And I think it is wise not to clean the nest frequently during

this time. Everything that the parents allow to remain in the nest

contributes to making their baby comfortable and happy.

I remember distinctly how, from the second day of his birth,

little Gay-Neck automatically opened his beak and expanded his

carnation-colored body like a bellows every time one of his parents

flew back to their nest. The father or the mother put their beaks into

his wide open maw and poured into it the milk made in their own organs

from millet seeds that they had eaten. I noticed this; the food that

was poured into his mouth was very soft. No pigeon ever gives any seeds

to its baby even when it is nearly a month old without first keeping

them in its throat for some time, which softens the food before it

enters the delicate stomach of the baby.

Our Gay-Neck was a tremendous eater. He kept one of his parents busy

getting food while the other brooded or stayed with him. I think the

father bird brooded and worked for him no less hard than the mother.

No wonder his body grew very fat. His carnation color changed into

a yellowish white--the first sign of feathers coming on. Then that

gave way to prickly white feathers, round and somewhat stiff like a

porcupine needle. The yellow things that hung about his mouth and

eyes fell away. Slowly the beak emerged, firm, sharp and long. What a

powerful jaw! When he was about three weeks old an ant was crawling

past him into the pigeon hole at whose entrance he was sitting. Without

any instruction from anybody he struck it with his beak. Where there

had been a whole ant, now lay its two halves. He brought his nose down

to the dead ant and examined what he had done. There was no doubt that

he had taken that black ant for a seed and killed an innocent passer-by

who was friendly to his race. Let us hope he was ashamed of it. Anyway,

he never killed another ant the rest of his life.

By the time he was five weeks old he could hop out of his birth-nest

and take a drink from the pan of water left near the pigeon holes. Even

now he had to be fed by his parents, though every day he tried to get

food on his own account. He would sit on my wrist and dig up a seed at

a time from the palm of my hand. He juggled it two or three times in

his throat like a juggler throwing up balls in the air, and swallowed

it. Every time Gay-Neck did that, he turned his head and looked into

my eyes as much as to say: "Am I not doing it well? You must tell my

parents how clever I am when they come down from sunning themselves on

the roof." All the same, he was the slowest of my pigeons in developing

his powers.

Just at this time I made a discovery. I never knew before how pigeons

could fly in a dust storm without going blind. But as I watched the

ever growing Gay-Neck I noticed one day that a film was drawn over his

eyes. I thought he was losing his sight. In my consternation I put

forth my hand to draw him nearer to my face in order to examine him

closely. No sooner had I made the gesture than he opened his golden

eyes and receded into the rear of the hole. But just the same I caught

and took him up on the roof, and in the burning sunlight of May I

scrutinized his eye-lids. Yes, there it was: he had, attached to his

eyelid, another thin lid delicate as tissue paper, and every time I

put his face toward the sun he drew that film over the two orbits of

gold. And so I learned that it was a protective film for the eye which

enabled the bird to fly in a dust storm or straight toward the sun.

In another fortnight Gay-Neck was taught how to fly. It was not at all

easy, bird though he was by birth. A human child may love the water,

yet he has to make mistakes and swallow water while learning the art of

swimming. Similarly with my pigeon. He had a mild distrust of opening

his wings, and for hours he sat on our roof, where the winds of the sky

blew without quickening him to flight. In order to make the situation

clear, let me describe our roof to you. It was railed with a solid

concrete wall as high as a boy of fourteen. That prevented even a

sleep-walker from slipping off the height of four storeys on the summer

nights, when most of us slept on the roof.

Gay-Neck I put on that concrete wall every day. There he sat for hours

at a time facing the wind, but that was all. One day I put some peanuts

on the roof and called him to hop down and get them. He looked at me

with an inquiring eye for a few moments. Turning from me he looked

down again at the peanuts. He repeated this process several times.

When at last he was convinced that I was not going to bring these

delicious morsels up for him to eat, he began to walk up and down the

railing craning his neck occasionally towards the peanuts about three

feet below. At last after fifteen minutes of heart-breaking hesitancy

he hopped down. Just as his feet struck the floor his wings, hitherto

unopened, suddenly spread themselves out full sail as he balanced

himself over the nuts. What a triumph!

About this time I noticed the change of colours on his feathers.

Instead of a nondescript gray-blue, a glossy aquamarine glowed all over

him. And suddenly one morning in the sunlight his throat glistened like

iridescent beads.

Now came the supreme question of flight. I waited for his parents to

teach him the first lessons, though I helped the only way I could.

Every day for a few minutes I made him perch on my wrist, then I would

swing my arm up and down many times, and in order to balance himself on

such a difficult perch he had to shut and open his wings frequently.

That was good for him, but there ended my part of the teaching. You

may ask me the reason of my hurrying matters so. He was already behind

in his flying lessons, and in June, the rains begin to fall in India;

and with the approach of the rainy season any long flight becomes

impossible. I wished to train him in learning his directions as soon as

I could.

However, one day long before the end of May, his father undertook the

task. This particular day a brisk north wind, that had been sweeping

about and cooling the atmosphere of the city, had just died down. The

sky was clear as a limpid sapphire. The spaces were so clear that you

could see the house-tops of our town, then the fields and arbours

of the country in the farthest distance. About three o'clock in the

afternoon Gay-Neck was sunning himself on the concrete wall of the

roof. His father, who had been flying about in the air, came down

and perched next to him. He looked at his son with a queer glance,

as much as to say: "Here, lazy-bones, you are nearly three months

old, yet you do not dare to fly. Are you a pigeon or an earthworm?"

But Gay-Neck, the soul of dignity, made no answer. That exasperated

his father who began to coo and boom at him in pigeon-language. In

order to get away from that volubility Gay-Neck moved, but his father

followed cooing, booming and banging his wings. Gay-Neck went on

removing himself farther and farther, and the old fellow, instead of

relenting, redoubled his talk and pursued. At last the father pushed

him so close to the edge that Gay-neck had only one alternative, that

is, to slip off the roof. Suddenly his father thrust upon his young

body all the weight of his old frame. Gay-Neck slipped. Hardly had

he fallen half a foot when he opened his wings and flew. Oh, what an

exhilarating moment for all concerned! His mother, who was downstairs

dipping herself in the water and performing her afternoon toilet, came

up through the staircase and flew to keep her son company. They circled

above the roof for at least ten minutes before they came down to perch.

When they reached the roof the mother folded her wings as a matter of

course and sat still. Not so the son: he was in a panic, like a boy

walking into cold and deep water. His whole body shook, and his feet

trod the roof gingerly as he alighted, skating over it furiously and

flapping his wings in order to balance himself. At last he stopped,

as his chest struck the side of the wall, and he folded his wings as

swiftly as we shut a fan. Gay-Neck was panting with excitement, while

his mother rubbed him and placed her chest against him as if he were a

mere baby who badly needed brooding. Seeing that his task had been done

successfully, Gay-Neck's father went down to take his bath.

CHAPTER III

TRAINING IN DIRECTION

Now that, like a newly trained diver, he had overcome his fear of

plunging into the air, Gay-Neck ventured on longer and higher flights.

In a week's time he was able to fly steadily for half an hour, and when

he came home to the roof, he swooped down as gracefully as his parents.

There was no more of that panicky beating of wings in order to balance

himself as his feet touched the roof.

His parents, who had accompanied Gay-Neck in his preliminary flights,

now began to leave him behind, and to fly much higher above him. For a

while I thought that they were trying to make him fly still higher;

for the son always made an effort to reach the level of his parents.

Perhaps his elders were setting the little fellow a superb example.

But at last one day early in June, that explanation of mine was shaken

by the following fateful incident. Gay-Neck was flying high: he looked

half his usual size. Above him flew his parents almost as small as

a man's fist. They were circling above him with the regularity of a

merry-go-round. It looked monotonous and meaningless. I removed my gaze

from them; after all it is not comfortable to look upward steadily for

long. As I lowered my eyes toward the horizon they were held by a black

spot moving swiftly and growing larger every second. I wondered what

sort of a bird he was coming at such a speed in a straight line, for in

India birds are named in the Sanskrit, Turyak, or "curve-tracers."

But this one was coming straight, like an arrow. In another two minutes

my doubts were dispelled. It was a hawk making for little Gay-Neck.

I looked up and beheld a miraculous sight. His father was tumbling

steadily down in order to reach his level, while his mother, bent on

the same purpose, was making swift downward curves. Ere the terrible

hawk had come within ten yards of the innocent little fellow, both his

flanks were covered. Now the three flew downwards at a right angle from

the path of their enemy. Undeterred by such a move, the hawk charged.

At once the three pigeons made a dip which frustrated him, but the

force with which he had made the attack was so great that it carried

him a long distance beyond them. The pigeons kept on circling in the

air with an ever-increasing downward trend. In another minute they were

half way to our roof. Now the hawk changed his mind. He went higher and

higher into the sky: in fact he flew so high that the pigeons could

not hear the wind whistling in the feathers of his wings; and as he

was above them they could not see their foe. Feeling that they were

safe, they relaxed. It was evident that they were not flying as fast as

before. Just then I saw that above them, way up, the hawk was folding

his wings: he was about to drop and in an instant he fell upon them

like a stone. In desperation I put my fingers in my mouth and made a

shrill whistle, a cry of warning. The pigeons dived like a falling

sword, yet the hawk followed. Inch by inch, moment by moment he was

gaining on them. Faster and faster he fell: now there was scarcely

twenty feet between him and his prey. There was no doubt that he was

aiming at Gay-Neck. I could see his sinister claws. "Won't those stupid

pigeons do anything to save themselves?" I thought in an agony. He was

so near him now--if they would only keep their heads and--Just then

they made a vast upward circle. The hawk followed. Then they flew on an

even but large elliptical path. If a bird flies in a circle he either

tends to swing to the centre of that circle or away from it. Now the

hawk missed their intention and tended toward the centre, making a

small circle inside their big one. No sooner was his back turned to

them than the three pigeons made another dive, almost to our roof, but

the sinister one was not to be deterred. He followed like a tongue of

black lightning. His prey made a curving dive on to the roof, where

they were safe at last under my wide-spread arms! That instant I heard

the shriek of the wind in the air; about a foot above my head flew by

the hawk, his eyes blazing with yellow fire and his claws quivering

like the tongue of a viper. As he passed I could hear the wind still

whistling in his feathers.

After that narrow escape of my pet birds, I began to train Gay-Neck to

a sense of direction. One day I took all three birds in a cage towards

the east of our town. Exactly at nine in the morning I set them free.

They came home safely. The next day I took them an equal distance to

the west. Inside of a week they knew the way to our house from within a

radius of at least fifteen miles in any direction.

Since nothing ends smoothly in this world, the training of Gay-Neck

finally met with a check. I had taken him and his parents down the

Ganges in a boat. When we started it was about six in the morning. The

sky was littered with stray clouds, and a moderate wind was blowing

from the south. Our boat was piled high with rice white as snow on

whose top were heaped mangoes red and golden in colour, like a white

peak afire with the sunset.

I should have foreseen that such auspicious weather might turn suddenly

into a terrible storm, for after all, boy though I was, I knew

something about the freaks of the monsoon in June.

Hardly had we gone twenty miles before the first rain-clouds of the

season raced across the sky. The velocity of the wind was so great that

it ripped off one of the sails of our boat. Seeing that there was no

time to be lost, I opened the cage and released the three pigeons. As

they struck the wind they vaulted right over and flew very low, almost

falling into the water. They flew thus close to the surface of the

river for a quarter of an hour, making very little headway against the

hard wind. But they persisted and another ten minutes saw them safely

tacking and flying landward. Just about the time they had reached the

string of villages on our left, the sky grew pitch black, a torrential

cloudburst blotted everything out, and we saw nothing but inky sheets

of water through which the lightning zig-zagged and danced the dance of

death. I gave up all hope of finding my pigeons again. We were almost

ship-wrecked ourselves, but fortunately our boat was beached on the

shore of a village. Next morning when I came home by train I found two

wet pigeons instead of three. Gay-Neck's father had perished in the

storm. No doubt it was all my fault, and for the few days that followed

our house was given up to mourning. The two pigeons and I used to go up

on the roof whenever the rain left off a bit in order to scan the sky

for a glimpse of the father. Alas, he never returned.

CHAPTER IV

GAY-NECK IN THE HIMALAYAS

Since the rain and the heat in the plains proved excessive, my family

decided to take us to the Himalayas. If you take a map of India you

will find that in its northeast corner is a town called Darjeeling,

standing almost face to face with Mount Everest, the highest peak in

the world. After travelling, not too fast, by caravan, several days

from Darjeeling, my family, myself and my two pigeons reached the

little village of Dentam. There we were ten thousand feet above sea

level. At such a height an American mountain or the Alps would have at

least some snow, but in India, which is in the tropics, and on the

Himalayas, hardly thirty degrees north of the equator, the snow line

does not commence under ten thousand feet, and the jungle of the foot

hills abounding with animals is so cold after September that all its

denizens migrate southward.

Let me give you just a slight picture of our setting. Our house of

stone and mud overlooked small valleys where tea was grown. Beyond,

between serried ridges that stuck out in harsh but majestic curves,

were valleys full of rice-fields, maize, and fruit orchards. Further

on rose the dark evergreen-clad precipices over which reared thousands

of feet of pure white ranges, the Kanchinjinga, the peak Makalu, and

the Everest ranges. In the first flush of dawn they looked white; but

as the light grew in brightness and the sun rose higher, peak after

peak defined itself, not far off in the horizon, but piercing the very

middle of the sky whence poured a flood of crimson light like the very

blood of benediction.

One usually sees the Himalayas best in the early morning for they

are covered with clouds during the rest of the day. Hindus, who are

religious people, get up in good time to behold the sublime hills and

to pray to God. Can there be a better setting to prayers than those

mountains most of whose peaks yet remain unexplored and untrodden by

man? Their inviolate sanctity is something precious, which remains a

perpetual symbol of divinity. Heights like that of the Everest are

symbols of the highest reality--GOD. They are symbolic of

God's mystery, too, for with the exception of the early morning they

are as I have said, shrouded with clouds all day. Foreigners who come

to India imagine they would like to see them all the time, but let no

one complain, for he who has beheld Everest in its morning grandeur and

awe-inspiring glory will say "It is too sublime to be gazed at all day

long. None could bear it continually before his eyes."

In July those early morning views of the Everest are not vouchsafed us

every day, for it is the month of rain. All the ranges lie in the grip

of the most devastating blizzards. Once in a while above the battle of

storms and driven snow the peaks appear--a compact mass of hard ice

and white fire. They glow intensely in the sunlight, while at their

feet the snow clouds whirl and fall like fanatical dervishes dancing

frenziedly before their terrible God.

During the summer my friend Radja and our teacher in jungle lore, old

Ghond, came to visit our home. Radja was about sixteen years old,

already a Brahmin priest, and Ghond we always called old, for none knew

his age. Both Radja and I were handed over to that most competent of

hunters for the purpose of studying under his guidance the secrets of

jungle and animal life. Since I have described them in my other books,

I need not repeat myself here.

As soon as we had settled down in Dentam, I began to train my pigeons

in the art of direction. Whenever we had a clear day we climbed all the

forenoon toward the higher peaks amid ilexes and balsam forests, and

released our birds from some monastery roof, or from the house of a

nobleman. And toward evening when we returned home, we invariably found

Gay-Neck and his mother there before us.

We had hardly half a dozen clear days during the whole month of July,

but under the guidance of the almost omniscient Ghond, and with my

friend Radja, we travelled very far in a short time. We visited and

stayed with all classes of the mountain folk, who looked much like

Chinese. Their manners were elegant and their hospitality generous. Of

course we took the pigeons with us, sometimes in a cage but most of

the time under our tunics. Though we were frequently soaked with rain,

Gay-Neck and his mother were religiously guarded from the weather.

Towards the end of July we made a journey beyond every Lamasery

(monastery) and baron's castle of Sikkim that we three human beings and

the two pigeons had seen and known. We passed Singalele, where there

was a nice little Lamasery, on toward Phalut and the Unknown. At last

we reached the homeland of the eagles. Around us were bare granite

cliffs surrounded by fir trees and stunted pines, before us to the

north lay the Kanchinjinga and the Everest ranges. Here on the edge of

an abyss we released our two birds. In that exhilarating air they flew

like children running from school at the end of the day. Gay-Neck's

mother flew far upwards in order to show her son the sublime heights.

After the two birds had flown away, we three men talked of what they

might be seeing as they sped above the altitudes. Before them,

no doubt, rose the twin peaks of the Kanchinjinga group slightly

lower than Mount Everest but just as impeccable and austere as that

immaculate peak untrodden still by the feet of men. That fact roused

profound emotions in us. We saw the mountain in the distance just for a

few minutes like a mirror before the Face of God and I said to myself,

"O thou summit of sanctity, thou inviolate and eternal, may no man

tarnish thee, nor may any mortal stain thy purity even by his slightest

touch. May thou remain forever unvanquished, oh Thou backbone of the

Universe, and measurement of Immortality."

But I have brought you so high not to tell you about mountains, but of

an adventure that befell us there. Now that Gay-Neck and his mother

had flown, we gave up watching them and went in quest of an eagle's

nest which was on a neighbouring cliff. The Himalayan eagle is brown

with a soft golden glow, and though very beautiful to look at--it is in

perfect proportion of beauty with strength--yet it is a fierce beast of

prey.

But at first on this particular afternoon we encountered nothing

savage. On the contrary, we found two fluffy white eaglets in an

eyrie. They looked as engaging as new-born babes. The southern wind

was blowing right in their eyes but they did not mind it. It is in the

nature of the Himalayan eagle to build his nest facing the direction

of the wind. Why? No one knows. Apparently the bird likes to face that

which he floats up on.

The younglings were nearly three weeks old, for they were already

shedding their birthday cotton-like appearance and had begun to grow

real plumage. Their talons were sharp enough for their age, and their

beaks hard and keen.

An eagle's eyrie is open and large. Its entrance ledge--that is to

say, landing place--is about six or seven feet wide and quite clean.

But within, where it is dark and narrow, there is a perfect litter of

twigs, branches, and a little of the hair and feathers of victims,

every other part of their prey being devoured by the eaglets. The

parents devour most of the bones, hair and feathers with the meat.

Though the surrounding country was clad in stunted pine trees, yet it

was full of bird noises. Also strange insects buzzed in the fir trees.

Jewelled flies fluttered on blue wings over mauve orchids, and enormous

rhododendrons glowed in sizes sometimes as large as the moon. Now and

then a wild cat called, apparently talking in his noon-day sleep.

Suddenly Ghond told us to run a dozen yards and hide in a bush. Hardly

had we done so when the noises about us began to subside. In another

sixty seconds the insects stopped their buzzing, the birds ceased to

call, and even the trees seemed to grow still with expectation. In the

air slowly rose the thin whistle of something. In a few moments it fell

into a lower key. Hard upon it came a weird noise almost sounding like

a shriek and a giant bird flew down to the eagle's eyrie. The wind

was still whistling in its wings. By its size Ghond thought it was

the mother of the two babies. She remained still in the air till the

eaglets withdrew into the inner recesses of their home. From her talons

hung something well skinned, like a large rabbit. She landed, dropping

her prey on the ledge. One could see that her wings from tip to tip

measured half a dozen feet. She folded them as a man folds a paper,

then seeing that her children were coming toward her, she drew in her

talons lest they pierce their un-armoured tender flesh. Now she hobbled

like a cripple. The two little fellows ran and disappeared under her

half open wings, but they did not want to be brooded, for they were

hungry. So she led them outward to the dead rabbit, tore away some of

its flesh, excluded any bone that clung to it, and gave it to them to

swallow. Again from below and all about the insects and birds resumed

their noises. We rose from our hiding and started homeward after Radja

and I had extracted a promise from Ghond that he would bring us back

later to see the full-fledged eaglets.

And so in a little over a month we returned. We brought with us

Gay-Neck and his mother, for I wished the little fellow to fly the

second time so that he would know with absolute certainty every

village, Lamasery, lake and river as well as the beasts, and the

other birds--cranes, parrots, Himalayan herons, wild geese, divers,

sparrow hawks and swifts. On this trip we went about a hundred yards

beyond the eagle's nest. The finger of autumn had already touched the

rhododendrons. Their flaming petals were falling out, their long

stems, many feet high, rustled in the winds. Leaves of many trees had

begun to turn, and the air was full of melancholy. At about eleven, we

uncaged our pigeons, who flew away into the sapphire sky that hung like

a sail from the white peaks.

They had flown for about half an hour when a hawk appeared above them.

It drew nearer the two pigeons, and then drove at them. But the prey

proved too wary; they escaped scatheless. Just as Gay-Neck and his

mother were coming down swiftly to where the trees were, the hawk's

mate appeared and attacked. She flew at them as her husband had done

without gaining her objective. Seeing that their prey was escaping,

the male hawk cried shrilly to his mate; at that she stopped in the

air just marking time. The pigeons, feeling safe, quickened their wing

motion and flew southward while the two hawks followed, converging

upon them from the east and the west. Wing-beat upon wing-beat, they

gained on the pigeons. Their wings shaped like a butcher's hatchet

tipped off at the end, cut through the air like a storm ... one, two,

three--they fell like spears! Gay-Neck's mother stopped, and just

floated in the air. That upset the calculation of the hawks. What to do

now? Which one to fall upon? Such questioning takes time, and Gay-Neck

seized the chance to change his course. Swiftly he rose higher and

higher. In a few moments his example was followed by his mother, but

she had lost time, and the hawks rose almost vaulting up to her. Then

apparently a sudden panic seized her; she was afraid that the hawks

were after her son and in order to protect him--which was utterly

unnecessary--she flew toward the two pursuers. In another minute both

of those birds of prey had pounced upon her. The air was filled with a

shower of feathers! The sight frightened Gay-Neck, who fell upon the

nearest cliff for protection and safety. It was his mother's error that

deprived her of her own life and probably imperiled that of her son.

We three human beings began a search for the cliff where Gay-Neck had

fallen. It was no easy task, for the Himalayas are very treacherous.

Pythons if not tigers were to be feared. Yet my friend Radja insisted,

and Ghond the hunter agreed with him, saying that it would augment our

knowledge.

We descended from the cliff that we were on and entered a narrow gorge

where the raw bones lying on the ground convinced us that some beast

of prey had dined on its victim the previous night. But we were not

frightened, for our leader was Ghond, the most well-equipped hunter

of Bengal. Very soon we began a laborious climb through clefts and

crevices full of purple orchids on green moss. The odour of fir and

balsam filled our nostrils. Sometimes we saw a rhododendron still

in bloom. The air was cold and the climb unending. After two in

the afternoon, having lunched on a handful of chola (dried beans

softened in water), we reached the cliff where Gay-Neck was hiding.

To our surprise we discovered that it was the eagle's nest with two

eaglets--the babies of our previous visit--now full-fledged. They were

sitting on the front ledge of their eyrie, while to our utter amazement

we saw Gay-Neck at the farthest corner of a neighbouring ledge,

cowering and weak. At our approach the eaglets came forward to attack

us with their beaks. Radja, whose hand was nearest, received an awful

stroke which ripped open the skin of his thumb whence blood flowed

freely. The eagles were between us and Gay-Neck and there was nothing

to be done but to climb over a higher cliff to reach him. Hardly had

we gone six yards away from the nest when Ghond signed to us to hide

as we had done the first time we had come. We did so with celerity,

under a pine, and soon with a soft roar in the air, one of the parent

eagles drew near. In a few seconds there fell a high pitched sound as

the eagle sailed into its nest. A shiver of exquisite pleasure ran up

and down my spine as her tail feather grazed our tree and I heard that

whistling mute itself.

Let me re-emphasize the fact that people who have an idea that the

eagle builds its nest on an isolated inaccessible cliff are mistaken.

A powerful bird or beast does not have to be so careful in choosing

its home. It can afford to be negligent. The nest of such a gigantic

bird must have as its first requirement space so that it can open and

shut its wings in the outer court of its home, and a place so spacious

cannot be too inaccessible. Next, the eagle has no knack at building

nests. It chooses a ledge that juts out of a cliff-cavern where nature

has already performed two-thirds of the task. The last third is done

by the birds themselves and it merely consists in getting branches,

leaves, and blades of grass together as a rough bed where the eggs may

be laid and hatched.

All those details we gathered as we crawled out of our hiding place

and examined--for the second time--the eyrie from a distance. There

was no doubt that they were our old friends--the two babies--grown

big, and their mother. She, even now though they were grown up, drew

in her talons as a matter of habit lest they hurt her children. But it

was momentary; after she had made sure that they were racing to meet

her, she opened them and stood firmly on the outer ledge. The eaglets,

though they should not be called so now that they were full-fledged,

rushed forward and took shelter under her wide-spread wings. But the

little beasts did not stay there long, they did not want to be loved,

they were very hungry, they wanted something to eat and alas, she had

brought nothing. At that they turned from her and sat facing the wind,

waiting.

At Ghond's signal we all three rose and began to climb. In the course

of another hour we had crawled in lizard-like silence over the roof

of the eagle's nest. Just as I passed over it, an abominable odour

of bones and drying flesh greeted my nostrils. That proved that the

eagle--king of birds though he is--is not as clean and tidy as a

pigeon. I, for one, prefer a pigeon's nest to an eagle's eyrie.

Soon we reached Gay-Neck and tried to put him in his cage. He was glad

to see us, but fought shy of the cage. Since it was getting late I gave

him some lentils to eat. Just about the middle of his meal, seeing him

deeply absorbed in eating, I made an effort to grab him with my hand.

That frightened the poor bird and he flew away. The noise of his flight

brought the mother eagle out of the inner recess of her nest. She

looked out, her beak quivering and her wings almost opening for flight.

At once all the jungle noises below were stilled and she sailed away.

We felt that all was over for Gay-Neck. Suddenly a shadow fell upon

him. I thought it was the eagle pouncing; however it only rested on him

a moment and then receded, but he had had the fright of his life and he

flew away, driven by sheer terror, in a zig-zag course, far beyond our

sight.

I was convinced that we had lost Gay-Neck. But Ghond insisted that we

would find the bird in a day or two, so we decided to wait and spend

our time there.

Night came on apace and we sought shelter under some pines. The next

morning we were told by Ghond that the day had come for the young

eagles to fly. He concluded: "Eagles never give their children lessons

in flight. They know when their eaglets are ready for it. Then the

parents leave for ever."

All that day the parent eagle did not re-visit her nest. When night

came again her children gave up all hope of her return, and withdrew

into the inner part of their home. It proved a memorable night for

us. We were so far up that we were quite sure of no attack by a

four-footed beast of prey. Tigers and leopards go downwards, not that

they fear the heights, but because like all animals they follow their

food. Antelopes, deer, bison and wild boars graze where valleys and

jungle-growth are plentiful and since they go where grass, sapling,

luscious twigs, in short, their dinner, grows on river banks, those

who live by eating them search for them there. That is why, with the

exception of birds and a few animals such as wild cats, pythons, and

snow leopards, the heights are free of beasts of prey. Even the yak,

who takes the place of the cow, does not climb so high very frequently

or in large numbers. One or two mountain goats one sees occasionally,

but nothing larger, and so our night was free of any dramatic

experience. But this was amply compensated for by the piercing cold

that possessed and shook our bodies in the early dawn. Sleep was out of

the question, so I sat up, and wrapping all the blankets of my bedding

around me, watched and listened. The stillness was intense--like a drum

whose skin had been so stretched that even breathing on it would make

it groan. I felt hemmed in by the piercing soundlessness from every

direction. Now and then like an explosion came the crackling of some

dry autumn leaves as a soft-footed wild cat leaped on them from the

branch of a tree not far away. That sound very soon sank like a stone

in the ever rising tide of stillness. Slowly one by one the stars set.

The rising tide of mystery that was reigning everywhere deepened, when

like the shaking of lances something shivered in the eagle's eyrie.

There was no doubt now that the day was breaking. Again rose the same

sound from the same place. The eagles were preening their wings as a

man stretches himself before fully waking from sleep. Now I could hear

a rustle near by that I thought must be the two eagles coming forward

on the front ledge of their nest. Soon came other noises. Storks flew

by overhead, strange birds like cranes shouldered the sky. And nearby

the bellow of a yak tore the stillness asunder as if he had put his

horn through the skin of a drum. Far down, birds called one another. At

last fell a white light on the Kanchinjinga range. Then Mokalu appeared

with an immense halo of opal back of his head. The lower ranges, as

high as Mont Blanc, put on their vesture of milk-white glory: shapes

and colours of stone and tree leaped into sight. Orchids trembled with

morning dew. Now the sun, like a lion, leaped on the shoulder of the

sky, and the snow-bastioned horizons bled with scarlet fire.

Ghond and Radja, who had been awake already, stood up; then the

latter, a well-trained priest, chanted the Sanskrit Vedic prayer to

Savitar--the Sun:

O thou blossom of eastern silence,

Take thy ancient way untrodden of men.

Go on thy dustless path of mystery,

Reach thou the golden throne of God,

And be our advocate

Before His Silence and His compassionate speechlessness.

The prayer frightened the eagles, unaccustomed to human voices. But

ere they were excited to fury our little ritual was over and we

hid ourselves under the stunted pine. The eagles, left without any

breakfast, looked out and scanned the sky for a sign of their parent.

They gazed below where flocks of parrots and jays flew, small as

humming birds. Wild geese came trailing across the snowy peaks where

they had spent the night on their journey southward. Soon they too grew

small as beetles and melted into space. Hour after hour passed, yet

no sight of the big eagle! The full-fledged eaglets felt hungrier and

hungrier, and began to fret in their nest. We heard a quarrel going on

in the interior of the eyrie which grew in intensity and noise till

one of them left home in disgust and began to climb the cliff. He went

higher and higher. Up and up he walked without using his wings. By now

it was past midday; we had luncheon, yet still there was no sight of

the parent birds. We judged that the eagle left in the nest was the

sister, for she looked smaller than the other eaglet. She sat facing

the wind, peering into the distance, but she too grew down-hearted.

Strange though it may sound, I have yet to see a Himalayan eagle which

does not sit facing the wind from the time of its birth until it learns

to fly, as a sailor boy might sit looking at the sea until he takes

to navigating it. About two in the afternoon that eagle grew tired

of waiting in the nest. She set out in quest of her brother who was

now perching on the top of a cliff far above. He too was facing the

wind. As his sister came up his eyes brightened. He was glad not to be

alone and the sight of her saved him from the melancholy thought of

flying for food. No eagle-child have I seen being taught to fly by its

parents. That is why younglings will not open their wings until driven

by hunger. The parent eagles know this very well and that is why when

their babies grow up, and the time has come, they leave them and go

away.

The little sister laboriously climbed till she reached her brother's

side but alas, there was no room for two. Instead of balancing

themselves on their perch, the sister's weight knocked her brother

almost over. Instantly he opened his wings wide. The wind bore him up.

He stretched out his talons, but too late to reach the ground. He was

at least two feet up in the air already, so he flapped his wings and

rose a little higher. He dipped his tail--which acted like a rudder

and swung him sideways, east, south, east. He swung over us and we

could hear the wind crooning in his wings. Just at that moment a solemn

silence fell on everything; the noises of insects stopped; rabbits,

if there were rabbits, hid in their holes. Even the leaves seemed to

listen in silence to the wing-beats of this new monarch of the air as

he sailed higher and higher. And he had to go away up, for only by

going very far could he find what he sought. Sometimes eighteen hundred

to three thousand feet below him, an eagle sees a hare hopping about

on the ground. Then he folds his wings and roars down the air like

lightning. The terrible sound of his coming almost hypnotizes the poor

creature and holds him bound to the spot listening to his enemy's

thunderous approach, and then the eagle's talons pierce him.

Seeing her brother go off in this way, and being afraid of loneliness,

the sister suddenly spread her wings too. The wind blowing from under

threw her up. She also floated in the air and tacked her flight by

her tail toward her comrade and in a few minutes both were lost to

sight. Now it was our turn to depart from those hills in search of our

pigeon. He might have gone to Dentam. But it behoved us to search every

Lamasery and baronial castle which had served Gay-Neck as a landmark in

his past flights.

CHAPTER V

ON GAY-NECK'S TRACK

As we descended into the bleak oblivion of the gorges below, we

suddenly found ourselves in a world of deepening dark, though it was

hardly three in the afternoon. It was due to the long shadows of the

tall summits under which we moved. We hastened our pace, and the cold

air goaded us on. As soon as we had descended about a thousand feet

and more it grew warmer by comparison, but as night came on apace the

temperature dropped anew and drove us to seek shelter in a friendly

Lamasery. We reached that particular _serai_ where the Lamas, Buddhist

monks, most generously offered us hospitality. They spoke to us only

as they had occasion in serving us with supper and in escorting us to

our rooms. They spend their evenings in meditation.

We had three small cells cut out of the side of a hill, in front of

which was a patch of grassy lawn railed off at the outer edges. By the

light of the lanthorns we carried, we found that we had only straw

mattresses in our stone cells. However, the night passed quickly, for

we were so tired that we slept like children in their mothers' arms.

About four o'clock next morning I heard many footsteps that roused me

completely from sleep. I got out of bed and went in their direction,

and soon I discerned bright lights. By climbing down and then up a

series of high steps, I reached the central chapel of the Lamasery--a

vast cave under an overhanging rock, and open on three sides. There,

before me stood eight Lamas with lanthorns which they quietly put away

as they then sat down to meditate, their legs crossed under them. The

dim light fell on their tawny faces and blue robes, and revealed on

their countenances only peace and love.

Presently their leader said to me in Hindusthani: "It has been our

practice for centuries to pray for all who sleep. At this hour of the

night even the insomnia-stricken person finds oblivion and since men

when they sleep can not possess their conscious thoughts, we pray that

Eternal Compassion may purify them, so that when they awake in the

morning they will begin their day with thoughts that are pure, kind and

brave. Will you meditate with us?"

I agreed readily. We sat praying for compassion for all mankind. Even

to this day when I awake early I think of those Buddhist monks in the

Himalayas praying for the cleansing of the thoughts of all men and

women still asleep.

The day broke soon enough. I found that we were sitting in a cleft of a

mountain, and at our feet lay a precipice sheer and stark. The tinkling

of silver bells rose softly in the sunlit air, bells upon bells, silver

and golden, chimed gently and filled the air with their sweet music: it

was the monks' greeting to the harbinger of light. The sun rose as a

clarion cry of triumph--of Light over darkness, and of Life over Death.

Below I met Radja and Ghond at breakfast. It was then that a monk who

served us said: "Your pigeon came here for shelter yesterday." He gave

a description of Gay-Neck, accurate even to the nature of his nose

wattle, its size and colour. Ghond asked: "How do you know we seek a

pigeon?" The flat-faced Lama, without even turning an eyelash, said in

a matter of fact tone: "I can read your thoughts." Radja questioned

with eagerness: "How can you read our thoughts?"

The monk answered: "If you pray to Eternal Compassion for four hours a

day for the happiness of all that live, in the course of a dozen years

He gives you the power to read some people's thoughts, especially the

thoughts of those who come here.... Your pigeon we fed and healed of

his fear when he took shelter with us."

"Healed of fear, my Lord!" I exclaimed.

The Lama affirmed most simply: "Yes, he was deeply frightened. So

I took him in my hands and stroked his head and told him not to be

afraid, then yestermorn I let him go. No harm will come to him."

"Can you give your reason for saying so, my Lord?" asked Ghond politely.

The man of God replied to him thus: "You must know, O Jewel amongst

hunters, that no animal, nor any man, is attacked and killed by an

enemy until the latter succeeds in frightening him. I have seen even

rabbits escape hounds and foxes when they kept themselves free of fear.

Fear clouds one's wits and paralyses one's nerve. He who allows himself

to be frightened lets himself be killed."

"But how do you heal a bird of fear, my Lord?"

To that question of Radja's the holy one answered: "If you are without

fear and you keep not only your thoughts pure but also your sleep

untainted of any fear-laden dreams for months, then whatever you touch

will become utterly fearless. Your pigeon now is without fear for I who

held him in my hand have not been afraid in thought, deed and dream for

nearly twenty years. At present your pet bird is safe: no harm will

come to him."

By the calm conviction in his words, spoken without emphasis, I felt

that in truth Gay-Neck was safe and in order to lose no more time,

I said farewell to the devotees of Buddha and started south. Let me

say that I firmly believe that the Lamas were right. If you pray for

other people every morning you can enable them to begin their day with

thoughts of purity, courage and love.

Now we dropped rapidly towards Dentam. Our journey lay through

places that grew hotter and more familiar. No more did we see the

rhododendrons. The autumn that further up had touched the leaves of

trees with crimson, gold, cerise, and copper was not so advanced here.

The cherry trees still bore their fruits; the moss had grown on trees

thickly, and the wind had blown on them the pollen of orchids, large

as the palm of your hand, blossoming in purple and scarlet. Many white

daturas perspired with dewdrops in the steaming heat of the sun. The

trees began to appear taller and terrible. Bamboos soared upwards

like sky-piercing minarets. Creepers thick as pythons beset our path.

The buzzing of the cicada grew insistent and unbearable, and jays

jabbered in the woods. Now and then a flock of green parrots flung

their emerald glory in the face of the sun, then vanished. Insects

multiplied. Mammoth butterflies, velvety black, swarmed from blossom

to blossom, and innumerable small birds preyed on numberless buzzing

flies. We were stung with the sharpest stings of worms, and now and

then we had to wait to let pass a serpent that crossed our path. Were

it not for the practised eyes of Ghond who knew which way the animals

came and went, we would have been killed ten times over by a snake or

a bison. Sometimes Ghond would put his ear to the ground and listen.

After several minutes he would say: "Ahead of us bisons are coming.

Let us wait till they pass." And soon enough we would hear their sharp

hoofs moving through the undergrowth with a sinister noise as if a vast

scythe were cutting, cutting, cutting the very ground from under our

feet. Yet we pressed on, stopping for half an hour for lunch. At last

we reached the borders of Sikkim, whose small valley glimmered with

ripening red millet, green oranges and golden bananas, set against

hillsides glittering with marigolds above which softly shone the

violets.

Just then we came to a sight that I shall never forget. At our feet on

the narrow caravan road the air burnt in iridescence: the heat was so

great that it vibrated with colours. Hardly had we gone a few yards

when like a thunderclap rose a vast flock of Himalayan pheasants; then

they flew into the jungle, their wings burning like peacocks' plumes in

the warm air. We kept on moving. In another couple of minutes flew up

another flock, but these were mud-coloured birds. In my perplexity I

asked Ghond for an explanation.

He said: "Do you not see, O beloved of felicity, the caravan that

passed here was loaded with millet? One of their sacks had a hole in

it. A few handfuls of millet leaked out on the road before the sack was

sewn up. Later on arrived these birds and fed themselves here. We came

upon them suddenly and frightened them to flight."

"But, O Diadem of Wisdom," I asked, "why do the males look so gorgeous

and why are the females mud-coloured? Is nature always partial to the

male?"

Ghond made the following explanation. "It is said that mother Nature

has given all birds the colours that hide them from their enemies. But

do you not see that those pheasants are so full of splendour that they

can be sighted and killed even by a blind man?"

Radja exclaimed: "Can they?"

Ghond answered: "O, wary beyond thy years, no! The real reason is that

they live on trees and do not come down before the earth is very hot.

In this hot India of ours the air two inches above the ground is so

burning that it quivers with a thousand colours; and the plumage of the

pheasant is similar. When we look at them we do not see birds, but the

many-coloured air which camouflages them completely. We almost walked

on them a few moments ago, thinking them but a part of the road at our

feet."

"That I comprehend," resumed Radja reverently. "But why did the female

look mud-coloured and why did they not fly away with the male?"

Ghond answered without hesitation. "When the enemy approaches and

takes them by surprise, the male flies up to face the enemy's bullets

though without thought of chivalry. The females' wings are not so

good. Besides she, being of the colour of the earth, opens her wings

to shelter her babies under them, then lies flat on the ground,

completely melting away her identity into that colour scheme. After the

enemy goes away in quest of the corpses of their already slaughtered

husbands, the females run away with their babies into the nearest

thicket.... And if it is not too late in the year, and if their

grown-up babies are not with them, the mother birds singly flop to the

ground and lie there, making the gesture of protecting their young.

Self-sacrifice becomes a habit with them, and habitually they put forth

their wings whether they have any young ones with them or not. That

is what they were doing when we came upon them, then suddenly they

realized that they were without anyone to protect, and as we still kept

on coming down upon them they took to flight, poor fliers though they

are."

With the approach of dusk we took shelter in the house of a Sikkimese

nobleman whose son was a friend of ours. There we found further traces

of Gay-Neck, who had been to their house many times before, and so

when he reached the familiar place on his latest visit he had eaten

millet seeds, drunk water and taken his bath. Also, he had preened his

wings and left two small azure feathers which my friend had preserved

for the sake of their colouring. When I saw them my heart leapt in

joy, and that night I slept in utter peace and contentment. There was

another reason for sleeping well, for Ghond had told us to rest deeply,

as after the following day's march, we were to spend the night in the

jungle.

The next night when we sat on that tree top in the deep jungle, often

did I think of the home of my Sikkimese friend and its comforts.

Imagine yourself marching all day, then spending the night on a vast

banyan tree in the very heart of a dangerous forest! It took us a

little over half an hour to find that tree, for banyans do not often

grow in high altitudes, and also the same reason that made us choose

the banyan made us look for a very large one of its kind--it would be

of no use to us if it were slender enough for an elephant to break down

by walking backwards against it! That is how the pachyderm destroys

some very stout trees. We looked for something tall and so stout that

no elephant could reach its upper branches with his trunk and not even

two tuskers could break it by pushing against it with their double

weight.

[Illustration: _With enormously long reach he almost touched the top of

the tree._]

At last we found a tree to our liking. Radja stood on Ghond's shoulder

and I on Radja's, until we reached branches as thick as a man's

torso. I climbed and sat on one of them and from it let down our rope

ladder which we always carried in the jungle for emergencies such as

the present one. Radja climbed up and sat near me, then Ghond ascended

the branch and sat between us. Now we saw that below us where Ghond had

stood it had not only grown dark as the heart of a coal mine but there

glowed two green lights set very close to one another. We knew too well

whose they were. Ghond exclaimed jovially: "Had I been delayed down

there two extra minutes the striped fellow would have killed me."

Seeing that his prey had escaped him, the tiger gave a thunderous

yell, scourging the air like a curse. At once a tense silence fell and

smothered all the noises of insects and little beasts and it descended

further and deeper until it sank into the earth and seemed to grip the

very roots of the trees.

We made ourselves secure on our perch and Ghond passed the extremely

flexible rope ladder around his waist, then Radja's, then mine,

fastening the rest of it around the main trunk of the tree. We tested

it by letting it bear the weight of one of us at a time. This

precaution was taken for the purpose of preventing a sleep-stricken

member of our group from slipping down to the floor of the jungle, for

after all, in sleep the body relaxes so that it falls like a stone.

Finally, Ghond arranged his arms for pillows for our heads when slumber

came.

Now that we had taken all the necessary precautions we concentrated

our attention on what was happening below. The tiger had vanished from

under our tree. The insects had resumed their song, which was again and

again stilled for a few seconds as huge shapes fell from far off trees

with soft thuds. Those were leopards and panthers who had slept on the

trees all day and were now leaping down to hunt at night.

When they had gone the frogs croaked, insects buzzed continually and

owls hooted. Noise, like a diamond, opened its million facets. Sounds

leapt at one's hearing like the dart of sunlight into unprotected

eyes. A boar passed, cracking and breaking all before him. Soon the

frogs stopped croaking, and way down on the floor of the jungle we

heard the tall grass and other undergrowth rise like a hay-cock, then

with a sigh fall back. That soft sinister sigh like the curling up of

spindrift drew nearer and nearer, then ... it slowly passed our tree.

Oh! what a relief. It was a constrictor going to the water hole. We

stayed on our tree-top as still as its bark--Ghond was afraid that our

breathing might betray our position to the terrible python.

A few minutes later we heard one or two snappings of small twigs almost

as faint as a man cracking his fingers. It was a stag whose antlers had

got caught in some vines and he was snapping them to get himself freed.

Hardly had he passed when the jungle grew very tense with expectation.

Sounds began to die down. Out of the ten or a dozen different noises

that we had heard all at once, there now remained only three: the

insects' tick tack tock, the short wail of the stag--no doubt the

constrictor was strangling him near the water hole--and the wind

overhead. Now the elephants were coming. Hatis (elephants), about fifty

in a herd, came and played around the place below us. The squeal of

the females, the grunt of the males, and the run run run of the babies

filled the air.

I do not remember what happened next, for I had dozed off into a

sort of waking sleep, and in that condition I heard myself talking

pigeon-language to Gay-Neck. I was experiencing a deep confusion of

sleep and dream. Someone shook and roused me. To my utter amazement

Ghond whispered "I cannot hold you any more. Wake up! Mischief is

abroad. A mad elephant has been left behind. The straggler is bent

on harm. We are not high enough to be altogether out of the reach of

his trunk, and if he raises it far enough he will scent our presence.

Wild elephants hate and fear man and once he gets our odour he may

stay about here all day in order to find out where we are. Rouse thy

vigilance, lad. Draw the blade of alertness before the enemy strikes."

There was no mistake about that elephant. In the pale light of early

dawn I could discern a sort of hillock darkly moving about under our

tree. He was going from tree to tree and snapping off a few succulent

twigs that autumn had not yet blighted. He seemed greedy and bent on

gorging himself with those delicacies, rare for the time of the year.

In about half an hour he performed a strange trick, putting his fore

feet on the bole of a thick tree, and swinging up his trunk. It gave

him the appearance of a far-spreading mammoth; with that enormously

long reach he almost touched the top of the tree and twisted the most

delectable branches off its boughs. After having denuded it of its good

twigs he came to a tree next to ours, and there did the same thing.

Now he found a slender tree which he pulled down with his trunk, and

placed his forefeet on the poor bent thing and broke it with a crash

under his own weight. He ate all that he could of that one. While he

was breakfasting thus, his rampage frightened the birds and monkeys,

who flew in the air or ran from tree to tree jabbering in terror. Then

the elephant put his feet on the stump of the broken tree and reached

up into ours until he touched the branch on which we sat. Hardly had

he done so when he squealed, for the odour of man all beasts fear, and

swiftly withdrew his trunk. After grunting and complaining to himself

he put up his trunk again very near Ghond's face. Just then Ghond

sneezed almost into the elephant's nostrils. That struck panic into the

latter's heart; he felt beleaguered by men. Trumpeting and squealing

like a frightened fiend, he dashed through the jungle, breaking and

smashing everything before him. Again the parrots, thick as green

sails, flew in the sky. Monkeys screamed and raced from tree to tree.

Boars and stags stampeded on the floors of the jungle. For a while the

din and tumult reigned unchecked. We had to wait some time before we

dared to descend from our perch in order to resume our homeward journey.

Late that day we reached home after being carried on horseback by a

caravan which we were fortunate enough to meet. All three of us were

dead tired, but we forgot our fatigue when we beheld Gay-Neck in his

nest in our house at Dentam. Oh, what joy! That evening before I went

to sleep I thought of the calm quiet assurance of the Lama who said:

"Your bird is safe."

CHAPTER VI

GAY-NECK'S TRUANCY

But the day after our return Gay-Neck flew away again, in the morning,

and failed to put in an appearance later. We waited for him most

anxiously during four successive days, and then, unable to bear the

suspense any longer, Ghond and I set out in search of him, determined

to find him, dead or alive. This time we hired two ponies to take us

as far as Sikkim. We had made sure of our path by asking people about

Gay-Neck in each village that we had to pass through. Most of them had

seen the bird and some of them gave an accurate description of him:

one hunter had seen him in a Lamasery nesting next to a swift under the

eaves of the house; another, a Buddhist monk, said that he had seen

him near their monastery in Sikkim on a river bank where wild ducks

had their nest, and, in the latest village that we passed through on

the second afternoon we were told that he was seen in the company of a

flock of swifts.

Led by such good accounts we reached the highest table-land of Sikkim

and were forced to bivouac there the third night. Our ponies were

sleepy, and so were we, but after what seemed like an hour's sleep, I

was roused by a tenseness that had fallen upon everything. I found the

two beasts of burden standing stiff; in the light of the fire and that

of the risen half moon I saw that their ears were raised tensely in

the act of listening carefully. Even their tails did not move. I too

listened intently. There was no doubt that the silence of the night

was more than mere stillness; stillness is empty, but the silence that

beset us was full of meaning, as if a God, shod with moonlight, was

walking so close that if I were to put out my hand I could touch his

garment.

Just then the horses moved their ears as if to catch the echo of a

sound that had moved imperceptibly through the silence. The great deity

had gone already; now a queer sensation of easing the tense atmosphere

set in. One could feel even the faintest shiver of the grass, but that

too was momentary; the ponies now listened for a new sound from the

north. They were straining every nerve in the effort. At last even

I could hear it. Something like a child yawning in his sleep became

audible. Stillness again followed. Then a sighing sound long drawn out,

ran through the air; which sank lower and lower like a thick green leaf

slowly sinking through calm water. Then rose a murmur on the horizon

as if someone were praying against the sky line. About a minute later

the horses relaxed their ears and switched their tails and I, too, felt

myself at ease. Lo! thousands of geese were flying through the upper

air. They were at least four thousand feet above us, but all the same

the ponies heard their coming long before I did.

The flight of the geese told us that dawn was at hand, and I sat up and

watched. The stars set one by one. The ponies began to graze. I gave

them more rope; now that the night had passed they did not need to be

tied so close to the fire.

In another ten minutes the intense stillness of the dawn held all

things in its grip, and that had its effect on our two beasts.

This time I could see clearly both of them lifting their heads and

listening. What sounds were they trying to catch? I did not have long

to wait. In a tree not far off a bird shook itself, then another did

the same thing, on another bough. One of them sang. It was a song

sparrow and its cry roused all nature. Other song sparrows trilled;

then other birds, and still others! By now shapes and colours were

coming to light with blinding rapidity. Thus passed the short tropical

twilight, and Ghond got up to say his prayers.

That day our wanderings brought us to the Lamasery near Singalele of

which I have spoken before. The Lamas were glad to give us all the news

of Gay-Neck. They informed me that the previous afternoon Gay-Neck and

the flock of swifts who nested under the eaves of the monastery had

flown southwards.

Again with the blessings of the Lamas we said farewell to their

hospitable serai, and set out on Gay-Neck's trail. The mountains burnt

like torches behind us as we bestowed on them our last look. Before

us lay the autumn tinted woods glimmering in gold, purple, green, and

cerise.

CHAPTER VII

GAY-NECK'S STORY

In the preceding chapter I made scanty references to the places and

incidents through which Gay-Neck was recovered. Ghond found his track

with certainty the first day of our ten days' search for him, but

in order to see those things clearly and continuously, it would be

better to let Gay-Neck tell his own Odyssey. It is not hard for us to

understand him if we use the grammar of fancy and the dictionary of

imagination.

The October noon when we boarded the train at Darjeeling for our return

journey to town, Gay-Neck sat in his cage, and commenced the story of

his recent truancy from Dentam to Singalele and back.

"O, Master of many tongues, O wizard of all languages human and animal,

listen to my tale. Listen to the stammering wandering narrative of a

poor bird. Since the river has its roots in the hill, so springs my

story from the mountains.

"When near the eagle's nest I heard and beheld the wicked hawk's talons

tear my mother to pieces, I was so distressed that I decided to die,

but not by the claws of those treacherous birds. If I was to be served

up for a meal let it be to the king of the air; so I went and sat on

the ledge near the eagle's nest, but they would do me no harm. Their

house was in mourning. Their father had been trapped and killed, and

their mother was away hunting for pheasants and hares. Since up to now

the younglings had only eaten what had been killed for them, they dared

not attack and finish poor me who was alive. I do not know yet why no

eagle has harmed me; during the past days I have seen many.

"Then you came to catch and cage me. As I was in no mood for human

company, I flew away, taking my chances as I went, but I remembered

places and persons who were your friends and I stayed with them on my

way south to Dentam. During those two days--for I flew only two days--I

was attacked by a newly fledged hawk, and I gave him the best defeat

of his life. It was in this wise; one morning as I was flying over the

woods below Sikkim, I heard the wind screech overhead. I knew what that

meant now, so I played a trick. I stopped all on a sudden and the hawk,

who was falling upon me, missed me and fell away down, grazing his wing

on a tree-top. I rose higher and flew fast, but he caught up and then I

began to make circles in the air. I rose high, oh so high that my lungs

could not breathe the air there, and I had to come down again.

"But no sooner had I descended than with an ominous screech and cry the

hawk fell upon me. Fortunately, then and there, for the first time in

my life I tried to tumble as I had seen my father do, and I succeeded

in making a double tumble, then shooting up like a fountain. Again

the hawk missed and rose to attack, but I gave him no chance. I flew

at him. And just as I was passing him, he dipped down, then up, and

clutched at me; again I tumbled, striking him so hard that he lost

his balance. I do not know what happened, but that very moment I felt

something sucking me down down to the depth of the earth. My wings were

powerless. I fell as an eagle falls--heavy and inevitable--striking the

hawk on the head with my full weight. I think the blow stunned him.

He too fell, and was lost in the woods below, but I was glad to find

myself on the branch of an ilex tree.

"I had been sucked down by an air current. Since that first experience

of mine, I have met many others like it but I have never understood why

it was that above certain trees and streams the air gets very cold and

makes a current that draws into itself the bird that strikes it. I had

to learn the lesson of flying in those currents after being whirled up

and down by them. But I do not hate them, since the first air current I

encountered saved my life.

"Sitting on that ilex tree I became so hungry that it drove me to fly

home. Luckily, no soulless hawk obstructed my arrow-like flight.

"But my successful escape from that newly-fledged murderer gave me back

my courage, and as soon as you came home I said to myself: 'Now that

he, my friend, has seen me alive, he will not worry about me. I must

fly anew through the falcon-infested air and test my courage.'

"Now began my real Odyssey. I went northwards to the eagle's nest, and

stopped at the Lamasery where a holy man had blessed me on an earlier

occasion. There I re-visited Mr. and Mrs. Swift, my old friends. Moving

further north I went past Singalele at last and reached the eyrie of

the eagles who had flown away. So I made myself comfortable there, but

not too happy, for the eagles leave all kinds of refuse in their nests,

and I am afraid they swarm with vermin. Though I spent my day in the

eagle's nest, I decided to spend the night in a tree, free from horrid

insects. After a couple of days, my going in and out of the eyrie gave

me great prestige among other birds. They feared me, perhaps because

they took me for a sort of eagle. Even the hawks began to give me a

wide berth. That gave me all the confidence that I needed, so early one

morning, seeing a white wedge of birds coming south, flying very high,

I joined them. They did not mind my joining them, they were wild geese

going towards Ceylon and beyond, in the quest of a sunny ocean.

"Those geese, after two hours' flight, as the day became warmer,

descended onto a rapid mountain stream. Unlike the eagles, they rarely

looked downwards, but watched the horizon lines. They spied a little

ribbon of whitish blue far off against the sky, and flew in a slowly

declining straight line till it seemed as if the earth were rising to

meet us, and soon all plunged into the silver stream, for now, the

waters looked more silvery than blue. They floated on the water, but

as I knew that I was not web-footed, I sat on a tree and watched their

antics. You know how flat and ugly the bills of geese are, but now I

saw the reason for it. They used them like pincers on things such as

shells that grew on the side of the banks. Every now and then a goose

would put his bill on a plant or a shell, then wring it out of position

as a butcher would wring a duck's neck. After that it would devour

its victim wholesale, crushing it in its powerful throat, but ere it

passed very far down its size dwindled to nothing. I saw one fellow do

worse than that. He found a fish--as lean as a water snake--in a hole

under the bank; he began to pull it. The more he pulled the thinner and

longer it got. Slowly, after a terrific tug of war, the poor fellow was

dragged from his hole. Then the goose hopped up the shore and flung it

on the ground. His bill had crushed the part it had held onto, nearly

into pulp, so no wonder his wriggling victim was already dead. Then

from nowhere walked up to him another goose. (By the way, are not

geese the most ungainly birds when they are not flying or swimming?

On the water they resemble dreams floating on pools of sleep, but on

land they hobble like cripples on crutches!) By now the two geese were

quarrelling. They pulled one another's feathers, they slapped with

their wings, they kicked each other with their feet every time they

hopped up above the ground. While they were thus engaged, oblivious

of their bone of contention, a cat-like creature, probably an otter,

pounced from among the reeds, grabbed the dead eel and vanished. Now

the geese declared a truce, but too late! Oh, they have no more sense

than, well--geese! Compared with them, we pigeons seem paragons of

cleverness.

"After they had stopped fighting, the chief goose cried--'Cluck, caw,

caw, caw!' That instant all of them paddled hard to gather momentum.

A few extra wing-beats and they were in the air. How beautiful they

looked now! That soft soughing of vast wings, their necks and bodies

like drawings against the sky, making a severe eye-pleasing wedge. I

shall never forget it.

"But every flock has its straggler. One fellow was left behind, because

he was still struggling with a fish. At last he secured it, and flew up

in quest of a tree where he could eat it under cover. Suddenly from the

empty air an enormous hawk attacked him. The goose rose higher but the

indefatigable hawk did not relent. Up and up they circled, screaming

and quacking. Suddenly a faint but clear echo of a honk was heard.

The chief of the flock was calling the straggler; that distracted

him. Hardly knowing what he was doing, he honked back an answer. That

instant the fish fell from his mouth. It began to fall like a leaf. The

hawk dipped, and just as he was going to pierce it with his talons,

down the air came a surge and roar. In a trice an eagle fell as a rock

falls down a high precipice. That hawk ran for his life, and that gave

me a great deal of pleasure to behold.

"Under the eagle's two wings like vast sails, the talons forked out

lightning fashion and grabbed the fish--then the monarch of the air in

his shining armour of brown gold sailed away, the wind ruffling the

feathers above his knees. Far away, the hawk was still running for his

life!

"I am glad he went very far away, for I had to fly about in quest of a

caravan road where I could get some seeds dropped by men. I soon found

some and after a tolerably decent meal, I perched on a tree and went to

sleep. When I woke it was mid-afternoon. I decided to fly away up, to

reach the blessed Lamasery, and visit my friends the swifts. My flight

was unattended by any mishap, for I had learned to fly carefully by

now. I generally went very far up and looked down, as well as at the

horizon. Though I have not as long a neck as a wild goose, yet I turned

and took side glances every few minutes in order to make sure that

nothing was attacking my rear.

"I reached the monastery just in time, as the Lamas were getting ready

to stand on the edge of their chapel in order to pour benediction upon

the world during sunset. Mr. and Mrs. Swift were flying near the nest

where their three youngsters were put to bed. Of course they were glad

to receive me. After their vesper services, the monks fed me, and the

sweet old Lama said something about a blessing that some one called

Infinite Compassion had put upon me. Then I flew from his hand feeling

absolutely fearless. In that state of mind and body I entered my nest

next to the swifts under the eaves of the Lamasery.

"The nights in October are cold. In the morning while the priests rang

their bells, the little swifts flew about for exercise while their

parents and I had to fly to shake off the chill of the morning. That

day I spent there in order to help them make preparations for their

journey south. I was surprised to learn that they intended to build a

nest in Ceylon or Africa whither they were going. I explained to them

that a swift's nest is not at all an easy thing to construct. Then in

order to assuage my thirst for knowledge they told me how they erect

their homes."

CHAPTER VIII

GAY-NECK'S ODYSSEY (_Continued_)

In order to make clear to you the swift's skill at architecture, let me

first of all draw attention to the swift's handicaps. He has a small

beak fit for catching flying insects. His mouth is very wide to enable

him to catch his prey while he is on the wing. Very few insects can

escape his wide open mouth as he comes down on them. As he is very

small, Mr. Swift cannot lift much weight. No wonder his house is built

out of slender materials such as straw and twigs of trees no thicker

than a middle-sized needle.

"The first time I saw a swift he looked paralysed and deformed. All

swifts know that they have wretched legs. The bird has hardly any

legs to balance upon. His small feet, made for sticking on to places

like fish-hooks, emerge right out of his body; his little hooklike

claws seem inflexible. He has not enough leg between his body and his

feet, and this deprives him of the springiness which longer legs supply

to other birds. No wonder he cannot hop nor jump. But that defect

is squared by his one advantage--he can cling to stone palisades,

marble eaves, and alabaster friezes of houses as no other bird can. I

have seen my friend Swift hang on to polished walls as if they were

corrugated surfaces.

"Under these handicaps, all he can do is to choose holes in walls just

under the eaves for his home. But there he cannot lay his eggs, for

they would roll off. So he catches flying straws and small falling

leaves, and glues them to the stone floor of his nest with his

saliva. That is the secret of his skill at architecture. His saliva

is wonderful; it dries and hardens like the best glue of the cabinet

makers. When the nest is made ready, the long white eggs are laid.

Among the swifts women are not so emancipated as amongst the pigeons.

Our women enjoy equal rights with men, but the female swift has always

the larger part of the work to do. For instance, Mr. Swift never sits

on the eggs; he lets his wife do it. Occasionally he brings her food

during the day, but otherwise he spends all his waking hours visiting

male swifts whose wives are similarly occupied. I told my friend Swift

he ought to copy the pigeons and give more freedom to his wife, but he

seemed to think this a pet joke of mine.

"At last our preparations were made and one fine autumn morning the

five swifts and I set out in a southerly direction, piloted by Mr.

Swift. We never went in a straight line, but zig-zagged east or west,

though we held to a general southern course. The swifts eat flies and

gnats that float on rivers and lakes. They go about fifty miles an

hour--a blinding speed for a small bird--and do not like woods because

while their gaze is fixed downwards in search of insects, they may

break their wings on a tree. They prefer open clear spaces above the

waters and with their scythe-like long wings they cleave the air as

swiftly as an eagle falls on its prey. Think of the precision of the

swift's eye and mouth! While he is whirling over the water he snaps

up flying insects with such ease that the space he traverses is

completely cleared of all the gnats and flies who a few moments before

danced in the sunlight.

"Thus we went over streams, ponds and lagoons. By the way, Mr. Swift

eats his food in a hurry and takes his drink the same way. He flies

over the water, skimming up drops as he goes and swallowing them at

a very high rate of speed. No wonder that he hates to fly in a place

crowded with boughs, larches, and saplings.

"But so much flight in open air has its drawbacks. While a swift is

eating insects with such speed, a sparrow hawk may fall on him from

above. Under these circumstances the swift cannot dip down, for that

would mean death by drowning. I must tell you of one such attack on

my friends. They were busy catching their dinner on a vast lake one

afternoon, and while I was flying about keeping an eye on the younger

swifts, down came a sparrow hawk. I who had undertaken to look after

the children had to act quickly even at the risk of my own life.

Without an instant's hesitation I plunged and tumbled, inserting my

body between the enemy and the young ones. Well, the sparrow hawk had

never expected so much nerve from a member of the dove family, nor did

he calculate my weight. I was at least five ounces heavier than he. He

struck my tail with his talons, tore a few feathers, and thinking that

he had got something he circled the air for a moment or two. Before

he realized that he had only my feathers, all the swifts were safe,

clinging to the bark of a tree out of anybody's reach. But the small

sparrow hawk was so infuriated that he fell on me with the fury of a

large one. However, his body was very small and his talons smaller, and

I knew they could not pierce my feathers and my skin very far. So I

accepted his challenge and tumbled up. He followed. I shot downwards;

he too dived after. Then I began to rise high. He pursued as before.

But those little hawks fear the upper air, and his wings lagged now.

To my two wing-beats he could make but one. Seeing him hopeless and

tired, I planned to teach him the lesson of his life. No sooner had I

conceived than I executed my plan. I shot downwards. He plunged after.

Down, down, down! The water of the lake rose towards us, higher and

higher every second till it looked no farther than the width of my

wing. Then I flung forward a few inches and struck a warm air current

which helped me upwards. As you know, air warmed in the hollow places

and valleys of mountain country has a tendency to shoot up into cooler

regions. We birds look for these currents to help us when we have need

to make a sudden upward flight. Now I tumbled three times, and when I

looked down I found that sparrow hawk drowning in the water. He had not

been able to reach the air current. After a considerable ducking, he

laboriously flew ashore, and there under thick leaves hid his disgrace.

That instant the swifts came out of their hiding place and flew

southwards.

"The next day we met some wild ducks. They had coloured throats like

mine, but otherwise they were white as snow. They were stream ducks,

whose habit is to float down a mountain brook after fish. When they

have gone far, they rise out of the water and fly back to their

starting place. So they spend the day like shuttles going back and

forth. Their bills were flatter than those of the geese, and they are

dented inside, for once they close on a fish the bills never slip. They

did not seem to care much for the shellfish, but that was probably

because the fish in the lake were so plentiful. The swifts did not like

the place because the ducks' wings beat the air continually and blew

away the insects that normally fly over any water surface. Still they

were glad to see ducks that loved and lived on mountain torrents, never

bothering about the calm water so dear to most ducks.

"It was these ducks who warned us against the owls and other murderers

of the night which infested those regions. So we did our best to hide

in places too small for owls to go into. It was easy to find holes

in a tree small enough for the swifts, but I decided to stay in the

open and take my chances. Night came on apace. Pretty soon my eyes

could serve me no longer. Darkness within darkness like layers of

black cloth lay upon them. I commended myself to the Gods of my race

and tried to sleep. But who could sleep with those owls who-whoing

about? Terror seized me for the night. Not an hour passed without some

bird's shrieking in pain. The owls, too, hooted in triumph. Now a

starling, then a bulbul (the Indian nightingale) would cry mortally,

and die under the owl's grip. Though my eyes were shut my ears knew

the carnage that went on. A crow shrieked. Then another, then another.

Almost a flock flew up in terror and smashed themselves against trees.

But better that kind of death than to be killed by the searing and

tearing beaks and claws of the owls. Soon to my utter confusion I

smelt weasels in the air and then I felt that death was at hand. That

made me desperate; I opened my eyes to see. A pale white light was

shining on all things. There before me, about six feet away, was a

weasel. I flew up, though that increased the danger of my being killed

by the owls. And sure enough, along came one hooting and screaming.

Two more owls followed. I heard their wing-beats and by the nature of

the sounds I knew that we were flying over the water, for it echoed

back even the slightest shiver of our feathers. I could not fly in

any direction very far, since I saw not more than six feet at a time,

so I waited in the air groping for an air current that sucked the air

of the river up above the boughs that hung over it. Alas, those owls

were on me already, but I tumbled, then swung into a circle. The owls

would not give up the chase. I rose further up. Now the moonlight

like water dripped from my wings. I could see a little more clearly

and that brought me back my courage. But my enemies did not relent.

They too rose, and more light fell on their eyes, blinding them, though

not completely. Suddenly two of them plunged towards me. Up I flew.

The owls missed--lo! they had fallen on each other. Their claws locked

together, their wings flapping helplessly in the air, they screamed

like fiends and fell among the reeds of the river bank.

"Now I looked about carefully and noticed to my surprise that

I had flown towards the dawning of day and not at the moon. My

terror-stricken eyes had not seen truly. But there were no more owls

about; they had begun to seek for places of hiding from the growing

sunlight. Although I felt safe, I kept away from the prodigious shadows

of the tall trees, for even now an owl might lurk there. I stayed on a

slender branch on a tree-top which caught the first flight of the sun's

arrows, transfiguring it into an umbrella of dancing gold. Slowly the

light spread further down till the white torrent below trembled with

colours like a weasel's eyes.

"Just then on the river bank I saw an appalling sight. Two large

crows, blacker than coal, were jabbing and prodding with their beaks a

helpless blinking owl, caught in the reeds. Now that the sun shone, it

could not open its eyes. Of course the night's slaughter done amongst

the crows was large, and it was the crows' turn to avenge their wrongs,

but I could not bear the sight of two of them killing that trapped

owl. So I flew away from the murderers and went to seek my friends the

swifts. I recounted some of my experiences, and the parents told me

that they had heard terrible cries of distress which kept them from

slumber. Mr. Swift asked if everything was safe outside, and I thought

it was. When we came out, I found that poor owl lying dead, among the

reeds!

"Strange to say, that morning we saw no ducks on the stream. Apparently

they had flown very early in the morning in a southerly direction,

and we decided to do the same. We planned not to seek the company of

other birds going our way. For during the season of migration, wherever

flocks of pigeons, grouse and other birds go, their enemies such as

owls, hawks and eagles go after them. In order to avoid danger and

such shocking sights as we had seen before, we flew to the east and

after going eastwards a whole day, we rested in the village of Sikkim.

The next day we flew south for half a day and again eastward. That sort

of round-about journey took a long time, but it saved us no end of

trouble. Once we were overtaken by a storm, and were blown into a lake

country, and there I saw an amazing sight. I was on a tree-top, when

below me I discerned a lot of domesticated ducks floating on the water

with a fish in each one's mouth. But none of them swallowed his morsel.

I had never seen ducks resist the temptation to eat fish before, so

I called the swifts to behold the sight. They clung to the barks of

several trees and looked at the ducks, but they could hardly believe

their eyes. What was the matter with them? Pretty soon a boat hove in

sight, poled by two men, flat-faced and yellow. On seeing them the

ducks paddled to the boat as fast as they could go. Reaching it, they

hopped up, and then--can you believe it?--they dropped their capture

into a large fish basket, and jumped down into the lake to fish for

some more, and that went on for at least two hours. Apparently those

Tibeto-Burman fishermen never cast nets. They tied a string tightly,

almost to the choking point, around their ducks' necks, and then

brought them to the lake to catch fish. Whatever the latter caught,

they brought to their human masters. However, when their basket became

full, they undid the strings that were around the ducks' necks who then

plunged into the lake, and gorged themselves on fish.

"Now we flew away far from the lakes for a while in quest of harvest

fields. There the swifts fell on the insects that flew about newly

mown grain, and devoured them. I, too, ate to repletion of the grain,

though not of the insects. While sitting on the fence of a rice field I

heard someone hitting something. It sounded very much like a chaffinch

cracking open a cherry stone with his beak in order to get at its

kernel. (Isn't it strange that a little bird's beak has the power of a

nutcracker?) But, when I wandered nearer the place, under the fence,

whence the noise was coming, I found another bird--a Himalayan thrush.

He was engaged not in cracking cherry stones, but in hitting a slowly

moving snail with his beak. Tick, tack; tick, tack--tack! He hammered

on and on until the snail was stunned into stillness. The thrush raised

his head and looked around, poised himself on tiptoe, opened his wings,

took a quick aim and struck three more blows--tack, tack, tack! The

shell broke open, revealing a delicious snail. He lifted it up with his

beak, which was bleeding slightly; apparently he had opened his mouth

too wide and hurt its corners. After balancing the snail correctly

in his grasp, he flew up and vanished into a tree where his mate was

waiting for supper.

"The rest of our journey through the grain fields of Sikkim was

uneventful. The only thing that is worth remembering was the trapping

of peacocks by men in the forests. These birds come to the hot southern

marshes in quest of food and warmth when the snakes and other creatures

whom they eat go into winter quarters in the north.

"Peacocks and tigers admire one another. The former like to look at the

tiger's skin and he enjoys the beauty of their plumes. Sometimes at

the water hole a tiger will stand gazing at the plumes of a peacock on

a bough, and the peacock will crane his neck to feast his eyes on the

beauty of the striped skin. Now comes man, the eternal aggressor, on

the scene. For instance, a man one day brought a piece of cloth painted

exactly like a tiger's skin, so that no bird could tell by looking at

it that it was not the striped one himself. Then he set a noose on a

branch of a tree nearby, and slunk away. I could tell by the odour of

the painted cloth that it was not a tiger, but peacocks have no sense

of smell worth speaking of. They are victims of their own eyes. So in a

few hours a pair of peacocks came and began to gaze at the make-believe

tiger from a tree-top, coming lower and lower. They deceived themselves

into the belief that the tiger was asleep. Emboldened by that illusion,

they came very close and stood on the branch near the trap. It did

not take them long to walk into it, but how they both stepped into a

single trap I cannot make out. No sooner were they caught than they

shrieked in despair. Then appeared the trapper, and played another

trick on them. He threw up two large black canvas caps and lassooed

them on each peacock's head, hiding the poor birds' eyes. Once the

eyes are darkened, a bird never resists much. The man now tied their

feet so that they could not walk; then he set one on each end of his

bamboo pole. Slowly he lifted it by the middle, put it on his shoulder

and walked off, the long tails of the peacocks streaming down like

cataracts of rainbow before and behind him.

"There ends my Odyssey. The next day I said goodbye to the swifts. They

went further south, and I was glad to get home, a wiser and a sadder

bird. Now," demanded Gay-Neck, "tell me this. Why is there so much

killing and inflicting of pain by birds and beasts on one another?

I don't think all of you men hurt each other. Do you? But birds and

beasts do. All that makes me so sad."

PART II

CHAPTER I

GAY-NECK'S TRAINING FOR WAR

After we returned to town the air was filled with the rumours of a

coming war somewhere in Europe. Now that winter was at hand, I decided

to give Gay-Neck such training as would be necessary in case he was

asked to be a carrier for the British war department. Since he was used

to the climate of the northeastern Himalayas, he would be an invaluable

messenger for the army in any European country. Even now, with the aid

of wireless telegraph and radio, no army can dispense with the help of

carrier pigeons. All that will become clear to you as the present story

unfolds itself.

In training carriers for war work, I followed a plan of my own which

Ghond approved. By the way, the old fellow came all the way to town

with us. He stayed in our house two or three days, then decided to

leave, saying: "The city is unbearable. I never loved any city, but

this one frightens me with its electric tramway and how-aghari (wind

chariot)--the automobile. If I do not shake the dust of this town off

my feet very soon, I shall be nothing better than a coward. A tiger

in the jungle does not frighten me, but I cannot say the same of an

automobile. One crossing of a modern city street imperils more lives in

a minute than a day in the most dangerous forests. Farewell! I go where

the woods wear stillness for a dress, the air is free of odours and

dust, and the sky, a hollowed turquoise, is not cross-cut and pierced

with poles and telegraph wires. Instead of factory whistles I shall

hear the song of birds; and in the place of thieves and gunmen I shall

have innocent tigers and panthers face to face. Farewell!"

But before he left, he helped me to buy about forty more carriers, and

some tumblers. You may ask me the reason of my preference for these

two kinds. I do not know that I have any exclusive love for tumblers

and carriers, but it is true that fantails, pouters and other pigeons

are more ornamental than useful. In our house we had some of these

varieties but they proved so difficult to keep in company with the

carriers and travelers that I finally bestowed all my appreciation on

pure flyers.

In India we have a queer custom that I do not like. If you sell a

carrier no matter at what fabulous price, and it flies away from its

new owner and comes back to you, it becomes your property again and

no matter what the value, you never refund the price. Knowing that to

be the accepted custom among pigeon fanciers, I had to train my newly

acquired pets before anything else to love me. Since I had paid for

them, I did not wish them to return to their former owners. I did my

very best to make them cherish their new home loyally. But life is

practical. I had to begin with the most necessary steps. The first few

weeks I had to tie up their wings in order to keep them completely

within the bounds of our roof. The art of tying a pigeon's feathers

so that he is prevented from flying is delicate. You take a thread,

and pass one end of it over one feather and under the next, very near

its root, all the way until the entire wing is encompassed. Then you

pass the other end of the thread by the same process under the first,

over the second, and so on to the end of the wing, where the two ends

of the thread are tied. It is very much like darning. It is an utterly

painless form of captivity, for though it prevents a pigeon from

flying, yet he is not kept from opening or flapping his wings. He can

stretch them and can massage them with his beak. After this I used to

put my new pigeons at different corners of the roof so that they might

sit still, and with their eyes take in the colour and quality of their

new surroundings. At least fifteen days should be allowed for this

process.

Here I must record a cunning thing that Gay-Neck did when his wings

were tied in the above manner. I sold him early in November just to see

if he would return to me when his wings were freed from their chain of

threads.

Well, two days after purchasing Gay-Neck, his new owner came to me and

said: "Gay-Neck has run away."

"How?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I cannot find him in my house."

"Did you tie his wings? Could he fly?" I asked.

"His wings were tied." He answered.

That struck terror to my soul. I said: "Oh, you brother of a camel and

cousin of an ass, instead of running hither, you should have sought for

him in your own neighbourhood. Do you not see that he tried to fly,

but since his wings were tied, he fell off your roof? And by now he

has been killed and devoured by some cat. Oh, this is a slaughter of

a pigeon. You have robbed mankind of its diadem of carriers! You have

murdered the glory of pigeonhood!" Thus I reproached him.

My words frightened the man so thoroughly that he begged me to come

with him and hunt for Gay-Neck. My first thought was to rescue the poor

fellow from cats. We spent a whole afternoon, but in vain. I examined

more sordid alleyways in twelve hours, expecting to find him at bay

before some mangy cat, than I have done in all the rest of my life.

Alas, he was not to be found. That night I came home late, for which I

got a good scolding, and went to bed a broken-hearted boy.

My mother, who understood my state of mind, did not wish me to enter

the world of sleep with hurt and excited feelings. She spoke: "Your

pigeon is safe. Go to sleep in a calm mood."

"Why, Mother?"

She answered: "If you are calm, your tranquil thoughts can help you.

If you are peaceful, your serenity will make him serene. And if he

is serene, his mind will work well. And you know, my beloved, how

keen Gay-Neck's mind is. If he sets to work with tranquillity he

will overcome all obstacles and reach home and safety. Now let us

make a prayer to Infinite Compassion, and calm ourselves." So we sat

surrounded by the silence of night for half an hour, saying: "I am

serene. All that exists is serene. Peace, peace, peace be unto all! Om

Shanti, shanti, shanti!"

As I was going to sleep my mother said: "You will now dream no bad

dreams. Now that God's peace and compassion are kindled in you, you

will have a night of fruitful rest. Peace!"

That it proved to be fruitful, there is no doubt. For about eleven in

the morning, Gay-Neck flew up across the sky. He rode high. How he

freed his wings I shall have to tell you in his own language. Let us

again use the grammar of fancy and the dictionary of imagination.

"O, master of many tongues," began Gay-Neck on our own roof, "I

could abide not more than a day in that man's house! He gave me

insect-infected grain to eat, and made me drink water that was not

fresh. After all, I am a soul; why should I be treated as a stone or

shard? Moreover, he tied my wings with evil-smelling fishing tackle.

Would I stay with such an one? Never! So hardly had he put me on the

white roof of his house and gone downstairs, than I flapped my wings

and flew. Alas! my wings were heavy, and it hurt me to fly. So I fell

on the awning of a shop in the lane nearby. There I sat waiting and

watching for help. I saw some swifts go by; I called to them but they

were not my friends. I saw a wild pigeon; I called, but he too made no

response. Just then I beheld a dark cat coming towards me. Here was

death on four feet. As it drew nearer and nearer, its topaz eyes burnt

with red. It crouched and made ready to spring. I, too, sprang--clear

over his head on to the cornice about five feet above the awning,

where a swift had made his home. Though it was most difficult, I clung

to that spot until the black one vanished. Now I leaped again. Four or

five feet above me was the roof. There I perched. But my wing hurt. In

order to ease my pain I massaged the roots of my feathers. One by one

my beak pressed and rubbed them, and then something slipped. One small

feather I had succeeded in pressing out of the grip of the fishing

tackle which stank exceedingly. I kept on rubbing and pressing the

next feather, and behold it too was free. Oh, what a glorious feeling!

Soon the entire wing was free. Just then the black cat reappeared on

the roof, but now I was able to fly about ten feet and I reached the

cornice of a high building, where I found a convenient perch. Thence I

watched the deadly cat. He crouched and sprang upon the fishing tackle

just shed from my wing. That told me a new story: it was the stench

of the fishing tackle that had attracted him, and not me. Forthwith I

began to bite and press the cord that bound my other wing. By the time

I had freed half the feathers night came on, and when I had thrown my

last evil-smelling chain away from my wing, I was forced to await the

dawn to fly home, for owls fly in the early twilight, and hawks come

later, and I wished to have a safe path through the air. Now I am at

home--I am hungry and thirsty."

The first thing I did with my new pigeons was to give them food and

fresh water. I never let them drink the water they bathed in. Since

Gay-Neck's wing smelled of fish, I gave him separate quarters from the

other pigeons. It took three days longer and three good baths before

Gay-Neck was fit for decent society. In passing, let me remark that my

father made me return the money to the man who had bought Gay-Neck with

such deplorable results. To tell you the truth, I did not wish to then.

But now I feel I did right in obeying my parent. After a fortnight and

before unbinding the wings of my newly acquired pigeons, I bribed them

to love me. Every morning I would put some millet seed and peanuts

in ghee (clarified butter). After they had been soaked in butter all

day, I gave a dozen each to every one of my pets. They were so fond of

those delicacies that in two days' time they had formed the habit of

coming to me before five in the afternoon, begging for buttered seeds.

In three more days I freed their wings, in a subtle way, undoing them

about fifteen minutes before five. They all flew off the moment they

felt their liberty. But lo, after the first exhilaration of finding

their freedom had passed, they flew down to the roof again for their

meal of buttered peanuts and millet seeds! It is a pity that we have to

win our pigeons' confidence by feeding their stomachs, but alas! I have

noticed that there are many men and women who resemble pigeons in this

respect!