The morning dawn, as it silvered the snows on the summits of the vast
chain of the Indian Caucasus, and shed its light along the lower
declivities of the hills of Cashmire, which swell at their base,
awakened the Christian wanderer from a dream, pure and bright as a
prophet’s vision. In sleep he had believed himself to be in the abodes
of the just, and he awaked in the regions of the blessed. Refreshed,
invigorated, he arose, and offered the incense of the heart to Him, of
whose power and beneficence his soul now received such new and splendid
images.
Taking, the broad stream of the Behat as his guide, he proceeded along
its winding shores, towards the district of Sirinagar. Surrounded by
those mighty mountains whose summits appear tranquil and luminous, above
the regions of clouds which float on their brow, whose grotesque forms
are brightened by innumerable rills, and dashed by foaming torrents, the
valley of Cashmire presented to the wandering eye scenes of picturesque
and glowing beauty, whose character varied with each succeeding hour.
Sometimes the mango-groves, with their golden oblong fruit and gigantic
leaves, were mingled with plantations of mulberry, which, rising in
luxuriant foliage, give sustenance to myriads of industrious insects,
spinning from tree to tree their golden threads, which float like fairy
banners, or brilliant particles of light, upon the fragrant gale; while,
as emulous of their exertions, the Indian weaver seated at his loom
beneath the shade of his plantain-tree, plied his slender fingers amidst
the almost impalpable threads of his transparent web. Sometimes the
ruins of a pagoda appeared through the boles of a distant forest, or the
picturesque view of a Hindu village, formed of the slender bamboo,
thatched with the brilliant leaves of the water-melon, appeared amidst
the surrounding cotton-grounds, glowing with that tinted lustre of
colouring, falsely deemed exclusively peculiar to the scenery of
tropical climes; while herdsmen tending their snowy flocks on the brow
of the surrounding hill, or youthful women carrying on their veiled
heads vases of consecrated waters from the holy springs of the valley,
recalled to the mind of the Missionary the venerable and touching
simplicity of the patriarchal age.
Wherever the Christian wanderer appeared, he was beheld with curiosity
and admiration. The dignity of his form commanded respect, and the
meekness of his manner inspired confidence. They said, “It is a
sanaissee, or pilgrim, of some distant nation, performing tupesya in a
strange land;” and, with the same benevolent kindness with which they
relieved the pilgrims of their own religion, did they administer to his
comforts: but when, availing himself of the interest he excited, he
endeavoured to unfold to them the nature and object of a mission, to
accomplish which he had come from distant regions, they turned coldly
from him, saying, “God has appointed to each tribe its own faith, and to
each sect its own religion: let each obey the appointment of God, and
live in peace with his neighbour.”
This decided disappointment of all his holy views, grieved, without
discouraging him. The perseverance of a genius not to be subdued, was
the grand feature of his character; and a religious hope still hurried
him towards that point, which was the object of his pious ambition. He
deemed the conversion of the Prophetess a task reserved for him alone:
the conversion of her nation a miracle which _she_ only could
accomplish.
He now proceeded to Sirinagar, and, within a few leagues of the
capital[19], he was struck by the appearance of a cave, in which he
resolved to fix his abode. It was evening when the Missionary reached
the base of a lofty mountain, which seemed a monument of the first day
of creation. It was a solemn and sequestered spot, where an eternal
spring seemed to reign, and which looked like the cradle of infant
Nature, where she first awoke, in all her primeval bloom of beauty. It
was a glen, skreened by a mighty mass of rocks, over whose bold
fantastic forms and variegated hues dashed the silvery foam of the
mountain torrent, flinging its dewy sprays around, till, breaking into
fairy rills, it stole into a branch of the Behat, whose overflowing, at
some distant period, had worn its way into the heart of the rock, and
produced a small sparry cavern which, from the splendour of the
stalactites that hung like glittering icicles from its shining roof,
had been named by the people of the country, _the grotto of
congelations_. Wild and sequestered as was this romantic place, it yet,
by its vicinity to the huts of some goalas, or Indian shepherds, left
not its inhabitant wholly destitute of such assistance as even his
simple and frugal life might still require; while, on every side, the
luscious milk of the cocoa-nut, the fruit of the bread-tree, the
nutritious grains of the wild rice plant, the luxurious produce of
innumerable fruit-trees, and the pure bath of the mountain spring, were
luxuries, supplied by Nature, in these, her loveliest and favourite
regions.
The Missionary employed himself, during the evening, in erecting at the
most remote extremity of the grotto, a rude altar, on which he placed
the golden crucifix he usually carried suspended from his girdle; and,
having formed what might be even deemed a luxurious couch of mosses and
dried leaves, a night of calm repose passed swiftly away. The dawn, as
it shone through the crevices of his asylum grotto, was reflected by the
golden crucifix suspended over his altar. The heart of the Christian
throbbed with an holy rapture, as he observed the ray of consecrated
light. He arose, and prostrated himself before the first shrine ever
raised to his Redeemer, in the most distant and most idolatrous of the
provinces of Hindoostan: he then took his crosier, and issued forth,
looking like the tutelar spirit of the magnificent region he was going
to explore. A goala who was descending the rocks with his dogs, gave him
as he passed a look of homage, such as the mind instinctively sends to
the eye when its glance rests upon a being whom Providence seemed to
have formed in all the beneficence and prodigality of its creative
power.
The Missionary, taking the path towards Sirinagar, emerged from the deep
shade of his glen, into a scene of picturesque beauty, which burst, in
all the radiance of the rising day, upon his view, terminated by the
cultivated hills of Sirinagar, and the snowy mountains of Thibet,
rising like a magnificent amphitheatre to the east; but a grove of
mangoostin-trees, still wrapt in the soft mists of dawn, became an
object peculiarly attractive, in proportion to the retiring mystery of
its gloomy shade. The Missionary struck off from the high road, to
pierce into its almost impenetrable recesses. He proceeded through a
path, which, from the long cusa-grass netted over it, and the entangled
creepers of the parasite plants, seemed to have been rarely, if ever,
explored. The trees, thick and umbrageous, were wedded, in their
towering branches, above his head, and knitted, in their spreading
roots, beneath his feet. The sound of a cascade became his sole guide
through the leafy labyrinth. He at last reached the pile of rocks
whence the torrent flowed, pouring its tributary flood into a broad
river, formed of the confluence of the Behat and a branch of the Indus:
the spot, therefore, was sacred[20]; and a shrine, erected on the banks
of the river, opposite to the rising sun, already reflected the first
ray of the effulgent orb, as it rose in all its majesty from behind the
snowy points of the mountains of Thibet. Before the altar, and near the
consecrated shrine, appeared a human form, if human it might be called,
which stood so bright and so ethereal in its look, that it seemed but a
transient incorporation of the brilliant mists of morning; so light and
so aspiring in its attitude, that it appeared already ascending from the
earth it scarcely touched, to mingle with its kindred air. The
resplendent locks of the seeming sprite were enwreathed with beams, and
sparkled with the waters of the holy stream, whence it appeared recently
to have emerged. A drapery of snow shone round a form perfect in grace
and symmetry. One arm, decorated with a rosary, was pointed to the
rising sun; the other, at intervals, was thrice applied to the brow, and
the following incantation from the Brahminical scriptures was then lowly
and solemnly pronounced: “O pure waters! since you afford delight, grant
me a rapturous view of heaven; and as he who plunges into thy wave is
freed from all impurity, so may my soul live, free from all pollution.”
Thrice again bowing to the sun, the suppliant thus continued: “On that
effulgent power, which is Brahma, do I meditate: governed by that
mysterious light which exists internally within my breast, externally in
the orb of the sun, being one and the same with that effulgent power,
since I myself am an irradiated manifestation of the supreme
Brahma[21].”
This being of spiritual mystery seemed then given up to a silent and
religious rapture; and the Missionary, by a slight movement, changing
his position, beheld the rapt countenance of the votarist, who had so
sublimely assimilated herself to the orb she worshipped, and the God she
served. It was Luxima! At the rustling of his robe among the trees, she
started, turned round, and her eyes fell upon his figure, while her own
was still fixed in the graceful attitude of devotion. Silently gazing,
in wonder, upon each other, they stood finely opposed, the noblest
specimens of the human species, as it appears in the most opposite
regions of the earth; she; like the East, lovely and luxuriant; he, like
the West, lofty and commanding: the one, radiant in all the lustre,
attractive in all the softness which distinguishes her native regions;
the other, towering in all the energy, imposing in all the vigour, which
marks his ruder latitudes: she, looking like a creature formed to feel
and to submit; he, like a being created to resist and to command: while
both appeared as the ministers and representatives of the two most
powerful religions of the earth; the one no less enthusiastic in her
brilliant errors, than the other confident in his immutable truth.
The Christian Saint and Heathen Priestess remained for some time
motionless, in look as in attitude; till Luxima, from a sudden impulse,
withdrawing her eyes, the sensation of amazement depicted in her
countenance, was rapidly succeeded by a bashful and timid emotion, which
rosed her cheek with crimson hues, and threw round her an air of
shrinking modesty, which softened the inspired dignity of the offspring
of Brahma. But when the Priestess disappeared, the woman stood too much
confessed; and a feminine reserve, a lovely timidity, so characteristic
of her sex, overwhelmed the Missionary with confusion: he remained,
leaning on his crosier, his eyes cast down upon his beads, his lips
motionless.
Luxima, who resembled as she stood, the flower which contracts and folds
upon itself, even to the influence of the evening air, was the first to
interrupt this unexpected and mysterious interview; with a sudden
movement she glided by the stranger, but with an air of chill reserve,
of majestic distance, as though she feared the unhallowed vestment of
infidelity should pollute the consecrated garb of vestal sanctity. He
addressed her not, nor by a movement attempted to oppose her intention.
He saw her proceed up an avenue of asoca-trees, which received the
glittering form of the Priestess into their impervious shade. As she
disappeared amidst the deepening gloom, she seemed, to the eye of her
sole spectator, like the ray which darts its sunny lustre through the
dark vapours gathered, by evening, on the brow of night. Still was his
glance directed to the path she had taken; still did the brilliant
vision float on his imagination, till the sun, as it deepened the
shadows of the trees around him, told how long a reverie, so new and
singular in its object, had stolen him from himself. He started, and
moved unconsciously towards the bank of the stream, where traces of her
idolatrous rites were still visible. Some unctuous clay, mingled with
the ottar of the rose, strewed its perfume on the earth; and near it lay
a wreath of the buchampaca, the flower of the dawn, whose vestal buds
blow with the sun’s first ray, and fade and die beneath his meridian
beam, leaving only their odour to survive their transient blooms.
This wreath, so emblematic of the fragile loveliness of her who wore it,
lay glistening in the sun. The Missionary took it up. A prejudice, or a
pious delicacy, urged him to let it drop: he knew that it had made a
part of an idolatrous ceremony; that it had been twined by idolatrous
hands; but he could not forget, that those hands had looked so lovely
and so pure, that they almost consecrated the act they had been engaged
in: he wished also to believe, that those hands would yet adjust the
monastic veil upon the Christian, vestal’s brow; he blamed, therefore, a
fastidiousness, which almost resembled bigotry, and again took up the
wreath. It breathed of the musky odours which had effused themselves
from the tresses of the Indian as she passed him; and thus awakened to
the recollection of their interview, he wandered back to his grotto,
forgetful of his intention to visit Sirinagur, and occupied only in
reflecting on the accident which had thus rendered him a resident in the
neighbourhood of the Priestess of Cashmire.