(243) The red arsenic-dust scattered by the elephants' tusks crimsoned
the earth. The clefts of the rock were festooned with shoots of
creepers, now separating and now uniting, hanging in twists, twining
like leafage; the stones were wet with the ceaseless dripping of
gum-trees; the boulders were slippery with the bitumen that oozed from
the rocks. The slope was dusty with fragments of yellow orpiment broken
by the mountain horses' hoofs; powdered with gold scattered from the
holes dug out by the claws of rats; lined by the hoofs of musk-deer
and yaks sunk in the sand and covered with the hair of rallakas and
rankus fallen about; filled with pairs of partridges resting on the
broken pieces of rock; with the mouths of its caves inhabited by pairs
of orang-outangs; with the sweet scent of sulphur, and with bamboos
that had grown to the length of wands of office.