Nature! Source of all great and lovely things!
What builder can thy temples imitate?
The music of thy mountains, woods, and streams,
What harper can steal from thee? Where’s the pen,
Or pencil, that can paint thy countless charms?
BINAI.
As the hunters approached the higher mountains of Cashmere, they
were warned by the guides that the creation of loud sounds might be
attended with consequences of a fatal description. They mentioned many
instances, which they said came within their own knowledge, wherein
the echo only of a single horn was known to have loosened immense
masses of ice from the sides of the upper declivities, which, driving
down before them huge rocks, drifts of frozen snow, patches of earth,
herds of sheep, cottages, and hamlets, tumbled into the valleys beneath
them, involving whole districts in calamity. Auzeem was not surprised
at this intelligence, as he had heard that some such accidents as
these were not uncommon in lofty mountainous regions. It was therefore
resolved that the dogs, leopards, and falcons, and their keepers,
should remain in the village where they then were, until further
notice; and that the escort should return to the army to caution them
on their entrance into Cashmere, while Jehangire and Auzeem, attended
only by the guides, should proceed to the temple of Mahadeo, with a
view to propitiate the god who was held to exercise a tutelar power
over the whole of that province. The mere character of pilgrims to that
celebrated temple, was of itself sufficient to render the presence of
any escort unnecessary, even if they had to pass through columns of
the enemy marshalled in order of battle. The guides, calculating by
the state of the moon, assured the emperor that the image of Mahadeo,
which was already rapidly approaching its full stature, would speedily
be upon the wane, and that unless he could succeed by great exertions
in reaching the temple within a few days, he would be obliged to wait
another month before he could render it his homage. They stated, that
two days before each new moon, there appeared upon the marble altar
of the temple a small grain of gold, which grew larger every day,
expanding, as it increased in size, into the figure of a human being
of the most exquisite beauty; that on the fifteenth day of the moon
the god attained his full colossal amplitude, and during the three
ensuing days, wielded unlimited authority for good or for evil; but
that with the failing orb, the energies of Mahadeo also declined; his
figure gradually shrank; and that when the moon ceased to be visible,
the god also disappeared, to be renewed only when the crescent again
returned to the sky. No person, having any great project in hand, and
being within the precincts of Cashmere, ever thought of attempting to
carry it into execution, without paying the tribute of his devotions at
the shrine of Mahadeo. It was, doubtless, in a great measure owing to
his neglect of the god, though much was also to be attributed to the
dominant star of the emperor, that the subah of Cashmere had been so
unfortunate in all his enterprises, since he took up his residence in
that country.
Putting away, therefore, all weapons of defence, resigning Droostandaz
to the special care of the commander of the escort, and exchanging
their Arabian steeds for mountain ponies, Jehangire, Auzeem, and the
guides, taking into their hands the staffs of pilgrims, set out in the
early dawn upon their ascent to the Bember, whose summits appeared far
distant in the sky, like a scarcely defined line of blue cloud. The
green turfy eminences, amidst which they had been hitherto sporting,
were soon left behind, yielding to wild heathery tracts of territory,
occasionally covered with the thistle and the broom. These products of
vegetation gradually became less luxuriant; small patches of stunted
brushwood marked their higher progress, until they began to traverse
the naked rocks, which at each step seemed to become of more gigantic
dimensions, and to be piled upon each other, as if the object had
been to erect a rampart, which was to enclose Cashmere, on that side,
against the footsteps of the stranger. The whole face of the mountain
appeared like a solid wall, through which it seemed a vain labour to
look for any passage.
The guides, however, went on, heedless of any difficulties, leaving
the rein on the necks of their ponies, who, penetrating now through
narrow fissures, where the feet of the rider touched the rock on either
side, now clambering up steps worn by use in the almost perpendicular
cliff, now sliding down sudden descents, continued with marvellous
sagacity and safety to make their way. By noon, the ridges of Bember
became distinctly visible; the cold winds, which blew from its summits,
rendered it unnecessary, for the pilgrims to seek refuge from the sun,
whose rays, on the contrary, they found it convenient to court, in
order to preserve a genial degree of warmth in their frames. They were
soon involved in the hoary regions, through which, however, they had
no difficulty in making progress, as preceding travellers had already
beaten tracks, upon which no new snows had descended.
Upon arriving at the foot of the ridge of Pees-Punchal, the highest of
the whole range of the Bember, the pilgrims dismounted, not a little
fatigued with their morning’s ride. The ponies, having been unsaddled,
were permitted to wander in search of such scanty herbage as they could
discover, so near the clouds, while Auzeem, calling for the scrip, in
which he supposed he should find the materials for an ample meal,--for
which, by the bye, both the imperial pilgrim and his associates were
well prepared,--found to their horror, that no scrip was forthcoming,
that useful appendage to the staff having been unfortunately left
behind.
No sign of human habitation being within the reach of any eye, and
the passage of Pees-Punchal being of itself an affair of no small
difficulty to be achieved on foot, as the pathway was so perpendicular
that the ponies would have quite enough to do to surmount the ascent,
with all the assistance the guides could give them, the prospects
before the worshippers of Mahadeo were by no means pleasant to
contemplate. An antelope or a red-deer came now and then to smile at
them, but scared by the slightest movement, off the animals bounded to
other ridges, rejoicing in the freedom with which Jehangire would have
gladly interfered, if a decree could have controlled them. Never did he
feel his sovereign authority reduced to such ridiculous imbecility,
as in the valley of the seven streams, and at the foot of the ridge of
Pees-Punchal. Deeply did he lament that he had left Droostandaz behind
him.
“How delightfully we should have dined upon that red stag,” he
exclaimed to Auzeem, “had but Droostandaz been here!”
“Yes; but, Sire, what would have become of us before the dinner could
have been dressed. Pees-Punchal, with all his snows, would have been
upon us!”
“I should have willingly taken that risk. We might as well perish of a
storm without, as of the tempest which now proclaims vacuity in all the
internal regions of my personal fabric.”
While the emperor was thus lamenting the unseasonable absence of
Droostandaz, he thought that he heard the bleat of a sheep at some
distance. Looking to the quarter whence he believed the grateful
voice to have come, he perceived something in motion, towards which,
without reflecting a moment on his imperial dignity, he ran as fast
as his limbs could bear him. He found himself speedily in chace of a
small black horned sheep, which he fortunately overtook. Grasping the
terrified little animal by one of its hind legs, he threw it over his
shoulder, with a degree of pleasure he had seldom experienced before,
and brought it in triumph to Auzeem, to whose care he resigned it. The
unhappy victim was forthwith sacrificed, and cut up into slices. A
light was procured from flints, which they found on the mountain; as
no other materials for a fire could be discovered, they broke up their
pilgrims’ staffs for the purpose, and thus enjoyed, most unexpectedly,
a feast, which the emperor spoke of afterwards with peculiar delight.
“At the moment I am writing these lines,” he says in his memoirs, “I
can with truth declare, that in the whole course of my life, I never
experienced such exquisite relish in food as in that simple meal, so
opportunely furnished by the carcase of a stray sheep.”
When the repast was concluded, the party ascended Pees-Punchal, not,
however, without considerable difficulty and exertion. But they were
more than repaid for their labour, by the prospect which was presented
to them the moment they stood upon its summit. The whole valley
of Cashmere lay fully revealed beneath them, its saffron meadows,
its green pastures, gardens, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, forests,
declivities dotted with countless herds, towns, villages, and separate
cottages, all illumined by the golden glow of the sun, just dipping
below the horizon.
Jehangire, leaning on the shoulder of Auzeem, gazed upon the valley in
silence. The reality so far exceeded all the expectations he had formed
of its beauty, that he doubted whether it was not the delusive creation
of some enchanter. The cares of imperial authority, the weight alone
of which he had hitherto experienced, were at once transformed into
sources of rapture, when the fulness of the thought came upon his soul,
that he not only possessed the faculty, in common with other men, to
appreciate the charms of that Elysian scene, but that it was a portion
of his own rightful empire; that to him, however misguided by evil
counsel they might be for a moment, the inhabitants of that fair region
were bound to look for the security of that peace and happiness which
they seemed already to enjoy, and that, above all, in the midst of the
paradise spread out before his eye, beat the pulses of one heart, at
least, of whose fidelity he felt assured.
“Else,” he thought, communing with his friend, “why that message by
the symbol she sent me--this symbol, which has never since left my
bosom? Ah! Auzeem--to live with Nourmahal, in such a valley as we
here behold--shut out from all the world around--to wander together
by those tranquil lakes--those streams--beneath those shades--to roam
with her among those hills--to inhale, with her, the delicious incense
of those saffron meadows--those fields of roses--and at eve, when all
nature is subsiding into repose, to listen with her to the song of the
bulbul--those--those, indeed, were raptures worth an empire!”
“And for which, I suspect,” thought Auzeem to himself, “if all I have
heard of Nourmahal be true, an empire must be paid.”
The guides were summoned to point out the situation of the capital,
and of the fortress occupied by the subah. The former was easily
distinguishable, as the large lake, in its immediate neighbourhood,
lay expanded below like a mirror of liquid gold, the long rays of
the descending sun resting upon it with a lingering delight, as if
reluctant to resign to darkness even a temporary dominion over a region
of such transcendant beauty.
The fortress was not, at first, discernible; but as the sun lowered,
several spots suddenly glistening, disclosed the windows of the towers,
as they reflected the level lines of fire. The whole edifice, with
its cupolas, and minarets, and castellated walls, were soon bathed
in a flood of splendour. A standard, however, floating in the fresh
breeze, with the figures of sentinels moving on the ramparts, whose
spear-tops sparkled now and then, as they caught the fading light,
indicated preparations little consonant with the features of innocence,
happiness, and loveliness almost lulled to sleep, by which they were
surrounded.
The guides having pointed out the direction in which the temple of
Mahadeo was situated, the pilgrims turned their steps thither. Unlike
the other side of the mountain, the descents down which they now had
to make their way were frequently encumbered by enormous trees flung
down by tempests, uprooted by shocks of earthquake, and wasted by the
lightnings of ages, that had torn away their branches, stripped them
of their bark, and shivered them frequently into blackened masses,
which assumed a thousand fantastic shapes. Some lay across the
beds of torrents, where they were buttressed by piles of rocks, and
intercepting the flood, sent it foaming high in air, with tremendous
uproar. Others accidentally formed bridges across abysses, whence
subterranean cascades resounded. Some had plunged, or were plunging,
into ravines, down which no traveller had ever ventured--some, heaped
one upon another, lay mouldering with time, yielding funguses of
enormous dimensions, whose extraordinary shapes seemed to belong to
some other planet--some, with branches stricken into the earth, rose
again at some distance, shooting forth fresh descendants, proud of
their yet unperished ancestry, which must have been coeval with the
infancy of the world.
One awful--ever-accumulating inundation--that must have oceans for its
source--swept straight downwards between the walls of a riven mountain
until it passed the brow of a precipice, over which, bending like the
arch that separates time from eternity, it fell in one overwhelming
wave into a deep abyss, a chaos unfathomable, dimly revealed by the
lightnings of the element, as it bounded from depth to depth, through
the echoes of everlasting thunders below.
A temple still exists, which Jehangire, the moment he first beheld that
stupendous cataract, resolved to erect on a rock hard by, a monument of
the admiration with which he viewed that work of Nature--so inimitable
by human power--so inexhaustible in her strength--so unlimited in her
faculties of production--so marvellous as to the facility with which
she executes all her designs, whether she chooses to arrange the
colours on the chalice of the tulip, or to toss from her hand a Ganges.