THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA
The influence of Lord Tremlyn and Sir Modava was enough to procure anything
in Bombay, and an apartment that served as a special banquet hall had been
prepared at their command, and their guests were introduced to it
immediately after tiffin. As the viscount had suggested, they were
considerably fatigued after the long jaunt of the forenoon, though they
were refreshed by the luncheon they had taken. The hall was furnished with
sofas and easy-chairs for the occasion, and they were made very
comfortable.
The performers were seated on the floor of the room when the company took
their places. A man with a slouched turban and something like a sheet wound
around his body, reaching nearly to his ankles, the only clothing he wore,
entered the hall. At the entrance of the party the girls rose from the
floor and saluted them deferentially.
There were six of them, very modestly dressed, only their arms and feet
being bare. Their black hair was parted in the middle, and combed back
behind the ears, after the fashion of many years ago in the United States.
They all wore ornaments in their ears, and around their ankles. The
material of their dresses was various, some of it quite rich, with pearls
and gold in places. They looked quite serious, as though they were about to
engage in a religious ceremony, though it had no such connection. Some of
them were decidedly pretty, though their style of beauty was not entirely
to the taste of the Americans. They had black eyes, and they looked the
visitors full in the face, and with entire self-possession.
"Now what are these girls, Sir Modava?" asked Mrs. Belgrave.
"They are professional dancers, and that is their sole occupation," replied
he. "They are engaged by rich people when they give parties, and for
weddings and other festive occasions."
"Is that man the only musician?"
"He is the only one for this entertainment, and he plays the tom-tom with
his fingers. I am afraid you do not appreciate our native music, and we did
not engage any more of it. They are about to begin."
The musician beat the tom-tom, and the girls rose from the floor, shook out
their dresses as any lady would, and then it appeared that the ornaments on
their ankles were bells, which rattled as though it were sleighing-time as
they moved about. They formed in a semicircle before the audience; one of
them stepped forward, and turned herself around very slowly and gracefully,
with a quivering of the body, like the gypsy girls of Spain, which caused
her bells to jingle.
With eyes half-closed, and with a languishing expression on her dusky face,
she made a variety of gestures, posturing frequently as she continued to
turn. When this one seemed to have exhausted her material, another advanced
to the front, and proceeded to exhibit her variety of gestures and
postures, which were but slightly different from those of the first one,
though she went through the movements of a snake-charmer. In like manner
all the performers went through their several parts, imitating various
musicians on different native instruments.
Two of them went through a very lively performance, leaping and whirling
very rapidly. The exhibition concluded with a round dance, which was
thought to be very pretty, perhaps because it was exceedingly lively. Mrs.
Belgrave and Mrs. Blossom had never been to a theatre in their lives, never
saw a ballet, and were not capable of appreciating the posturing, though
the animated dance pleased them. The Nautch girls retired, and the
"Nautch," as such an occasion is called, was ended.
"Perhaps you have seen snakes enough for one day," said Lord Tremlyn; "but
I thought you ought to see the performance of the snake-charmers. We will
have it here instead of in the open street; and it is quite different from
the show you witnessed this forenoon."
As he spoke the door opened, and a couple of old and rather snaky-looking
Hindus, folded up in a profusion of cloths, rather than garments, entered
the apartment. Sir Modava conducted them to a proper distance from the
audience, who could not help distrusting the good intentions of the
vicious-looking reptiles. Each of them carried such a basket as the party
had seen in the square. The men seemed to be at least first cousins to the
serpents the baskets contained, for their expression was subtle enough to
stamp them as belonging to the same family.
The performers squatted on the floor, and each placed a basket before him,
removing the cover; but the serpents did not come out. The charmers then
produced a couple of instruments which Sir Modava called lutes, looking
more like a dried-up summer crookneck squash, with a mouthpiece, and a tube
with keys below the bulb. Adjusting it to their lips, they began to play;
and the music was not bad, and it appeared to be capable of charming the
cobras, for they raised their heads out of the baskets.
The melody produced a strange effect upon the reptiles, for they began to
wriggle and twist as they uncoiled themselves. They hissed and outspread
their hoods, and instead of being charmed by the music, it seemed as though
their wrath had been excited. They made an occasional dart at the human
performers, who dodged them as though they had been in their native
jungles, with their business fangs in order for deadly work. But the Hindu
gentleman explained that they could bite, though they could not kill, after
their poison fangs had been removed.
Then one of the performers stood up, and seizing his snake by the neck, he
swung him three times around his head, and dropped him on the floor. There
he lay extended at his full length, as stiff as though he had taken a dose
of his own poison.
"I have killed my serpent!" exclaimed the Hindu with a groan. "But I can
make him into a useful cane."
Sir Modava interpreted his remarks, and the fellow picked up his snake, and
walked before the audience, using it as a staff, and pretending to support
himself upon it. Then he held out the reptile to the visitors, and offered
to sell his cane; but they recoiled, and the ladies were on the point of
rushing from the room when Sir Modava ordered him off. He retreated a
proper distance, and then thrust the head of the creature beneath his
turban, and continued to crowd him into it till nothing but his tail was in
sight. Then he took off his head covering, and showed the reptile coiled up
within it.
Lord Tremlyn looked at his watch, and then carried a piece of money to the
chief charmer, which he received with many salaams, in which his companion
joined him, for the fee was a very large one. He suggested that the party
had had enough of this performance, to which all the ladies, with Mr.
Woolridge, heartily agreed. The carriages were at the door of the hotel,
and the company were hurriedly driven to the Apollo Bunder, where they
found a steam-launch in waiting for them. Lord Tremlyn had arranged the
excursions so that everything proceeded like clockwork, and Captain
Ringgold wondered what he should have done without his assistance.
The island of Elephanta was about five miles distant, and in half an hour
the party landed. Upon it were a couple of hills, and it was entirely
covered with woods. One of the first things to attract the attention was a
singular tree, which seemed to be a family of a hundred of them; for the
branches reached down to the ground, and took root there, though the lower
ends were spread out in numerous fibres, leaving most of the roots above
the soil.
"This is a banyan-tree," said Sir Modava. "It is a sort of fig-tree, and
you see that the leaves are shaped like a heart. It bears a fruit of a rich
scarlet color, which grows in couples from the stems of the leaves. They
are really figs, and they are an important article of food. In time the
trunk of the tree decays and disappears, and temples are made of the thick
branches. Some of these trees have three thousand stems rooted in the
ground, many of them as big as oaks: and these make a complete forest of
themselves. One of them is said to have sheltered seven thousand people;
but I never saw one as big as that."
The party proceeded towards the caves, but had not gone far before they
were arrested by the screams of some of the ladies, who were wandering in
search of flowers. Louis Belgrave was with his mother and Miss Blanche. Sir
Modava, who was telling the rest of the company something more about the
banyan-tree, rushed to the spot from which the alarm came. There he found
Louis with his revolver in readiness to fire.
"Snakes!" screamed Mrs. Belgrave.
In front of them, asleep on a rock, were two large snakes. The Hindu
gentleman halted at the side of the lady, and burst out into a loud laugh.
"The snakes of India seem to be determined that you shall see them," said
he. "But you need not fire, Mr. Belgrave; for those snakes are as harmless
as barnyard fowls, and they don't know enough to bite."
"I see that they are not cobras," added Louis, as he returned the revolver
to his pocket. "But what are they?"
"Those are rock snakes."
"But I don't like the looks of them," said Mrs. Belgrave, as she continued
her retreat towards the path.
"I think they are horrid," added Miss Blanche.
"But they do no harm, and very likely they do some good in the world," said
Sir Modava; "but there are snakes enough that ought to be killed without
meddling with them."
"You see that rock," said the viscount; "and it is a very large one. Can
you make anything of its shape? I suppose not; nobody can. But that rock
gave a name to this island, applied by the Portuguese two or three hundred
years ago. It is said to have been in the form of an elephant. If it ever
had that shape it has lost it."
[Illustration: "'Snakes!' screamed Mrs. Belgrave."--Page 184.]
After penetrating a dense thicket, the tourists discovered a comely flight
of stairs, cut out of the solid rock of which the hill is composed,
extending to a considerable distance, and finally leading into the great
pillared chamber forming a Hindu temple, though a level space planted with
trees must first be crossed.
They entered the cave. On the left were two full columns, not yet crumbled
away as others were, which gave the observers a complete view of what a
vast number of others there were. Next beyond them were three pilasters
clinging to the ceiling. This part of the cavern was in the light from the
entrance; but farther along, considerably obscured in the darkness of the
subterranean temple, were scores, and perhaps hundreds, of others. The
pillars were not the graceful forms of modern times, and many of them had
lost all shape.
This temple is said to have been excavated in the ninth century. The walls
are covered with gigantic figures in relief. The temple is in the form of a
cross, the main hall being a hundred and forty-four feet in depth. The
ceiling is supported by twenty-six columns and eighteen pilasters, sixteen
to eighteen feet high. They look clumsy, but they have to bear up the
enormous weight of the hill of rock, and many of them have crumbled away.
At the end of the colonnade is a gigantic bust, representing a Hindu
divinity with three heads. Some say that this is Brahma, as the three
symbols of the creator, preserver, and destroyer, forming what is sometimes
named the Hindu trinity. But the best informed claim that the figure
represents Siva, the destroyer of the triad of gods. All the reliefs on the
walls relate to the worship of this divinity, while there is not a known
temple to Brahma.
The principal piece of sculpture is the marriage of Siva to the goddess
Parvati; and it is identified as such, wholly or in part, because the woman
stands on the right of the man, as no female is permitted to do except at
the marriage ceremony. The party wandered through the caverns for two
hours, and Sayad and Moro, the only servants brought with them, kindled
fires in the darker places, to enable them to see the sculpture. Sir Modava
explained what needed explanation. He conducted them to an opening, lighted
by a hole in the hill, where they found a staircase guarded by two lions,
leading into what is called the Lions' Cave.
The tourists at the end of the two hours were willing to vote that they had
seen enough of the caverns, and they returned to the hotel in season for
dinner. On his arrival Lord Tremlyn found a letter at the office. On
opening it, the missive proved to be an invitation for that evening to a
wedding for the whole party. They considered it for some time, and as it
afforded them an opportunity to see something of native life it was decided
to accept it.