His little flock of white tents has flown many a
march to meet me, and have now alighted at this accessible spot near a
poor hamlet on the verge of cultivation. I feel that I have only to
yield myself for a few days to its hospitable importunities and it
will waft me away to profound forest depths, to the awful penetralia
of the bison and the tiger. Even here everything is strange to me; the
common native has become a Bheel, the sparrowhawk an eagle, the grass
of the field a vast, reedy growth in which an elephant becomes a mere
field mouse. Out of the leaves come strange bird-notes, a strange
silence broods over us; it is broken by strange rustlings and cries;
it closes over us again strangely. Nature swoons in its glory of
sunshine and weird music; it has put forth its powers in colossal
timber and howling beasts of prey; it faints amid little wild flowers,
fanned by breezes and butterflies.
My heart beats in strange anapaests. This dream world of leaf and bird
stirs the blood with a strange enchantment. The Spirit of Nature
touches us with her caduceus:--
Fair are others, none behold thee;
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest, for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendour;
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now .
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