CHAPTER VI.
The morning dawn, as it silvered the snows on the summits of the vastchain of the Indian Caucasus, and shed its light along the lowerdeclivities of the hills of Cashmire, which swell at their base,awakened the Christian wanderer from a dream, pure and bright as aprophet’s vision. In sleep he had believed himself to be in the abodesof the just, and he awaked in the regions of the blessed. Refreshed,invigorated, he arose, and offered the incense of the heart to Him, ofwhose power and beneficence his soul now received such new and splendidimages.
Taking, the broad stream of the Behat as his guide, he proceeded alongits winding shores, towards the district of Sirinagar. Surrounded bythose mighty mountains whose summits appear tranquil and luminous, abovethe regions of clouds which float on their brow, whose grotesque formsare brightened by innumerable rills, and dashed by foaming torrents, thevalley of Cashmire presented to the wandering eye scenes of picturesqueand glowing beauty, whose character varied with each succeeding hour.Sometimes the mango-groves, with their golden oblong fruit and giganticleaves, were mingled with plantations of mulberry, which, rising inluxuriant foliage, give sustenance to myriads of industrious insects,spinning from tree to tree their golden threads, which float like fairybanners, or brilliant particles of light, upon the fragrant gale; while,as emulous of their exertions, the Indian weaver seated at his loombeneath the shade of his plantain-tree, plied his slender fingers amidstthe almost impalpable threads of his transparent web. Sometimes theruins of a pagoda appeared through the boles of a distant forest, or thepicturesque view of a Hindu village, formed of the slender bamboo,thatched with the brilliant leaves of the water-melon, appeared amidstthe surrounding cotton-grounds, glowing with that tinted lustre ofcolouring, falsely deemed exclusively peculiar to the scenery oftropical climes; while herdsmen tending their snowy flocks on the browof the surrounding hill, or youthful women carrying on their veiledheads vases of consecrated waters from the holy springs of the valley,recalled to the mind of the Missionary the venerable and touchingsimplicity of the patriarchal age.
Wherever the Christian wanderer appeared, he was beheld with curiosityand admiration. The dignity of his form commanded respect, and themeekness of his manner inspired confidence. They said, “It is asanaissee, or pilgrim, of some distant nation, performing tupesya in astrange land;” and, with the same benevolent kindness with which theyrelieved the pilgrims of their own religion, did they administer to hiscomforts: but when, availing himself of the interest he excited, heendeavoured to unfold to them the nature and object of a mission, toaccomplish which he had come from distant regions, they turned coldlyfrom him, saying, “God has appointed to each tribe its own faith, and toeach sect its own religion: let each obey the appointment of God, andlive in peace with his neighbour.”
This decided disappointment of all his holy views, grieved, withoutdiscouraging him. The perseverance of a genius not to be subdued, wasthe grand feature of his character; and a religious hope still hurriedhim towards that point, which was the object of his pious ambition. Hedeemed the conversion of the Prophetess a task reserved for him alone:the conversion of her nation a miracle which _she_ only couldaccomplish.
He now proceeded to Sirinagar, and, within a few leagues of thecapital[19], he was struck by the appearance of a cave, in which heresolved to fix his abode. It was evening when the Missionary reachedthe base of a lofty mountain, which seemed a monument of the first dayof creation. It was a solemn and sequestered spot, where an eternalspring seemed to reign, and which looked like the cradle of infantNature, where she first awoke, in all her primeval bloom of beauty. Itwas a glen, skreened by a mighty mass of rocks, over whose boldfantastic forms and variegated hues dashed the silvery foam of themountain torrent, flinging its dewy sprays around, till, breaking intofairy rills, it stole into a branch of the Behat, whose overflowing, atsome distant period, had worn its way into the heart of the rock, andproduced a small sparry cavern which, from the splendour of thestalactites that hung like glittering icicles from its shining roof,had been named by the people of the country, _the grotto ofcongelations_. Wild and sequestered as was this romantic place, it yet,by its vicinity to the huts of some goalas, or Indian shepherds, leftnot its inhabitant wholly destitute of such assistance as even hissimple and frugal life might still require; while, on every side, theluscious milk of the cocoa-nut, the fruit of the bread-tree, thenutritious grains of the wild rice plant, the luxurious produce ofinnumerable fruit-trees, and the pure bath of the mountain spring, wereluxuries, supplied by Nature, in these, her loveliest and favouriteregions.
The Missionary employed himself, during the evening, in erecting at themost remote extremity of the grotto, a rude altar, on which he placedthe golden crucifix he usually carried suspended from his girdle; and,having formed what might be even deemed a luxurious couch of mosses anddried leaves, a night of calm repose passed swiftly away. The dawn, asit shone through the crevices of his asylum grotto, was reflected by thegolden crucifix suspended over his altar. The heart of the Christianthrobbed with an holy rapture, as he observed the ray of consecratedlight. He arose, and prostrated himself before the first shrine everraised to his Redeemer, in the most distant and most idolatrous of theprovinces of Hindoostan: he then took his crosier, and issued forth,looking like the tutelar spirit of the magnificent region he was goingto explore. A goala who was descending the rocks with his dogs, gave himas he passed a look of homage, such as the mind instinctively sends tothe eye when its glance rests upon a being whom Providence seemed tohave formed in all the beneficence and prodigality of its creativepower.
The Missionary, taking the path towards Sirinagar, emerged from the deepshade of his glen, into a scene of picturesque beauty, which burst, inall the radiance of the rising day, upon his view, terminated by thecultivated hills of Sirinagar, and the snowy mountains of Thibet,rising like a magnificent amphitheatre to the east; but a grove ofmangoostin-trees, still wrapt in the soft mists of dawn, became anobject peculiarly attractive, in proportion to the retiring mystery ofits gloomy shade. The Missionary struck off from the high road, topierce into its almost impenetrable recesses. He proceeded through apath, which, from the long cusa-grass netted over it, and the entangledcreepers of the parasite plants, seemed to have been rarely, if ever,explored. The trees, thick and umbrageous, were wedded, in theirtowering branches, above his head, and knitted, in their spreadingroots, beneath his feet. The sound of a cascade became his sole guidethrough the leafy labyrinth. He at last reached the pile of rockswhence the torrent flowed, pouring its tributary flood into a broadriver, 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 banksof the river, opposite to the rising sun, already reflected the firstray of the effulgent orb, as it rose in all its majesty from behind thesnowy points of the mountains of Thibet. Before the altar, and near theconsecrated 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 atransient incorporation of the brilliant mists of morning; so light andso aspiring in its attitude, that it appeared already ascending from theearth it scarcely touched, to mingle with its kindred air. Theresplendent locks of the seeming sprite were enwreathed with beams, andsparkled with the waters of the holy stream, whence it appeared recentlyto have emerged. A drapery of snow shone round a form perfect in graceand symmetry. One arm, decorated with a rosary, was pointed to therising sun; the other, at intervals, was thrice applied to the brow, andthe following incantation from the Brahminical scriptures was then lowlyand solemnly pronounced: “O pure waters! since you afford delight, grantme a rapturous view of heaven; and as he who plunges into thy wave isfreed from all impurity, so may my soul live, free from all pollution.”Thrice again bowing to the sun, the suppliant thus continued: “On thateffulgent power, which is Brahma, do I meditate: governed by thatmysterious light which exists internally within my breast, externally inthe orb of the sun, being one and the same with that effulgent power,sinc
e I myself am an irradiated manifestation of the supremeBrahma[21].”
This being of spiritual mystery seemed then given up to a silent andreligious rapture; and the Missionary, by a slight movement, changinghis position, beheld the rapt countenance of the votarist, who had sosublimely assimilated herself to the orb she worshipped, and the God sheserved. It was Luxima! At the rustling of his robe among the trees, shestarted, turned round, and her eyes fell upon his figure, while her ownwas still fixed in the graceful attitude of devotion. Silently gazing,in wonder, upon each other, they stood finely opposed, the noblestspecimens of the human species, as it appears in the most oppositeregions of the earth; she; like the East, lovely and luxuriant; he, likethe 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, whichmarks his ruder latitudes: she, looking like a creature formed to feeland to submit; he, like a being created to resist and to command: whileboth appeared as the ministers and representatives of the two mostpowerful religions of the earth; the one no less enthusiastic in herbrilliant errors, than the other confident in his immutable truth.
The Christian Saint and Heathen Priestess remained for some timemotionless, in look as in attitude; till Luxima, from a sudden impulse,withdrawing her eyes, the sensation of amazement depicted in hercountenance, was rapidly succeeded by a bashful and timid emotion, whichrosed her cheek with crimson hues, and threw round her an air ofshrinking modesty, which softened the inspired dignity of the offspringof Brahma. But when the Priestess disappeared, the woman stood too muchconfessed; and a feminine reserve, a lovely timidity, so characteristicof her sex, overwhelmed the Missionary with confusion: he remained,leaning on his crosier, his eyes cast down upon his beads, his lipsmotionless.
Luxima, who resembled as she stood, the flower which contracts and foldsupon itself, even to the influence of the evening air, was the first tointerrupt this unexpected and mysterious interview; with a suddenmovement she glided by the stranger, but with an air of chill reserve,of majestic distance, as though she feared the unhallowed vestment ofinfidelity should pollute the consecrated garb of vestal sanctity. Headdressed her not, nor by a movement attempted to oppose her intention.He saw her proceed up an avenue of asoca-trees, which received theglittering form of the Priestess into their impervious shade. As shedisappeared amidst the deepening gloom, she seemed, to the eye of hersole spectator, like the ray which darts its sunny lustre through thedark vapours gathered, by evening, on the brow of night. Still was hisglance directed to the path she had taken; still did the brilliantvision float on his imagination, till the sun, as it deepened theshadows of the trees around him, told how long a reverie, so new andsingular in its object, had stolen him from himself. He started, andmoved unconsciously towards the bank of the stream, where traces of heridolatrous rites were still visible. Some unctuous clay, mingled withthe ottar of the rose, strewed its perfume on the earth; and near it laya wreath of the buchampaca, the flower of the dawn, whose vestal budsblow with the sun’s first ray, and fade and die beneath his meridianbeam, 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 apious delicacy, urged him to let it drop: he knew that it had made apart of an idolatrous ceremony; that it had been twined by idolatroushands; but he could not forget, that those hands had looked so lovelyand so pure, that they almost consecrated the act they had been engagedin: he wished also to believe, that those hands would yet adjust themonastic veil upon the Christian, vestal’s brow; he blamed, therefore, afastidiousness, which almost resembled bigotry, and again took up thewreath. It breathed of the musky odours which had effused themselvesfrom the tresses of the Indian as she passed him; and thus awakened tothe recollection of their interview, he wandered back to his grotto,forgetful of his intention to visit Sirinagur, and occupied only inreflecting on the accident which had thus rendered him a resident in theneighbourhood of the Priestess of Cashmire.