Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... CIIAPTEE XIX DAWNING LIGHT. How the hours lagged! and how wearily I won my way through the duties of the day which must elapse ere I should again meet with the Byga, --that man who seemed so singularly able to medicine my restless spirit to peace. In his presence and listening to his wonderfully soothing voice, I had experienced a calm and tranquillity to which I had been for years a stranger. There was nothing remarkable in the words he uttered, still less could I regard the prospect of a visit to his "home," as he was pleased to call the hole in the mountain where he claimed to dwell, as an inviting one; yet I felt a strange longing to be there, and when I speculated upon the appearance of that " dark line dividing the bushes," which he had pointed out to me, I seemed to see white hands reaching from the mountain side and beckoning me up its savage and almost unattainable heights. I had intended to take some sleep before commencing my pilgrimage, but I was detained on business all day at Aurungabad, the capital city of the province, and could only partake of a late dinner with some brother officers, ere it was time to set off on my long ride in order to reach Ellora by midnight. I succeeded in gaining the ravine by a little after eleven, and having there stabled my horse, proceeded on foot to the temples, which I reached a few minutes before the appointed hour. The moon was obscured by the driving clouds which predicated the approach of a storm. The table-land of the amphitheatre, around which towered the red granite rocks that formed "the great religious city," was destitute of all signs of life or movement as I approached it. Solitude the most profound, desolation the most complete, cast a spell upon the entire panorama. By an...