oxen are unyoked at a dribble of water, and a party rests
and eats in the shade. Otherwise it is one long march with bare feet
over the burning soil.

We are approaching a market. The mud walls of a village appear. And
outside, by a stream shrunk now into muddy pools, shimmers and wimmers
a many-coloured crowd, buzzing among their waggons and awnings and
improvised stalls. We ford the shallow stream, where women are washing
clothes, cleaning their teeth, and drinking from the same water, and
pass among the bags of corn, the sugar-cane, and sweetmeats, saluted
gravely but unsolicited.

Then on again for hours, the road now solitary, till as day closes we
reach Fardapur. A cluster of mud-walled compounds and beehive huts lies
about a fortified enclosure, where the children sprawl and scream, and a
Brahmin intones to silent auditors. Outside they are drawing water from
the puddles of the stream. And gradually over the low hills and the
stretches of yellow grass the after-glow spreads a transfiguring light.
Out of a rosy flush the evening star begins to shine; the crickets cry;
a fresh breeze blows; and another pitiless day drops into oblivion.

Next day, at dawn, we walk the four miles to the famous caves, guided by
a boy who wears the Nizam's livery, and explains to us, in a language we
do not know, but with perfect lucidity, that it is to him, and no one
else, that backsheesh is due. He sings snatches of music as old and
strange as the hills; picks us balls of cotton, and prickly pear; and
once stops to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the
winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a
semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As
we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats
explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light,
and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat
pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and
ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the
entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling
full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository hands. This
is a monastery, and most of the caves are on the same plan; but one or
two are long halls, presumably for worship, with barrel-vaulted roofs,
and at the end a great solid globe on a pedestal.

Of the art of these caves I will not speak. What little can be