whole
carriage of the Great Indian Peninsular Railroad on our way to Nassik,
one of the oldest towns in India, as I have already mentioned, and
the most sacred of all in the eyes of the inhabitants of the Western
Presidency. Nassik borrowed its name from the Sanskrit word "Nasika,"
which means nose. An epic legend assures us that on this very spot
Lakshman, the eldest brother of the deified King Rama, cut off the nose
of the giantess Sarpnaka, sister of Ravana, who stole Sita, the "Helen
of Troy" of the Hindus.

The train stops six miles from the town, so that we had to finish our
journey in six two-wheeled, gilded chariots, called ekkas, and drawn by
bullocks. It was one o'clock A.M., but, in spite of the darkness of the
hour, the horns of the animals were gilded and adorned with flowers,
and brass bangles tinkled on their legs. Our waylay through ravines
overgrown with jungle, where, as our drivers hastened to inform
us, tigers and other four-footed misanthropes of the forest played
hide-and-seek. However, we had no opportunity of making the acquaintance
of the tigers, but enjoyed instead a concert of a whole community of
jackals. They followed us step by step, piercing our ears with shrieks,
wild laughter and barking. These animals are annoying, but so cowardly
that, though numerous enough to devour, not only all of us, but our
gold-horned bullocks too, none of them dared to come nearer than the
distance of a few steps. Every time the long whip, our weapon against
snakes, alighted on the back of one of them, the whole horde disappeared
with unimaginable noise. Nevertheless, the drivers did not dispense with
a single one of their superstitious precautions against tigers. They
chanted mantrams in unison, spread betel over the road as a token of
their respect to the Rajas of the forest, and, after every couplet,
made the bullocks kneel and bow their heads in honor of the great gods.
Needless to say, the ekka, as light as a nutshell, threatened each time
to fall with its passenger over the horns of the bullocks. We had to
endure this agreeable way of traveling for five hours under a very dark
sky. We reached the Inn of the Pilgrims in the morning at about six
o'clock.

The real cause of Nassik's sacredness, however, is not the mutilated
trunk of the giantess, but the situation of the town on the banks of
the Godavari, quite close to the sources of this river which, for some
reason or other, are called by the natives G