d ordering her to salute the
"sahibs" with her trunk. Peri, whose spirits had been raised by the gift
of a whole stick of sugar-cane from me, lifted her trunk backwards and
playfully blew into our faces.

On the threshold of the Nassik caves we bid good-bye to the modern
pigmy India, to the petty things of her everyday life, and to her
humiliations. We re-entered the unknown world of India, the great and
the mysterious.

The main caves of Nassik are excavated in a mountain bearing the name
of Pandu-Lena, which points again to the undying, persistent, primaeval
tradition that ascribes all such buildings to the five mythical (?)
brothers of prehistoric times. The unanimous opinion of archaeologists
esteems these caves more interesting and more important than all the
caves of Elephanta and Karli put together. And, nevertheless--is it not
strange?--with the exception of the learned Dr. Wilson, who, it may be,
was a little too fond of forming hasty opinions, no archaeologist has,
as yet, made so bold as to decide to what epoch they belong, by whom
they were erected, and which of the three chief religions of antiquity
was the one professed by their mysterious builders.

It is evident, however, that those who wrought here did not all belong
either to the same generation or to the same sect. The first thing which
strikes the attention is the roughness of the primitive work, its huge
dimensions, and the decline of the sculpture on the solid walls, whereas
the sculpture and carvings of the six colossi which prop the chief cave
on the second floor, are magnificently preserved and very elegant.
This circumstance would lead one to think that the work was begun
many centuries before it was finished. But when? One of the Sanskrit
inscriptions of a comparatively recent epoch (on the pedestal of one of
the colossi) clearly points to 453 B.C. as the year of the building. At
all events, Barth, Stevenson, Gibson, Reeves, and some other scientists,
who being Westerns can have none of the prejudices proper to the native
Pundits, have formed this conjecture on the basis of some astronomical
data. Besides, the conjunction of the planets stated in the inscription
leaves no doubt as to the dates, it must be either 453 B.C., or 1734
of our era, or 2640 B.C., which last is impossible, because Buddha and
Buddhist monasteries are mentioned in the inscription. I translate some
of the most important sentences:

"To the most Perfect and the Highest