dest people in the neighborhood, she had always lived
there. Some people said she was three hundred years old; others alleged
that a certain old man on his death-bed had revealed to his son that
this old woman was no one else than his own uncle. This fabulous uncle
had settled in the cave in the times when the "dead city" still counted
several hundreds of inhabitants. The hermit, busy paving his road to
Moksha, had no intercourse with the rest of the world, and nobody knew
how he lived and what he ate. But a good while ago, in the days when the
Bellati (foreigners) had not yet taken possession of this mountain, the
old hermit suddenly was transformed into a hermitess. She continues
his pursuits and speaks with his voice, and often in his name; but she
receives worshippers, which was not the practice of her predecessor.

We had come too early, and the Pythia did not at first appear. But
the square before the temple was full of people, and a wild, though
picturesque, scene it was. An enormous bonfire blazed in the centre,
and round it crowded the naked savages like so many black gnomes, adding
whole branches of trees sacred to the seven sister-goddesses. Slowly
and evenly they all jumped from one leg to another to a tune of a single
monotonous musical phrase, which they repeated in chorus, accompanied
by several local drums and tambourines. The hushed trill of the latter
mingled with the forest echoes and the hysterical moans of two little
girls, who lay under a heap of leaves by the fire. The poor children
were brought here by their mothers, in the hope that the goddesses
would take pity upon them and banish the two evil spirits under whose
obsession they were. Both mothers were quite young, and sat on their
heels blankly and sadly staring at the flames. No one paid us the
slightest attention when we appeared, and afterwards during all our
stay these people acted as if we were invisible. Had we worn a cap of
darkness they could not have behaved more strangely.

"They feel the approach of the gods! The atmosphere is full of their
sacred emanations!" mysteriously explained Sham Rao, contemplating
with reverence the natives, whom his beloved Haeckel might have easily
mistaken for his "missing link," the brood of his " Bathybius Haeckelii."

"They are simply under the influence of toddy and opium!" retorted the
irreverent Babu.

The lookers-on moved as in a dream, as if they all were only
half-awakened somnambulists; but