and rubbing his hands, he said that he was curious to know
on the strength of what sophistry our companions could find anything
resembling a philosophical explanation "in the fundamental idea of the
four faces of this ugly Shiva, crowned with snakes," pointing with his
finger to the idol at the entrance to a pagoda.

"It is very simple," answered the Bengali Babu. "You see that its four
faces are turned towards the four cardinal points, South, North, West,
and East--but all these faces are on one body and belong to one god."

"Would you mind explaining first the philosophical idea of the four
faces and eight hands of your Shiva," interrupted the padre.

"With great pleasure. Thinking that our great Rudra (the Vedic name
for this god) is omnipresent, we represent him with his face turned
simultaneously in all directions. Eight hands indicate his omnipotence,
and his single body serves to remind us that he is One, though he is
everywhere, and nobody can avoid his all-seeing eye, or his chastising
hand."

The padre was going to say something when the train stopped; we had
arrived at Narel.

It is hardly twenty-five years since, for the first time, a white man
ascended Mataran, a huge mass of various kinds of trap rock, for the
most part crystalline in form. Though quite near to Bombay, and only
a few miles from Khandala, the summer residence of the Europeans, the
threatening heights of this giant were long considered inaccessible. On
the north, its smooth, almost vertical face rises 2,450 feet over the
valley of the river Pen, and, further on, numberless separate rocks
and hillocks, covered with thick vegetation, and divided by valleys and
precipices, rise up to the clouds. In 1854, the railway pierced one of
the sides of Mataran, and now has reached the foot of the last mountain,
stopping at Narel, where, not long ago, there was nothing but a
precipice. From Narel to the upper plateau is but eight miles, which you
may travel on a pony, or in an open or closed palanquin, as you choose.

Considering that we arrived at Narel about six in the evening, this
course was not very tempting. Civilization has done much with inanimate
nature, but, in spite of all its despotism, it has not yet been able to
conquer tigers and snakes. Tigers, no doubt, are banished to the
more remote jungles, but all hinds of snakes, especially cobras and
coralillos, which last by preference inhabit trees, still abound in
the forests of Mataran as