intense as by day. Millions of grasshoppers were shrilling in
the forest, filling the air with a metallic throbbing, and flocks of
frightened parrots rushed from tree to tree. Sometimes the thundering,
prolonged roars of tigers rose from the bottom of the precipices thickly
covered with all kinds of vegetation. Shikaris assure us that, on a
quiet night, the roaring of these beasts can be heard for many miles
around. The panorama, lit up, as if by Bengal fires, changed at every
turn. Rivers, fields, forests, and rocks, spread out at our feet over
an enormous distance, moved and trembled, iridescent, in the silvery
moonlight, like the tides of a mirage. The fantastic character of the
pictures made us hold our breath. Our heads grew giddy if, by chance, we
glanced down into the depths by the flickering moonlight. We felt that
the precipice, 2,000 feet deep, was fascinating us. One of our American
fellow travelers, who had begun the voyage on horseback, had to
dismount, afraid of being unable to resist the temptation to dive head
foremost into the abyss.

Several times we met with lonely pedestrians, men and young women,
coming down Mataran on their way home after a day's work. It often
happens that some of them never reach home. The police unconcernedly
report that the missing man has been carried off by a tiger, or killed
by a snake. All is said, and he is soon entirely forgotten. One person,
more or less, out of the two hundred and forty millions who inhabit
India does not matter much! But there exists a very strange superstition
in the Deccan about this mysterious, and only partially explored,
mountain. The natives assert that, in spite of the considerable number
of victims, there has never been found a single skeleton. The corpse,
whether intact or mangled by tigers, is immediately carried away by the
monkeys, who, in the latter case, gather the scattered bones, and bury
them skillfully in deep holes, that no traces ever remain. Englishmen
laugh at this superstition, but the police do not deny the fact of the
entire disappearance of the bodies. When the sides of the mountain were
excavated, in the course of the construction of the railway, separate
bones, with the marks of tigers' teeth upon them, broken bracelets, and
other adornments, were found at an incredible depth from the surface.
The fact of these things being broken showed clearly that they were not
buried by men, because, neither the religion of the Hindus, no