in the train to delhi the windows were screened with cuscus mats constantly sprinkled with water, and so long as the train was in motion the air came in cool, fragrant, and breathable. but whenever we stopped in the desert which this country becomes just before the monsoon, melted lead seemed to scorch up the atmosphere and shut the train in between walls of fire.
delhi appeared in the blinding light like an unsubstantial vision, white against a bleached sky; and as we got nearer the city half vanished like a mirage, blotted out and dim through a shifting cloud of dust.
every house in the town was shuttered, not a soul was to be seen in the baked streets; only here and there in a shady corner a beggar might be seen asleep. a chigram only was slowly moving along at the slow pace of two draught oxen, carrying the women of a zenana, and their constant chatter[pg 300] within the curtains of the clumsy vehicle sounded formidably loud and discordant in the silence, the death-like exhaustion of noon. a foxy smell came up from everything that the sun was baking, and towards the end of the day it had become intolerable, corpse-like. it died away, however, after sunset.
then, in the magic of the evening, the air was saturated with fragrance; invisible gardenias, amaryllis, and lemon-flowers perfumed the cool night. on every side we could hear the quavering guzla, the sound of tom-toms and tambourines. the streets were brightly lighted up and crowded.
a dancing-girl went by, wrapped in white muslin as thin as air, hardly veiling the exquisite grace of her shape. close to us, in front of two musicians playing on the vina and the tom-tom, she began to dance, jingling the rattles and bells on her anklets: a mysterious dance with slow movements and long bows alternating with sudden leaps, her hands crossed on her heart, in a lightning flash of silver necklets and bangles. every now and then a shadow passed between the nautch-girl and the lights that fell on her while she was dancing, and then she could scarcely be seen to touch the ground, she seemed to float in her fluttering[pg 301] drapery; and presently, before the musicians had ceased playing, she vanished in the gloom of a side alley. she had asked for nothing, had danced simply for the pleasure of displaying her grace.
on our way back to the hotel, in a park through which we had to pass, we suddenly heard overhead a shrill outcry proceeding from a banyan tree to which a number of vampires had hung themselves up. clinging together side by side, like black rags, and hardly visible in the thick foliage, the creatures formed a sort of living bunch, creeping, swaying, and all uttering the same harsh, monotonous, incessant cry.
as we passed the sacred tanks, where a smell of decay filled the air that still rang with the cries of the bats, our horses suddenly shied and refused to go forward, terror-stricken by some invisible danger suggested to them by that reiterated shriek or the corpse-like smell. a very long minute passed as we sat in the carriage, a minute of dread that left us quite excited by this mysterious peril of which we had somehow felt the awe. nor was it till we had left the great trees by the tanks behind us that the impression wore off under the comforting light of the stars.
with day came the grip of fire, the overwhelming[pg 302] mastery of the heat. the sunshine pierced through every crack in the shutters and blinds, intolerably vivid. in feverish exhaustion, helpless to withstand the glow and light, we could but lie under the waving punkah and await the blessed return of night.
