This remembrance of her former glory, deepened the hues of her complexion, and illumined a transient ray of triumph in her almost beamless eyes: then pausing for a moment, she fixed her glance on the image of her tutelar god, which she still held in her hand—the idol, wearing the form of infant beauty, was symbolic of that religious mystic love, to which she had once devoted herself! she held it for a moment to her lips, and to her heart—then, presenting it to the Cashmirian, she added, “Take it, and bear it back to him, from whom I received it, on the day of my consecration, in the temple of Serinagur! to him! the aged grandsire whom I abandoned!—dear and venerable!—should he still survive the loss and shame of her, his child and his disciple! should he still deign to acknowledge as his offspring the outcast whom he cursed—the Chancalas whom—” the words died away upon her quivering lips, “Brahma!” she faintly exclaimed, “Brahma!” and, grasping the hands of the Missionary, alternately directed her looks to him and to Heaven; but he replied not to the last glance of life and love. He had sunk beneath the acuteness of his feelings; and the Indian, believing that his spirit had fled before her own to the realms of eternal peace, and there awaited to receive her, bowed her head, and expired in the blissful illusion, with a smile of love and a ray of religious joy shedding their mingled lustre on her slowly closing eyes.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
The guards, who by order of the Inquisition were sent in pursuit of the fugitives, reached the cavern of their retreat three days after that of the insurrection; but here they found only a pile partly consumed, and the ashes of such aromatic plants as the interstices of the surrounding rocks afforded, which the Hindus usually burn with the bodies of their deceased friends, at the funeral pyre; they continued therefore their search farther along the shore; it was long, persevering and fruitless. The Apostolic Nuncio of India was never heard of more.
Time rolled on, and the majestic order of nature, uninterrupted in its harmonious course, finely contrasted the rapid vicissitudes of human events, and the countless changes in human institutions! In the short space of twenty years, the mighty had fallen, and the lowly were elevated; the lash of oppression had passed alternately from the grasp of the persecutor to the hand of the persecuted; the slave had seized the sceptre, and the tyrant had submitted to the chain. Portugal, resuming her independence, carried the standard of her triumph even to the remote shores of the Indian ocean, and, knowing no ally but that of compatriot unanimity, resisted by her single and unassisted force, the combined powers of a mighty state, the intrigues of a wily cabinet, and the arms of a successful potentate.[19] While Freedom thus unfurled her spotless banner in a remote corner of the West, she lay mangled and in chains, at the foot of victorious tyranny in the East. Aurengzebe had waded through carnage and destruction to the throne of India—he had seized a sceptre stained with a brother’s blood, and wore the diadem, torn from a parent’s brow! worthy to represent the most powerful and despotic dynasty of the earth, his genius and his fortunes resembled the regions he governed, mingling sublimity with destruction; splendour with peril;—and combining, in their mighty scale, the great extremes of good and evil. Led by a love of pleasure, or allured by a natural curiosity, he resolved on visiting the most remote and most delicious province of his empire, where his ancestors had so often sought repose from the toils of war, and fatigue of government; and where, twenty years before, his own heroic and unfortunate nephew, Solymon Sheko, had sought asylum and resource against his growing power and fatal influence. He left Delhi for Cashmire, during an interval of general prosperity and peace, and performed his expedition with all the pomp of eastern magnificence.[20]
In the immense and motley multitude which composed his suite, there was an European Philosopher, who, highly distinguished by the countenance and protection of the emperor, had been led, by philosophical curiosity and tasteful research, to visit a country, which, more celebrated than known, had not yet attracted the observation of genius, or the inquiry of science. He found the natural beauty of the vale of Cashmire, far exceeding the description of its scenes which lived in the songs of the Indian bards, and its mineral and botanic productions curious, and worthy of the admiration and notice of the naturalist; and in a spot which might be deemed the region of natural phenomena, he discovered more than one object to which a moral interest was attached. Yet to one object only did the interest of sentiment peculiarly belong; it was a sparry cavern, among the hills of Serinagur, called, by the natives of the valley, the “Grotto of congelations!”[21] They pointed it out to strangers as a place constructed by magic, which for many years had been the residence of a recluse! a stranger, who had appeared suddenly among them, who had been rarely seen, and more rarely addressed, who led a lonely and an innocent life, equally avoided and avoiding, who lived unmolested, awakening no interest, and exciting no persecution—“he was,” they said, “a wild and melancholy man! whose religion was unknown, but who prayed at the confluence of rivers, at the rising and the setting of the sun; living on the produce of the soil, he needed no assistance, nor sought any intercourse; and his life, thus slowly wearing away, gradually faded into death.”
A goalo, or Indian shepherd, who missed him for several mornings at his wonted place of matinal devotion, was led by curiosity or by compassion to visit his grotto. He found him dead, at the foot of an altar which he had himself raised to the deity of his secret worship, and fixed in the attitude of one who died in the act of prayer. Beside him lay a small urn, formed of the sparry congelations of the grotto—on opening it, it was only found to contain some ashes, a cross stained with blood, and the dsandum of an Indian Brahmin. On the lucid surface of the urn were carved some characters which formed the name of “Luxima!”—It was the name of an outcast, and had long been condemned to oblivion by the crime of its owner. The Indians shuddered when they pronounced it! and it was believed that the Recluse who lived so long and so unknown among them, was the same, who once, and in days long passed, had seduced, from the altar of the god she served, the most celebrated of their religious women, when he had visited their remote and lovely valley in the character of
A Christian Missionary.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] The odour of this flower produces violent head-aches.
[2] Une laine, ou plutôt un poil, qu’on nomme touz, se prend sur les poitrines des chèvres sauvages des montagnes de Cashmire.—Bernier.
It is of this wool the Cashmirian shawls are formed.
[3] See Kindersley’s History of the Hindu Mythology.
[4] “C’est dans le Shasta que l’on trouve ’histoire de la Chute des Anges.”—Essai sur les Mœurs des Nations. P. 2, T. 2.
[5] This singular spectacle frequently presents itself to the eye of the traveller in the hilly parts of the Carnatic, as well as in Upper India, particularly about the Ghauts, which are covered with the bamboo tree.
[6] One of the varieties of the asbestos, which when long exposed to air, dissolves into a downy matter, unassailable by common fire.
[7] Augne-Baugauvin, the God of Fire, and one of the eight keepers of the world.
[8] Saindovoer.
[9] The tellertum is a mark which is at once an ornament and an indication of cast and religious profession.
[10] According to the Abbé Guy on, there is in India a species of serpent, which even in the pursuit of its prey is to be lulled into a profound slumber by the sounds of musical instruments. The Indian serpent-hunters frequently make use of this artifice, that they may destroy them with greater facility.
[11] “Notwithstanding the labours of the Missionaries for upwards of two hundred years, out of perhaps one hundred millions of Hindus, there are not twelve thousand Christians, and those are almost all entirely chancalas, or outcasts.”—Sketches of the History of the Religion, Learning, and Manners of the Hindus, p. 48.
[12] “They all wear (the Familiares de Santo Officio), as a mark of creditable distinction, a gold medal, upon which are engraven the Arms of the Inquisition.”
Stockdale’s History of the Inquisitions.
[13] The people also dare not speak of this Inquisition, but with the utmost respect and reverence; and if by accident the slightest word should escape one, which concerned it ever so little, it would be necessary immediately to accuse and inform against one’s self. People are frequently confined to the prison for one, two, or three years, without knowing the reason, and are visited only by officers of the Inquisition, and never suffered to behold any other person.—History of the Inquisition by Stockdale, p. 213.
[14] An insurrection of a fatal consequence took place in Vellore so late as 1806, and a mutiny at Nundydrag and Benglore, occurred about the same period: both were supposed to have originated in the religious bigotry of the natives, suddenly kindled by the supposed threatened violation of their faith from the Christian settlers.
[15] The Pagans and Moors of Goa are not subject to the Inquisition till they have been baptized. A disgusting and absurd cruelty is displayed in its treatment of those unfortunate Indians who are accused of magic and sorcery, and, as guilty of such offences, are committed to the flames.—See Hist. of the Inquisition, p. 243.
[16] The Inquisition, which punishes with death relapsed Christians, never inflicts any capital punishment on those who have not received the rites of baptism.—History of the Inquisition, p. 214.
[17] A species of delirious fever.
[18] “Morreo queimado por hereje convitto negativo.”
[19] Revolution of Portugal.
[20] Historical.
[21] Monsieur de Bernier laments, in his interesting account of his journey to Cashmire which he performed in the suite of Aurengzebe, that circumstances prevented him visiting the grotto of congelations, of which so many strange tales were related by the natives of the valley.