Dhan Gopal Mukerji

“ A tiger in the jungle does not frighten me, but I cannot say the same of an automobile. One crossing of a modern city street imperils more lives in a minute than a day in the most dangerous forests. Farewell! I go where the woods wear stillness for a dress, the air is free of odours and dust, and the sky, a hollowed turquoise, is not cross-cut and pierced with poles and telegraph wires. Instead of factory whistles I shall hear the song of birds; and in the place of thieves and gunmen I shall have innocent tigers and panthers face to face. ”

“ After dinner, the Abbot invited Ghond and me to take our siesta in his company, and we climbed with him up to the topmost cliff, which was like an eagle's eyrie, over which grew a clump of firs, where we found a hard bare cell, without a stick of furniture anywhere, which I had never seen before. After we had seated ourselves there, the holy man said, "Here in the monastery we have prayed to Infinite Compassion twice every day for the healing of the nations of earth. Yet the war goes on, infecting even birds and beasts with fear and hate. ”

“ At that moment the signal whistle blew that the contest had begun, and each pigeon fancier waved from his roof a white flag. Instantly from nowhere innumerable flocks of pigeons rose into the sky. Flock upon flock, colour upon colour, their fluttering wings bore them above the city. Crows and kites—the latter of two species, red and brown—fled from the sky before the thundering onrush of tens of thousands of carriers and tumblers. Soon all the flocks—each flying in the shape of a fan—circled in the sky like so many clouds caught in large whirlpools of air. ”

“ Below, a buffalo's bellowing unlocked the insect voices one by one, tearing into shreds and tatters the stillness of the evening. An owl hooted near by, making Gay-Neck snuggle closely to my heart under my tunic. Suddenly the Himalayan Doël, a night bird, very much like a nightingale, flung abroad its magic song. Like a silver flute blown by a God, trill upon trill, cadenza upon cadenza, spilled its torrential peace which rushed like rain down the boughs of the trees, dripping over their rude barks to the floor of the jungle, then through their very roots into the heart of the earth. ”

“ That sound was drowned in the deep-toned cry of the eagles above who flew in flocks and barked as well as screeched like mad, slaying each other like so many sparrows. The Rasseldar who was in charge of me pointed the face of his pup at the sky, then let off—puck puff—some fire and lo! it brought down one of those eagles as if it were a rabbit. Now the deepest tone was heard. The boom bazoom bum bum! The tiger-roar of the large ones' mammoth majesty rose and spread like a canopy of divine chords, drowning under its engulfing immensity all other petty sounds. Oh! ”

“ Hardly had he done so when he squealed, for the odour of man all beasts fear, and swiftly withdrew his trunk. After grunting and complaining to himself he put up his trunk again very near Ghond's face. Just then Ghond sneezed almost into the elephant's nostrils. That struck panic into the latter's heart; he felt beleaguered by men. Trumpeting and squealing like a frightened fiend, he dashed through the jungle, breaking and smashing everything before him. Again the parrots, thick as green sails, flew in the sky. Monkeys screamed and raced from tree to tree. ”

“ Then that dog! Shall I ever forget him? I was frightened when Ghond first annexed him but he got no scent from my body, and the air that rose from below told me that somehow, like a clean-smelling ghost, he had come to befriend us. His footsteps I will remember all my life. He walked softly as a cat. He must have been a savage dog, for dogs that live in civilization are noisy. They cannot even walk quietly. Man's company is corrupting: every animal, excepting cats, becomes careless and noisy in human society. But that dog was quite wild. ”

“ Those were leopards and panthers who had slept on the trees all day and were now leaping down to hunt at night.
When they had gone the frogs croaked, insects buzzed continually and owls hooted. Noise, like a diamond, opened its million facets. Sounds leapt at one's hearing like the dart of sunlight into unprotected eyes. A boar passed, cracking and breaking all before him. Soon the frogs stopped croaking, and way down on the floor of the jungle we heard the tall grass and other undergrowth rise like a hay-cock, then with a sigh fall back. ”

“ My wings were paralysed, my entrails frozen with terror.
"Besides, I would not fly without Ghond. Why should I spring from the hands of a man whose complexion was not brown and whose eyes were blue? I had not known such people before. We pigeons don't take to any and every outsider. At last they brought me in a cage to the hospital where Ghond was, and left me beside him. When I saw him I hardly recognized him, for his eyes—Ghond's eyes—wore a look of real fear! ”

“ All the ranges lie in the grip of the most devastating blizzards. Once in a while above the battle of storms and driven snow the peaks appear—a compact mass of hard ice and white fire. They glow intensely in the sunlight, while at their feet the snow clouds whirl and fall like fanatical dervishes dancing frenziedly before their terrible God.
During the summer my friend Radja and our teacher in jungle lore, old Ghond, came to visit our home. Radja was about sixteen years old, already a Brahmin priest, and Ghond we always called old, for none knew his age. ”

“ By now they were hardly six hundred feet from our roof, and then as fate would have it, Mr. Baz, like a shell full of high explosives, fell again, this time right in the middle of the crescent and opened his wings and beak like forks of fire, crying and shrieking with fury. That produced its effect. Instead of one solid wall of pigeons, the flock was cut in two, of which one half followed Gay-Neck, while the other, smitten with abject fear, flew none knew whither. Gay-Neck did what a true leader does in great crises. ”

“ Now and then a flock of green parrots flung their emerald glory in the face of the sun, then vanished. Insects multiplied. Mammoth butterflies, velvety black, swarmed from blossom to blossom, and innumerable small birds preyed on numberless buzzing flies. We were stung with the sharpest stings of worms, and now and then we had to wait to let pass a serpent that crossed our path. Were it not for the practised eyes of Ghond who knew which way the animals came and went, we would have been killed ten times over by a snake or a bison. Sometimes Ghond would put his ear to the ground and listen. ”

“ From nowhere came flocks of monkeys running from branch to branch. Squirrels ran like rats from trees to the jungle-floor, then back again. Swarms of birds, such as jays, herons and parrots were flying about and shrieking in unison with crows, owls and kites. Suddenly the bull charged again. I saw that Ghond was standing there calmly facing him. If ever I saw a man calm as calmness itself, it was Ghond. The bull's hind legs throbbed and swept on like swords. Then something happened. He reared in the air; no doubt it was the pull of the lassoo rope of which one end was tied to our tree. ”

“ Next, the eagle has no knack at building nests. It chooses a ledge that juts out of a cliff-cavern where nature has already performed two-thirds of the task. The last third is done by the birds themselves and it merely consists in getting branches, leaves, and blades of grass together as a rough bed where the eggs may be laid and hatched.
All those details we gathered as we crawled out of our hiding place and examined—for the second time—the eyrie from a distance. There was no doubt that they were our old friends—the two babies—grown big, and their mother. ”

“ Below them in arboreal darkness many deer grazed on abundant tall grass and saplings, only to be devoured in their turn by tigers, leopards and panthers. Everywhere life grew in abundance, all the more intensifying the struggle for existence among birds, beasts and plants. Such is the self-contradictory nature of existence. Even insects were not free of it.
When we emerged from the forest darkness and beheld the open spaces, the hot tropical sunlight suddenly shot its diamond points of fire into our helpless eyes. ”

“ Before them, no doubt, rose the twin peaks of the Kanchinjinga group slightly lower than Mount Everest but just as impeccable and austere as that immaculate peak untrodden still by the feet of men. That fact roused profound emotions in us. We saw the mountain in the distance just for a few minutes like a mirror before the Face of God and I said to myself, "O thou summit of sanctity, thou inviolate and eternal, may no man tarnish thee, nor may any mortal stain thy purity even by his slightest touch. ”

“ The swifts eat flies and gnats that float on rivers and lakes. They go about fifty miles an hour—a blinding speed for a small bird—and do not like woods because while their gaze is fixed downwards in search of insects, they may break their wings on a tree. They prefer open clear spaces above the waters and with their scythe-like long wings they cleave the air as swiftly as an eagle falls on its prey. ”

“ I cannot begin to describe how overjoyed I was to hear that Gay-Neck had flown at last. He had winged all the way from the Lamasery to our home in Dentam. He had not faltered nor failed! "O, thou soul of flight, thou pearl amongst pigeons," I exclaimed to myself as Ghond and I accelerated our steps.
Thus ended our pilgrimage to Singalele. It healed both Gay-Neck and Ghond of the disease of fear and hate that they had caught in the battlefields. No labor would be in vain if it could heal a single soul of these worst ills of life. ”

“ And if it is not too late in the year, and if their grown-up babies are not with them, the mother birds singly flop to the ground and lie there, making the gesture of protecting their young. Self-sacrifice becomes a habit with them, and habitually they put forth their wings whether they have any young ones with them or not. That is what they were doing when we came upon them, then suddenly they realized that they were without anyone to protect, and as we still kept on coming down upon them they took to flight, poor fliers though they are. ”

“ To my utter amazement Ghond whispered "I cannot hold you any more. Wake up! Mischief is abroad. A mad elephant has been left behind. The straggler is bent on harm. We are not high enough to be altogether out of the reach of his trunk, and if he raises it far enough he will scent our presence. Wild elephants hate and fear man and once he gets our odour he may stay about here all day in order to find out where we are. ”

“ The eagles were preening their wings as a man stretches himself before fully waking from sleep. Now I could hear a rustle near by that I thought must be the two eagles coming forward on the front ledge of their nest. Soon came other noises. Storks flew by overhead, strange birds like cranes shouldered the sky. And nearby the bellow of a yak tore the stillness asunder as if he had put his horn through the skin of a drum. Far down, birds called one another. At last fell a white light on the Kanchinjinga range. ”

“ We sat praying for compassion for all mankind. Even to this day when I awake early I think of those Buddhist monks in the Himalayas praying for the cleansing of the thoughts of all men and women still asleep. ”

“ The golden tremble of dragonflies filled the air; butterflies, sparrows, robins, grouse, parrots, papias (Indian thrush) , jays, and peacocks clamoured and courted from tree to tree and peak to higher peak.
Now in the open space between tea gardens on one side of the road and pine forests on our right, we strove and staggered up inclines almost straight as knives. There the air was so rarefied that we could hardly breathe. Sounds and echoes travelled very far: even a whisper could not escape being overheard from a distance of yards, and men and beasts alike became silent. ”

“ Let me re-emphasize the fact that people who have an idea that the eagle builds its nest on an isolated inaccessible cliff are mistaken. A powerful bird or beast does not have to be so careful in choosing its home. It can afford to be negligent. The nest of such a gigantic bird must have as its first requirement space so that it can open and shut its wings in the outer court of its home, and a place so spacious cannot be too inaccessible. ”

“ Led by such good accounts we reached the highest table-land of Sikkim and were forced to bivouac there the third night. Our ponies were sleepy, and so were we, but after what seemed like an hour's sleep, I was roused by a tenseness that had fallen upon everything. I found the two beasts of burden standing stiff; in the light of the fire and that of the risen half moon I saw that their ears were raised tensely in the act of listening carefully. Even their tails did not move. I too listened intently. There was no doubt that the silence of the night was more than mere stillness ”

“ Their talons were sharp enough for their age, and their beaks hard and keen.
An eagle's eyrie is open and large. Its entrance ledge—that is to say, landing place—is about six or seven feet wide and quite clean. But within, where it is dark and narrow, there is a perfect litter of twigs, branches, and a little of the hair and feathers of victims, every other part of their prey being devoured by the eaglets. The parents devour most of the bones, hair and feathers with the meat. ”

“ Just then I saw that above them, way up, the hawk was folding his wings: he was about to drop and in an instant he fell upon them like a stone. In desperation I put my fingers in my mouth and made a shrill whistle, a cry of warning. The pigeons dived like a falling sword, yet the hawk followed. Inch by inch, moment by moment he was gaining on them. Faster and faster he fell: now there was scarcely twenty feet between him and his prey. There was no doubt that he was aiming at Gay-Neck. I could see his sinister claws. "Won't those stupid pigeons do anything to save themselves?" ”

“ You have been told by Ghond, who knows animals better than any other man, that our fear frightens others so that they attack us. Your pigeon is so frightened that he thinks the whole sky is going to attack him. ”

“ The gardens, grottos and fountains of the Indian rich—the small field of flowers and fruits of the common folks, each has its ornament and music,—many-colored pigeons and cooing white doves with ruby eyes.
Even now any winter morning foreigners who visit our big cities may see on the flat-roofed houses innumerable boys waving white flags as signals to their pet pigeons flying up in the crisp cold air. Through the blue heavens flocks of the birds soar like vast clouds. They start in small flocks and spend about twenty minutes circling over the roofs of their owners' homes. ”

“ Then as I called again he saw me, and instantly flapped his wings loudly, then flew down and sat on my wrist, cool as a cucumber. During the earliest dawn he must have heard the priests' footsteps going up to their morning meditation, and gotten out of his cage, then gone astray to the outer cell where no doubt a young and inexpert weasel had attacked him. A veteran like Gay-Neck could easily outwit the weasel by presenting him with a few feathers only. While the young hopeful was looking for the pigeon inside a lot of torn feathers, his would-be victim flew up into the sky. ”

“ In India during the winter the buzzards called Baz, come south. They do not eat carrion; like the eagle and the hawk the Baz generally eats what he kills with his own talons. They are mean and cunning—I think they are a class of low-born eagles—but they resemble kites, although their wings are not frayed at the ends. They fly in pairs slightly above a flock of kites and are hidden by them from their prey, which however they can see in this way without ever being seen themselves. ”

“ Tigers and leopards go downwards, not that they fear the heights, but because like all animals they follow their food. Antelopes, deer, bison and wild boars graze where valleys and jungle-growth are plentiful and since they go where grass, sapling, luscious twigs, in short, their dinner, grows on river banks, those who live by eating them search for them there. That is why, with the exception of birds and a few animals such as wild cats, pythons, and snow leopards, the heights are free of beasts of prey. ”

“ Though each moment they ascended higher, for a long time each owner of a flock knew his own from the others, and even when at last the separate flocks merged into one single unit and flew like a solid wall of wings, I could pick out by the way they flew, Gay-Neck, Hira, Jahore and half a dozen others. Each bird had personal characteristics that marked him as he flew. When any owner wished to call the attention of any one of his pigeons, he blew a shrill whistle with certain stops as a signal. ”

“ Men fell and succumbed like rats in flooded holes. The Rasseldar, who was bleeding and red, wrote hastily on a piece of paper, tied it to my feet and uncaged me. I knew by the look in his eyes that he was in dire distress and wanted Ghond to bring him succour.
"Of course you know, my master, I flew up; but what I beheld almost froze my wings. The air above the trenches was one sheet of flying fire. How to rise above it was my problem. I used my tail rudder, and steered my flight in every direction. ”