KASHMIE VALLEYS 41 



snow. Where he had come from, what his object if he 

 had one no one could ever know, for he never opened 

 his mouth, asked for nothing, made no comment. All 

 day long he sat in his tent, silent, swathed in a shawl, 

 sad-eyed, serious, drinking water or eating a little grain 

 when held to his lips by one of the disciples who took 

 it in turn to sit beside him. At night he hung from 

 a rope suspended by his crooked knees, head down- 

 ward, resting on a wooden prop supplied by the 

 generosity of some worshippers. For a long period he 

 had rested without support. The man was no mere 

 epileptic. As I dropped a copper into his bowl he 

 glanced up with some curiosity in his eyes, and a strong, 

 intelligent expression. What thoughts filled that 

 brain, I wondered; had some strange secrets been 

 wrested by him from some storehouse of human know- 

 ledge unknown to ordinary science; was his life one 

 long endurance of the hours, or had he attacked and 

 conquered one corner of the limitless desert of human 

 ignorance? Strange that silence and seclusion should 

 stamp a man so strongly with the mark, of another 

 world, for though he practised no rites, followed no 

 religion, yet from the mere aloofness of his existence 

 people were ready to conclude him a saint, and whether 

 Hindu or Mahomedan, to treat him with the respect 

 due to beings who live apart from the lines of ordinary 

 human intercourse. We seek a heaven through the 

 perfection of practical life. The Hindus turn their 

 back on all that restrains the contemplative side of 

 character. The course of existence can thus be diverted 

 into different channels. But have either they or we 

 discovered a royal road to the understanding of the 

 world, or a golden clue to the unlocking of the doors 



