JUNGLE PEACE 



came perfume, that musky, exciting scent which 

 alone would summon India to mind as with a 

 rub of Aladdin's lamp. His anklets and brace- 

 lets clinked as he moved; and suddenly, and to 

 our Western senses always unexpectedly, he 

 would begin the swaying, reeling motion, almost 

 that of a cobra in hood. Then after several 

 more phrases, chanted with all the fire and tem- 

 peramental vigor which marks Hindu music, he 

 would start the rigid little muscular steps which 

 carried him over the ground with no apparent 

 effort, though all the time he was wholly tense 

 and working up into that ecstasy which would 

 obsess him more and more. His songs were of 

 love and riches and war, and all the things of 

 life which can mean so little to these poor 

 coolies. 



Exhausted at last, he stopped; and I found 

 that I too suddenly relaxed that I had been 

 sitting with every muscle tense in sympathy. 

 Gokool came and gave me a salaam, and as he 

 turned away for a hand-hollowed puff of hemp 

 I spoke a little word of thanks in his own 

 tongue. 



He looked back, not believing that he had 

 heard aright. I repeated it and asked if he 



