NATURE RESUMING SWAY. 123 



site of some one of those ancient towns which lie 

 buried in the jungle waste." 



Observing the attention the remains excited, and 

 in answer to their inquiries, Manajee remarked : 

 " There are many similar spots, Sahibs, in the most 

 lonely and unfrequented places in these hills. Towns 

 and villages were here before our day." 



" But there are no traces of cultivation, or even 

 many mounds, to show where old habitations have 

 stood," observed Hawkes. 



"No, Sahib," the native replied. "They were 

 not in the time of my father or my father's father. 

 But the report of them has been handed down 

 from father to son for numbers of generations." 



" The jungle indeed seems to have obliterated 

 most traces of man," said Norman. " I suppose the 

 houses, being mostly built of unburnt brick, have 

 crumbled to dust, and left no sign where overgrown 

 by the bush. How completely nature resumes its 

 sway where man has, for some reason or other, 

 retired from his contest with the luxuriance of 

 tropical growth ! It brings forcibly home to one 

 the mere impotence of the miserable puny creature 

 man, when in the space of a few generations all 

 traces of his existence are swept from the earth. 

 The tiger or bear rears its cubs in undisturbed 

 solitude, perhaps on the very spot, where a mother 



