— 490 — 



How was it transmitted first to the Brother who wrote upon it and then 

 back again to the top of our hill? not to speak of the mystery of its attachment 

 to the tree in the way described. 



I come now to the incidents of a very remarkable day. The day beiore, 

 I should explain, we started on a little expedition which turned out a ,,coup 

 manque", though, but for some tiresome mishaps, it might have led, we afterwards 

 had reason to think, to some very interesting results. We mistock our way to 

 a place of which Afadame Blavatsky had received an imperfect description — or a 

 description she imperfectly understood — in an occult conversation with one of 

 the Brothers then actually passing through Simla. Had we gone the right way 

 that day we might have the good fortune of meeting him, for he stayed one 

 night at a certain old Thibetan temple, or rest-house, such as is often found 

 about the Himalayas, and which the blind apathy of commonplace English people 

 leads them to regard as of no particular interest or importance. Madame Bla- 

 vatsky was wholly unacquainted with Simla, and the account she gave us of the 

 place she wanted to go, to led us to think she meant a different place. We 

 started, and for a long time Madame declared that we must be going in the 

 right direction because she feit certain currents. Afterwards it appeared that the 

 road to the place we were making for, and to that for which we ought to have 

 inade, were coincident for a considerable distance; but a slight divergence at one 

 point carried us into a wholly wrong system off hillpaths. Eventually Madame 

 utterly lost her scent: we tried back; we who knew Simla discussed its topography 

 and wandered where it could be she wanted to get to, but all to no purpose. 



We launched ourselves down a hill-side where Madame declared she 

 once more feit the missing current; but occult currents may flow where travellers 

 cannot pass, and when we attempted this descent I knew the case was desperate. 

 After a while the expedition had to be abandoned, and we went home much 

 disappointed. 



Why, some one may ask, could not the omniscient Brother feel that 

 Madame was going wrong, and direct us properly in time? I say this question 

 will be asked, because I know from experience that people unused to the subject 

 will not bear in mind the relations of the Brothers to such inquirers as ourselves. 

 In this case, for example, the Situation was not one in which the Brother in 

 question was anxiously waiting to prove his existence to a jury of intelligent 

 Englishmen. We can learn so little about the daily life of an adept in occultism, 

 that we who are uninitiated can teil very little about the interests that really 

 engage his attention; but we can nnd out this much that his attention is con- 

 stantly engaged on interests connected with his own work, and the gratification 

 of the curiosity concerning occult matters of persons who are not regulär students 

 of occultism for ms no part of that work at all. On the contrary, unless under 



