286 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
Before me gushed a narrow but deep stream, which 
tumbled down the mountain in a broken line, ap- 
pearing at the distance like a narrow stripe of silver 
lace upon a green velvet mantle, but, upon a nearer 
approach, bounding and hissing over opposing rocks 
with the force and energy of “ a thing of life.” Just 
before it reached the place where I had seated myself, 
its waters gurgled and fried over a bed of rocks, which 
formed a considerable slope in the hill, and produced 
a cascade that sung one of Nature’s lullabies with a 
far more sublime, if with a less harmonious, cadence 
than babbling brooks. As I sat in this romantic shade, 
I felt 
“ The freshness of the breeze that sweeps the blossoms 
And wafts around the champaka’s perfume, 
Breathing melodious with the buzz of bees 
That cluster in the buds, and with the song 
The koil warbles thick and hurried forth, 
As on the mangoe’s flowery top he sits, 
And, all inebriate with its nectar, sings.” 
On the right of this picturesque waterfall was a 
deep glen, in which the growth was so close that 
there the tiger roamed undisturbed and made his lair, 
without fear of intrusion from a human foe. Across 
the stream was an abrupt conical hill, in the bosom of 
which a small cave-temple had been hollowed. It had 
a low square portico, supported upon three plain pillars. 
There was nothing in the interior, which I afterwards 
examined, to attract attention. Its appearance was 
sufficiently striking from the opposite portico, under 
which I was sitting. Some of our party had taken 
their station near the summit of the hill, in order to 
