"With the camels was old Ismal, a local hunter come to offer his services as ghillie. He was a Brahui by tribe-a Muhammadan of course. A picturesque old boy was Ismal, old and shrunken, with flowing white beard and clean-cut Semitio features. His most oherished possession was his prehistorie matehlock jezail— a weapon of dread, and his body was slung round with a perfect armoury of powderhorns, cartridge-belts, and ourved daggers. But, old though he was, I never could see the he went way up a hill. toiled painfully in rear through this nightmare land. "A gale was blowing as we landed. Afterwards I came to associate Makran with constant gales,-gales that blew down my tent at night and blew away my bedding; gales that made it impossible at the critical moment to hold the rifle steady for a shot; gales that filled mouth and eyes and nose with dust and grit. In the shadowless glare of noonday the hills loomed flat and unreal through the driving sand and dust-haze-as though fashioned from cardboard. "On the beach close by was a eluster of matting huts tenanted by long-haired fisherfolk. And it was not difficult to picture these hovels as still harbouring Arrian's Ichthyo "While the camels were being loaded, I took a look round. The view did not impress me. In the foreground stretched sand and still more sand; in the background rose oruel naked hills of pale-grey olay phagei-barbarians clothed and marl and limestone. It in skins of fish or animals, was the bare walls of a coun- covered with long hair and try in the building, to which using their nails as we use the paperers and painters have fish-knives fighting more still to come to add the grass like monkeys than men.' For and trees. such, he tells us, were the forefathers of these fishermen ; the men who opposed Nearkos on that very spot when he touched at the Hingol to draw fresh water and to land supplies. "Yet there was vegetation of a sort grey ghosts of unfriendly vegetation perished of thirst. For here and there a squat aborted growth of camelthorn and acacia, dwarf-palm and cactus, and suchlike prickly shrubs, eked out a miserable existence on rock and sand. Occasional clumps of tamarisk in the river bed lent the sole touch of green to the landscape. And one called to mind those Phoenician campfollowers of Alexander's army who had paused to gather the myrrh on the tamarisk, as they ... "On the sandy plain between shore and mountains a queer conical white hill gleamed in the sunshine. From his deseriptions I recognised old Chandragup-to give him the name by which the Hindu pilgrims know him. He is one of the largest mud-veleanoes in the world. So I sent my camels on to camp while Ismal and I made a detour to pay our respects to Chandragup. "It was a long hot walk to his foot. To reach his orater I climbed laboriously to the top of the cone of dried mud that rises 8 good three hundred feet above the plain. This orater of his, by the way, is unlike that of an ordinary volcano, in that its contents are flush with the top; in fact, the black viscous mud bulges upwards above the rim like the surface of a brim-full oup of tea. Ever and anon there is a mighty heaving in his bowels, and the liquid mud is thrust up to an accompaniment of sullen gulpings-to sink again as soon as the paroxysm is past. Round the orater's rim there runs a narrow slippery path over which the contents are ever spilling during these eruptions to trickle down the outside of the cone and dry in a crust of glistening brine. "These hills be Darya Cham,'1 remarked old Ismal. 'If you take but one little step beyond that path-edge, the black mud will gulp you down for ever.' Then, spitting contemptuously into the orater, he added, "The Hindu pilgrims think that a goddess lives beneath the mud, and, in my father's day, those sonsof-burnt-sires would throw in live boys and girls to make the goddess speak; but now human sacrifice is forbidden, so they have to offer cocoanuts and suchlike trash instead.' tered old Chandragup, in sullen lament over the sorry offerings of a decadent age. I was to meet Chandragup again; but even then I felt that there was something inexpressibly sinister about his black tortured surface, as though some evil spirit were troubling the pool. "That evening we camped where the Hingol leaves the hills. Next day our camp moved a little farther up the gorge, while Ismal and I went to look for ibex. I shot disgracefully, I remember, and missed a sitting chanee at a grand old cream-coloured patriaroh, with great curving horns and a dark chocolate saddlemark on his wither. The olimbing was poisonous, and I got back to camp thoroughly tired and disgusted. "I found my tent pitched in the narrow Hinglaj gorge, just below the shrine of Kali. Now this shrine was one of the things that had brought me to Makran, for it is a place with a very queer history. To-day it is held sacred by both Mussulmans and Hindus, though more particularly by the latter; but that is by no means the beginning of the story. For the shrine lies under the hill of Nani Mai, or Mother Nani, and men worshipped at the foot of Mother Nani long ages before the Prophet fled from Mecca ; aye, and even before the IndoAryans first sang their Vedio hymns on their southwards maroh to Hindostan. Nani 1 The Eyes of the Sea. Mai is none other than Nana The Earth, wife of Anu Heaven, first of the Twelve Great Gods of the Assyrians. And she is older even than Assyria; for we know that Nana was worshipped by the Accadians in Chaldea a thousand years before the birth of Abraham. "But Mother Nani has fallen on evil times. For to-day her main supporters belong to the Hindu seot of the 'lefthanded ' Saktas. Obscene worshippers of Kali these; their bible is the Tantra and their fierce licentious worship is based on unbridled indulgence in the Five Makaras-to wit, wine, flesh, fish, mystio gesticulations and sexual intercourse. Human sacrifice once formed a common part of their ritual; and the prosaic co008nut that the pilgrim still presents at the shrine is symbolical of the human head decked with flowers-once the favourite offering of the goddess. To this day, too, you may see shrines where the blood of humbler victims is never allowed to dry upon the sacrificial stone. "Ismal had assured me that I should find the shrine-gorge a very paradise of verdure. But to my eyes, still unattuned to desert unutterable, it seemed a gloomy unhallowed spot. There were pools of water lying amongst the boulders, it's true; but the sheer walls of rook towered frowning on either hand to a good thousand feet, "Just before dawn that night I was awakened by the barking of my bull-terrier, 'Jook,' so I looked out to see what was the matter. Outside I found the gorge in inky blackness, save for its very topmost rim silvered by the level rays of a setting moon, while overhead, incredibly remote, was a narrow strip of starry sky. From the direction of the shrine above, a wild music of chanting and the blaring of a conch came pealing down the gorge: the devotees of Kali were greeting the goddess before the beginning of another day. It was a scene for the pencil of a Doré; and I thought that it would be hard to find a more appropriate setting for the shrine of the deity whose worshippers picture her as a black black fury dripping with blood and hung about with snakes and human skulls-the helpmeet of Siva the Destroyer. "Bands of Hindu pilgrims from all over India collect periodically to tramp together to the shrine, a weary tramp from Karachi of nearly two hundred miles by desert and mountain. And from the shrine they make an excursion to Chandragup. For, as Ismal told me, they throw offerings into his orater, and hold his answering burblings to be the divine voice of Kali. But between the visits of these bands, Nani Mai is deserted by all save a few hermits who stay as guardians of the shrine, and it was the chanting of those guardians that had disturbed us. "Next morning, after breakfast, I strolled up to have a chat with them and to see the shrine, taking care to bring a pave the way to amicable relations. bottle of whisky with me-to course, are mere religious impostors and charlatans,—men of the same kidney as the rascally dervish in 'Hajji Baba.' But they are good value even so, And I have no false pride. Before now I've fraternised with a gentleman clad in little beyond a coat of ashes, and found him extraordinarily entertaining. "The shrine itself turned out to be a disappointing sort of place, for it was merely an open cavity in the rook, about ten feet above the level of the stream. It was faced with a low mud wall, and contained nothing but a few tawdry decorations of feathers and a heap of vermilionsmeared stones, representing the female counterpart of the Lingam. 1 "But by the cave-mouth two Yogis were seated in the shadow. They presented a marked contrast to one another. The one was a slim fair-complexioned man, with finely-modelled features and slightly cocoanut-shaped head, -a typical Brahman clad in spotless white. His body seemed wasted by his vigils, and his eyes were sunken like those of a corpse; it was a a marvel to me how he had ever crawled as far as Nani Mai. I put him down as one of those speechless mystics who, by long suppression of their breath, think to pass into unearthly union with the godhead Siva. But the other was a very different sort of fellow; a bullet-headed beetlebrowed ruffian, with an unkempt shock of brick-red hair and naked body smeared with ashes. "Now these ascetios and yogis fascinate me intensely. A large percentage of them, of "But this time I let myself in for a rebuff, for, much to my surprise, the two Yogis would have no truck with me whatever. The Speechless Mystic, it's true, seemed lost to all mundane affairs-a state perhaps partly accounting for his lack of cordiality. But, as for his shock-headed companion, Strewal Peter, he was actively offensive. For he glared at me with insolent bloodshot eyes, contemptuously waved aside my offering of Best Old Scotch, and spat loudly as I turned to go. A most unpleasant fellow altogether, I thought. were "We had decided to stay for some days in our camp below the shrine, for I wanted another shot at that big ibex. A few evenings later, as we coming down from shooting, our way took us past the shrine. One of the periodical parties of pilgrims had turned up that day; but the enthusiasm of my welcome was distinotly damped by the fact that they were now busy washing away their sins in my water-supply, while the stream ran red with the blood of sacrificial goats. "They were a queer mixture, 1 Professional saints and mystics. There are thirteen different brands that worship Siva. these pilgrims. Among them were sleek money-lenders from the bazaars of Indian cities, who had trudged the weary miles of sand to acquire the merit needful to balance their many extortions, and aristoeratie Brahmans from Holy Kashi1 on the distant Ganges, holding aloof from the vulgar orowd; barren wives in quest of heirs, and mothers more successful giving thanks for the fruits of a previous pilgrimage; virgins brought by doting parents, and everyday citizens by the score. "But these were the respectable elements. There must have been close on a thousand pilgrims altogether; and it was the Yogis who caught one's eye-by their picturesque dress or lack of it. For I noticed naked figures smeared with ashes from the funeral pile and trioked out in necklaces of human skulls, and mystics wrapped in meditation clasping their gourds and beggingbowls; jugglers with performing goats, and other saints whose stook-in-trade was a miniature merry-go-round of rope and pole, about which they would whirl skewered through the muscles of their shoulders; penitents who took their ease upon a bed of nails, and all the miscellaneous rascals of a religious fair. "And one there was, too, his naked body seamed with scars of self-inflicted wounds,-a ghoulish figure brandishing a chain with which to flagellate himself in the frenzy of re ligious eostasy; when we have mentioned him we have touched the bed-rock of bestiality, for he an Aghoria devourer of carrion and human corpses. "Strewal Peter seemed to be holding some sort of indignation meeting as I passed, for he was standing at the eavemouth with a crowd collected beneath him in the stream-bed. He was too far off for me to hear what he said, but he pointed and shouted some obviously insulting remark. The orowd turned to stare, and one or two of them waved their pilgrim staves threateningly; so I hurried on to avoid & scene. "This incident gave me to think quite a lot. For the crowd was unmistakably hostile; but I couldn't for the life of me think why, though I felt sure that Strewal Peter was at the root of the trouble. Ismal didn't like the look of things a bit either, and was all for our moving camp. But I wasn't going to give up that ibex to please any naked gentleman in need of a hairout. So we stayed on where we were, taking care to avoid the neighbourhood of the shrine. Still, the men were pretty jumpy, and I think we all had a feeling of impending trouble. "This feeling was heightened two days later. A camel had strayed up the gorge, and one of the camelmen went to fetch it. But he was set upon and stoned by a party of pilgrims, 1 Benares. |