dark forests on all sides
abounding in wild beasts, and a party of cut-throats--as most of the
Sikkhimese are said to be--in the next room, with an easy and rude door
between them and me?

When it became quite light, I wended my way on through hills and dales.
Riding or walking, the journey was not a pleasant one for any man not as
deeply engrossed in thought as I was then myself, and quite oblivious to
anything affecting the body. I have cultivated the power of mental
concentration to such a degree of late that, on many an occasion, I have
been able to make myself quite unconscious of anything around me when my
mind was wholly bent upon the one object of my life, as several of my
friends will testify; but never to such an extent as in this instance.

It was, I think, between eight and nine A.M. I was following the road
to the town of Sikkhim, whence, I was assured by the people I met on the
road, I could cross over to Tibet easily in my pilgrim's garb, when I
suddenly saw a solitary horseman galloping towards me from the opposite
direction. From his tall stature and skill in horsemanship, I thought
he was some military officer of the Sikkhim Rajah. Now, I thought, I am
caught! He will ask me for my pass and what business I have in the
independent territory of Sikkhim, and, perhaps, have me arrested and
sent back, if not worse. But, as he approached me, he reined up. I
looked at and recognized him instantly.... I was in the awful presence
of him, of the same Mahatma, my own revered Guru, whom I had seen before
in his astral body on the balcony of the Theosophical Headquarters. It
was he, the "Himalayan Brother" of the ever-memorable night of December
last, who had so kindly dropped a letter in answer to one I had given
but an hour or so before in a sealed envelope to Madame Blavatsky, whom
I had never lost sight of for one moment during the interval. The very
same instant saw me prostrated on the ground at his feet. I arose at
his command, and, leisurely looking into his face, forgot myself
entirely in the contemplation of the image I knew so well, having seen
his portrait (the one in Colonel Olcott's possession) times out of
number. I knew not what to say: joy and reverence tied my tongue. The
majesty of his countenance, which seemed to me to be the impersonation
of power and thought, held me rapt in awe. I was at last face to face
with "the Mahatma of the Himavat," and he was no myth, no "creation of
t