o the four widows of
Yung-Bahadur, the chief minister of Nepal, insisted upon being burned.
Nepal is not under the British rule, and so the Anglo-Indian Government
had no right to interfere.

The Caves Of Bagh

At four o'clock in the morning we crossed the Vagrey and Girna, or
rather, comme coloris local, Shiva and Parvati. Probably, following the
bad example of the average mortal husband and wife, this divine couple
were engaged in a quarrel, even at this early hour of the day. They were
frightfully rough, and our ferry, striking on something at the bottom,
nearly upset us into the cold embrace of the god and his irate better
half.

Like all the cave temples of India, the Bagh caverns are dug out in the
middle of a vertical rock--with the intention, as it seems to me, of
testing the limits of human patience. Taking into consideration that
such a height does not prevent either glamour or tigers reaching the
caves, I cannot help thinking that the sole aim of the ascetic
builders was to tempt weak mortals into the sin of irritation by the
inaccessibility of their airy abodes. Seventy-two steps, cut out in the
rock, and covered with thorny weeds and moss, are the beginning of the
ascent to the Bagh caves. Footmarks worn in the stone through centuries
spoke of the numberless pilgrims who had come here before us. The
roughness of the steps, with deep holes here and there, and thorns,
added attractions to this ascent; join to this a number of mountain
springs exuding through the pores of the stone, and no one will be
astonished if I say that we simply felt faint under the weight of
life and our archeological difficulties. The Babu, who, taking off his
slippers, scampered over the thorns as unconcernedly as if he had hoofs
instead of vulnerable human heels, laughed at the "helplessness of
Europeans," and only made us feel worse.

But on reaching the top of the mountain we stopped grumbling, realizing
at the first glance that we should receive our reward. We saw a whole
enfilade of dark caves, through regular square openings, six feet wide.
We felt awestruck with the gloomy majesty of this deserted temple. There
was a curious ceiling over the square platform that once served as a
verandah; there was also a portico with broken pillars hanging over
our heads; and two rooms on each side, one with a broken image of some
flat-nosed goddess, the other containing a Ganesha; but we did not
stop to examine all this in det