he south, the full moon eclipses the largest and
most brilliant of the stars, so that hardly any can be seen for a
considerable distance round her. In India it is quite the contrary; she
looks like a huge pearl surrounded by diamonds, rolling on a blue velvet
ground. Her light is so intense that one can read a letter written in
small handwriting; one even can perceive the different greens of the
trees and bushes--a thing unheard of in Europe. The effect of the moon
is especially charming on tall palm trees. From the first moment of her
appearance her rays glide over the tree downwards, beginning with
the feathery crests, then lighting up the scales of the trunk, and
descending lower and lower till the whole palm is literally bathing in
a sea of light. Without any metaphor the surface of the leaves seems
to tremble in liquid silver all the night long, whereas their under
surfaces seem blacker and softer than black velvet. But woe to the
thoughtless novice, woe to the mortal who gazes at the Indian moon with
his head uncovered. It is very dangerous not only to sleep under, but
even to gaze at the chaste Indian Diana. Fits of epilepsy, madness
and death are the punishments wrought by her treacherous arrows on the
modern Acteon who dares to contemplate the cruel daughter of Latona in
her full beauty. The Hindus never go out in the moonlight without their
turbans or pagris. Even our invulnerable Babu always wore a kind of
white cap during the night.

As soon as the reeds concert reaches its height and the inhabitants of
the neighborhood hear the distant "voices of the gods," whole villages
flock together to the bank of the lake, light bonfires, and perform
their pujas. The fires lit up one after the other, and the black
silhouettes of the worshippers moved about on the opposite shore. Their
sacred songs and loud exclamations, "Hari, Hari, Maha-deva!" resounded
with a strange loudness and a wild emphasis in the pure air of the
night. And the reeds, shaken in the wind, answered them with tender
musical phrases. The whole stirred a vague feeling of uneasiness in
my soul, a strange intoxication crept gradually over me, and in this
enchanting place the idol-worship of these passionate, poetical souls,
sunk in dark ignorance, seemed more intelligible and less repulsive. A
Hindu is a born mystic, and the luxuriant nature of his country has made
of him a zealous pantheist.

Sounds of alguja, a kind of Pandean pipe with seven openin