mysterious circle invaded its lower edge, and covered
its brightness; coolness replaced the burning heat; slowly the dark
covering crept on; slowly the sunlight diminished until at length the
whole of the sun's disc was hidden. Then in a moment a wonderful
starlike form flashed out, a noble form of glowing silver light on the
deep purple-coloured sky.

There was, however, no time for the astronomers to devote to admiration
of the beauty of the scene, or indulgence in rhapsodies. Two short
minutes alone were allotted them to note all that was happening, to take
all their photographs, to ask all the questions, and obtain all the
answers for which this strange veiling of the sun, and still stranger
unveiling of his halo-like surroundings, gave opportunity. It was two
minutes of intensest strain, of hurried though orderly work; and then a
sudden rush of sunlight put an end to all. The mysterious vision had
withdrawn itself; the colour rushed back to the landscape, so
corpse-like whilst in the shadow; the black veil slid rapidly from off
the sun; the heat returned to the air; the eclipse was over.

But the astronomers from distant lands were not the only people engaged
in watching the eclipse. At their work, they could hear the sound of a
great multitude, a sound of weeping and wailing, a people dismayed at
the distress of their god.

It was so at every point along the shadow track, but especially where
that track met the course of the sacred river. Along a hundred roads the
pilgrims had poured in unceasing streams towards Holy Mother Gunga;
towards Benares, the sacred city; towards Buxar, where the eclipse was
central at the river bank. It is always meritorious--so the Hindoo
holds--to bathe in that sacred river, but such a time as this, when the
sun is in eclipse, is the most propitious moment of all for such
lustration.

Could there be a greater contrast than that offered between the millions
trembling and dismayed at the signs of heaven, and the little companies
who had come for thousands of miles over land and sea, rejoicing in the
brief chance that was given them for learning a little more of the
secrets of the wonders of Nature?

The contrast between the heathen and the scientists was in both their
spiritual and their intellectual standpoint, and, as we shall see later,
the intellectual contrast is a result of the spiritual. The heathen idea
is that the orbs of heaven are divine, or at least that each expresses