does anything matter?--And you come away with the
impression that your non-informant could reveal enough and
plenty, if he had a mind to.

Which is, indeed, probably the case. All this nonchalant
indefiniteness means nothing more, one suspects, than that the
Brahmans have elected to keep the history of their country
unknown to us poor Mlechhas. Then there are Others, too: the
Guardians of Esotericism in a greater sense; who have not chosen
so far that Indian history should be known. So we can only take
dim foreshadowings, and make guesses.

We saw the Maurya dynasty,--that one seemingly firm patch to set
your feet on in the whole morass of the Indian past,--occupy the
thirteen decades from 320 to 190 B.C., (or we thought we did);
now the question is, from that _pied-a-terre_ whither shall we
jump? If you could be sure that the ebb of the wave would be
equal in length to its inrush,--the night to the day:--that the
minor pralaya would be no longer or shorter than the little
manvantara that preceded it--why, then you might leap out
securely for 60 B.C., with a comfortable feeling that there would
be some kind of turning-point in Indian history there or
thereabouts. Sometimes things do happen so, beautifully, as if
arranged by the clock. But unfortunately, enough mischief may be
done in thirteen decades to take a much longer period to
disentangle; and again, it is only when you strike an average
for the whole year, that you can say the nights are equal to the
days. We are trying to see through to the pattern of history;
not to dogmatize on such details as we may find, nor claim on the
petty strength of them to be certain of the whole. So, our
present leap (for we shall make it), while not quite in the dark,
must be made in the dusk of an hour or so after sunset. There
must be an element of faith in it: very likely we shall splash
and sink gruesomely.

Well, here goes then! From 190 B.C. thirteen decades forward to
60 B.C., and,--squish! But, courage! throw out your arm and
clutch--at this trailing root, _57 B. C.,_ here within easy
reach; and haul yourself out. So; and see, now you are
standing on something. What it is, _Dios lo sabe!_ But there is
an Indian era that begins in 57 B.C.; for a long time, dates
were counted from that year. That era rises in undefined
legendary splendor, and peters out ineffectually you don't just
know where. There is nothing to go upon but legends, with never
a coin