We Thought Of Crossing To Them Immediately, By The Help Of A Ferry
Boat, But Our Hindu Friends And The Boat-Men Interposed.
The former
said that visiting these caves is dangerous even by daytime; because
all the neighborhood is full of beasts of prey and of tigers, who,
I concluded, are like the Bengali Babus, to be met with everywhere
in India.
Before venturing into these caves, you must send a
reconnoitring party of torch-bearers and armed shikaris. As to
the boatmen, they protested on different grounds, but protested
strongly. They said that no Hindu would dare to approach these
caves after the sun set. No one but a Bellati would fancy that
Vagrey and Girna are ordinary rivers, for every Hindu knows they
are divine spouses, the god Shiva and his wife Parvati. This, in
the first instance; and in the second, the Bagh tigers are no
ordinary tigers either. The sahibs are totally mistaken. These
tigers are the servants of the Sadhus, of the holy miracle-workers,
who have haunted the caves now for many centuries, and who deign
sometimes to take the shape of a tiger. And neither the gods, nor
the Sadhus, nor the glamour, nor the true tigers are fond of being
disturbed in their nightly rest.
What could we say against all this? We cast one more sorrowful
look at the caves, and returned to our antediluvian carriages. The
Babu and Narayan said we must spend the night at the house of a
certain "chum" of the Babu, who resided in a small town, three
miles further on, and bearing the same name as the caves; and we
unwillingly acquiesced.
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