watching a snake-charmer's tricks we are witnessing manifestations of occult mysteries. "Then is the moon of ripe, green cheese compact." Yet is he connected with the Gods by one article of his equipment. The dauru, a small, hour-glass-shaped drum-rattle of fearsome noisiness (drawn in the forefront of my sketch), is the badge of all his vagrant tribe, and also of the great God Siva, who bears it slung on his trident in many pictures, and will one day rattle it furiously to usher in the destruction of the world, which will be set afire by the flame of the midmost of his three eyes.

The amphisbæna, because it appears to have two butt ends, is believed by some to have a head at each, while others, with a scientific turn, say that for six months its head is at one end and for other six at the other. And it is universally known. as the do mûnhia-two-faced one. The delightful Sir Thomas Browne seems, in his Vulgar Errors, inclined to accept this double-headed serpent, but at last he "craves leave to doubt." The era of doubt is not yet reached in India.

The large lizard, varanus dracena, which is perfectly innocuous, like all Indian lizards, is called the bis-cobra by some, though the name really belongs, according to others, to a different creature, and is counted highly dangerous, while it is believed to be so strong that Sivaji, the renowned Marathi chief, escaped from a fortress wherein he was confined by being dragged up the wall by one of these

creatures, and some say they are habitually used by burglars for this purpose. I used to keep one of these harmless animals, and even while holding it in one hand I have been assured by natives of its vast strength and deadliness. The cry of the small house lizard, a kind of gecko, is unlucky in certain conditions. In Southern India, where lizards are numerous and are perpetually falling from the thatched roofs, there is a marvellously elaborate code of omens drawn from the varying circumstances, the parts of the body, house utensils, etc., upon which they drop. Less attention seems to be paid to lizards in the North, but even there they say, "A lizard has fallen on you, go and bathe."

Crocodiles are occasionally regarded as sacred, one cannot say kept and periodically fed. Muggur pir near Karachi is a pond full of these creatures, which are often fed for the amusement of visitors. There is a legend of a British officer who crossed this pool, using its inhabitants as stepping-stones in his daring passage. In some of the lakes in Rajputana they are cherished and come to the Brahman's call; not one may be visible at first, but there is first a ripple, then a slow, hideous head protrudes, then another, till the water is alive with crocodiles.

Some outcaste river-side tribes are in the habit of eating tortoises and crocodiles. Of one of these castes a current Punjab gibe says the crocodile can smell a Mor when he passes on the river bank, and truly no very delicate nose is necessary for this feat.

General Sir Alex. Cunningham has identified ancient sculptured representations of the tortoise as meant to indicate the river Jumna—an ascription of which modern Hinduism takes no account. Describing sculptures at Udayagiri he writes: "The figures of the Ganges and Jumna are known by the symbolic animals on which they stand-the crocodile and the tortoise. These two representative animals are singularly appropriate, as the Ganges swarms with crocodiles, and the Jumna teems with tortoises. The crocodile is the well-known vâhan or vehicle on which the figure of the Ganges is usually represented; but the identification of the tortoise as the váhan of the Jumna, though probable, was not certain until I found, amongst the Charonsat Jogini statues in the Bhera Ghât temple, a female figure with a tortoise on the pedestal and the name of Sri Yamuna inscribed beneath." Much graceful and significant symbolism of this nature seems to have been dropped in recent times, and a tortoise is now a tortoise and no more. In a Hindu temple at Volkeshwar, Bombay, they were kept and worshipped within the last thirty years, perhaps even now. They say of low-born people that "their words are like a tortoise's head," to be put forth or withdrawn according to circumstances. But no

saying reflects on the infamous tyranny of ages that has made the low-caste man a timid time-server and a sneak.

CHAPTER XVI

OF ANIMALS IN INDIAN ART

ORE has been said and written on Indian art than is justified by a right appreciation of its qualities and defects. In architecture alone can it be said to claim the highest distinction. The plastic art of the country at its best was inferior to that of other lands, and the spirit of its artistic prime has been dead for centuries. Among the Indian collections in European museums we see casts and photographs of ancient buildings side by side with representations of the life and customs of to-day, nor is it until we have lived in India and carefully sought out the truth that we learn how dead the characteristic art of a vivid faith and life may while the faith still lingers and the outward aspect of the life is but slightly changed. There is a considerable distance between the art of an Italian town of to-day and that of the Augustan age, but a still greater gulf between that of a modern Hindu and the Sanchi topes, the Gandhara and Amravati sculptures. But the Italian himself has changed far

be

more than the Hindu.

man.

In India the ancient sculptures are still alive and walk the streets, while if you confront a group of modern Italians with the personages on a Roman sarcophagus you see at a glance that the marble has but little concern with the living This persistence of certain elements of Indian. life has led some writers to attribute immutability to all. To those who know the country it is obvious, on a little reflection, that artistic India is just as liable to change as the rest of the world, and that in fact there is no country where foreign influences have been more actively at work. To some it is unnecessary to hint truisms of this kind, but in Europe it seems to be believed that the Indian people of to-day have the same artistic endowments and should be required to practise the same style of art as their long-forgotten ancestors.

But though it would be pleasant to plough the infertile sands of art criticism (on whose Indian horizons there are some brave mirages), we have our own row to hoe, and must turn from dreams of what might or ought to be to that which has been and is in our narrow field.

A comparison of the figures of animals shown on the Sanchi topes and in the Ajanta Caves Iwith those of a a modern Indian draughtsman shows at once how much difference there is between then and now. The work of the ancient Hindu painter and sculptor is full of life and variety. Monkeys and elephants are always good, while buffaloes come next for truth and naturalness.