Argosy, Vol. 147, No. 1 — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

eached to the Island of mime with no directing ‘ ‘girls holiday attire, tripped along laughing and chatting, Drace- 4 which a bridge fr Mandhatta, was a town in ed al , gS, Oe for to the Hindus the mela of Omkar was a_ lets jingling, and tiny bells at their ankles union of festivity and devotion. tingling musically. It depressed him. It Both sides of the main street were lined was such a terrible juxtaposition of lity with booths for the sale of everything— and the loomed shadow of idol worship calicoes from Kalicut, where these prints that lay just the bridge’s span of the sullen’ first got their name, hammered Benares Narbudda; the gloomy, broken scarps OF ware, gold-threaded cotton puggrees from the long since deserted forts that cut with Mawar, fulwars and khandas from Bhundi; jagged lines the moonlit sky; and beyond | «1 some of the little shops, bamboo struc- them again the many temples with their tures that thrust an underlip out into the scowling Brahmin priests, and the shrine street; there was m/howa liquor, and lulabis, wherein the god of destruction, Omkar, sat and kabobs of goat meat. Open spaces held athirst for sacrifice. He shivered as though tiny circuses—abnormal animals and per- the white mist that veiled the river crept a crowd such as would be encountered on “ Aum, to the light of the earth, th divin a trip to the Derby. The road was thronged ae — eoagn <a A Pe ee wi je. and the village itself, from o Barlow it W grotesque panto- | poe age é hand. Nautch g * > . ~_ Bs, TA om ~ ae i forming goats, and a moonbear on a ring into his marrow. and strap. The Gulab seemed at home amongst The street was full of gossiping men and these gathered ones. Two or three times women dodging here and there. It was an she had bade the driver stop his cree sing outing where . the ryot—farmer—had es- pace, and looking out from beneath the cur- — caped from his crotched stick of wood that tain, had questioned a man or woman. Ate was a plow, the village tradesman had last, as they were stopped by a wall of” _ left his shop, and the servant his service, to people watching the antics of some st oiling feel the joyousness of a holiday. Mendi- players upon a platform, Bootea ie cants were in abundance, prowling in their a stout woman who was pressed coisa ugliness like spirits in a nightmare, some the opening into the cart by the neh. ae naked, absolute, others with but a loin “Lucker khan Bhaina, Bowree,” the Gr me cloth, their lean, shriveled bodies smeared lab said in a low voice, and the wontiee with ashes—-sometimes the ashes of the eyes took on a startled look, for it was a ae dead—and cow dung, carrying on their decoit password, and the Bowrees were a arms and foreheads the red and white hori- clan of decoits akin to the Bagrees Fron =a Ma of Shiva, who was Omkar at the woman Bootea learned where die Cov id Es andhatta. find a good restin ith the family eT These mendicants carried in their hands a he Me oe soul iron tongs, with loose clattering ring, or a it, the Bowree woman assured her, ‘fort : yak’s tail, or the three-ribbed horn of a tonga would impress him, and he’ eas Ss black buck. ; who profited from the loot of the decoit Some of the yogis, perhaps Goswamies § The Gulab was given a place to decane that had come from the country where Ek- the shopkeeper’s house that extended! bas linga was the tutelary deity, had their hair from his little shop. The driver oe braided and woven around their foreheads, dered to return in the morni oo ae os in a” fold lotus seeds, and beneath dari camp. Barlow nie te i te = e tiara of hair a crescent of white on their tonga . = oe ae i foreheads. A flowing yellow robe half hid canta ee ee eps oe their ash-smeared limbs. A tall Sannyasi but the girl was firm a hana es bi , —the most ascetic of sects—his lean yel- to end it all at Mandhatta. aire: < Eeeisbed forma supported bry 5 long stall st Bekie, Se hens te | e end of which swung a yellow bag, camping place in hut or serai, ag strode caged along with eyes fixed on a himself and horse, the girl saic _ book, fe St Bhagavad Gita, muttering, sahib will delay his going to- > . while “> ae . ~~ ~ comicbooks.com a Po - 4 ~ © ~ar' 4 b 7 a Vv «eros fee, . R — et ne = SH eee