The beautiful Hindoo village of Wye.—The Mahabaleshwar Hills.—The Temple of the Gods.—The Couch of Krishna.—The Stone Image of the Cow from whose mouth the Five Rivers of this Region are said to Spring.—The Holy Tank.—Satarah, the Star City of the Mahratta Empire.—The Fort.—The Palace of Sivaji.—Jejureh, the famous Hill-temples where the Dancing-girls of the Country are recruited.—The Mad Gossain, and the Story of his Ill-fated Love.—The Dancing-girl KrayÂhnee.

We made a journey from Poonah to the Mahabaleshwar Hills in a common bullock-cart, but through a country of unrivalled beauty. We spent a night and a day at the rural village of Wye. I have never seen any place where the charm of Oriental grace working through the pure Hindoo imagination has more forcibly stamped itself. The soil, the climate, the temples, the river, the wide-spreading trees, the sportive figures of the gods and goddesses, are all calculated to bring out in strong relief the characteristics of the adjoining mountains, which here assume a multitude of beautiful shapes, rising heavenward like innumerable battlemented towers, pinnacles, or spires, each loftier than the last and endowed with a certain air of individuality peculiar to these hills. One isolated rock near the village rears its flat-topped brow, crowned with an old Mahratta fort, more than a hundred feet high, sharp and abrupt, lending a singular picturesqueness to the smallest object under it.

Wye stands on the left bank of the river Krishna, which is shaded by fine peepul and mango trees; handsome stone steps lead down to the edge of the swift-flowing waters, and are crowded all day long with figures of graceful men, women, and children sporting, bathing, drawing water, or lounging idly around. There was an irresistible freshness and quiet beauty about the gay, careless life of the people, which was passed absolutely on the banks of the river.

We had no sooner taken up our abode in the travellers' bungalow, which here commands a fine view, than the patel, or chief of the city, accompanied by several Brahmans, paid us a visit, bringing us presents of fruit and flowers. I was much struck with the genial kindliness and courtesy of these men.

We rose at dawn next morning to see this Hindoo community perform in one body, on the banks of the Krishna, the peculiar ceremony of worshipping the sun. The people literally lined the banks of the river; their faces were turned up to the sky, and as they stood in rows on the steps leading to the water's edge the effect was very impressive. They then simultaneously filled their palms with water, snuffed it up through their nostrils, and flung it toward the north-east, repeating certain prayers. After this they all proceeded to stand on one foot, then on the other, each holding in his hand an earthen bowl filled with clarified butter, with a lighted wick in the centre. Then they all together saluted the mighty luminary with folded hands raised to their foreheads, and then marched toward the west in imitation of his path through the heavens; which terminated their sun-worship[67] for the day.

We also visited the garden and palace of the Rastias. Mohti Bagh, or "pearl garden," as the entire palace and grounds are called, is only a little distance from the village of Wye. The approach to the palace is through an enchanting road formed of tall bamboos, mangoes, and tamarind trees. Wye is a spot famed in Hindoo literature. Here the heroes of the MahÂbharata spent their years of exile and expiation, and here they are said to have built many wonderful temples. The river is almost gemmed with beautiful temples in the finest style of Hindoo architecture, owing to this historic fact or fiction, whichever it may be. The temples are filled with idols of heroes and heroines, and the city with Hindoo men and women of the finest type and utmost purity of character.

We visited an old Brahman college here, which was once famous for the clever pundits it furnished to the country around. There were some students in one of the rooms; they were all young and good-looking, but had about them an air of decorous restraint and an expression of old age that were depressing to one's spirits.

Passing through a luxuriant country full of venerable trees, groves, gardens, and wide fields, we stopped at the little village of Dhoom to see a famous temple. It was of fine stone, artistically built, but full of strange gods. An arched door led to one of the shrines, where there was an image of Siva. Vessels containing rice and flowers were before him, and the basin in front of the temple is something peculiarly beautiful. It is unique in form—like a huge tulip-shaped cup, of pure white marble, with its rim most delicately carved into the petals of the lotos-flower. It is impossible to give any adequate idea of this exquisite bit of Hindoo sculpture. A pillar of white marble with five heads of Siva, and the cobra de capello twisted round them, adds another charming attraction to this insignificant Brahman village.

The ride up the Tai Ghauts was one of great beauty. Here and there in the dells and hollows were little patches of grass which looked at a distance very like a green velvet carpet. Low-growing wild plants, tall trees, and creepers were matted together in one network of green, yellow, red, blue, and purple. The views looking back were lovely. The noise of mountain-torrent and trickling waters in the midday heat was most refreshing.

The ancient village of Mahabaleshwar is perched on a high table-land, and is said to be the most elevated portion of that interminable western range of Ghauts forming some of the highest ground between the Southern Ghauts and the HimÂlayas. The temple of Maha DÈo stands close under a projecting rock on the very spot where, according to Brahmans here, the five sacred rivers of this region take their rise—the Krishna, the Koina, and the Yena, which flow toward the Deccan, and the beautiful Savitri and Gaiutri, which, after leaping down the mountain-sides in many picturesque cascades and waterfalls, unite with other small streams to form quite a large river, at whose mouth stands Fort Victoria. There are no lovelier scenes than some of those formed by these two rivers, and especially remarkable is the spot where they unite, flowing between deep and wooded banks till they lose themselves in a broad, quiet, placid stream.

A large reservoir is excavated in front of the temple to receive the waters of the Krishna and Koina, and in front is a huge stone cow, through whose mouth the waters flow into it. All around this reservoir is a fine stone walk, and farther on are several cells where saints who have long abandoned the world still reside unseen, but not unheard, for night after night their voices, like the feeble wail of infants, are borne on the night air, imploring the gods in behalf of the lost, erring human race. Fiends, angels, heroes, demons, and gods are all worshipped here.

The Brahman ascetics who have charge of these temples ring a bell to give notice that the deified beings have taken up their abode in their respective cells. Krishna, the last incarnation of the Hindoos, has also a couch prepared for him here. When the sound of this bell is heard all the inhabitants of this mountain-village betake themselves to a few moments' meditation. We saw some remarkably pretty women who were attached to this temple filling the lamps with oil and gathering flowers and fruit to lay before the shrines; but they seemed to be shy of Europeans, and would not notice us.

The discoverer of this spot, so far as the English are concerned, for it has long been inhabited by the Brahmans, was Colonel P. Lodwick, who, when stationed with his regiment at Satarah, undertook the exploration of these hills, and, pushing through forest, brushwood, and jungle, found himself at the edge of a high projecting rock, when a sudden turn brought him to the brink of a grand promontory formerly called "Sidney Point," but now after the true discoverer. No sooner was the discovery of this delightful and most accessible mountain-region made known than Sir James Malcolm, then governor of Bombay, hastened to establish here a convalescent hospital for European soldiers. In course of time good roads were constructed, partly by the British government and partly by the rajah of Satarah. Parsee shopkeepers soon made their appearance, and in a few years a little British colony was transplanted here. There are now a little Protestant church, reading-room, library, hotel, barracks, handsome European villas and bungalows, with bridle-paths all along the most picturesque points. There is no more beautiful and healthful sanitarium to be found anywhere in the East. We spent two delightful months, November and December, at the travellers' bungalow. The weather was perfect—clear, cold, and without any rain. With all the beauty with which a tropical climate surrounds the hillsides the temperature varied from 62° to 45° in the open air. The elevation, four thousand seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, places it beyond the influence of cholera and malaria, which are so deadly in many parts of India. The soil is scanty in some parts, but in many portions a rich mould of great depth is found, admirably adapted to agricultural purposes. The finest strawberries I ever saw in India were brought me one morning by the pundit, cultivated by the Brahmans on these hills as offerings to their gods. The hills are also covered with fine trees—the willow, the jambul with its dazzling green foliage, the iron-wood, and the arrowroot plant. There are here several kinds of jessamines—one, the night-blooming jessamine, a large and beautiful flower and peculiarly fragrant after sunset. Ferns abound: one called by the natives pryha khud, or "the lover's leap," is extraordinarily beautiful, but not very abundant. A plant resembling the yellow broom is also found here, but it far surpasses the latter in size and beauty of flowers. Bulbous and parasitical plants abound, and their flowers are much larger and far more beautiful than those found on the plains, and each plant has its season.

To the sportsman the Mahabaleshwar Hills are a treasure-trove. The shikarees, or native hunters, are always at hand to lead the adventurous into the very lairs of tigers, panthers, bears, wolves, and to the resorts of all kinds of jungle-fowl. The monkeys in this neighborhood are generally the first to give notice of the vicinity of a tiger by their loud and reiterated cries resounding from tree to tree. The wild bison, for which this region was once famous, is now found only occasionally. A spot is shown where Lieutenant Hinds, a fine, athletic, noble-looking young English officer, over six feet in stature, was killed by one of these beasts. He and his shikaree had pursued the bison for some distance. Lieutenant Hinds had just taken his aim, when, in the twinkling of an eye, the infuriated beast suddenly turned upon him, with one bound caught him upon his horns, and bore him thus wildly along through the forest, and finally dashed him headlong over some rocks. His mutilated body was found, and lies in the little Christian burial-ground here.

In returning from the Mahabaleshwar Hills we took the Satarah road, the most picturesque of the three roads which lead up to the hills. It commands extensive and diversified views of all the country around—the wild tangle of the forests, the towering peaks of the mountains, the bristling forts of the rock-bound city of the "Northern Star," the ample fields dotting the landscape like huge green emeralds, and the Savitri and the Gaintri struggling through brake and forest dingle and many a deep shade to find each the other, till they meet at last just over the wide brow of a sharp cliff, and leap together in gladness and beauty down five hundred feet, dashing and tumbling over masses of rock, till they gain the low-lying lands, then move on in quiet, dreamy irregularity to lose each the other once more—one amid the waters of the famous Krishna, and the other at Karar afar off.

We turned off the road to visit a formidable towering rock on which stands the old Mahratta fort of Pratapgarh. In the centre of it are found two lovely Hindoo temples—one to Maha DÈo, the high god, and the other to Bhawanee, who is at once the goddess of love and hatred—with the attending Brahman priests officiating there. Somewhere under this fortress lies the head of the simple-hearted Afzal Khan, the renowned Bijapoor general. Here was enacted by the hand of Sivaji, the founder of the great Mahratta empire, one of the darkest of the many tragedies with which the history of India abounds. Having induced, through false pretences, Afzal Khan to visit him unarmed and attended by one sole follower, Sivaji met the trusting foe with open arms and slew him when in the act of embracing him. Sayid Bunder, the faithful follower of the general, refused to surrender even on condition of having his life granted to him, and suffered the same fate as his master. There and then the signals agreed upon boomed forth from this old fort. The Mhawalis rushed from their places of concealment all along the hillside on the khan's retinue, stationed at the foot of the hill, and slaughtered and dispersed them. Thus Sivaji defeated the enemy and acquired at the same time great amount of treasure as well as reputation as a warrior.

Satarah, or "the Star City," is full of antiquities and historical associations; every rock and hill and fortress has its own deadly secret—sometimes more than one—of murder, bloodshed, treachery, and triumph on the part of the Mohguls, Mahrattas, or British, besides other local interests. The town lies on a high slope or plain between two ranges of hills, one on the east and one on the west. The western hills have been occupied for many hundred years by the descendants of the early Mahratta Brahmans. They are covered with temples, huge, ancient, and solemn; gods and goddesses in ivory and stone, admirably wrought, sit enshrined in each of these. The priests worship them merely for the sake of their age and number. Tall, gray-bearded monkeys abound on these hills, and while we stood gazing at one of the temples a troop of these creatures assembled on the roof and showed signs and symptoms of great excitement or displeasure.

The Satarah bazaar is peculiar and well worth visiting. The Mahratta women are as free and as unconfined in their movements almost as the English. They are darker and less good-looking than those at Wye and on the hills.

The flat-topped hills around absolutely bristle with forts that the "Mountain Rats," as Aurungzebe called the Mahratta warriors, loved to build everywhere. A zigzag pathway leads from the city up to the western gate of "Azim Tarah," the most renowned of these strongholds. If individual energy and vehement self-assertion indicate character, the Mahratta soldiers possess it to an extraordinary degree, over and over again proving themselves grandly capable of confronting the very dangers they had brought down upon themselves. This fort is full of stories of Mahratta exploits against their threefold enemies. It has been captured, lost, and recaptured over and over again. It was built by a King Panalah in 1192, and was once the state-prison of the great Sivaji. It was defended against the emperor Aurungzebe by Phryaji Phrabu, a brave hawaldar,[68] who had learned the art of war under Sivaji. When the Mohguls attempted to enter the "Star City" huge stones were rolled down the mountain-sides, and were as destructive as the discharge of artillery. Tarbhyat Khan, a Mohgul in the service of Aurungzebe, undertook to destroy it by mining the north-east angle, one of its strongest points. The mine was completed after months of severe labor; a storming-party was formed on the brow of the hill. Aurungzebe, confident of success, marshalled his men in brilliant array to see the attack. The first explosion crushed many of the Mahratta garrison to death, and was followed by another that rolled down great rocks upon the Mohguls, destroying, it is said, two thousand men at once. Animated by this disaster to the enemy, the garrison would have continued to hold out, but their supplies failed and they were obliged to capitulate.

After the well-known rupture with Baji Row, the English troops marched into Satarah, took possession of the fort, and installed as king Pra Thap Singh, the eldest son of Shah Hoo the Second. He was deposed, however, on account of a series of intrigues against the East India government, and was imprisoned at Benares. Apa Saihib, the last of the descendants in a direct line of the great Sivaji, was then placed on the throne, but on his death the province, much to the indignation of the princes and people of Western India, was annexed to the possessions of the East India Company. It is but just to say that there were men among the court of directors who remembered, with Sir George Clark, then governor of Bombay, the treaty of 1819, and knew that the East India Company had agreed to cede in perpetual sovereignty, to the rajah of Satarah and his heirs and successors, the territories which he held, and they protested, but all in vain, against the annexation of Satarah, calling it "an act of unrighteous usurpation." Here, alas! was laid the first seed of the "Sepoy mutiny," that terrible retribution which ten years after overtook not the guilty, but the innocent and faithful servants of the Company.

On the west of the fort are a number of Hindoo temples dedicated chiefly to Siva and to Bhawanee, the Indian Venus, who seems ever to have been a favorite with these hardy mountaineers. The view from the fort is one of the most charming in the world. The forms of the different hills are quaint, and crowned with barbaric fortresses and temples that are fast crumbling away to give place to a rich and tropical vegetation; the great plain below, dotted with the houses and gardens of the European and native residents; the lakes, the bazaars, the busy thoroughfares, and, far away for many a mile, a road, leaf-canopied and cool in the hottest midday sun, lined on each side with thousands of magnificent mango trees. These mango trees were planted by one of the native rulers in expiation of the murder of a noble Hindoo statesman, an envoy from Barodah.

On the south-western side of the old town stands the antiquated palace of Sivaji. We were shown into an attractive chamber called the Jallah Mandir, the "water pavilion." Surrounded by a variety of beautiful creeping plants and almost encircled with water, it is cooled by quaint little Oriental fountains that splash and spirt upward all day long. This peculiar water-bound chamber is almost fairy-like. But the deity of this place is the huge sword with which the treacherous Sivaji slew his trusting foe, Afzah Khan, the general of Bijapoor. By a strange contradiction, this sword is called Bhawanee, the goddess of love, and the people believe that the sweet goddess has imparted to the old sword a charm which is deadly to the enemies of the Mahrattas.

As we went back through the town we peeped into one or two of the temples. There were in them some curious old idols of heroes rather than gods, but they were as hideous as possible. A little farther on the ground was made lovely with immense numbers of wild flowers, red, yellow, and blue.

From the Star City of the Deccan we went back a few days' journey and crossed the "Nira bridge," one of the fine old Mahratta works, to visit the village and hill-temples of Jijuhre. The village was insignificant enough, but the hill on which stands the temple of Khandoba, the warrior-god of the early Mahrattas, was very striking. It is flat-topped and rises abruptly from the surrounding plain, its entire surface covered with temples, gates, pillars, stone monuments of every conceivable object, and has the appearance of a huge cemetery. If it had not been for the presence of our pundit I doubt if we should have been allowed to visit this once-famous temple.

We went up on foot through an odd mixture of gateways and pillars, all curiously carved, and here and there were stone figures of mythological birds and beasts, abundantly provided with shaindoor, a kind of red paint, and offerings of flowers. The largest temple had an image of Khandoba, a terrific-looking monster. In one of the upper chambers there was a colossal drum that gave sunset warnings and served to call the priests, priestesses, and other attendants to prayers, midnight devotions, or revelries; which latter are held on certain days, or rather nights, of the waxing moon. About two hundred women, all young, many of them mere children, are attached to this temple, which is in every sense one of the relics of the ancient Mahratta usages before the introduction of Brahmanism. Many of these girls were scattered about in groups or were seen reclining at their ease in a semi-nude costume about the aisles of the temples, producing a charming Oriental effect, though one could not help shuddering at the thought of their lives. And, in spite of the doom laid upon them even before they were born, many of them had singularly interesting, pensive faces. One girl who was pouring water into the vessels around the shrine of Khandoba was a picture of grace and adorned with glittering jewels. These strange priestesses of passion live in cells attached to the temples or are scattered in the service of their peculiar divinity around the temples in the neighborhood, but here they are yearly recruited, and here they are formally married as virgins to the idol of Siva or Khandoba, as the case may be. There are here long corridors and intricate arrangement of passages, with little stairs leading up and down and around, where the girls are kept under the surveillance of old women who once were doomed to the same service. How inexplicable is such a life, looking at it from a Christian's point of view! But with these poor devotees the more revenue they bring in for the temple the better their future life, in which they dream of becoming loved wives and mothers of divine sons and daughters in a heaven prepared for them.

We noticed in our ramblings over this curious spot a strange-looking man, naked as the day on which he was born, his hair, long and streaked with gray, falling in masses around his naked shoulders, his hands and feet emaciated, the nails on his fingers and toes looking like huge claws, begrimed with dirt and masses of red paint, sitting alone, muttering all to himself and twirling in his hands an old battered-looking lota, or drinking-vessel, made of some dark metal. This was the mad gossain, or devotee, of Jijuhre. When we approached him he started up and took his place on the edge of a crumbling rock.

This poor mad creature was an object of profound veneration and worship, and his story was as pathetic as it was singular. The spot on which he had seated himself had a peculiar interest to him, and he haunted it even in his maddest moments. It was called Dewanee-garh, "the maddening rock," because one of the priestesses of the temple leaped from it and was killed instantly. This girl's name was KrayÂhnee. It was said that on her marriage with the god Siva and her installation in the peculiar life of the temple it was found that she had conceived a strong passion for the mad gossain, then a young Mahratta noble named Hotah Bhow. He visited her frequently, and they were always seen together, and, as the noble was rich, the priests humored the girl in her singleness of devotion, for she brought large sums of money to the temple. But after a while Hotah Bhow ceased his visits to the temple, and KrayÂhnee was urged to take another lover. She pleaded a respite for one month, which was granted. In the mean time, through a Sudra, a male attendant on the temple, she sent Hotah Bhow a message, assuring him of her undying love and entreating him to aid her in her escape from the temple, saying that if he would do this for her she would willingly serve as a slave in his household.

The Sudra, who was himself enamored of the beautiful priestess, took no pains to deliver the message, but brought back to the poor girl a fabricated answer from Hotah Bhow, advising her to make herself happy where the gods had placed her.

Next morning KrayÂhnee was missed, and on the following day her body was found crushed and mangled at the foot of Dewanee-garh. Tying her lota, or sacred vessel for ablutions, to her neck, she had leaped from the rock at dead of night. Months after, Hotah Bhow returned from a pilgrimage to Benares, and on hearing of the sad fate of KrayÂhnee became so melancholy that he betook himself to the severest course of asceticism known among the Hindoos, called "Gala Naik." Standing for hours on the spot whence the dancing-girl flung herself headlong, he threw back his head and gazed at the sun, holding in his hand the sole relic of his unhappy love, the battered lota. The priestesses of the temple, pitying his sorrows, took him food and fed him at stated intervals. But at length reason gave way under the severity of his expiation; he forgot his vow to practise "Gala Naik" to the day of his death, and is now found wandering over the hillside or perched on the edge of Dewanee-garh, bereft of even the memory of his sorrows, but still clinging to the battered lota of KrayÂhnee, into which the priestesses of the temple pour his daily food and drink.

Weary of our climb and saddened by the recital of this story, we retraced our steps to the "dharrum-sala" of the village, and on the following morning started across the country of the Deccan from the Star City of the ancient Mahrattas for AurungabÂd, the golden city of the great Mohgul Aurungzebe, and thence to the caves of Elora.