YOU will think I am eternally babbling of sunsets, but no one, with a spark of feeling, could be here and not be moved to the depths of his nature by the matchless, the ever-changing beauty of the wonderful pictures that are so constantly before his eyes. People who are utterly commonplace, whose instincts seem, in some respects, to approach those of the beasts, when they come here are amazed into new sensations, and, in unaccustomed words, voice the expression of their admiration. If I weary you, pardon me, and remember that you are the only victim of my exaltation.
One looks for a sunset in the west, does one not? and that is the direction in which to find it here as elsewhere; but to-night the marvellous effects of the setting sun were, for a time, confined almost entirely to the east, or, to be strictly accurate, rather to the south of east. Facing that direction one looks across a remarkable ridge, entirely covered by giant forest trees. The ridge dips in a sort of crescent from about 4500 feet in height at one extremity to 3000 feet at the other, and extends for a distance of perhaps two miles between the horns. Beyond and below the ridge lies a great, fertile valley, watered by a stately river, along the opposite bank of which runs a range of hills, varying in height from 2000 to 3000 feet. Behind these hills there is another valley, another range, and then a succession of ever-loftier mountains, forming the main chain.
The sun had disappeared behind a thick bank of grey clouds, and the only evidence of his presence was in the lambent edges of these clouds, which here and there glittered like molten metal. The western sky was, except for this bank, extraordinarily clear and cloudless, of a pale translucent blue, flecked here and there by tiny cloud-boats, airy and delicate, moving very slowly across the empyrean. I noticed this because what I saw in the east was so remarkable that I noted every detail.
Against a background the colour of a hedge-sparrow’s egg in the south, and blue without the green in the east, stood one white cloud, like a huge plume, with its base resting on the many ranges across the river, while it seemed to lean towards me, the top of the plume being almost over my head. At first the plume shone, from base to top, with a golden effulgence; but this gradually gave place to that lovely tint which I can only describe as rose dorÉe, the warm colour momentarily intensifying in tone until it suffused the entire cloud with such a roseate blush that all the hills beneath, and all the fast-darkening plain, blushed in response.
For twenty minutes that glowing plume of softly rounded, feathery cloud stood framed against its wondrous blue-green background, the rosy colour of the cloud deepening as the land beneath it gathered blackness. Then, almost imperceptibly, the glow flickered and died, leaving only an immense grey-white cloud hanging over the night-shrouded plain.
The sun, I knew, had long sunk beneath the horizon. Though I could see nothing behind that thick curtain of cloud, I waited, for the after-glow, seen from this height, is often more wonderful than the actual sunset. Five minutes of dull greyness, and then the whole western sky, for a space above the horizon, was overspread with pale gold, while countless shafts of brighter light radiated, as from the hub of the Sun-God’s chariot-wheel, across the gilded space, into the blue heights above. In the midst of this pale golden sheen there appeared, almost due west, and low down in the sky, a silver crescent, fine as a thread, curved upwards like the lip of a cup of which bowl and stem were invisible. It was the new-born moon.
Gradually all sunlight failed, and close above the long, narrow bank of dark clouds, clearly etched against their grey background, hung a now golden crescent, into which seemed to be falling a solitary star of surpassing brilliance.
To stand alone here in the presence of Nature, to witness the marvels of sunrise or sunset, the strange influence of nights of ravishing moonlight and days of quickening heat, impresses one with the conviction that if Oriental language is couched in terms that sound extravagant to Western ears, the reason is not far to seek. Nature revels here; one can really see things grow, where the sun shines every day as it never shines in lands of cold and fog. Natural phenomena are on a grander scale; the lightning is more vivid, the thunder more deafening, the rain a deluge against which the feeble artifices of man offer no protection. The moonlight is brighter, the shadows deeper, the darkness blacker than in northern climes. So the vegetation covers the earth, climbs on to the rocks, and disputes possession even with the waters of the sea. The blossoms are as brilliant in colour as they are profuse in quantity, and two men will stagger under the weight of a single fruit. As for thorns, they are long as nails, stiff as steel, and sharp as needles. The beasts of the forest are mighty, the birds of the air are of wonderful plumage, the denizens of the deep are many, and huge, and strange. In the lower forms of life it is just the same; the lizards, the beetles, the ants, the moths and butterflies, the frogs and the snakes,—they are great in size and legion in number. Even the insects, however small, are in myriads.
Only man stagnates, propagates feebly, loses his arts, falls a prey to pestilence, to new diseases, to imported vices, dies,—while every creature and every plant around him is struggling in the ceaseless renewal of life. Man dies, possibly because exultant nature leaves him so little to do to support his own existence; but it is not strange that, when he goes beyond the ordinary avocations of daily life, and takes himself at all seriously, his language should partake somewhat of the colour of his surroundings. Nor, perhaps, is it altogether surprising that, living with the tiger and the crocodile, the cobra and the stinging-ray, the scorpion and the centipede, he should have acquired some of their bloodthirstiness and venom, rather than have sought an example in the gentleness of the dove, a bird much fancied by Eastern peoples for the sweetness of its note and the excellence of its fighting qualities.
I suppose it is the appalling difficulties of making a passage through the jungle that have given the elephant and rhinoceros their strength and courage; but for the people, who are never really cold, and seldom hungry, there is little inducement to exertion. They can lie under the fruit trees, and idly watch the grey, gossamer-winged butterflies floating dreamily across a sunlit glade; they drowse and sleep to the music of the waters, as the whispering river slips gently towards a summer sea.
And it is all so comfortable. There is Death, but that is predestined, the one thing certain in so much that is too hard for the finite mind. There is also Hell, but of all those who speak so glibly of it, none ever believes that the same Power which created him, to live for a moment in trouble on the earth, will condemn him to an eternity of awful punishment. It is Paradise for which each man, in his own mind, is destined; a Paradise where he will be rewarded for all his earthly disappointments by some such pleasant material advantages as he can picture to himself, while he lies on the river bank and gradually sinks into a delightful slumber, lulled by the restful rippling of the passing stream. And he will dream—dream of that Celestial Being of whom it is related that “his face shone golden, like that of a god, so that many lizards fell, dazzled, from the walls, and the cockroaches in the thatch fought to bask in the light of his countenance.”
Oriental imagery,—but a quaintly pretty idea, the creatures struggling to sit in the light shed by that radiant face.
