Here he was on the verge of a world that for all
the stuffed trophies of the sportsman and the specimens of the
naturalist is still almost as unknown as if it was upon another
planet. What intruders men are, what foreigners in the life of this
ancient system!
He looked over his shoulder, and there were the two little tents,
one that sheltered Kepple and one that awaited him, and beyond, in
an irregular line, glowed the ruddy smoky fires of the men. One or
two turbaned figures still flitted about, and there was a voice--
low, monotonous--it must have been telling a tale. Further, sighing
and stirring ever and again, were tethered beasts, and then a great
pale space of moonlight and the clumsy outlines of the village well.
The clustering village itself slept in darkness beyond the mango
trees, and still remoter the black encircling jungle closed in. One
might have fancied this was the encampment of newly-come invaders,
were it not for the larger villages that are overgrown with thickets
and altogether swallowed up again in the wilderness, and for the
deserted temples that are found rent asunder by the roots of trees
and the ancient embankments that hold water only for the drinking of
the sambur deer.
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