Part 6 (1/2)
Aht for his own use, my attention would be mostly attracted by a ten or twelve volume edition of Gibbon's Roht, ”I am helpless and read rown up person, who need not read unless he pleases, bother himself so?”
(15) _At the Himalayas_
We stayed about a month in Amritsar, and, towards the middle of April, started for the Dalhousie Hills The last few days at Amritsar seemed as if they would never pass, the call of the Hi upon me
The terraced hill sides, as ent up in a _jha crops Everyould make a start after our bread and ht in the next staging bungalow My eyes had no rest the livelong day, so great wasshould escape thereat forest trees were found clustering closer, and fro out, like a little daughter of the heres wrapt inits way over the black moss-covered rocks, there the _jhampan_ bearers would put down their burden, and take a rest Why, oh why, had we to leave such spots behind, criedheart, why could we not stay on there for ever?
This is the great advantage of the first vision: the mind is not then aware that there are many more such to coan it pro in its expenditure of attention It is only when it believes so to be rare that thevalues So in the streets of Calcutta I soner, and only then do I discover howas its full value in attention is not paid It is the hunger to really see which drives people to travel to strange places
My father left his little cash-box in ine that I was the fittest custodian of the considerable sums he kept in it for use on the way He would certainly have felt safer with it in the hands of Kishori, his attendant So I can only suppose he wanted to trainbungalow, I forgot toon a table This earned ot down at the end of a stage, alow and there we sat As dusk cah the clear mountain atmosphere, and my father showed me the constellations or treated me to an astronomical discourse
The house we had taken at Bakrota was on the highest hill-top Though it was nearing May it was still bitterly cold there, so much so that on the shady side of the hill the winter frosts had not yetme to wander about freely even here Some way below our house there stretched a spur thickly wooded with Deodars Into this wilderness I would venture alone with my iron-spiked staff These lordly forest trees, with their huge shadows, towering there like so h the centuries! And yet this boy of only the other day was crawling round about their trunks unchallenged I seemed to feel a presence, the moment I stepped into their shade, as of the solid coolness of soht and shade on the leafy mould seemed like its scales
My roo on h the uncurtained s, the distant snowy peaks shi+ht Sometimes, at what hour I could not make out, I, half awakened, would see hted lalazed verandah where he sat at his devotions After oneht had passed This wasSanscrit declensions
What an excruciatingly wintry awakening fro warmth of my blankets!
By the time the sun rose,at his side, he would oncethe Upanishads
Then ould go out for a walk But how should I keep pace with him?
Many an older person could not! So, after a while, I would give it up and scrah some short cut up the mountain side
After lish lessons After ten o'clock ca the servants to teful of hot water without ebaths he had hier days
Another penance was the drinking of milk My father was very fond of milk and could take quantities of it But whether it was a failure to inherit this capacity, or that the unfavourable environer,Unfortunately we used to have our ether So I had to throw myself on the mercy of the servants; and to their hu thenceforth more than half full of foaain But this wassleep _would_ have its revenge and I would be toppling over with uncontrollable drowsiness
Nevertheless, no sooner did ht and let me off, than my sleepiness was off likewise Then ho! for the mountains
Staff in hand I would often wander away from one peak to another, but my father did not object To the end of his life, I have observed, he never stood in the way of our independence Many a tinant alike to his taste and his judgment; with a word he could have stoppedto refrain came from within A passive acceptance by us of the correct and the proper did not satisfy him; he wanted us to love truth with our whole hearts; he knew that mere acquiescence without love is empty He also knew that truth, if strayed froain, but a forced or blind acceptance of it from the outside effectually bars the way in
[Illustration: The Himalayas]
Inthe Grand Trunk Road, right up to Peshawar, in a bullock cart No one else supported the scheainst it as a practical proposition But when I discoursed on it toby railroad was not worth the name! With which observation he proceeded to recount to s on foot and horseback Of any chance of discomfort or peril he had not a word to say