Besides, the full moon was about to rise at eight p.m. Three hours'
ascent of the mountain, on such a moonlit, tropical night as would
tax the descriptive powers of the greatest artists, was worth any
sacrifice. Apropos, among the few artists who can fix upon canvas
the subtle charm of a moonlit night in India public opinion begins
to name our own V.V. Vereshtchagin.

Having dined hurriedly in the dak bungalow we asked for our sedan
chairs, and, drawing our roof-like topees over our eyes, we started.
Eight coolies, clad, as usual, in vine-leaves, took possession of
each chair and hurried up the mountain, uttering the shrieks and
yells no true Hindu can dispense with. Each chair was accompanied
besides by a relay of eight more porters. So we were sixty-four,
without counting the Hindus and their servants--an army sufficient
to frighten any stray leopard or jungle tiger, in fact any animal,
except our fearless cousins on the side of our great-grandfather
Hanuman. As soon as we turned into a thicket at the foot of the
Mountain, several dozens of these kinsmen joined our procession.
Thanks to the achievements of Rama's ally, monkeys are sacred in
India. The Government, emulating the earlier wisdom of the East
India Company, forbids everyone to molest them, not only when met
with in the forests, which in all justice belong to them, but even
when they invade the city gardens. Leaping from one branch to
another, chattering like magpies, and making the most formidable
grimaces, they followed us all the way, like so many midnight spooks.
Sometimes they hung on the trees in full moonlight, like forest
nymphs of Russian mythology; sometimes they preceded us, awaiting
our arrival at the turns of the road as if showing us the way.
They never left us. One monkey babe alighted on my knees. In a