this music, some suggestion in this early passing by
of the caravan, which steals with a subtle fascination
over the senses. It stands in some sort for the
romance of wayfaring, for the poetry of the vagrant
life. The bells and the red cattle and the white-
hatted Shan, as they emerge from the stillness of
the forest, come nearer and yet nearer in the grey
dawn ; pass by with the added bass of hoofs, and are
lost in the chambered stillness ; and this at that mystic
hour when the spirit of the listener still hovers on the
borderland between the slumber of the night and the
full awakening of the sun-clad morning. Only once
before, and in another country, have b heard such music,
with its infinite appeal. But it came neither from bells
nor caravans; but from the shepherd’s pipe of a lad
from the Pyrenees, who came away each year with his
herd of goats, browsing as they wandered over France,
till, in the early days of spring, he reached the small
provincial town in which I lived. From door to door
the lad piped, while the shaggy travellers stood still,
and small householders came forth with cups and bowls
fo ra little of the goat’s milk. But to me, as to many
others, it seemed that he came each year hs the
messenger of spring.
By six o’clock the elephants were laden for the day’s
journey, and I set out on my wayfaring. My fellow-
travellers were already afoot, and of the hilarious camp
of the previous night, only the carpenters remained,
leisurely peeling bamboo strips to mend the roof against
the rain.
From a painting by J. R. Middleton.