DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5832#0076
THE MUSK-DEER.
55
als, foxes, likewise find a refuge in these hilly soli-
tudes.
" Fierce o'er the mountain stalks the ravenous tiger,
Or lurks in gloomy caves ; through the thick grass
Coils the vast serpent, on whose painted hack
The cricket chirps, and with the drops that dew
The scales, allays his thirst. Silence profound
Enwraps the forest, save where babbling springs
Gush from the rock, or where the echoing hills
Give back the tiger's roar, or where the boughs
Burst into crackling flame, and wide extends
The blaze the dragon's fiery breath has kindled." *
The trees in these regions are sometimes of enor-
mous size, occasionally measuring twenty feet in girth,
towering to a height of more than a hundred and
fifty, and exhibiting a sheer branchless trunk at least
sixty feet high, surmounted by a vast crest which
waves like a gigantic canopy above it, projecting its
mighty shadow in the calm clear light of the setting
sun and wrapping in solemn shade the scarped and
precipitous sides of the neighbouring hill. Everything
here is, in fact, on so immense a scale, that all mi-
nuter objects are lessened to a degree hardly to be
conceived. At a short distance, a man seems dwindled
to a mere puppet, while horses and oxen appear
scarcely bigger than dogs.
The most singular animal known in these hills is
the musk-deer, a creature timid and wild to excess ;
it lives secluded from the sight of man, and indeed of
every other animal but its own species, inhabiting the
* " Specimens of the Hindoo Theatre," translated from the
original Sanscrit by Horace Hayman Wilson, Esq., Professor of
Sanscrit at the University of Oxford. .
55
als, foxes, likewise find a refuge in these hilly soli-
tudes.
" Fierce o'er the mountain stalks the ravenous tiger,
Or lurks in gloomy caves ; through the thick grass
Coils the vast serpent, on whose painted hack
The cricket chirps, and with the drops that dew
The scales, allays his thirst. Silence profound
Enwraps the forest, save where babbling springs
Gush from the rock, or where the echoing hills
Give back the tiger's roar, or where the boughs
Burst into crackling flame, and wide extends
The blaze the dragon's fiery breath has kindled." *
The trees in these regions are sometimes of enor-
mous size, occasionally measuring twenty feet in girth,
towering to a height of more than a hundred and
fifty, and exhibiting a sheer branchless trunk at least
sixty feet high, surmounted by a vast crest which
waves like a gigantic canopy above it, projecting its
mighty shadow in the calm clear light of the setting
sun and wrapping in solemn shade the scarped and
precipitous sides of the neighbouring hill. Everything
here is, in fact, on so immense a scale, that all mi-
nuter objects are lessened to a degree hardly to be
conceived. At a short distance, a man seems dwindled
to a mere puppet, while horses and oxen appear
scarcely bigger than dogs.
The most singular animal known in these hills is
the musk-deer, a creature timid and wild to excess ;
it lives secluded from the sight of man, and indeed of
every other animal but its own species, inhabiting the
* " Specimens of the Hindoo Theatre," translated from the
original Sanscrit by Horace Hayman Wilson, Esq., Professor of
Sanscrit at the University of Oxford. .