BEGINNING with 29th March (1879), there were a series of strange occurrences in which Mooljee Thackersey was an essential, sometimes the chief witness—excluding H. P. B. On the day in question she told Mooljee to fetch a buggy, and, when it came, mounted into it with him. She refused to answer his questions as to whither she was going, simply telling him to order the driver to turn to right or left or go straight ahead, as she might direct. What happened Mooljee told us on their return in the evening. She had directed the course by numerous windings of streets and country roads, until they found themselves at a suburb of Bombay, eight or ten miles distant, in a grove of coniferæ. The name is not written in my Diary, but I think it was Parel, though I may be mistaken. At any rate, Mooljee knew the place, because he had cremated his mother’s body in that neighborhood. Roads and paths crossed each other confusedly in the wood, but H. P. B

. never faltered as to her course, and bade the driver turn and turn until they came to the seashore. Finally, to Mooljee’s amazement, they were brought up by the gate of a private estate, with a magnificent

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rose-garden in front and a fine bungalow with spacious Eastern verandahs in the back ground. H. P. B. climbed down and told Mooljee to await her there, and not for his life to dare come to the house. So there he waited in a complete puzzle; for such a property he, a lifelong resident of Bombay, had never heard of before. He called one of several gardeners who were hoeing the flowers, but the man would tell him nothing as to his master’s name, how long he had lived there, or when the bungalow was built: a most unusual thing among Hindus. H. P. B. had walked straight up to the house, had been received cordially at the door by a tall Hindu of striking and distinguished appearance, clad entirely in white, and had gone inside. After some time the two reappeared, the mysterious stranger bade her farewell, and handed her a great bunch of roses which one of the gardeners brought to his master for the purpose, and H. P. B. rejoined her escort, re-entered the buggy, and ordered the driver to return home. All that Mooljee could draw out of H.P.B. was that the stranger was an Occultist with whom she was in relation and had business to transact that day. The roses, she said, he had sent by her to myself. The strangest part of this story to us was that, so far as we knew, there was no possibility of H.P.B.’s having learnt anything about his suburb and the way to it, at any rate since out arrival at Bombay, for she had never left the house alone, yet that she had shown the completest familiarity with both. Whether any such bungalow existed or not, we had no means of knowing save on Mooljee’s testimony. He was so amazed

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with his experience as to go on telling it to his friends in the town, which led one, who professed to know the suburb in question perfectly, to lay a wager of Rs. 100 that there was no such bungalow by the seashore and that he could not guide anyone to it. When H. P. B. heard this, she offered to bet Mooljee that he would lose the other wager; whereupon he, declaring that he could retrace every foot of the way by which they had gone, closed with the offer, and I had a carriage called at once, and we three entered it. By another Hindu interpreter, I ordered the coachman, to strictly follow Mr. M.’s directions as to our route, and off we went. After a long drive by devious ways, we reached the wood, in whose shady depths the, mysterious bungalow was supposed to stand. The, soil was almost pure sea-sand, bestrewn with a brown mulch of pine-needles, or those of some other conifer, possibly the casuarina. We could see a number of roads running in different directions, and I told Mooljee that he must keep a sharp look-out, or he, would assuredly get lost. He, however, was as confident as possible, despite the gibes thrown at him by H. P. B. about his state of mystification and the certain loss of his Rs. 100. For an hour we drove on, now to this side, now to the other, now stopping for’ him to dismount from the box and look about him.
At last—and just a minute or so after his declaring: himself perfectly sure that we were driving straight for the seaside bungalow—a train rattled by on a near embankment, and thus showed poor Mooljee that he had guided us in the very opposite direction from the one desired! We offered to give him as much time

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as he liked to pursue his search, but he felt completely baffled and gave in as beaten. So we drove home. H. P. B. told all of us that Mooljee would have found the mystical bungalow if a glamor had not been brought to bear on his sight, and, moreover, that the bungalow, like all other spots inhabited by Adepts, was always protected from the intrusion of strangers by a circle of illusion formed about it and guarded and kept potent by elemental servitors. This particular bungalow was in the constant keeping of an agent who could be relied upon, and used as an occasional resting and meeting place by Gurus and Chçlâs when travelling. All the buried ancient libraries, and those vast hoards of treasure which must be kept hidden until its Karma requires its restoration to human use, are, she said, protected from discovery by the profane, by illusory pictures of solid rocks, unbroken solid ground, a yawning chasm, or some such obstacle, which turns aside the feet of the wrong men, but which Mâyâ dissolves away when the predestined finder comes to the spot in the fulness of time. This story coincides with all folk-lore tradition, and anyone who has seen even one of an hundred recorded proofs of hypnotic inhibition in modern hospitals and clinics, can readily accept the reasonableness of such a tale of mâyâvic engirdlement: the Devil is no longer accepted (outside the Vatican) as sole hypnotiser of mankind, and Charcot, Liébault, de Rochas, and others have shown us the scientific reasonableness of the old tales of Sorcery and Magic. At any rate, I give this story for what it may be worth, as I do in all cases where I myself was not an eye-witness,

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when I say my say in all candor, and leave the public to believe or disbelieve as they see fit: it is nothing to me. If my own opinion be asked, I should say that to my mind the story of the bungalow seems probably true, for, as mentioned in a former chapter, we were visited in our Girgaum cottage by more than one Adept in the flesh, and one moonlight night, Damodar and I were with H. P. B. on the road leading towards the hidden house, when one came up to and saluted us at not more than arm’s-length distance. But the details need not be mentioned here as I have other things to first tell.
We now come in chronological order to a momentous country trip whose incidents have been expanded and glorified through some sixty pages in the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan. Until comparatively a short time ago, it lingered in my memory as a chapter of the most trustworthy as well as exciting episodes in my relations with H. P. B. As perfect candor is my aim, I shall narrate my facts, which such comments as the present state of my mind permits me to offer.
H. P. B., Mooljee, and I left Bombay by train on. 4th April, 1879, for a trip to Karli Caves. Our servant Babula accompanied us. This was our entire party. We had with us no ” Brahman from Poona, Moodelliar from Madras, Sinhalese from Kegalla, Bengali Zemindar, or gigantic Rajput “—visible to me, at any rate. At Narel station we left the train, and took palanquins up the hill to Matheran, the chief sanatorium of’ Bombay. I was given to understand that we had been invited to Karli by a certain Adept with whom I had had close relations in America during the

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writing of Isis; and that the sundry provisions for our comfort en route had been ordered by him. I was not in the least surprised, then, to find at Narel station a Hindu servant of the better class, i.e., not a. house menial, who came forward, and, after saluting, gave a message in Marathi, which Mooljee interpreted to be the compliments of his master, and a request that we should graciously choose whether we would have palanquins or ponies for the ascent, as both were ready. H. P. B. and I chose palanquins, and Mooljee and Babula ponies. Then away we went in the day-bright moonshine, twelve bearers to each “palkee”—fair-sized, strong, muscular, dark brown fellows, of the Thakoor clan, who trotted along in broken step (so as not to jar the person in the palkee), keeping time by a sweet-voiced, measured cadence that, in its novelty, was extremely pleasant to hear, but which grew monotonously tiresome after a while. I had never before made such a poetical journey as this through that tropic night, with the sky ablaze with vividly bright stars before the moon had risen, myriad insects chirping to each other, the night birds crying to their mates, the great bats silently sailing in tortuous gyrations in quest of food, the palm fronds crackling and jungle leaves rustling, the smell of the earth, mingling now and again with that of spicy buds in a warmer air-current through which we passed, and with all the chant of the panting palkee-wallahs as they nimbly swung along. As for the escort of numberless chattering monkeys, the “thundering roars of tigers,” and the “Portuguese inn, woven like an eagle’s nest out of bamboos,” the less said the

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better in a sober historical narrative. We certainly reached the Alexandra Hotel in due course, supped at 11, went to bed quietly, rose early the next morning and enjoyed the splendid view from the verandah. Mooljee was out when I awoke, but returned an hour later with the story that he had been aroused before daybreak by the man who had met us at Narel, and shown a completely furnished bungalow which, he said, was at our disposal free of rent, for such time as we chose to occupy it. But by breakfast time, H. P. B. had become nauseated with what she called “the aura of Anglo-Indian civilization,” and refused to stop over a single day. So, despite the landlord’s warning against the fierce heat of the sun, away we started and rode to Narel again, in a temperature like that of the stoke-room on a steamer. By good luck neither of us were sunstruck, and in due course got the train and went on to Khandalla, a delightful place in the hills. Our same universal provider met us here also, with a spacious bullock-carriage in which he took us to the Government rest-house (dâk bungalow), where we spent the next day and night. The evening of our arrival, Mooljee strolled down to the railway station for a chat with the station-master, an old acquaintance, and got a surprise. A train came in from Bombay and stopped at the platform, when he heard his name loudly called. Looking from carriage to carriage he saw a Hindu beckoning and went to his window. The unknown proved to be the personage whom H. P. B. had visited! He handed him a fresh bouquet of what seemed to be the same kinds of roses as he had seen in the mysterious garden

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of the taciturn gardeners, and which were the most beautiful he had ever seen. “These,” said the gentleman, as the train moved on, “are for Colonel Olcott; give him them, please.” So Mooljee brought them to me and told his story. An hour later I told H. P. B. that I should like to thank the Adept for his courtesies to our party, and if she could get it delivered, should write him. She assented, so the, note was written and given her. She handed it to Mooljee and requested him to go down the public road before us and deliver it. “But,” he asked, “to whom, and where; it bears no name nor address on the cover?” “No matter; take it and you will see to whom you must give it. “He accordingly moved off down the road, but after ten minutes came running back, breathless and exhibiting every sign of surprise. “It’s gone!” he faltered. “What?” “The letter, he took it.” “Who took it?” I inquired. “I don’t know, Colonel, unless it was a pisâcha: he came up out of the ground, or so it seemed to me. I was walking slowly along, looking to right and left, and not knowing what I must do to carry out H. P. B.’s orders. There were no trees or bushes for a person to hide in, but just the white, dusty road. Yet suddenly, as if he had come out of the ground, there was a man a few yards off, coming towards me. It was the man of the rose-bungalow, the man who gave me the flowers for you at Khandalla station, and whom I had seen carried away in the train towards Poona!” “Nonsense, man,” I replied, “you’ve been dreaming.” “No, I was as wide awake as I ever was in my life. The gentleman said: ‘You have letter

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for me—that one in your hand; have you not?’ I could hardly speak, but I said: I don’t know, Maharaj, it has no address.’ ‘It is for me, give it.” He took it from me and said: ‘Now, go back.’ I turned my back for an instant and looked to see if he was there, but he had disappeared; the road was vacant! Frightened, I turned and ran, but had not got away fifty yards when a voice at my very ear said: ‘Don’t be foolish, man; keep cool; all is right.’ This frightened me still more, for no man was insight. I fled, and here I am.” Such was Mooljee’s story, which I repeat exactly as he told it to me. II appearances go for anything, he must have spoken truth, for his fright and excitement were too evident to have been simulated by so clumsy an actor as he. At all events, a certain request contained in that letter was answered in a letter from this same Adept, which I got later, at the dâk bungalow in Bhurtpore, Rajputana, more than a thousand miles distant from this place of Mooljee’s adventure. And that goes for something.
It was a moonlight night, glorious beyond anything we see in the colder Western lands, and the air sweet, bland and pure, making physical existence a charm. We three sat out on the lawn enjoying it until late, planning our visit to Karli Caves for the next day.
Towards the end of the evening, H. P. B. came out of a state of mental abstraction in which she had been sitting for some minutes, and told me that at 5 p.m., the next day, a Sanyâsi or Sanyâsis would visit us at the Caves. I recorded the forewarning before retiring; the sequel will be seen presently.

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At 4 o’clock in the morning Baburao, the Adept’s supposed agent, silently entered the room where Mooljee and I slept, wakened me with a touch, thrust into my hand a small, round lacquered box containing a pân supâri, or betel-leaf with spice accompaniments, such as is given to guests, and whispered in my ear the name of the Adept under whose protection we were alleged to be on this trip. The significance of the gift was that in the mystical school with which we have had to do, this is the sign of adoption of the new pupil. We rose, bathed, had coffee, and at 5 left in the bullock-coach (shigram) for Karli, which we reached at 10. By this time there was a blazing, sunshine, and we had a hard climb of it up the footpath from the foot of the hill to the Caves. H. P. B. became so distressed for breath that finally some coolies brought a chair and carried her the last half of the ascent. It is foreign to my purpose to enter into a description of the awe-inspiring, grandiose rock-temple and its adjacent smaller cave-dormitories, which are given in every guide-book, with all their details of measurements. My narrative is concerned only with the personal adventures of our little party.
We found a festival of Rama in progress in the neighbouring village, with a great crowd, and I found it very amusing to observe its novel features. Tired with our hot climb, we went inside the great Cave, and spreading our blankets camped on the rocky floor. By and by we had our lunch, although feeling half-ashamed to be satisfying the vulgar cravings of the stomach in the aisle of a fane where, centuries before our era, thousands of ascetic recluses had

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worshipped, and with chants of sacred slokas and gathas, united in helping each other to dominate the animal self and develop their spiritual power. Our talk, of course, ran upon the noble theme of the rise, progress, and decadence of the Brahma Vidya in India, and our hopes of its recrudescence. On these worthy subjects discoursing, we passed the time away until, looking at my watch, I found that it lacked but six minutes to 5 o’clock; so Mooljee and I left H. P. B. and went to the gate-house which guards the entrance to the Cave, and waited. No ascetic was then in sight, but in about ten minutes, there came one who drove before him a cow, which was deformed by a short fifth leg that grew from its hump. A servant accompanied him. The ascetic’s face was gentle and attractive. He had flowing black hair, and a full beard, parted down the chin in the Rajput fashion, with the ends turned over the ears and worked in with the hair of the head. He was robed in the saffron-hued cloths (bhâgwa) of his order. Across his intellectual forehead was the smear of grey ashes (Vibhuti) which indicates the follower of Shiva. We watched for some sign or look of recognition, but getting none, at last joined and drew him into conversation. He explained his presence there when by rights he should have been faring on towards Hardwar, by saying that the previous day, while on his road to that noted shrine, his Guru had ordered him to be here at 5 o’clock this day, as there were persons for him to meet. No orders beyond that had been given him. If we were expecting him, then we must have been the persons his Guru

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had in mind, but he had no message for us, as yet at all events. No, his Guru had not told him in person, but—this we drew from him after much cross-questioning and after an interval of silence, in which he seemed to be listening to some invisible person—by a voice, as if spoken into his ear. That was the way he always received his orders while travelling. Finding that we could get no more out of him, we took temporary leave and returned to H. P. B. Our determination to pass the night on the hill being made known to Baburao, he and Mooljee went in search of a suitable shelter, and on their return we and our luggage were removed to a small cave-dormitory cut into the hill, some distance to the right of the great cave-temple. The ancient sculptors had fashioned a two-pillared small porch at the entrance, and inside ten cubicles, with open door-ways, giving on to a central square hall or chamber of assembly. To the left of the porch a basin, cut in the rock, received the waters of a spring of deliciously cool and clear water. H. P. B. told us that from one of the cubicles in one of these small caves, a secret door communicated with other caves in the heart of the mountain, where a school of Adepts still lived, but whose existence was not even suspected by the general public: and that if I could find the right portion of rock, and handle it in a particular fashion, no hindrance would be made to my entrance—a liberal offer considering the circumstances! However, I tried, and in another little cave some way off I did actually put my hand on a place and was about to try to move it when H. P. B. began

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calling me back in haste. The Adept writer of the Bhurtpore letter told me that I had actually hit upon the right place and would have prematurely penetrated to his retreat if I had not been called away. However, this is unprovable for the present, so let me proceed. Mooljee and Babula had gone to the village bazaar with Baburao, to buy provisions, and H. P. B. and I were left alone. We sat in the porch smoking and chatting, until she bade me stop where I was for a few minutes and not look around until she told me. She then passed inside the cave, as I thought to go into one of the cubicles for a nap on the rock-hewn block that served as the old monk’s bed. I kept on smoking and looking over the wide landscape that lay before me like a great map, when suddenly, from within the cave, I heard a sound like the slamming of a heavy door and a burst of satirical laughter. Naturally I turned my head, but H. P. B. had disappeared. She was in neither of the cells, which I examined in detail, nor could I, with the minutest search over every inch of the rocky surfaces of their walls find the least crack or other sign of a door; there was nothing palpable to eye or touch but living rock. I had had so long and varied an experience of H. P. B.’s psychological eccentricities, that I soon ceased to bother myself about the mystery and returned to the porch and my pipe, in placid inclination to wait for what might happen. A half-hour had passed since her disappearance, when I heard a footstep just behind me and was addressed by H. P. B. in person, in a natural tone, as if nothing had happened out of the common. In reply to my

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question as to where she had been, she simply said she had “had business” with… (mentioning the Adept) and gone to see him in his secret chambers. Curiously enough, she held in her hand a rusty old Knife of a strange pattern, which she said she had picked up in one of the masked passages, and purposelessly had brought along. She would not let me keep it, but flung it out into the air with all her force, and I saw it fall into a thicket far down the hillside. I do not explain the above occurrence, leaving each reader to make what he may out of the facts. Yet, to forestall what will unquestionably occur to many minds of a certain bias, I may say that, barring the rusty knife, all is explicable on the theory of hypnotic suggestion. The sound of the slammed rock-door and the shout of laughter, H. P. B.’s seeming disappearance and subsequent sudden reappearance, can all be accounted for as hypnotic Mâyâ cast on me by her. She may have passed out by the porch at my very side, gone elsewhere, and returned before my very eyes without my seeing her. This is one explanation, and a very rickety one it will be to anyone who had had to do, in the state of pupilage, with a real adept of Eastern Magic.
Our people in time returned; we had a warm supper served to us in the cave-porch and then after admiring the moonlight panorama, and having a last smoke, all rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay down on the rock-floor and slept quietly until morning. Baburao sat at the porch-door and tended a wood-fire that we kept burning as a protection

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against wild beasts. But—save one wretched little jackal that slunk by in the night—none came to break our rest. The Caves and Jungles story about my falling down a precipice and being rescued by the Sanyâsi and his five-legged cow is all fiction; so are the “far-away roars of the tigers rising from the valley,” the night attack on us by a huge tiger, the casting of it into the abyss by adept will-power, and the weeping of “Miss X.” –a totally unknown quantity. These were the plums and spices that H. P. B. put into her charming Indian wonder-book, to make it interesting to the Russian public, in whose language it was originally written. Equally misleading is her account of a snake-charming performance as occurring at Karli Caves, the truth being that the thing happened in our own house at Girgaum; as will be seen later on, when I come to the case in its due order.
Mooljee and I were up before H. P. B. the next morning, and after a wash at the spring, he went down to the village while I stood on the path enjoying the early morning view over the plains. After a while, to my gratification, I saw the cow-owning Sanyâsi coming towards me with the evident intention of speaking. I was at a loss what to do, as neither H. P. B. nor I knew a word of either of the vernaculars. But my doubt as to the issue was soon solved by his coming close up to me, taking my hand, giving our T. S. private tokens of brotherhood, and pronouncing in my ear the Adept’s name! Then saluting me most gracefully, he bowed and went his way. We saw him no more.

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We passed that day in exploring the caves, and at 4.30 p.m. wended back to the Khandalla rest-house. But while still in the Great Cave, H. P. B. passed on to me an order, telepathically received, she said, from the Adept, that we should go to Rajputana, in the Punjab. After supper we sat out again on the moon-glorified lawn of the travellers’ bungalow, this time in company with two other travellers—Anglo-Indians—who retired early, leaving us three alone. My two companions strolled about conversing together and disappeared behind the house, but Mooljee speedily returned and, as it seemed, in a daze of confusion, saying that she had disappeared before his very eyes while he stood talking to her in the moonlight. He, seemed really about to have a fit of hysterics, so much did he tremble. I bade him sit down and keep quiet, and not make such a fool of himself, as he had merely been made the subject of a glamor, which was a very harmless affair, such as any good mesmeriser could accomplish on his sensitive subject.1 She soon. reappeared and resumed her seat and our chat went on. Presently two white-robed Hindu men were seen

_______________
1 She herself specifies with full candor, on p. 588 of vol. II of Isis, this illusion-casting power as one of the acquired functions of a thaumaturgist, thus:
“The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose. He may make his astral form visible, or he may give it a protean appearance. In both cases, these results will be achieved by a mesmeric hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously brought on. This hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it would stake his life that he saw a reality, when it is but a picture in his own’ mind, impressed upon his consciousness by the irresistible will of the mesmeriser. ”

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crossing the lawn obliquely past us, some fifty yards off. They stopped when opposite .our position and Mooljee was sent by H. P. B. to talk with them. As he stood with them doing this, she repeated to me what she said was their conversation and which Mooljee corroborated a moment later on rejoining us. It was a message to me to the effect that my letter to the Adept had been received and accepted, and that I should get the answer when I reached Rajputana. Before Mooljee could finish this brief report, I saw the two pupil-messengers walk away a short distance, pass behind a small bush not thick or large enough to screen a white-robed man, especially in that vivid moonlight, and disappear: there was open lawn about the bush, but the two had vanished from sight most effectually. Naturally I obeyed my first impulse to run across the lawn and search behind the bush for some signs of a subterranean place of refuge; but I found nothing, the sod was unbroken, the bush had not a twig bent out of its natural place. I had simply been hypnotised.
We left for Bombay the next morning by mail train, but our adventures were not yet finished. Baburao bade us farewell at Khandalla station after refusing to accept the douceur I pressed upon him—a rare stretch of self-denial, as anyone familiar with Hindu serving-men will declare. We three friends had a second-class carriage to ourselves; Babula found room in the third-class. After a while, Mooljee stretched himself out on one of the benches and fell asleep, while H. P. B. and I sitting side by side on the cross-bench—she next the left-hand window—

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talked about our occult affairs in general. She finally said: “I do wish that… (the Adept) had not made me pass on verbally to you his message a bout Rajputana!” “Why?” “Because Wimbridge and Miss Bates will think it all humbug, a trick to make you take me on a pleasant journey and leave them moping at home.” “Bosh!” I said; “I don’t need anything more than your word for it.” “But I tell you,” she replied “they will think hardly of me for it.” “Then,” I said, “it would have been far better if he had given you a note, which he could have done easily. Well, it’s too late to worry about it now. Khandalla is fifteen or twenty miles behind us, and so let it go.” She brooded over the idea a few minutes, and then said: “Well, I shall try, anyhow; it is not too late.” She then wrote something on a page of her pocket-book in two kinds of character, the upper half Senzar—the language of all her personal writings from the Mahatmas—the lower half English, which she allowed me to read. It ran thus:
“Ask Goolab Singh to telegraph to Olcott the orders given him through me at the cave yesterday; let it be a test to others as well as to himself.”
Tearing the leaf out, folding it into a triangular shape, and inscribing on it some peculiar symbolical signs (which, she said, dominated the Elementals), she took it between her thumb and forefinger of the left hand, as if about to throw it out of the window. I, however, caught and held her hand, saying: “You want this so be a test to me? Then let me re-open the billet, and see what you do with it.” She consenting

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I looked inside the note, returned it to her, and, at her express bidding, watched it when she flung it from the train. It was touched by the outer edge of the air-rush made by the train, and whirled outwards towards a solitary tree near the track. We were then 3,000 feet high, up among the peaks of the Western Ghâts, with no human habitation in sight at the moment, and but very few trees beside the railway track. Just before I let her fling out the billet, I awoke Mooljee, told him what she was about doing, “with him took the time by my watch, and he joined me in signing a certificate in my own note-book, which now lies before me, and from which I have refreshed my memory as to these details. The certificate is dated at “Kurjeet Station, G. I. P. R. 8th April, 1879, at 12.45 p.m.,” and signed by Mooljee Thackersey as witness.
At Kurjeet, Mooljee and I wanted to descend and stretch our legs a bit on the platform, but H. P. B. said that neither of us should leave the train until we reached Bombay: she had her orders, and we would understand them in due time. So we remained with her in the carriage. In schedule time we reached home, and I at once went on an errand to the Kalbadevi Road and was gone an hour. On returning I was met by Miss Bates, who handed me a sealed Government telegraph cover, saying that she had received it from the messenger (peon) and receipted, for it in my name. It read as follows:
” Time 2 p.m. Date 8-4-1879.
From Kurjeet To Byculla.
From Goolab Singh To H. S. Olcott.

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Letter received. Answer Rajputana. Start immediately.”
As I said above, until a few months ago, I regarded this as one of the most unmistakably genuine proofs of H. P. B.’s occult relations I had ever received. It so impressed all my friends, among them one in London and one in New York, to whom I forwarded it for examination. The friend at New York, moreover, reported a strange fact, which I am glad to say I recorded in my Diary for the following 1st July, after receipt of the Overland Mail of that day: Mr. John Judge, brother of W. Q. Judge—the friend in question—wrote that the name of the sender of the telegram (Goolab Singh) had entirely faded out, and he had no clue, therefore, to the sender. He enclosed -the original despatch in his letter and I found the name had again become perfectly visible, as it is to this day. The one weak point in the whole series of phenomena is that—as I learned quite recently—Baburao had been engaged by Mooljee to look after our party at Matheran, Khandalla, and Karli Cave! It is for this reason that I have so minutely described the incidents of our pleasant trip, leaving each reader to judge for himself.