And it was travelling by ways such as these that finally I found myself in the canvas home of the wilderness, among people who had leisure to conserve the past, to remember. I sat with them, now on some spacious roof-tree, the sky for dome, now in some little box of a room, jealously guarded from light of day, or sight of man, or I went in and out with them to their Garden-houses, to their house of Gods, to the women’s courtyard, which respect for hornets’ lives had rendered dangerous to man! We were sitting in this same courtyard, my eye on the hornets’ nest in the pipal tree, when “the slave of Kali” told me the tale of _Shoshti Devi_, the protector of women and children. “It was a house-cat who first had knowledge of her,” she said. “In a King’s palace all the Queens were barren, and none could break the spell. So the cat chose her who oftenest thought upon her stomach’s need, for the whispering of a secret.” “Go at midnight,” said she, “and tend the turnips in the potter’s field beyond the Gates.” So, the youngest Queen went as she was bidden, and in six moons she had her desire. Shoshti Devi lives in trees, a different tree for every month; and the truly religious worship her in all these several forms--but it is enough if you make an image, just a head with a long red nose, and place it under one of the four most sacred trees. And, if you tie a rag to a branch as you go away, Shoshti Devi will look at it, and remember all about you and your prayer, what time you most may need her.... That was a wise cat. People unacquainted with the Indian temperament can have no conception of the pathological value of suggestions such as these. Be a woman never so ill, she comes back heartened and therefore better as an actual and visible fact for her visit to the Shoshti tree. Think of the faith it implies. No vision of the Goddess was vouchsafed her, no Priest comforted her, no wonder of music, no beauties of chancel or cloister drugged her soul or shampooed her senses: drawn by a legend not in itself necessary to salvation she but crawled to some dust-laden tree standing, may be, by a sun-baked highway. Perhaps she found there an image of _Shoshti_: perhaps not, it mattered nothing: and she tied to one of the branches her little prayer of rags, that was all.... Such people should be easy to kill or to make alive. They are, and there lies the pity of it, in a world where you may die as well as live, be cursed as well as blessed. The Gods curse, but only through human agency. This is interesting since you may be blessed directly.