Now we dropped rapidly towards Dentam. Our journey lay through places that grew hotter and more familiar. No more did we see the rhododendrons. The autumn that further up had touched the leaves of trees with crimson, gold, cerise, and copper was not so advanced here. The cherry trees still bore their fruits; the moss had grown on trees thickly, and the wind had blown on them the pollen of orchids, large as the palm of your hand, blossoming in purple and scarlet. Many white daturas perspired with dewdrops in the steaming heat of the sun. The trees began to appear taller and terrible. Bamboos soared upwards like sky-piercing minarets. Creepers thick as pythons beset our path. The buzzing of the cicada grew insistent and unbearable, and jays jabbered in the woods. Now and then a flock of green parrots flung their emerald glory in the face of the sun, then vanished. Insects multiplied. Mammoth butterflies, velvety black, swarmed from blossom to blossom, and innumerable small birds preyed on numberless buzzing flies. We were stung with the sharpest stings of worms, and now and then we had to wait to let pass a serpent that crossed our path. Were it not for the practised eyes of Ghond who knew which way the animals came and went, we would have been killed ten times over by a snake or a bison. Sometimes Ghond would put his ear to the ground and listen. After several minutes he would say: "Ahead of us bisons are coming. Let us wait till they pass." And soon enough we would hear their sharp hoofs moving through the undergrowth with a sinister noise as if a vast scythe were cutting, cutting, cutting the very ground from under our feet. Yet we pressed on, stopping for half an hour for lunch. At last we reached the borders of Sikkim, whose small valley glimmered with ripening red millet, green oranges and golden bananas, set against hillsides glittering with marigolds above which softly shone the violets. Just then we came to a sight that I shall never forget. At our feet on the narrow caravan road the air burnt in iridescence: the heat was so great that it vibrated with colours. Hardly had we gone a few yards when like a thunderclap rose a vast flock of Himalayan pheasants; then they flew into the jungle, their wings burning like peacocks' plumes in the warm air. We kept on moving. In another couple of minutes flew up another flock, but these were mud-coloured birds. In my perplexity I asked Ghond for an explanation. He said: "Do you not see, O beloved of felicity, the caravan that passed here was loaded with millet? One of their sacks had a hole in it. A few handfuls of millet leaked out on the road before the sack was sewn up. Later on arrived these birds and fed themselves here. We came upon them suddenly and frightened them to flight." "But, O Diadem of Wisdom," I asked, "why do the males look so gorgeous and why are the females mud-coloured? Is nature always partial to the male?"