In the Far East: A Narrative of Exploration and Adventure in Cochin-China, Cambodia, Laos, and SiamAdams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
History
In the Far East: A Narrative of Exploration and Adventure in Cochin-China, Cambodia, Laos, and Siam
Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
Indochina -- Description and travel
A bonze of indescribable holiness, who loved to offer up his prayers
in the high places of earth, climbed the mountain one day in order to
make his devotions on its lofty summit. Despite his sanctity, however,
he was human; and as the mountain was of great elevation and equal
barrenness, he soon grew faint with hunger, but more particularly with
thirst. Disdainful, like all sages, of purely physical needs, he had
not taken the precaution of providing himself with these precious
necessaries of food and drink, which are the first thought of ordinary
mortals. What was he to do? He began to pray; and lo! as he prayed, an
enormous rock, which reared its dark front before him, was suddenly
cleft open, and revealed to his delighted gaze a crystal spring falling
into a basin of stone. From that time the well has never ceased to pour
out abundant waters, which heal all the diseases of humanity;--though,
strange to say, men, women, and children still die in Cochin-China!
Ten minutes’ climbing brought Dr. Morice face to face with this
perpetual marvel. His companions hastened to drink copious draughts of
the fresh cold water; but Dr. Morice, rejecting the legend, and having
less confidence than he ought to have had in temperance principles,
resorted to his pocket flask, poured out a glass of French wine, and
drank to the majesty of the glorious mountain.
[Illustration: SCENE AT TAYNINH.]
* * * * *
On another occasion Dr. Morice took part in an exciting adventure,
which had a painful issue. A tiger, whose depredations had become
intolerable, having carried off the best dog of one of the best
hunters of the country, it was decided that he must undergo immediate
and condign punishment.
The tiger is not often hunted in Cochin-China, where the elephant, that
living fortress, does not place at the disposal of the European its
high shoulders and formidable tusks. The inhabitants generally resort
to snares.
~TIGER-HUNTING.~
~THE SOLDIER AND THE TIGER.~
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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