Our friend the Lalla was soon at his ease with his new guide, whose injunctions to Motee, bidding him "take care," "mind a stone," "lift up his feet," and the like, encouraged the good beast, who now stepped out briskly, while the curious mixture of Oordoo and Mahratta, in which the small gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood was told him by Lukshmun, amused him much. The mile or so which intervened between the village and the temple was soon passed; and as they began to ascend the short rising ground towards the temple and the tree, the latter could be seen in all its wild picturesque detail, and was indeed a striking object. The sun had now broken forth, and its beams shone slantingly through its rugged trunks and gnarled branches, resting brightly upon the glossy foliage sparkling with raindrops, and lighting up every excrescence and furrow of the knotty bark, casting broad shadows on the road below: while a slight parting shower, the large drops of which flashed brightly in the air as they descended, pattered upon the leaves, and spread out into the valley in a silver rain. As the travellers gained the summit, the clear sky beyond to the west not only caused the tree to stand out boldly and grandly against it, but the brightness of the sun dispelled the gloomy associations which the appearance of the place had suggested during the rain. A slight breeze, which had hardly been felt in the hollow, rippled the little pools on the roadway and on the plain beyond the tree, which, level and stony, continued, apparently many miles, in the direction they had to go. Motee paused at the summit of the eminence, and the Lalla could not help stopping him to look back upon the road by which he had come. The bright yellow gleams of the sun shone broadly upon the two villages, and upon the rich green masses of their corn-fields. In the distance both looked pretty and comfortable: and their terraced houses, several white temples, and the dome of a small village mosque shone brightly in the sun. Behind these, and to the south, the plain over which the Lalla had come stretched away for many miles, showing the trees of a village here and there, with the occasional sparkle of a white house or temple among them; and behind all, the great black cloud of the day's rain, upon which there was a rainbow forming of great beauty, and against which a flight of white storks flashed like silver in the sun. Away to the south, the eye followed hollow and rise, undulation after undulation, till they were lost in a farther distance, which melted tenderly into the sky. "It is a fair country, friend, after all," said the Lalla, "though it did not look well in the rain. That plain yonder is in the direction of Beejapoor, perhaps?"