Now began his period of wandering:—the long progress through the Vindhyas, which occupied many months. It was not a time of suffering. Long inured to the greatest hardships of the body, neither fatigue nor hunger dismayed him, nor did the mountain woods and ravines hold for him any terror. The animals of the wild would not molest him. Indeed, he encountered singularly few. The winter weather was pleasant; the sun’s rays mild. With a stout wooden staff in his hand, he journeyed leisurely, halting at any villages he came to, finding welcome and acclaim wherever he arrived; for his appearance proclaimed his estate. It became his regular custom to preach in the market-place; and he never lacked an audience. Perhaps from the memory of Hushka, perhaps out of the depths of his own solitude, he had drawn a kind of picturesque eloquence that rushed upon him as he began his talks, and drew his listeners to him like a magnet. An Indian will listen to any fantastic creed, interest himself in any philosophy, nor deem it heresy to his million gods. It is, with him, either the instinctive knowledge that Truth in any form is good; or else, and more probably, a kind of inconsequential, dreamer’s grasping of all happily expressed maxims that bear the stamp of understanding. At this time, Oman made no attempt to get to the root of his success. It was enough for him that it existed. Joy walked with him on the road; and the stimulus of his popularity seemed to know no reaction. Fortunately, he never felt any desire to take up a permanent abode in these mountain towns. Some of them were of fair size, boasted of a petty ruler, and had some military force. Many had open offices for such as he, where he might have taken a place of rank. Almost all were set in surroundings of great natural beauty, calculated to appeal strongly to Oman’s inbred love of nature. But he never entertained the least idea of settling in one of them. His early purpose, vague as it was, lay enshrined in his heart. He was a pilgrim to the land of vision and memory: a high and holy place, peopled with ghosts of beloved dead, a shrine that all twice-born love to carry in their hearts. For months he hid his desire. He longed constantly to make inquiry of the men among whom he passed, but he always hesitated, fearing to be taken for a fool should he speak of a country the name of which he could not tell, and no part of which he could definitely describe. The winter months drew along pleasantly; but, with the coming of spring and the thought of the hot weather, his restlessness and the vision in his heart grew, till one day he was driven to speech. He was walking through a narrow valley, a long strip of which had been recently ploughed for the first time; and a man was at work there, sowing millet. On the edge of the field Oman paused, till the farmer, bag at belt, right arm working mechanically in and out, came slowly toward him, and then halted. “Fair spring and a rich crop to thee!” said Oman.