The World Outside My Window Page 7

  The flowers also float on the surface of the water at the end of long stalks. They open after sunrise, and are visited by insects that are attracted by the colour. But the insects only find pollen, as the plant does not secrete honey. Towards evening the flower closes again to protect itself from cold and damp.

  When the small fruit of the water lily ripens and bursts, the seeds are carried wherever the water takes them until their protective bubble bursts. Then, being heavier than water, the seeds sink to the bottom and begin to form a new plant, often at some considerable distance from the old one.

  Wild Flowers Near a Mountain Stream

  Below my house is a forest of oak and maple and Himalayan rhododendron. A path twists its way down through the trees, over an open ridge where red sorrel grows wild, and then steeply down through a tangle of thorn bushes, vines and rangal bamboo. At the bottom of the hill the path leads on to a grassy verge, surrounded by wild rose. A stream runs close by the verge, tumbling over smooth pebbles, over rocks worn yellow with age, on its way to the plains and the little Song River and finally to the sacred Ganges.

  When I first discovered the stream it was April and the wild roses were flowering, small white blossoms lying in clusters. There were primroses on the hill slopes, and an occasional late-flowering rhododendron provided a splash of red against the dark green of the hill.

  The St John’s Wort was flowering profusely on small shrubs.

  Many legends have grown around this flower of pure dazzling sunshine which takes its family name—Hypericaceae—from the great Titan god Hyperion, who was the father of the Greek god of the sun, Apollo.

  Is a friend of yours insane? Then get him to drink the sap from the leaves and stalks of the St John’s Wort. He will be well again.

  Are you hurt? If your wounds do not heal, take the juice and put it on the wound; and if the bleeding will not stop, take more juice.

  Is your father bald? Then he must rise early one morning and bathe his head with the dew from St John’s Wort, and his hair will grow again.

  Do you live on the Isle of Man? Then beware! Tread not on the St John’s Wort after sunset, lest a fairy horseman arise and carry you off. He will land you anywhere.

  These are all English or Irish superstitions, but the St John’s Wort is as profuse in the lower ranges of the Himalayas as it is anywhere in Europe.

  A spotted forktail, a bird of the Himalayan streams, was much in evidence during those early visits. It moved nimbly over the boulders with a fairy tread, and continually wagged its tail.

  In May and June, when the hills are always brown and dry, it remained cool and green near the stream, where ferns and maidenhair and long grasses continued to thrive. Downstream I found a cave with water dripping from the roof, the water spangled gold and silver in the shafts of sunlight that pushed through the slits in the cave roof. Few people came there. Sometimes a milkman or a coal-burner would cross the stream on his way to a village; but the nearby hill station’s summer visitors had not discovered this haven of wild and green things.

  The monkeys—langurs, with white and silver-grey fur, black faces and long swishing tails—had discovered the place, but they kept to the trees and sunlit slopes. They grew quite accustomed to my presence, and carried on with their work and play as though I did not exist. The young ones scuffled and wrestled like boys, while their parents attended to each other’s toilets, stretching themselves out on the grass, beautiful animals with slim waists and long sinewy legs, and tails full of character. They were clean and polite, much nicer than the red monkeys of the plains.

  During the rains the stream became a rushing torrent, bushes and small trees were swept away, and the friendly murmur of the water became a threatening boom. I did not visit the spot very often. There were leeches in the long grass, and they would fasten themselves on to my legs and feast on my blood. But it was always worthwhile tramping through the forest to feast my eyes on the foliage that sprang up in tropical profusion—soft, spongy moss; great stag ferns on the trunks of trees; mysterious and sometimes evil-looking orchids; the climbing convolvulus opening its purple secrets to the morning sun; and the wood sorrel, or oxalis—so named because of the oxalic acid derived from its roots—with its clover-like leaflets, which fold down like umbrellas at the first sign of rain.

  And then, after a November hailstorm, it was winter, and one could not lie on the frostbitten grass. The sound of the stream was the same, but I missed the birds.

  It snowed—the snow lay heavy on the branches of the oak trees and piled up in the culverts—and the grass and the ferns and wild flowers were pressed to sleep beneath a cold white blanket; but the stream flowed on, pushing its way through and under the whiteness, towards another river, towards another spring.

  All Is Life

  Whether by accident or design,

  We are here.

  Let’s make the most of it, my friend.

  Make happiness our pursuit,

  Spread a little sunshine here and there.

  Enjoy the flowers, the breeze,

  Rivers, sea and sky,

  Mountains and tall waving trees.

  Greet the children passing by,

  Talk to the old folk. Be kind, my friend.

  Hold on, in times of pain and strife:

  Until death comes, all is life.