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IN BLACK AND WHITE
ON THE CITY WALL
PREFACE
In Northern India stood a monastery called TheChubára of Dhunni Bhagat. No one rememberedwho or what Dhunni Bhagat had been. He hadlived his life, made a little money and spent it all,as every good Hindu should do, on a work ofpiety—the Chubára. That was full of brick cells,gaily painted with the figures of Gods and kingsand elephants, where worn-out priests could sitand meditate on the latter end of things: the pathswere brick-paved, and the naked feet of thousandshad worn them into gutters. Clumps of mangoessprouted from between the bricks; great pipaltrees overhung the well-windlass that whined allday; and hosts of parrots tore through the trees.Crows and squirrels were tame in that place, forthey knew that never a priest would touch them.
The wandering mendicants, charm-sellers, andholy vagabonds for a hundred miles round used tomake the Chub