160 IK THE VISION OF GOD
the centre of the room. In. silence he spent the night in the
sadlm's company.
Early next day he asked the sadhu's permission to
leave the place. He questioned Ram das by gestures why he
did not carry any water-vessel. Ramdas replied it was
Rani's will. Out of the dehris that lay scattered in his room,
he ferreted out a neat little gourd, fashioned into a portable
water-pot. He placed the gourd before Ramdas and signed
that he should take it. He demurred, but the sadhu was
not to be foiled. His emphatic gesticulations denoted that
Ramdas should never go without a water-pot. Ramdas at
last submitted and took the gourd and bidding him
adieu left the place.
Coming down he joined the dark sadhu who was wait-
ing for him. The other saclhns had left earlier. Ramdas and
the dark sadhu proceeded towards Bharat Coop. On the
way they came across the huts of cultivators* Here they
were entertained by the poor humble villagers with a meal
of rice ami curds. In the evening they reached Bharat
Coop.
Here was a large well with the branches of an ancient
and gigantic peepal tree. Close by, hanging over it, there
were temples of Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharat and
Hanuman. They settled for the night beneath the tree on the
platform around the well. Next morning, after a bath from
the well water, they started again. !No\v the dark sadhu
parted from him.
Left alone, Samclas roamed wildly in the jungles for
three days, stopping in the nights either in the ruins or
under the trees, and subsisting on mowah flowers, picked
up from heneath the trees. Mowah is a white flower, shaped
like the rose bud with thick juicy petals and is sweet to
the ta&te.
Baiadafchad come to Chitrakut a week before the Ram-
navami celebrations. There were yet two days more for the
festival. As he wandered he again came on the parikrama or