BANGALORE-SHOLAPUR 443
the town and the devotees who had accompanied him, and
reached the spot fixed as the trysting place for the people of
the cobbler community. Here the gathering that he met was
unimaginably vast. He was given a seat in an open shed
where the chiefs of the community performed his pada puja.
Then commenced the programme of darshan. The process-
may be compared to the tale of the locusts and the granary.
Bach man, woman or child of the community was in-
dividually presented to Ramdas and, since there were many
thousands of them assembled, the function of presentation
slowly and regularly continued indefinitely. The brahman
friends who had come with him freely mingled in the
crowd of the so-called untouchables rubbing shoulders
with them. They even accepted the prasad of parched rice
distributed by the cobblers. Time flew. The period allotted
for the function which was one hour exceeded. The
'crowd around him for a furlong was so thick that exit
through it was wellnigh impossible. He consulted some
of the friends as to the hour of the night and learnt it was
eleven o'clock. He was due, as arranged, at the temple at
ten o'clock. Where was escape from the crowd when it was
increasing in proportion minute after minute? He came to
the edge of the verandah which he occupied and saw before
him the huge mass of humantiy clamouring more and more
for darshan. Suddenly he took a leap into their midst,
as one from the deck of a boat takes a jump into the
ocean, and passed through the crowds like a live wire. He
wriggled, jumped, rolled and almost swam through them.
At last he reached the road and then flew like wind,
but he was not going in the direction of the temple. He
visited, at the request of a vakil, his house and remaining
there for a quarter of an hour again raced towards the
temple. As he went forward the whole mass of the
cobbler community followed him. He reached the temple.
A big gas-light was at its entrance and in a vast pandal
in front of the temple were collected over a thousand
56*