This insect--the
balm cricket--is in appearance a burlesque, just such a house fly as you
might imagine would be introduced in a pantomime; and its cry is as
loud and incessant as it is peculiar. To describe it, fancy to begin
with a number of strange chirps, and that every few seconds, one of
those cogged wheels and spring toys that you buy at fairs to delude
people into the belief that their coats are being torn--is passed
rapidly down the back, with occasionally momentary interruption in the
middle of its course, while between each scratch you hear a mew of a
distant cat--another cat purring loudly all the time, and any number of
grasshoppers chirping to conclude with a running down of the most
impetuous and noisy alarum, and then silence--a silence almost painful
by contrast--until it begins again. Such is the song of the Cicada in
the Himalayan forests. I wonder every Sunday if they miss me at
Peshawur; for I was organist to the church before I left, and I doubt if
there is anybody to take my place. I wish I had the instrument here now
to peal forth to the hills and the wondering Kashmirians Handel's
sublime "Hallelujah Chorus" or "The Marvellous Works" of Haydn. What can
be more inspiring than the grand old church music we possess, bequeathed
to us by composers of immortal memory.
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