Page:Himalayan journals; or, Notes of a naturalist in Bengal, the Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, the Khasia Mountains, &c- Volume I.djvu/60

  to the road, leaving Mr. Hadclon and myself, who took up our quarters under a tamarind-tree.

In the evening a very gaudy poojah was performed. The car, filled with idols, was covered with gilding and silk, and drawn by noble bulls, festooned and garlanded. A procession was formed in front; and it opened into an avenue, up and down which gaily dressed dancing- boys paced or danced, shaking castanets, the attendant worshippers singing in discordant voices, beating tom-toms, cymbals, &c. Images (of Boodh apparently) abounded on the car, in front of which a child was placed. The throng of natives was very great and perfectly orderly, indeed, sufficiently apathetic : they were remarkably civil in explaining what they understood of their own worship.

At 2 p.m., the thermometer was only 65°, though the day was fine, a strong haze obstructing the sun's rays ; at 6 p.m., 58°; at 9 p.m., 56°, and the grass cooled to 49°. Still there was no dew, though the night was starlight.

Having provided doolies, or little bamboo chairs slung on four men's shoulders, in which I put my papers and boxes, we next morning commenced the ascent ; at first through woods of the common trees, with large clumps of bamboo, over slaty rocks of gneiss, much inclined and sloping away from the mountain. The view from a ridge 500 feet high was superb, of the village, and its white domes half buried in the forest below, the latter of which continued in sight for many miles to the northward. Descending to a valley some ferns were met with, and a more luxuriant vegetation, especially of Urticece. Wild bananas formed a beautiful, and to me novel feature in the woods.

The conical hills of the white ants were very abundant. The structure appears to me not an independent one, but the debris of clumps of bamboos, or of the trunks of large