benighted at this haunted spot and spent the night
near the cemetery. During the night the son rose
and, going forth in' obedience to a call of nature, saw
the dreaded ghost, returned gibbering with fright
and died in the morning, although apparently up till
then in perfect health. To speak with levity about
ghosts and haunted spots in the presence of death
and a heart-broken father was out of the question, but
this anecdote shows the wonderful hold that the spirit
world has upon the hillman’s mind, even in the very
precincts of Western civilisation and of a military
cantonment full of troops. And this is the case not
only with the uneducated but with those also from
whom we should expect something better. The reader
can now, perhaps, understand how it was that when, two
years ago, a leopard entered in broad daylight a house
quite close to the law courts at Almora, and the Joint
Magistrate rose from trying a case and shot it in the
ordinary course of events, returning afterwards to
continue the legal argument, native opinion pointed
out that the leopard had really personified a deity,
and had come to visit its temple near the place where
it was shot, and that the wrath of- heaven would
certainly descend in consequence of the death. And
so, sure enough, when cholera broke out in the town
shortly after, and many people died, there were
hundreds, and among them the educated, who saw
cause and effect quite clearly.
When this is the state of mind of the ordinary hill-
man, even though well educated and familiar with
Western ideas, what can be said of the Bhotias, who
live in the wildest surroundings, where the awful
solitude overwhelms the mind and fantastic^ forms
and eerie sounds seem to speak of an ever-present
spirit world, and to compel men to see the supernatural
in every bush, and rock, and avalanche;
where the soft soughing of the breeze is the divine
music of heaven and the shrill blast of the tempest
the unholy carnival of monstrous fiends; where the
gathering gloom of evening reveals a lurking spirit at
each bend of the path, or a demon, scarce concealed,
behind each boulder; and as the shades of night
engulf the lonely traveller, what heart so strong as
not to dread the following spectre that dogs the steps
and seems ever ready to drag the timid mortal into
the yawning abyss where, thousands of feet below,
the hungry river fights the opposing rocks ?