164 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
and, continuing his prayers and bell-accompaniment, appeared to be 
exorcising me, or some spirit within me. 
Throughout the worship, and in all the arrangements and imple- 
ments, the mixture of Hindooism, Boodhism, and Catholicism was 
most striking, and of Judaism, too, if the “burning of incense A 
originated, as no doubt it did, with the Jews, though now common to 
almost every form of religion, except the Protestant Christian. The 
Juniper of the Old Testament is believed, however, to be the Spartium 
monospermum, Which I saw growing between Cairo and Suez, in com- 
pany with the Rose of Jericho, Gum Acacia, &e. 1t is the plant generally 
used for charcoal in those and other parts of the eastern land of 
Bible history :—“ Hot coals of Juniper.” The devotions were, of 
course, paid to the gods and saints of the Boodhist calendar : the 
praying-cylinder, conch, and human thigh-bone are essentially Boodh- 
ist, even the bell. The form of the altar, however, is decidedly 
Catholic; so is the conventual system, celibacy of the priests, their 
red gowns, shaven heads, and bare feet, their rosary, and, above all, the 
consecration of the priests by the laying on of hands, and the blessing 
. of the people on certain occasions, when the hand is also placed on the 
heads of the great, and the poorer class are touched with an ivory 
staff, or, if too numerous, blessed en masse, from the gates of the 
temple. All these, and many other particulars, the Lama commu- 
nicated without reserve. He was a very civil person, in short, and 
invited us to come back when one of the great festivals should be held, 
and the holy books would be produced, the people (bringing the first- 
_ fruits of their flocks and their fields) would be blessed, and, above all, the 
: thigh-bone blown with an extra flourish. The latter, he told me, is the 
most prized of all the sacred implements on this side the Snowy Moun- 
tains, because of the scantiness of the population, and their short stature, 
large bones being much coveted for the purpose. In sooth, it takes “a 
pretty gentleman”* to furnish such a bone as the Lama of Simonbong 
possessed. Before our departure he presented us with a bamboo-work 
bowl, thickly varnished and waterproof, containing half-fermented coru 
and millet. This mixture, called Murwa, is invariably offered to the 
traveller, either in the state of fermented grain, or more commonly in 
r It is reported in Darjeeling, that one of the first Europeans buried at this 
station, being a tall man, was disinterred by the resurrectionist Bhoteas, for his 
trumpet-bones. 
