9216 DR. HOOKER’S MISSION TO INDIA. 
alone are absent; these I beheld in their stern glory during the An- 
tarctic Voyage; otherwise the Himalaya presents an epitome of al] that 
is grand and varied in nature. 
On the following morning we pursued a path to the bed of the 
river. At an angle of the road is a rude Buddhist monument, a pile 
of slate rocks, with an attempt at the mysterious hemisphere at top. A 
few flags or banners and slabs of slate are inscribed with “ Om Mani 
Padmi hom.” Placed on a jutting angle of the spur, backed with the 
pine-clad hills and flanked by the torrent on either hand, the spot was 
wild and picturesque ; and I could not but gaze, with a feeling of deep 
interest, on these feeble traces of a religion which numbers more 
votaries than perhaps any two combined on the face of the globe. 
. Buddhism in some form is, you know, the predominating creed, from 
Siberia to the plains of India, from the Caspian steppes to Japan, 
throughout China, Burmah, Ava, a great part of the Malayan Archi- 
pelago, and Ceylon. Its associations enter into every book of travels 
over these vast regions, with Buddha, Dhurma, Sunga, Jos, Fo, and 
praying-wheels. The mind is arrested by the names, the imagination 
captivated by its dark symbols; and though I could not worship 
in the grove, it was impossible to deny to the inscribed “Om Mani 
Padmi hom” such a tribute as the first glimpse commands of objects 
which have long been familiar to our minds, but not previously offered 
to our senses. My head-Lepcha went further :—to a due observance 
. of demon-worship he unites a deep reverence for the Lamas, and 
. he venerates their symbols, rather as ¢heirs, than those of their God. 
. He walked round the pile of stones three times from left to right, 
repeating his “Om Mani," &e. then stood before it with his head 
hung down and long queue streaming behind, and concluded by the 
votive offering of three pine-cones. When done, he looked round at 
me, nodded, smirked, aud elevated the angles of his little turned-up 
eyes, and seemed to think we were safe from all the perils of the 
valleys yet to be explored. 
In the gorge of the Rungect, the heat was intolerable, though the 
thermometer did not rise above 95?. The mountains leave but a narrow 
channel between them, here and there bordered by a belt of strong soil, 
supporting a towering crop of Saccharum, Caladiums, and Wrightia 
mollissima, Terminalia, Pentapteris, and Shorea. The troubled river, 
about eighty yards across, rages along over a gravelly bed, margined 
with slate-rocks, on which grow a curious dwarf Ficus and Croton, 
