380 THE PILGRIMAGE TO BADRINATH. 



up the Alaknanda for a mile or so to where it also is spanned 

 by another sanga. Thence it proceeds along the western 

 side of the latter river. There were flights of rudely built 

 steps to ascend and descend on the steep acclivities, often 

 nearly overhanging the river rushing and chafing along its 

 rocky bed below. In such places the narrow track some- 

 times became quite choked with the unceasing stream of 

 pilgrims, which in the distance resembled a string of ants 

 creeping tortuously to and fro on the face of a wall. There 



Temple of Badrinath. 



were lame and blind, decrepit and infirm, old and young, even 

 to the babe in arms; Hindoo nobles; "jogees" (religious 

 mendicants), with matted locks and orange-coloured sheets, 1 

 or with their nude bodies looking hideous from the white 

 ashes with which they were smeared over from head to foot, 

 and sometimes doing penance by holding an arm straight 

 upward until it had become permanently stiffened in that 



1 This orange-coloured garment represents the winding-sheet in which the 

 bodies of defunct Hindoos are cremated, and indicates, I suppose, that its 

 wearer is dead to the pomps and vanities of the world. 



