CHAMBA 15 



not strike us as being very clean or sweet, and we 

 walked on a few steps through a gateway which led 

 into a temple. We were told that we might pitch 

 a tent in the courtyard; there was only room for 

 one, and it was put up close by a large image of 

 Devi. He was a handsome god, made in brass, and 

 he wore a red petticoat. At sundown the villagers 

 saluted him with lights and bells and wild blasts 

 from a big horn. The worshippers arrived before the 

 musical sounds began, and did not need to be called 

 by the sometimes pitiable ding-dak of two cracked 

 bells, such as one often hears in England which 

 makes one pause and think. Theatres or the Sunday 

 Queen's Hall Concert do not need bells to call their 

 congregations. 



We asked the lambardar, the village squire, how 

 far it was to our next camping ground, and if it was 

 a bad road. He said it was near and the road fairly 

 level. It was near about a mile as the crow flies 

 and level for about ten or twelve yards. Then down 

 we went, twisting and turning about, another almost 

 perpendicular hill, and we struggled along from seven 

 o'clock until four. When, dead beat, we reached 

 our destination and turned round, there was the 

 village of Chitrari on the opposite mountain, looking 

 so close that we might almost have chucked a stone 

 on it. 



On our arrival it began to rain, and Will, my 

 husband, and I took refuge in a gentleman's veranda 

 and sat on a muck-heap I can call it nothing else 

 in which Bunker at once rolled. 



The kit came in very late, and no wonder, but our 



