168 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



behaviour of their flowing robes as they turned to stare in 

 astonishment at the saheb and his strangely attired attendants 

 pegging away past them up the hill with double-barrelled 

 rifles on their shoulders. Signs of religious fervour there were 

 none. All were talking and laughing gaily now and then 

 shouting out " Jae, Jae, Mahadeo ! " (victory to the Great 

 God). The cry raised by each as he took the first step on the 

 hill was taken up by all the forward groups, till it died away 

 in a confused hum among the crowd who had already reached 

 the shrine, far up in the bowels of the hill. Gloom and terror 

 are the last sentiments in the religious feeling of the Hindu, 

 even when approaching the shrine of the deity who has been 

 called the Destroyer in their trinity of gods. It is considered 

 sufficiently meritorious to perform such a pilgrimage as this 

 at all, without further adding to its misery by wailing and 

 gnashing of teeth. They believe it will do them good, because 

 the priests say so ; but they do not think it necessary to weep 

 over it, and " boil their peas" when they can. But at the 

 best it is a hard clamber for those unused to toil. The old 

 and decrepit, the fat trader, and the delicate high-bred 

 woman, have to halt and rest often and again as they labour 

 up the hill. The path was a zig-zag ; and at every turn some 

 convenient stone or rocky *ledge had been worn smooth by 

 these restings of generations of pilgrims. 



For a long way before the shrine was reached the path was 

 lined on either side by rows of religious mendicants and de- 

 votees, spreading before them open cloths to receive alms, 

 clothed in ashes picked out by the white horizontal paint- 

 marks of the followers of Siva, with girdle of twisted rope 

 and long felted locks, hollow-eyed and hideous, jingling a huge 

 pair of iron tongs with moveable rings on them, and shouting 

 out the praises of Mahadeo. The clang of a large fine-toned 



