170 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



fill from the stream, seal up, and return to the pilgrim, who 

 then proceeds to make the tour of the holy places on the 

 MdMdeo hills. This takes him the whole of the remainder of 

 the day. At each place a cocoa nut is offered ; and little piles 

 of stones, like children's card -houses, are erected at some point 

 of their peregrinations to signify a desire for a mansion in 

 Kail as the heaven of Siva. Many of the places which 

 should in theory be visited are very inaccessible, such as the 

 top of the Chaoradeo peak, and very few of the pilgrims 

 make the whole round. 



I sat for some hours in the ravine sketching the entrance 

 to the cave and the picturesque throng about it. A few 

 sulky looks from the professional religionists, and a drawing 

 closer of their garments by the ladies, when they saw my 

 occupation, were all the notice I met with. The bright 

 colouring which gives such a charm to congregations of 

 Hindus was heightened by the general holiday attire of the 

 worshippers on this occasion j and, in the mellowed light from 

 above, which percolated rather than shone through the canopy 

 of foliage, would have formed a subject worthy of a much 

 better artist than myself. It was hard to believe that all this 

 gay gathering had come in a day, and would go in another, 

 leaving the valley again to the bison and the jungle-fowL 

 Unlike most shrines where such pilgrimages occur, no one 

 remains to look after the god when the pilgrims are gone. The 

 bell is unslung and taken away, being evidently looked upon 

 as the only thing of value in the place. When 1 first visited 

 the cave I found that the Great God had been better attended to 

 by the wild beasts of the forest than by his human worshippers 

 a panther or hyena having evidently been in the daily habit 

 of leaving the only offering he could make before his shrine ! 



It is a common idea amongst Europeans that the worship 



