14 AN EERIE EXPERIENCE. 



tired after my day's journey, was not long in turning into bed, 

 and was soon soundly slumbering. I must have been asleep 

 some time, when I was awakened by a hand, as it were, touch- 

 ing my foot. The room was dark as Erebus, and I had no 

 matches at hand wherewith to strike a light. Nor was there 

 anybody within hail to bring one, for I was alone in the 

 house, all the servants having left it for their own quarters, 

 which, as is usual in India, were outside ; so there was nothing 

 for it but to lie still and try to collect my somewhat confused 

 ideas. My first thought was of the last words of my host at 

 dinner regarding the reputation of the house ; my next was 

 that perhaps he might be playing a joke, for it was well 

 known how dearly he loved one. Meantime I could feel 

 fingers, as I imagined, moving slowly and stealthily up my 

 leg and on to my body. I must confess I now underwent 

 that most unpleasant flesh-creeping sensation which most 

 persons at some time or another have experienced. And 

 when the seeming fingers at last reached my head, and I felt 

 them stirring my hair, which by this time was assuming an 

 upright position, I could bear it no longer. Throwing off the 

 clothes, I sprang from the bed, but only to hear a rustle on 

 the floor matting as my nocturnal visitor pattered off in the 

 dark. Little more sleep did I get that night, for the un- 

 earthly noises which went on through the house were enougli 

 to have awakened the seven sleepers of Ephesus. The place 

 was haunted, and no mistake, in one way at any rate: but 

 after that night never a ghost did I hear or see there nothing 

 but the rats, with which it was prodigiously infested, rampag- 

 ing about it ; and to these, after a time, I got quite accus- 

 tomed. Next morning at breakfast we had a good laugh over 

 my mysterious experience ; but whether ghost or rat was my 

 visitor that night, I have never to this day been able to 

 determine. 



The natives of the Himalayas, like all mountain races, are 

 very superstitious, and particularly so about hunting. If a 



