I'AIRIES. 173 



our " harvest liome," and thanks are 

 returned to the fairies for the safe gathering 

 in of the crops. Much eating, drinking, and 

 dancing goes on, but the feast is brought 

 to a close at an early hour, without either 

 licentiousness or excess. I am told that 

 the Puharries occasionally get drunk, but 

 no case ever came under my own obser- 

 vation. 



I have used the term fairies, for there is 

 no api^ellation that comes nearer the mark 

 than our own familiar name, in describing 

 the inferior order of supernatural beings in 

 whom the Puharries believe. Sickness and 

 health, good fortune and bad, accidents and 

 successes, are all ascribed to their influence, 

 and many are the sacrifices performed to 

 propitiate them. Sheep and goats are the 

 usual oflerings, but on one of my trips I 

 missed a magnificent walnut-tree, probably 

 the finest in the Himalayas, — it had been 

 cut down, since my last visit, in order to 

 propitiate the fairies, to whose malign in- 

 fluence sickness, which had prevailed for 



