THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 69 



very favourable impression upon me, despite his pecu- 

 liarity, if such it may be called ; and my nocturnal 

 interview with him, under huge trees, in the middle 

 of a dark wet night, remains a very curious and 

 pleasant recollection. 



The other incident was of a more serious character, 

 and illustrated a danger which every year carries off a 

 certain number of the hillmen. Standing below the 

 bungalow at Serahan, I noticed some men, who were 

 ascending to their village, racing against each other 

 on the grassy brow of a precipice that rose above 

 the road leading to Gaura. One of them unfortu- 

 nately lost his footing, slipped a little on the edge, 

 and then went over the precipice, striking the road 

 below with a tremendous thud, after an almost clear 

 fall of hundreds of feet, and then rebounding from 

 off the road, and falling about a hundred feet into a 

 ravine below. I had to go round a ravine some way 

 in order to reach him, so that when I did so he was 

 not only dead, but nearly cold. The curious thing is, 

 that there was no external bruise about him. The 

 mouth and nostrils were filled with clotted blood, 

 but otherwise there was no indication even of the 

 cause of his death. The rapidity of his descent 

 through the air must have made him so far insen- 

 sible as to prevent that contraction of the muscles 

 which is the great cause of bones being broken ; and 

 then the tremendous concussion when he struck the 

 road must have knocked every particle of life out of 



