3862.] Notes of a trip from Simla to tlie Spiti Valley. 493 



be no longer in force. How clumsy, however, the whole performance, 

 when compared with the somewhat similar, but vastly more refined 

 deceptions of the inspiration of the Pythoness or Priestess of Apol- 

 lo when delivering the responses of the god. 



" Cui talia fanti 

 Ante fores, subito non vultus, non color unus, 

 Non comptse mansere comae, sed pectus anhelum, 

 Et rabie fera corda tument, majorque videri, % 

 Nee mortale sonans, afflata est numine quando 

 Jam propiore dei." Virg. JEneid. vi. 46. 

 I have subsequently been told that this ceremony is had recourse 

 to, when some special visitation is to be averted, and in the present 

 instance was intended to put a stop to the severe cattle murrain 

 which this year has swept the hills and caused immense loss in Bissahir 

 and Ivunawar, affecting both cattle, sheep and goats ; and these ani- 

 mals had been driven away from most of the villages I passed 

 through in the valleys to the higher mountains, in order to escape the 

 disease, which is most prevalent at lower levels. The houses at Ram- 

 pur are all covered with thick rough slates, and are many of them, 

 built in the form of a square, with an open courtyard in the centre 

 into which the rooms open. Cloth and blankets are manufactured 

 here, and a little trade is carried on by means of mules, of which I 

 noticed a good number grazing in the neighbourhood ; but the bazaar 

 is wretchedly supplied, and nothing but the most ordinary necessaries 

 is procurable. 



llth, Gaora. — The road, after quitting Pampur, keeps for some 

 distance along the Sutlej, and then rises up a steep but picturesque 

 ascent to the village of Gaora, prettily situated on a rocky but well 

 wooded slope. The apricot harvest is now being collected, and every 

 house top is seen covered with the fruit spread out to dry. The finer 

 fruit is dried or eaten fresh, but the poorer is heaped together, till it 

 becomes pulpy, and then thrown away, after extracting the stones, 

 the kernels being reserved to make oil. A familiar plant common 

 round GJ-aora, and recalling many pleasing reminiscences, is the mis- 

 tletoe, which grows here as luxuriantly on apple trees as in any or- 

 chard or park of old England. Blackberries too are tolerably com- 

 mon and very pleasantly flavoured, and also a small berry which grows 

 in astonishing profusion, and is, I think, a species of carissa or some 



