52 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
dressed by the same hand. When he goes abroad he 
is borne on the shoulders of four sturdy retainers and 
attended by as many more; or, when he chooses to 
go on foot — covered by a chatta,* which glitters with 
its costly array in the sunbeams, and followed by a 
host of servitors of various ranks and designations — 
his walk for pleasure or for exercise is a positive pro- 
cession. 
To the Himalaya hill-men such luxuries are un- 
known ; they, however, in their wild but picturesque 
abodes, perched upon the crest of a mountain hanging 
over the roaring torrent and deriding, as it were, the 
earthquake and the storm, are far higher objects of 
human sympathy than the mere sybarite, who is 
rather the victim of civilization than a living evidence 
of its triumph. In these mountains a solitary dwell- 
ing is seldom seen ; the houses are clustered together 
in tens and twenties upon the faces of the hills, 
dotting their dark shaggy sides and forming compact 
villages which impart an agreeable variety to the 
prospect. Every village has its temple, which is al- 
ways a rude structure, though devoid neither of ele- 
gance nor of just architectural proportions. These 
humble sanctuaries sometimes tower to the height 
of from sixty to seventy feet, and are divided into 
several stories. The means of ascending from one 
story to the other are the same as in the houses, by 
a pole deeply notched, which serves as a ladder. The 
religion of these children of the hills seems to be a 
blending of that of all the different Hindoo sects, 
while their priests appear no better instructed in 
* An umbrella. 
