492 
Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 
tion of rocky lake barriers along the course of the Sutlej, but they are 
rather to be regarded as a guage whereby we may estimate the extent 
to which the Sutlej lias deepened its channel by the ordinary process 
of erosion during the most recent geologic periods. Cataclysms 
produced by landslips or the descent of glaciers into a river bed, 
however devastating in their effects, are quite incapable of giving 
rise to such regular deposits of sand and shingle as constitute the 
elevated terraces.along the Sutlej ; neither have I anywhere seen de¬ 
posits of such a nature as to induce the belief of their lacustrine 
origin, as they every where present the appearance of ordinary river 
sands and shingle, such as in the present day are forming in existing 
river channels. In the village is a Hindoo temple in a ruinous con¬ 
dition, with images of Bulls and Lingums, and the whole place pre¬ 
sents an aspect of dilapidation and decay. 
1 Qth, Bampur. —Passed the village of Datnaga, near which the 
Sutlej is spanned by a jhula bridge. A good deal of cultivation ex¬ 
ists hereabouts, and transplanting rice was being carried on vigorous¬ 
ly. The town of Bampur is snugly situated within a bend of the river, 
which here rushes impetuously through a narrow rocky bed, hurrying 
down numberless pine logs at a rate of some six miles an hour. 
Above the town are some commodious native houses, a temple and 
a large, well built room facing the river, for the convenience of travel¬ 
lers. In the temple are two figures of Devi and some other god¬ 
dess, with silver faces and a profusion of long hair. When I was 
there, these images were brought out and paraded, with music and 
attendants waving chouries over them. They were carried on a litter 
placed on two very long and elastic poles, supported by a man at 
either end, after the fashion of a sedan chair ; and at intervals the 
bearers would, by means of the elastic poles, jerk the images violent¬ 
ly up and down, causing their long ringlets to fly about their ears in 
a mad fashion, to the intense delight of the spectators, comprising 
many of the elders and most of the juveniles of Rampur. This 
strange manoeuvre was, I think, a clumsy attempt to represent the 
inspiration and actual presence of the divinity in her idol, thereby 
imparting to it life and motion, as in Bengal the idol of Kali is, 
during the festival of the Durga Pujah, supposed to be animated by the 
spirit of the goddess, and is thrown away uncared for, when the “ real 
presence” (to borrow the appropriate catholic phrase) is supposed to 
