3862.] Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. 493 
be no longer in force. How clumsy, however, the whole performance, 
when compared with the somewhat similar, hut 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 comse, sed pectus anhelum, 
Et rabie fera corda tument, majorque videri, 
Nec 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. 
17 tli, Gaora .—The road, after quitting Rampur, 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 Gaora, 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 
