46 
INDIA 
mind the High Places of Baal. Such are to be found on any 
easily accessible peak, and more especially at the top of every pass, 
or Kotal. From a pole stuck into a chink in the stones there usually 
flies a small flag, on which prayers may be inscribed, though more 
often it is a mere rag. The pious—or it may be conscious-stricken— 
mountaineer here offers, with muttered prayer, a handful of flour or 
rice, and adds a rag to those adorning the neighbouring bush; in 
rare cases he goes so far as to offer a brass pot, or “lota.” This 
was indeed a fitting place to appease the unseen powers of nature! 
There, far away to the North, and extending for scores of miles to 
East and West, lie the everlasting “Snows.” But between us and 
those white-crested mountains lies a mighty sea of ever-changing 
blue and purple ; a sea in which the hollows of the waves are valleys 
through which run mighty rivers, the crests are mountain ranges 
the equals of the Alps—for the snow we see is all above the 16,000 
ft. level, and some of yon peaks touch 23,000 ft. Truly it is well 
described by one word, Himalaya, “ The Abode of Snow.” 
The troops of butterflies seemed to rejoice in the glorious panorama. 
The brilliant Argynnis issaea was common, and the dingy Vanessa 
hashmirensis quite abundant—possibly some of the more distant 
white peaks to the left arise from its name-place, Kashmir. Golias 
fieldii was also in large numbers, a female exhibiting a symmetrical 
injury to the hind-wings very suggestive of a peck by a bird. Precis 
orithyia was there too, but Aulocera swaha was conspicuous by its 
absence, though we had seen it at Baghi, down below. Of a 
Humming-bird moth, Rhopalopsyche nycteris , Koll., much smaller 
than ours, I netted three specimens, one at the flowers of a Delphinium, 
The little Herbula cespitalis, Schiff., reminded me of home. The 
Blues were represented by Cyaniris singalensis . A male Terias hecabe 
was of the wet-season form. I noted that this species is very easy to 
catch, and is brilliant on the wing ; also that when settled on a shrub 
or flower it is usually extremely conspicuous, but not so when it 
chooses as its resting-place a certain low plant with oval leaves 
fading to a yellow tint; then the rounded form of the wings greatly 
aids its concealment. An old English friend, Euxoa corticea, Schiff., 
was taken flying in the sunshine. I had several exciting chases 
after a big yellow Swallow-tail, and eventually secured one—my 
first Papilio ! It proved to be our machaon , Linn., var. asiatica , Menet. 
Here, as in Japan, it scorns fens and dykes, glorying in mountain 
tops. On the way down to Narkanda several Pyrameis indica 
disputed the path with our party. 
The great resemblance to European forms presented by the bulk 
