A peculiar feature of the annual fair is the procession from the shrine in the cave to the summit of the hill, a few hundred yards off, upon which is a stone shed and a cairn. The men who carry the stone idol in this procession are all stark-naked,—a very unusual case with Hindoos,[[18]]—and so also are many who follow in the procession.
Another feature of the festival is that strange custom which one finds in most countries of Asia—the annual stone-fights. About a thousand men collect in an open space, and are divided into legions of five hundred each, a short distance from each other. When both parties have amassed in their respective camps a suitable amount of ammunition in the way of stones, collected in mounds, and also a good supply carried on the person, the combatants draw nearer and nearer in a line. At a signal the fight begins, and they fling stones at one another by means of slings and forked sticks, whirling the missiles through the air with terrific force. The more people get injured the fiercer becomes the fight, till the ammunition fails,—and it lasts a long time, because the combat is, as it were, a mere exchange of ammunition.
The wives and daughters and sweethearts of the combatants view the melée with trembling hearts from a raised point of vantage well out of range of the missiles. The fighters get to such close quarters that pounding one another on the head with stones is not uncommon, and it is only when all are worn, wounded, aching, and blinded by the [[19]]dust and blood that an armistice is called. Hardly any one escapes unhurt, but no one ever complains, no matter how serious their wounds may be, as they believe that no one can actually be killed in these sacred fights. As each man falls senseless to the ground, he is conveyed to the temple where the following treatment awaits him. The Brahmin priests beat and rub him well with a bunch of nettles. It is said to be an infallible remedy.
No ill-feeling is said to remain between the legions after the fight is over, and with bandaged heads and limbs they all join in a common bura kana—a big meal.
The fights generally begin by the children being made to fight first, the elders joining in when well excited over their sons’ doings. [[20]]
CHAPTER III
The trail, which had made a somewhat circuitous deviation southward of Debi Dhura, began to turn to the east, and soon after towards the north-east. After leaving Debi Dhura it brought the traveller to the summit of the granitic range which the trail followed all along, amidst country thickly wooded with oaks, rhododendrons, pines, and deodars. The whole journey was made at high elevations, through dense forests, with a feeling of damp about everything; the trees, soaked and dripping, standing like black giants in the penetrating white mist that enveloped us. One could not see more than twenty or thirty yards off.
In many places the trail was narrow, and it had been built by blasting the steep rocky mountainside and filling whatever gaps there were with a wall supported on outstanding boulders below. [[21]]The trail was in such places hardly more than three or four feet wide, and no parapet of any kind existed to prevent unlucky travellers from falling over into the precipice several hundred feet in depth at the side.
In fair weather, when the trail was dry, and when a trustworthy animal was being ridden, there would, of course, be no danger of any kind; but when I went through, the path was slimy and slippery, and my pony—although excellent and sure-footed, quite like a goat on a mountain trail—possessed the bad habit of shying at anything moving upon the ground, and particularly at the whitewashed milestones, when he would invariably make a few contortions, and end up by standing on his hind legs with a final leap forward when the whip was duly applied upon his back.