Every one who comes is
considered entitled to a good meal and a night's lodging; and he has
to feed and lodge about a hundred a day. He is a man of very pleasing
manners and gentle disposition, and everybody likes him. He was on
his return from the town of Ludhaura,[3] where he had been, at the
invitation of the Raja of Orchha, to assist at the celebration of the
marriage of Salagram with the Tulasi,[4] which there takes place
every year under the auspices and at the expense of the Raja, who
must be present. 'Salagrams'[5] are rounded pebbles which contain the
impressions of ammonites, and are washed down into the plains of
India by the rivers from the limestone rocks in which these shells
are imbedded in the mountains of the Himalaya.[6] The Spiti valley[7]
contains an immense deposit of fossil ammonites and belemnites[8] in
limestone rocks, now elevated above sixteen thousand feet above the
level of the sea; and from such beds as these are brought down the
fragments, which, when rounded in their course, the poor Hindoo takes
for representatives of Vishnu, the preserving god of the Hindoo
triad.
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