My curiosity drew me towards the weird individual. He was over six feet in height, and his slim body had been covered with ashes, giving the dark skin a tinge of ghastly grey. I asked him to come out into the light. His masses of long hair had been plaited into small tresses which were wound round his head in the fashion of a turban--the "_Tatta_." The hair, too, had been whitened, while the long thin beard had been dyed bright red. His eyes were sunken and, apparently to add to the ghastly and decidedly repulsive effect, his forehead and cheeks were plastered with a thick white paint. He seemed half stupefied, and had very little to say for himself. As can be seen by the illustration, he was scantily clothed, but he wore the _Kamarjuri_ or fakir's chain about his loins, and he had a bead bracelet round his arm above the elbow. His waist was encircled with a belt of wooden beads, and a necklace of plaited hair ornamented his neck. He spent his days rolling himself in ashes and enduring self-imposed bodily privations, with a view to attain a state of sanctification. [Illustration: FAKIR RETURNING FROM MANSAROWAR] Rumours had reached me of some curious superstitions prevalent among these mountain folk. "Tell me," I said to Jagat Sing, "are there 'spirits of the mountain' in these ranges? And do the people really believe in them?" "Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, "there certainly are a number of them, and they are often very troublesome, especially to certain people. They are seldom known, however, to kill any one." "Then they are not quite so bad as some human beings," I replied. "Well, sir, they are very bad. They seize sleeping people by the throat with claws like iron, sitting on the chests of their victims." "Does not that sound more like an attack of indigestion?" "No, sir. The ghosts of the mountains are the spirits of people that have not gone to heaven. They are to be found in swarms at night in the forest. The people are terrified of them. They haunt the mountain-tops and slopes, and they can assume the semblance of a cat, a mouse, or any other animal; in fact they are said to frequently change their appearance. Where no man can tread, among rocks and precipices, or in the thick jungle, the spirits seek their retreat, but often they abandon their haunts to seek for men. The person who becomes possessed generally remains in a semi-conscious condition and ejaculates mad cries and unintelligible words. There are men who profess to know charms to draw them out. Some remedies are for that purpose commonly used by the natives with more or less success. A grass called _Bichna_ (nettles) has the faculty of frightening the spirits away when applied on the body of the sufferer, but the most effective remedy is to make pretence to beat with a red-hot iron the person possessed. The spirits seem to fear that more than anything else." "Do the spirits ever speak?" I inquired, interested in the curious superstitions of these hill men.