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Prayag and other cities, until we reached the shrine of Agasta
Munee. Further to the north, there is a mountain peak known
as the Shivapooree (town of Shiva) where I spent the four
months of the cold season ; when, finally parting from the
Brahmachari and the two ascetics, I proceeded back to Kedar,
this time alone and unimpeded in my intentions, and reached
Gupta Kashee.
Search of Yogis (Clairvoyants)
I stayed but a few days there, and went thence to the
Tris ugee Narayan :shrine, visiting on my way Gowree Koond
tank and the cave of Bheemgoopha. Returning in a few days
to Kedar, my favourite place of residence, I there finally
rested, a number of ascetic Brahmin worshippers—called
pandas, and the devotees of the Temple of Kedar of the
Jangam sect,—keeping me company until my previous com-
panions, the Brahmachari with his two ascetics, returned. I
closely watched their ceremonies and doings, and observed all
that was going on with a determined object of learning all
that was to be known about these sects. But once that my
object was fulfilled, I felt a strong desire to visit the surroun-
ding mountains, with their eternal ice and glaciers, in quest of
those true ascetics I had heard of, but as yet had never met
them. I was determined, come what might, to ascertain
whether some of them did or did not live there as rumoured.
But the tremendous difficulties of this mountanious journey
and the excessive cold forced me, unhappily, to first make
inquiries among the Intl tribes and learn what they knew of
such men. Everywhere I encountered either a profound igno-
rance upon the subject or a ridiculous superstition. Having
wandered in vain for about twenty days, disheartened I
retraced my steps, as lonely as before, my companions who had
at first aecompanied me, having left, me two clays after we
had started through dread of the great cold. I then ascended
the Tunganath Peak. There, I found a temple full of idols and
officiating priests, and hastened to descend the peak on the
same day. Before me were two paths, one leading west and
the other, south-west. I chose at random that which led
towards the jungle, and ascended it. Soon after, the path
led me into a dense jungle with rugged rocks and dried-up
waterless brooks. The path stopped abruptly there. Seeing