A FUNERAL BY WATER. 113 His body personal appearance was squalid and miserable. was daubed all over with blue mud; his hair-long, matted, discolored to a yellowish brown with exposure-dangled in all directions. His beard was bushy and black, and the rest of his face so disfigured with hair that it might be said to be all beard. Not the slightest motion in one of his limbs, nor in a muscle of his countenance, was perceptible, He was altogether without clothing, except a slip of brown stuff about the loins. He wore the coita, or sacred thread, indicating that he was a Brahmin. Night and day, it is understood, the wretched sufferer (if, indeed, his stat can be called one of suffering) maintains, without any variation, this paralyzing position. However, at the contrary end of the platform are four upright bamboos, with a mat suspended upon them, forming such a rude canopy as the Hindoos often sleep under; and at a short distance there is another shelter of the same kind; so that it is not improbable the crafty mendicant (like many of that fraternity in all countries, who live by their miseries, but know how to relax from them at due seasons), occasionally at least, takes the liberty to slip out of his pillory, and enjoy a restorative nap, under the darkness of night. It may be a question whether he is most a dupe to his own fanaticism, or a deceiver of the credulity of others, on whose charitable contributions he subsists. After all, it may be no great penance for an idle fellow to loll, day and night, in a wooden frame, especially if he be untroubled with thought— which Hindoo abstraction necessarily implies and which, without a quibble, is nothing at all if it be not nothing at all, requiring the utter absorption of every faculty and feelingthe consummation of felicity to which Brahma and Budhu alone, of all the three hundred and thirty millions of gods of India, have attained; with the ineffable privilege of drawing their true followers into the same beatitude of stupefaction. July 14. A funeral by water, at which we were present to-day, may be recorded, in contrast with the funeral by fire already described. Perceiving a small company of persons, carrying a corpse among them, on the shore, we landed from our pinnace. The body, shrouded with a figured shawl, which left the feet alone bare, was that of a woman. A female, who accompanied the corpse, assisted. the bearers to lay it under the water, leaving the face, only above the surface. After this immersion it was drawn out, and extended along the bank, with the feet close to the last ripple of the stream. At our request, the husband uncovered the face, and showed what he had put into the mouth—a mixture of gold, silver, sugar, and ghee, to the quantity of half a tea-spoonful. This was a kind of viaticum, or passport, to the other world. The head and shoulders were then strewn over with dry grass and palm-leaves, to which the son of the deceased, a young man about twenty-two years of age, set fire with a whisp of straw; when the family and friends walked six times round the corpse, till the momentary blaze went out of itself, having done no apparent injury; a Brahmin, meanwhile, muttered something or a prayer. The young man next, standing in the river, threw water with his hands, from that sacred source, to purify his mother's remains. A boat passing by at this juncture was hailed, and lay to, whereupon the husband and son fastened to either arm of the deceased, by a yellow string, a new earthen vessel, with a narrow neck, holding about two gallons each, and which had never been. used for any ordinary purpose. They then took up the body, and floated it till they reached the boat, into which they got but kept their charge buoyant alongside, till they felt the motion of the mid-current. There, where the stream was deep and strong, filling both vessels with water, they let go their grasp, and instantly the whole disappeared in the gulf beneath. The son took the lead in all these transactions, the husband being a mere occasional auxiliary. Previous to the ceremony, the former had caused his head to be shaved on the spot, to purify himself for the mournful duties; yet neither he nor his father shed a tear, or seemed any more affected than were the two earthen jugs with which they sunk their nearest relative to the bottom of the river. We might be mistaken, but indifferentism, if not apathy, is the characteristic trait of Hindoo countenances on occasions the most likely to excite the deepest and strongest emotions in human hearts, however hardened or disciplined they may be by brute habit or vain philosophy. July 17. We anchored off Benares in the evening. This city has long been celebrated as the seat of Brahminical learning and Hindoo superstition. It is of vast extent, and corresponding wealth and magnificence, combined with the usual proportion of poverty, filth, and wretchedness, as may be judged when we state that, according to a census taken in 1803, there were twelve thousand stone and brick houses, sixteen thousand mud-walled ones, and a population of five hundred and eighty-two thousand souls. This numoer was exclusive of the retinue and attendants of three resident Mogul princes and several foreigners of distinction, who had large establishments. After a lapse of twenty-three years, all these estimates must be increased considerably; and the inhabitants of Benares may now be taken at six hundred and fifty thousand. Approaching the city from the river, the greater part of it is seen at once, being built on a moderate slope, across which it forms a crescent. The cliffs which front the shore, being thirty feet in elevation, give no mean eminence, amidst a land of dead levels, to ground regularly rising beyond them, and covered with buildings, among which are many public edifices, of imperial bulk, and singularly splendid architecture. The famous mosque of Aurengzebe, erected on the site of a demolished Hindoo temple, is most conspicuous, being two hundred and ten feet to the top of the dome; its two minarets, of vast height and slender diameter, first strike the eye in the distance, and, whatever objects beside attract it for a while, to these it returns with unsatisfied admiration. Wishing to proceed to Allahabad (the extent of our present expedition) we staid only two days at Benares, lodging at night in our pinnace, but otherwise availing ourselves of the kindness of the missionary of our Society here, Mr. Adams, who, with his excellent wife, showed us very acceptable attentions. Aug. 2. At Allahabad, seventy miles from Benares, having letters of introduction, we were politely received by judge Colville and other gentlemen. This city stands at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, and is regarded as one of the holiest of all the holy places of Hindoo resort, on account of the virtues of its double stream. By some it is deemed so privileged a spot, that whoever dies here may be surely reckoned to have gone to Paradise. From time immemorial, therefore, devotees have been wont to come hither at the festivals, for that very purpose, who, that they might not fail, in the first step at least, took the shortest road out of this world. To that end an earthen vessel, filled with sand, was fastened to each foot of the voluntary victim, who, being placed on the gunwale of a boat, was rowed to a particular point in the main channel of the united rivers, and there thrown overboard. Of course he sunk immediately. Several Brahmins were wont to attend this solemnity, for such it was considered; and they, and an old woman who kept the boat used on such occasions, made no small gain by the delusion, which, therefore, they were anxious to keep up as long as possible. When the present upright and intelligent British judge came to office here, he prohibited the Brahmins from making any processions in such cases, and the old woman from hiring musicians to attend in her boat, when miserable fanatics were predisposed to destroy themselves. This broke up the murderous custom; the Brahmins were enraged, but could not help themselves; while the female Charon, whose business it was to ferry souls about to be disembodied upon this day-light branch of the Styx, raised a piteous clamor about the loss of her occupation, saying (in substance), with the spectre that appeared to Burns "Folk maun do something for their bread, pleading, moreover, that people had a right to drown themselves whenever they pleased, as their fathers had done before them. The judge plainly replied, that if they thought fit to go and drown themselves, they might do so for aught that his ordinance included, but if the old woman chose to help them she must take the consequences. Not soon appeased, away she went to Benares, and laid her grievance before the supreme court; but, not obtaining the justice which she wanted there, she returned chagrined and disappointed. Since then, the practice has ceased altogether; and not the smallest commotion has arisen among the natives from this resolute interference with their evil superstition. In one of the temples, here, we found a living god-a great brown baboon, who appeared very little aware of the dignity of his state, and quite as regardless of the profane honors that were paid him. Several men were seated on the pavement, before him, bowing down, beating drums, and singing songs to the disgusting beast, who, to do both parties justice, seemed quite as rational as his worshippers. In another quarter of the city we were introduced into a subterranean temple, dedicated to an idol which we cannot name, but which is more worshipped throughout India than all the millions of other false gods put together. An ancient female led the way, with a single lamp, through a long dismal passage, about seven feet high and six wide, at the ex SUBTERRANEAN TEMPLE. 117 tremity of which was this sanctuary of abomination, literally a "chamber of imagery," more than a hundred and twenty feet long, and nearly half as broad. The ceiling, which was not higher than that of the passage, was supported by a very great number of square stone pillars, in rows, forming various dreary aisles, through which the glimmer of the lonely lamp, casting strange black shades from all the stationary objects, as we passed along, made darkness visible, and peopled it with flitting phantoms. Multitudes of images, some without heads, others without bodies, and others, again, mutilated in various ways (all equally good, and all as good as new), were discoverable in recesses of the walls, and on the floor, in the spaces between the columns; they were of the usual sizes and shapes, standing, sitting, and lying. At length the sibyl brought us to a place where there was nothing to be seen but the forms of two human feet, cut upon a flat stone. Here she set down her lamp, and, squatting herself upon her heels, by certain very significant motions gave us to understand that here she expected to receive a gratuity for having shown us the rarities of her dungeon-temple. Half a rupee brought a smile over her gaunt countenance, which certainly made her appear the most beautiful object among all that she exhibited. In one corner of this noisome, dark, and filthy den, she pointed out to us an "immortal tree." It was a biforked stump, and actually had upon it a few young and tender shoots. This also was a god; but, god or tree, that it could live and grow in such an atmosphere, was beyond our strength of faith to receive; and we were afterwards assured that when one stock decays, ceases to germinate, another is substituted; and this change-though the roots of the incumbent are daily watered, to keep up the semblance of vegetable life-takes place not much seldomer than once a year. The information was confirmed by the suspicious appearance of a castaway stump, of the kind, which we happened to spy in another part of the temple. This is a place of great resort, being antiquated also beyond the memory of man; free ingress is allowed to the natives by the British government. The Mahommedans, it is said, levied a very productive tax on admissions to it. or Some idea of the prodigious multitude of pilgrims, that annually visit this holy city, may be formed from the circumstance that there are four hundred barbers in it, who are |