these entertainments for a month together, and expend as much as one, two, or even four hundred roopees. The whole village assembles.

By these yatras the popular tales respecting the Hindoo gods become very widely circulated, and riveted on the minds of the populace, who cannot help feeling a strong interest in the system which thus inflames the passions. The scenes are often very indecent, and the whole, by exciting a kind of enthusiasm in the cause of licentiousness, produces a dreadful effect on the morals of the spectators, both young and old. The entertainments which relate to the lascivious Krishnŭ are most popular, and draw together the greatest crowds; while those which are taken from the histories of Ramŭ and Doorga, excite much less attention. To this is to be added another lamentable fact, that the sight of these impure and pernicious exhibitions is reckoned very meritorious: indeed the Hindoo flatters himself, when he retires from these scenes, inflamed with lust, that he has been doing something that will promote his final blessedness: having heard the names and actions of the gods repeated, he is assured he has been doing a meritorious action, although his own mind, and the minds of his wife and children, have been dreadfully poisoned with brutal and obscene images.

SECTION IX.

Of Deaths, Funeral Ceremonies, &c.

WHEN a person is on the point of death, his relations carry him on his bed, or on a litter, to the Ganges. This litter consists of some bamboos fastened together, and slung on ropes. Some persons are carried many miles to the river;* and this practice is often attended with very cruel circumstances: a person, in his last agonies, is dragged from his bed and friends, and carried, in the coldest or the hottest weather, from whatever distance, to the river side, where he lies, if a poor man, in the open air, day and night, till he expires.t

* The Hindoo ferrymen make persons pay a very high price for carrying dead bodies across rivers on their way to the Ganges.

+ I have heard Musǎlman boatmen, who are not the most tender-hearted creatures in the world, reproach the Hindoos on these occasions with great vehemence.

When a person is brought down to the river side, if he is able to see his friends, they go to him. One of them, perhaps, addresses a few words to him: "O Khoorŭ !* do you know me?" "Yes, I do." "How are you?" "I am well. What need is there that I should stay here, if Ganga will but give me a place.' "" True, Khoorů, that is all that's left now." If the dying man is speaking to a superior, he says"Through your blessing, let me go to Gunga;" if to an inferior, he says, "Pray for me, that Gunga may receive me." He then, perhaps, speaks of his worldly troubles : "One thing respecting which I am uneasy is, I have not given in marriage my two daughters: here are also five children for whom I have not been able to provide-nor is there so much as ten roopees for my funeral offerings;-but you are here; do you contrive that my family may not remain uncleant for want of the means of performing these last rites; and see that these two daughters are married to the children of good men." The other replies, "Oh! Khoorů! put away these thoughts: repeat the names of the gods." Some other person says, "Oh! Khoorů ! Khooree wishes to come and see you: what say you?" He makes a sign for her to come; or, he says, "I am going-what can she do? Here are people to wait upon me she will only increase grief." Some one again addresses him: "Oh! Khooră! perform Voiturůnee." He consents; when the ceremony is performed.

If the sick person should lie several days by the side of the river, a number of ceremonies are performed for the good of his soul: the shalogramů is brought, and shewn to him, and he is assisted in walking round it several times; salt, clarified butter, rice, pease, oil, cloth, brass vessels, money, &c. are offered to Vishnoo, and given to the bramhuns; parts of different pooranus are read; the bramhuns are feasted, &c.

* Khoort signifies uncle. The Hindoos call one another by the names of relations, though there is no relationship. When two neighbours meet, the elder addresses the younger by the name of brother. A younger addresses an elder by the names uncle, elder brother, or grand-father's brother (thakoor-dada).

The members of a family remain unclean, and are cut off from all hopes after death, till this ceremony is performed. Khooree, aunt.

§ That is, perform the ceremonies for securing a passage across the river of death. These ceremonies consist of certain gifts to Vishnoo, as a cow, or the value of a cow; or the commutation of this, a trifling sum in kourees. Rice, clarified butter, &c. are also offered to Vishnoo.

Y

While the sick person thus lies by the Ganges, if a man of some property, he di rects a relation, or particular friend, to send some one to Guya, to perform the funeral rites in his name. Fifty roopees are often expended, sometimes thousands, in this work of extricating the soul from the Hindoo purgatory. He next orders, perhaps, one hundred roopees to be given to his spiritual guide, and if there should be any ornaments on the hands, &c. of his wife, he gives part of them to his spiritual guide. He directs a large sum to be spent in the funeral rites at home; and he gives a small lot of land, and a few roopees, to some bramhun, to offer worship daily to the lingŭ in a temple which he has built. If the person is a shōodrů, he gives a legacy

to the bramhin whom he has called the son of his alms.* He also directs the division of his property among his children, making a separate allowance for the widow.According to the Hindoo law, the sons have equal shares.

The following is part of a real address, made, a few years ago, by a dying bramhun of Serampore, to his elder brother: "I have bought a piece of land by the side "of the Ganges; you will take care that a flight of steps may be built ;† and if my "widow should survive, you will cherish her. Two daughters, very young, will "be left; you will see that they are provided with every thing necessary, and give

* A young bramhun adopted by a shōōdrů, but not taken to his house.

+ It is considered as an act of great merit, thus to assist persons in coming to bathe in the Ganges: these flights of steps are therefore very numerous in great towns and their precincts. For many miles up the river, from Calcutta, innumerable flights of these steps are erected, up and down which the inhabitants are seen ascending and descending continually, but especially mornings and evenings at the time of bathing. Below the steps, crowds of men, women, and children, of all casts, bathe, and perform those daily ceremonies of their religion which are connected with ablutions. Seeing the Hindoos, at these times, it might be imagined, that they were a very devout race: some, with their eyes closed, are meditating on the form of Shivu, or their guardian deity; others, with raised hands, are worshipping the rising or setting sun; others are pouring out water to their deceased ancestors, and repeating certain forms of praise or prayer; others are washing their poita, &c. Most of them, however, manifest great inattention while performing these ceremonies. The bathers go into the water with a cloth round their loins; when up to the breast, they take off this cloth, and wash it; then put it on again, and, after coming out of the water change this cloth for another. In taking off the only piece of cloth that covers them, and putting on another, though they are surrounded with numbers of people, yet they do it in such a manner, that no one among them is put to the blush. To see a European woman walking arm in arm with her husband, overwhelms the Bengalees with astonishment, yet for Hindoo women to bathe with the men appears to them neither indelicate nor improper.

That is, should she not turn on the funeral pile.

"them in marriage to kooleenŭ bramhuns;* give to each a house, ornaments accord"ing to custom; a thousand roopees ready money, a little land, &c. You will also "perform the different ceremoniest as usual."

As death approaches, the relations exhort the sick man, if he is a regular Hindoo, to repeat the names of Narayŭnů, Brůmha, Günga, his guardian deity, and those of other gods. If he is a voishnuvu, they tell him to repeat the name of Muha-průbhoo, Krishnu, Radha, &c. The poor call upon different deities indiscriminately. The dying man repeats these names as well as he is able; the relations vehemently urge him to go on calling upon these gods, in which they also join him : eight or ten voices are heard at once thus employed. If the doctor is present, and should declare that the patient is on the point of expiring, he tells them to let him down into the water up to the middle. When there is no doctor, his friends attend to this according to their own judgment. Just before or after being thus immersed, they spread the mud of the river on the breast, &c. of the dying man, and with one of their fingers write on this mud the name of some deity; they also pour water down his throat; shout the names of different deities in his ears, and, by this anxiety after his future happiness, hurry him into eternity; and, in many cases, it is to be feared, prevent recovery, where it might reasonably be expected. If the person, after lying in the water some

Notwithstanding this predilection for koolēēnos, they are more corrupt in their manners than any of the Hindoos. I have heard of a koolēēnŭ bramhŭn, who, after marrying sixty-five wives, carried off another man's wife, by personating her husband. Many of the koolēēnŭs have a very numerous posterity: I select five examples; though they might easily be multiplied: Oodŭyu-chŭndrů, a bramhŭn, late of Bagna-para, had sixtyfive wives, by whom he had forty-one sons, and twenty-five daughters.-Ramů-kinkŭrů, a bramhăn, late of Kooshŭdů, had seventy-two wives, thirty-two sons, and twenty.seven daughters.--Vishnoo-ramă, a bramhăn, late of Gündŭlu-para, had sixty wives, twenty-five sons, and fifteen daughters.-Gourēē-chůrčnů, a bramhŭn, late of Teernee, had forty-two wives, thirty-two sons, and sixteen daughters.-Rŭmakantů, a bramhŭn, late of Bosŭdŭroonce, had eighty-two wives, eighteen sons, and twenty-six daughters: this man died about the year 1810, at the age of 85 years or more, and was married, for the last time, only three months before his death. Most of these marriages are sought after by the relations of the female, to keep up the honour of their families; and the children of these marriages invariably remain with their mothers, and are maintained by the relations of these females: in some cases, a koolēēnu father does not know his own children.

+ He here alludes to the daily ceremonies of worship, and to those connected with the public festivals. Some families celebrate the festivals of Krishnŭ, others those of the blood-devouring deities, Doorga, Kalēē, &c.

† A perplexing Case.—The astrologer (doivŭgnů), looking at a sick. Hindoo, says, He is under the influence of such an evil star; he ought to celebrate the worship of the nine planets. A bramhan examines his case, and says, he is suffering for the sins of a former birth: there is no remedy. A physician feels his pulse, and says, this man has a fever; he ought to take some medicine.

time, should not die, he is brought up again, and laid on the bank, and the further progress of the disease is watched by the relations. Some persons who are carried down to the river side revive, and return home again; but scarcely any instances are known of persons surviving after this half immersion in water. In cases of sudden and alarming sickness, many are actually murdered by these violent means of sending men to Gunga. If a Hindoo should die in his house, and not within sight of the river, it is considered as a great misfortune, and his memory is sure to be stigmatized for it after death.

It is common, when a near relation is dead, for the women to go near the corpse, and make a loud and mournful crying for some time. Under misfortunes, the Hindoos give themselves up to a boundless grief, having neither strength of mind, nor christian principles, to serve as "an anchor to the soul" amidst the storms of life.

When a woman is overwhelmed with grief for the death of her child, she sits at the door, or in the house, or by the side of the river, and utters her grief in some such language as the following:

"Ah! my Huree-das! where is he gone?-Ah! my child! my child!

My golden-image Hōree-das who has taken ?—Ah! my child! &c.

"I nourished and reared him, where is he gone?-Ah! my child! &c.

"Take me with thee-Ah! my child! &c.

"He played around me like a golden top-Ah! my child! &c.

"Like his face I never saw one- Ah! my child! &c.

"Let fire devour the eyes of men*.

Ah! my child! &c.

"The infant continually called Ma! Ma! (Mother! Mother!) Ah! my child! &c. "Ah! my child; saying Ma! come into my lap-Ah! my child! &c.

"Who shall now drink milk?-Ah! my child!" &c.

After she has lamented in this manner for some time, perhaps a female comes,

When people saw the child they said-"O what a fine child!" "What a beautiful child!" &c. To the evil eyes, or desires, of her neighbours she attributes the loss of her child, and she therefore prays, that, as fire catches the thatch, and consumes the house, so the eyes of these people may be burnt out.