They were beginning to quarrel, and I settled the matter by declaring I would have for guide the oldest among them.
I had now reached the precincts of the Temple of Kali and passed under an arch into a quad where three small cows were eating accumulated leaf and flower refuse, trodden marigold garlands and scattered leaves.
The temple, which had very little beauty, was in the centre of this quad. At one corner was a Munshi tree. "If any man will be bite of a snake," said the old priest, "and come here, he will be cured from the bite; and the barren women who get no sons, they will tie stones like this"—upon the branches many small pieces of stone hung by short strings. The trunk of this tree was patched and smutched with dabs of red colour put on by pilgrims.
"And this," pointing to the building in the centre, "is Mother Kali's Temple, and the image of Mother Kali is in the inside of this temple."
The worshippers of Siva's wives, of whom Kali is the most popular, make one of three divisions of modern Hinduism, the other two being that of the Siva worshippers and that of the Vaishnavas or worshippers of Vishnu.
As I walked round to the other side I saw some women upon the ground with bleeding heads of kids and goats. These women are the servants of the temple. They and "the poor" have the heads as perquisites; the bodies of the victims are taken away by those pilgrims who brought them for sacrifice, and are either cooked and eaten upon the Ganges bank or at home.
Two forked posts, one very much larger than the other, stood upright in the ground. The creatures to be killed have their heads forced down between the forks of wood—to be cut off by one blow of a sword. The larger post is for buffaloes, slaughtered one day a week; and the smaller for goats and kids, many of which are killed every day. A stream of blood trickled away from this smaller post, and a number of crows were hopping about the ground. "If you will kindly come a little earlier at time of sacrifice, that is very nice," said the priest; but I had no eagerness for that sight. It was far from the sides of Latmos—here was no sacred sward, and the poor flowers crushed into a sodden mass had long forgot the dew. Paris' voice was silent here. The deeper feelings of these people were of dread rather than veneration, the scene lacked all dignity and squalor reigned.
The man who kills is a blacksmith—a low caste man, and two pice are paid to him by the pilgrims for every goat killed. There were many naked and half-naked children about and a few mangy and diseased dogs. To most English people flesh is, of course, not the rare luxury it is to these Hindoos, and the English avoid the sight of its preparation for the table, although some still invoke the blessing of God upon its consumption. The scene was disagreeable, but so also is that of the more protracted family pig-killing outside a Wiltshire labourer's cottage!
In another corner of the quad I looked at a shrine to Vishnu—the creator, and his favourite lady, Radha—and then turned down the narrow street between the temple and the river, lined with shops containing articles for the pilgrims. Some were filled with little sets at three pice each of the following articles: a small purple mat which, if wetted, will give blood-colour to water, three thin bracelets, two red and one black, and a tiny box of red powder.
Near was another shrine—a red Ganesh—Mother Kali's son—and more Siva lingams garlanded with marigolds. There were men with faces painted red near some pilgrim's restrooms, and stalls of Bengali toys such as pilgrims take home to their children. There were also on sale here English tin-made abominations with the familiar poisonous colouring, trumpets and hansom cabs—perhaps more appropriate in the vicinity of the death-delighting goddess than in Ealing or Bermondsey. The whole of this narrow street, which is long and leads all the way to the river, had been paved with flagstones by one, Gobordhour Dass, as an offering to Kali.