As soon as they are dead, and almost before they are cold, they are taken to the place where they are burnt, and which is separated from the high road by a wall. In this place I saw one corpse and one person at the point of death, while on six funeral-piles were six corpses with the flames flaring on high all around them. A number of birds, larger than turkeys, and called here philosophers, [{153}] small vultures, and ravens were seated upon the neighbouring trees and house-tops, in anxious expectation of the half-burnt corpses. I was horrified. I hurried away, and it was long before I could efface the impression made upon my mind by this hideous spectacle.
In the case of rich people, the burning of the body sometimes costs more than a thousand rupees; the most costly wood, such as rose and sandal wood, being employed for that purpose. Besides this, a Brahmin, music, and female mourners, are necessary parts of the ceremony.
After the body has been burnt, the bones are collected, laid in a vase, and thrown into the Ganges, or some other holy river. The nearest relation is obliged to set fire to the pile.
There are naturally none of these ceremonies among poor people. They simply burn their dead on common wood or cow-dung; and if they cannot even buy these materials, they fasten a stone to the corpse and throw it into the river.
I will here relate a short anecdote that I had from a very trustworthy person. It may serve as an example of the atrocities that are often committed from false ideas of religion.
Mr. N--- was once, during his travels, not far from the Ganges, and was accompanied by several servants and a dog. Suddenly the latter disappeared, and all the calling in the world would not bring him back. He was at last discovered on the banks of the Ganges, standing near a human body, which he kept licking. Mr. N--- went up and found that the man had been left to die, but had still some spark of life left. He summoned his attendants, had the slime and filth washed off the poor wretch’s face, and wrapped him well up. In a few days after he was completely recovered. On Mr. N---’s now being about to leave him, the man begged and prayed him not to do so, as he had lost his caste, and would never more be recognised by any of his relations; in a word that he was completely wiped out of the list of the living. Mr. N--- took him into his service, and the man, at the present day, is still in the enjoyment of perfect health. The event narrated occurred years ago.
The Hindoos themselves acknowledge that their customs, with regard to dying persons, occasion many involuntary murders; but their religion ordains that when the physician declares there is no hope left, the person must die.
During my stay in Calcutta, I could learn no more of the manners and customs of the Hindoos than what I have described, but I became acquainted with some of the particulars of a Mahomedan marriage. On the day appointed for the ceremony, the nuptial bed, elegantly ornamented, is carried, with music and festivity, to the house of the bridegroom, and late in the evening, the bride herself is also conveyed there in a close palanquin, with music and torches, and a large crowd of friends, many of whom carry regular pyramids of tapers; that well known kind of firework, the Bengal-fire, with its beautiful light-blue flame, is also in requisition for the evening’s proceedings.
On arriving at the bridegroom’s house, the newly-married couple alone are admitted; the rest remain outside playing, singing, and hallooing until broad day.
I often heard Europeans remark that they considered the procession of the nuptial couch extremely improper. But as the old saying goes—“A man can see the mote in his neighbour’s eye when he cannot perceive the beam in his own;” and it struck me that the manner in which marriages are managed among the Europeans who are settled here, is much more unbecoming. It is a rule with the English, that on the day appointed for the marriage, which takes place towards evening, the bridegroom shall not see his bride before he meets her at the altar. An infringement of this regulation would be shocking. In case the two who are about to marry should have anything to say to each other, they are obliged to do so in writing. Scarcely, however, has the clergyman pronounced the benediction, ere the new married couple are packed off together in a carriage, and sent to spend a week in some hotel in the vicinity of the town. For this purpose, either the hotel at Barrackpore or one of two or three houses at Gardenrich is selected. In case all the lodgings should be occupied, a circumstance of by no means rare occurrence, since almost all marriages are celebrated in the months of November and December, a boat containing one or two cabins is hired, and the young people are condemned to pass the next eight days completely shut up from all their friends, and even the parents themselves are not allowed access to their children.