"It is a cremation," said Doctor Bronson; "we will stop and see it."
He directed the boatmen to land in front of the temple, and the three strangers walked to the spot where the fire was burning.
On a low mound of earth there was a fire of logs and smaller sticks of wood, and in the midst of the fire lay a body half consumed. It was evidently that of a small person, as the fire was not more than five feet long, and the body was completely wrapped in the flames. A dozen or more Buddhist priests were standing near the fire, and about as many other persons who did not appear to belong to the holy order. No ceremony was observed; and the Doctor remarked that they had probably arrived too late to witness the funeral-service. Not far off were the ashes that remained from similar cremations; and on one heap the fire was still smouldering.
They returned to the boat, and continued their journey; and as they did so the Doctor explained to the boys the peculiarities of the spectacle they had just witnessed.
"Cremation, or the destruction of a human body by fire," said he, "is customary in several countries of the Eastern World, and there has recently been an effort to make it popular in Europe and America. It prevails in Siam, but not altogether to the exclusion of the ordinary mode of burial in the earth. Cremation is considered the most honorable funeral, and it has a religious significance; it is a ceremony necessary to assist the soul in its passage to a higher state of transmigration, and to its final condition of perfect rest. Criminals who are executed by law are not allowed to be burnt; and the same is the case with those dying of small-pox and certain other diseases.
BURIAL-MOUNDS.
"The ceremony of cremation is considered so important that, where it cannot be performed immediately after the death of the individual—from poverty or for other reasons—the body is first buried, and subsequently exhumed and burnt. When the person has any prominence or wealth, a few of the bones are preserved in the houses of the relatives, or they may be buried in the grounds near the temples. You saw some little monuments, like miniature pyramids, near the temple we just visited; did you not?"
"Yes," said Fred, "we saw them, and wondered what they were."