Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-17
De NIOrtuis.
From the Contemporary Review

The subject of how to dispose of our dead in such manner as best to combine rever- ence for their sacred bodies, with due care for the health of the living, is one so full of interest that no one travelling in lands where methods differing from our own are praoticed can fail to experience some curiosity on the subject. During our travels in India I had abundant opportunities of witnessing the process of cremation as practiced by the
 Hindus, more especially at Benares, that
 most holy city of the Brahmins, the bourne which every pious Hindu craves to reach in
 time to die there on the banks of the sacred
 river Ganges. Many time have seen the
 dying laid down to breathe their last breath alone on the hallowed shore, while their friends went off to bargain with the neigh
 boring timber merchant for as much wood as
 their limited means could procure Often in
 the case of the very poor this sum was 50
 small that the humble fire has barely suficed
 to char the body, which was then thrown
 into the river and suffered to feat seaward,
 in company with many another, in every
 stage of putrefaction, spreading the seed of
 pestilence on the sultry air. and poisoning
 the stream iu which myriads hourly bathe.
 and from which they drink. But in the case
 of the wealthier Hindu the funeral pyre is carefully built, and when the corpse has
 been washed in the river it is swathed in fair
 linen, white or scarlet, or, still more often, the shroud is of the sacred saffron color on which Is ShoWered a handful or Verm1llOn paint, to symbolize the blood of sprinkling as the atonement for sin. Sometimes the body Is wrapped in cloth of silver or of gold, and is laid upon the funeral pyre. Dry sweet grass is then laid over it. and precious anoint
 ing oil, which shall make the flame burn more brightly, and more wood is hesped on, till the pyre is very high. A Brahmln then brings sacred fire, and gives lighted torch to the chief mourner, who bears it thrice or nine times, sun-vise, round the body. He touches the lips of the dead with the holy fire, then ignites the pyre. Other torches are apnlieds simultaneously, and in a very few moments the body is burned, though the fire shoulders long. Then the ashes are collected and sprinkled on the sacred river, which carries them away to the ocean Night and day this work goes on without ceasing, and many a weird funeral scene I have wit messed, sometimes beneath the burning rays of the monday sun, while my house-b boat lay moored in midstream, to enable me better to witness all the strange phases of religious and social life enacted on it's shores, and sometimes in the course of our night jour neyings, when the pale moonbedms mingled with the dim blue flames casting lurid light on the withered, witch like forms of the monrners, often group of gray-halred wo- men, whose shrill walls and piercing cries rang through the air as they circled round the pyre in solemn procession, suggesting some spirit dance of death. When body has been consumed all the mourners repair to the river, beating their breasts and howl ing, and proceed to wash themselves and their clothes, and perform divers ceremonies of puriication necessary after tonching 8 dead body.