The Arizona sentinel., 1886-07-17

| in proof of this fact showed me further on two stone collins, boxes about four feet square of strong slabs of ffeestone, empty now, but ready to receive the bodies of two Jogis. These men had hrophesied their own death at an early day. When they died they would be crammed into these stone boxes and sunk deep into the Ganges.
 Returning to the Burning Chat, Isaw that they had heaped wood into two square masses about eight feet long and four wide and high. At the edge of the i river the bodies they were going to burn lay covered with sheets on rope bed- steads, half in and half out of the water. Two white-haired Brahmans officiated; the corpse may not be touched by any other hand than theirs. They had re- moved all clothing but waistcloth, and their gaunt, withered forms and callous, immobile faces seemed appropriate to the work they had to do. When they had piled the wood to their satisfaction, they threw the sheet from one of the bodies-that of man as old as them selves, and dragged it carelessly, as one may drag log of wood, and threw it on the pyre. Owing to its long soaking in the water its rigidity was gone, and it fell in limp mass, one arm, however, gradually sinking down on one side with ghastly mimicry of life. They piled more wood on the poor dishon- ored corpse, and then the daughter of the dead man, a woman wholly shroud- ed in great white veil, rose from where she had been sitting unperceived. She lifted her veil and showed a color less face of the pale yellow Brahman complexion, and a shining head just shaved in token of mourning. "Hail to the fire of the funeral pile" she said, and walking three times round it carrying wisp of lighted grass in her hand, she set fire to the wood. Then she threw in handful of sesame-seed and poured little saucers of oil and ghee upon the growing flames, and returning to her place sat down quietly and covered Der head again. One of the Brahmans now sprinkled little earth and few drops of water on the fire, and marched round and round it, rapidly muttering words which I could not understand, nor could he. I think it was the ancient Sanskrit Farewell to the Dead'' that he was saying, but it was only form to him, and he could have had little perception of the pathetic grandeur of the words he was gabbling so carelessly. "Go, O Man, unto the Earth, the wide and holy Earth. And do thou, O Earth, receive him as a friend with sweet greeting; gather him pitifully to thy bosom; en- fold him as mother wraps her child in her robe.
 ''Here now it is bad fragrance, said Srishti as the smoke rolled our way and brought bitter smell of burning flesh with it. Even the lean dogs recognized it, and awakening from their drowsi- ness rose and sniffed the 'bad fragrance" with glittering eyes. The Brahmans seemed to like it too, the old vultures, crouched down close to the fire and talked with something like cheerfulness. The girl sat apart quite motionless, hid den by her veil. A little later one of the old men rose, and went to another great fire which must have been burn ing there for several hours. had for gotten that this too must contain corpse, and was the more shocked when, raking with his staff in the embers, he exposed 8 naked skull, part of it scorched, part gleaming white. Raising his stick he deliberately shat tered this relic of mortality with 8 heavy blow, and covering it up once more with the hot coals, returned to his seat. The people had now formed staring, laughing, unfeeling ring about the performers. At the high palace windows above I could see the faces of women looking down; this was their dissipation, poor prisoners; rather an old story to them, but still amusing The newly-lighted funeral pile blazed higher and higher, the wide yellow beach and the sunny fields beyond the river danced with the quivering of the hot air rising from it. The other had now burned low, and at last the two Brah- mans came to it prepared for work. I had hoped that there would be nothing worse here than the little white bones that turned up occasionally as they drew the brands away and swept aside the glowing ashes. But it seemed that there had not been wood enough to consume the body entirely. For, as Keats says of somewhat similar search, ''at last they found the kernel of the grave" and a horrible mass of some- thing half charred came to the surface and was tossed into the water. A Adread- ful odor of death filled all the place, and accompanied by clamorous crowd of kites and crows that wretched rem nant of what had once been fellow being fioated down the river.
 This, however, was not the end; after the tragedy came the farce. The two men grew less apathetic, and worked with a certain eagerness. They took away all the larger cinders and the half-burned sticks, and then began pouring water on the remaining heap of ashes. This was gradually carried away by the stream of water, and when it was mostly gone they began search ing as a rag-picker searches in a dust heap. It seemed that the To y had been that of a woman. According to custom, she had been burned with all her brace lets and bangles on her arms and ankles, and these were the perquisites of the Brahmans, who were washing the ashes to find them, just as Californian miners wash the sand of a stream to find gold. And preseF<ly one of them came to me holding forth lump of mixed silver and copper, and in whining tone begged me to buy it.
 A little dazed by all this, I followed my Babu friends to Man Singh's Ob- servatory, which was not far away. It was built in 1893 by Jai Singh, Raja of Amber or Jaipur in Rajputana, a states man and an astronomer of great cele- brity. The observatory is usually called by the name of his father, Man Singh, the great Rajput- General of Akbar,