The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-04-10

beauty is scarcely equaled on any river in
either hemisphere. Objects of interest on
every side claim attention and as line after
line OF ships come into view with a back
ground of some of the most imposing build
ings In the world, O traveller can realize
that he has reached one of the largest COM
mercial centres in the east
Al Calcutta, as elsewhere in India, where
ever river runs, Hindoo and Mohamme-
dan alike, men, women and children, re-
pair in the early morning to the bathing
CHATS, Hindoostanee for the shelving
banks of river, and entering the stream
to their knees or waist
PIoUsIT UTTER THEIR PRAYERS,
scatter some flowers ON the surface of the
water, sometimes splashing them toward
the middle, where the current takes them
TO the sea- They utter more prayers,
salaam to thes I'm and return to the banks,
occasionally amounting their bodies, the
men with mustard seed oil and the women
with cocoanut oil, and this religious rite
has gone on for centuries.
The burning CHATS, OF which there are
three at Calcutta, are places for the Gre
nation of the dead. This morning the
principal one was visited by the writer; he
saw the bodies of two women, five men and
three boys on the funeral pyres in diffe.en
stages or incarceration. nothing remaining
ball, which the attendant priest stated was
always the last part TO calcine. am in
debted to his courtesy for other facts. 1t
requires 400 pounds of hard wood to con-
sumo the ordinary cadaver. The time re-
qulred is about SIX hours and the cost to
the relatives rupees, say 81, unless san
dal wood is used In whole or part al a cost
OF IL cents per pound. The body is first
washed in the river, then arranged
nv
the sect to which the deceased belonged,
white shroud, (the one it wore in life,
perhaps completely enveloping the figure,
is consumed with it, the faggots being
piled over as well as under the body. When
all Is in readiness and the final invocations
of the priests are still troubling the air,
THE NEAREST OF KIN APPLIES THE TORCH,
the earthly tenement is reduced to ashes
and handful of them are scattered upon
the bosom OF the water 1t was formerly
the custom in India to throw the dead into
the Gauges where they would be
carried out to sea. Mothers frequently
doing the same by their living babes
under the appalling belief that
the sacred river would bear them
direct to paradise The Indian government.
humanity and sanitation, have done away
with both customs, although it is claimed
that the law is secretly violated and occa-
sional dead are still thrown into the rivers
instead of being cremated! A native re-
tired merchant at Benares told the writer
that on the death of his little boy he tied a
water jar around the neck and placed it in
the Gauges, the jar filled and the body
sank. II thought that against the law 81,
We'll" he replied, 1.-The body was quite
small; 1t never harmed the river and silva
(the goddess) has him now"
Wishing to see the highest mountain
peaks IN the world | recently made round
trip of over seven hundred miles to Dariee-
ling, station in the lower Himalayas. 1t
is favorite sanitarium among Anglo-In-
dams. The Darjeeling 81 Himalayan rail-
way is
A WONDERFUL PIECE OF ENGINEERING SKILL,
and is alone worth the journey. 1t is ~
inch track, each coach carries eight per-
sons. If d passenger fell off the train he
would sustain a fall of about eight inches.
From Darieeling horses were taken to a