The Bellefontaine Republican. [volume] (Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio) 1855-1905, 1899-06-20
QUAINT BOMBAY.

ings, the people and their ways, are in
teresting. The people are divided into
many different castles. Our Company
and few friends hired a steam launch
and went to the Elephantum cave, an
old temple over two thousand years old,
here. The temple was not built but
carved out of solid rock with nothing
but flint tools.
The Parsees are a sort of superior
race, and like to put on lot of show
and be classed as Europeans. They are
very wealthy and help each other. They
worhip fire, earth and water and when
one of them dies they bring Parsees,
who do nothing else but dress and
bury the dead, to attend to them, they
speak to no one and don't go into
society. When Parsee dies, they
first break every bone in his body,
smear the body with melted butter,
and then get dog to lick the body.
After that they double the body up and
carry it out to the
TOWER OF SILENCE.
This Tower of Silence is large tower
built like chimney with iron bars
across the top. The body is stripped and
laid on the bars, and as soon as the men
have done that, the vultures swoop
down on the dead body and pick it to
pieces in about three minutes, or even
less. The flesh of Parsee dare not
touch the earth, so big pan is placed
underneath the bars to catch any piece
that falls, but that seldom occurs. The
vultures are kept for this purpose only,
and there is penalty of so Rupees, or
16 dollars, for shooting them. When
the plague was raging in India some
time ago, they had to import more
vultures from Persia. We saw
HINDOO FUNERAL,
this week. 1t was very odd. -Four
men carried bearer similar to a chair,
on their shoulders, with the dead man
sitting up in the chair, so that every
one passing could see him. The chair
was decorated with flowers. We
thou ght it was a wedding when we
first saw it. The dead are cremated
and the cerematory can be seen any day
or night, as the plague is still here.
One caste buries it's dead in a sitting
posi- ton, with rice, fruit and various
other things to feed them on their way,
or journey-somewhat similar to the
Chinese method. Some of the Hindoo
storekeepers have signs over every
thing they sell 'Please do not touch"
They won't touch or eat anything that
has been handled by Christian or any
one not belonging to their own caste.
The members of another peculiar sect
are called devotees. They torture
themselves in various cruel ways.
Some drive
A CROWN OF NAILS
in their heads and flesh, others have
one hand tied up straight over their
heads. The hands are never taken
down and become withered and dry.
In an other case, the arm is doubled
from the elbow to the shoulder and the
fingers grow into the arm and shoulder.
The people give the devotees money,
and they beg from every one. I think
there are over 80 castles. There are
any number of fakirs to be seen on the
streets.
l can't imagine winter weather here
as it is so hot. We have
HINDOO BOYS TO FAN US
with punkahs, while, we are eating and
sitting around in the Hotel. The hotels
here are very good, and built for SER
vice in hot weather, every room hav-
ing a seperate yaranda, with lattice
work to shut out the sun.
We go from here to Jabulapore,
Allahabad, Calcutta, and Rangoon,
Burmah.
RANGoON, Burmah, Jan. 23rd, 1899.
The people here are very sociable
and the place is interesting. The big
pagoda or temple here is magnificent
sight. The dome is all gold, and the