Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/127

Rh with its crowded acres of Mohammedan tombs. Some were old and falling to decay; some, freshly sodded with green turf: some were lowly; others, large buildings with domes and minarets. The inmates of all were returning to dust; their spirits had gone to the judgment-seat of God. I could not but ask, What has the church of God been doing that the gospel was not preached to them?

But the living were about us. As we drew near the scene, troops of men and women, flowing all in one current, showed that we had not missed our way. Here would be a company of young men with the marks of their gods painted fresh and bright upon their foreheads, jesting and laughing, and evidently well pleased with their white robes and jaunty turbans; there, a father leading his boy by the hand, followed by the mother (who always walks behind, and not with her husband) with a babe in her arms. There came other groups, and now and then a pandarum or sunyasee (orders of religious mendicants) with holy ashes not merely on his forehead, but all over his face and person, striding on to the festival as the carrion-vulture speeds to his banquet.

As we came nearer, the road was lined on