Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/331

Rh slowly and majestically through the sand. Monstrous, misshapen forms, like dragons of giant size, grinned and leered hideously on its four sides; and images of horses in leaping attitudes were projected from its front. On the fore-part of the car, and about half-way up the edifice, Brahmins stood waving long and graceful deer-hair brushes to the crowd below; while men, packed in the sides of the car, busied themselves in letting down ropes with bags attached, and drawing up the spoils which the people deposited in them. Four cables of enormous size, such as no ship on the ocean carries, stretched far away in front of the car, lying like anacondas on the necks and heads of the half-maddened throng, who, grasping them and bearing upon them with their full strength, moved the towering vehicle slowly along. Between the ropes were Brahmins, old and young, waving cloths and sticks hung with small white banners, cheering the multitude forward in their task. Now the throng would stop, weary with their labour; and now again the shout would rise up with a great rush of voices along the cables, and once more they would give their shoulders to the toilsome work. I never saw such a sight. The ocean-like crowd