Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/556

488 to bud and blossom as the rose in things physical and temporal as well as in things spiritual and eternal, our Lord shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.

As yet Coimbatoor is bound in the chains of idolatry. We were annoyed during our stay there by the almost incessant celebration of heathen festivals. By day and by night, the noise of tomtoms and horns, and the reports of fire-arms, filled the town with their discordant music. Processions were frequent, and accompanied by the usual routine of Hindu shows—music, torches, gods, and men. Hearing, one day, the clatter of brass cymbals, we looked out and saw a crowd following a man who presented a most woful spectacle, and whose sufferings were being chaunted by an attendant musician. His body was naked, except a strip of cloth wrapped about his middle, and his face and person were smeared with ashes and yellow paint, giving him a most hideous and revolting look; he walked, writhing and stooping, apparently in intense anguish, and with a sword (so far as we could see) thrust through his body just below the ribs, the handle projecting on the right and the tip on the left side, while the clotted gore adhered to his skin. It must, of