Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/562

494 of their idolatrous worship to the river-god. Offerings are laid upon the shore, and when swept away by the rising tide, are held to be accepted by the deity. Mothers, in former times, here threw their own babes into the flood, and looked on, unmoved, while sharks and alligators tore their tender limbs asunder. Adults, too, cast themselves into the stream, giving their own lives as a free-will offering to the god. These bloody practices have now been arrested by the British government. During the festival, soldiers are on guard to stop such deeds of cruelty and of idolatrous madness. Yet it cannot be doubted that, in private, many a life is sacrificed at this shrine of superstition.

Before reaching Sagor, and while yet out of sight of land, you are boarded by a pilot from a pilot-brig which is on the look-out for vessels arriving at the “Sandheads," and then are guided by an unseen channel, through unseen shoals, towards an unseen coast. These sandy shoals, to which the river each year adds the soil brought down from above, are full of danger. An efficient pilot service, however, removes the anxieties of the voyager. Under the direction of one of them, your ship advances to Sagor, and, if night is approaching, there