Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/585

Rh as life, with the prostrate giant and the lion, was mounted on a platform and glittered with tinsel and mock jewellery, which had all the show of real and costly splendour. The babu made the crowd of spectators give way for us, that we might see the image of the great Durga. She was almost hidden in a cloud of incense ascending from the censer of a servitor, while the family priest waved before it burning lamps, bowed, and worshipped, tinkled his bell, and made to it various offerings to the sound of discordant music.

This, however, is the least abominable part of the worship of this deity. On ensuing days, vast numbers of bloody sacrifices, sheep, goats, and buffaloes, are offered before her, and the multitudes, worked up to a phrensy of excitement, indulge in the most indecent acts and the most frantic revellings.

And, when these days of revelling and license are past, how do these idolaters dispose of their god? The goddess having been dismissed from the image, it is carried to the river-side and cast into the stream! The whole group, mounted on a platform, is borne on the shoulders of men, with attendants to brush away the flies, to fan it, and make music for it, to the banks of the