Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/254

 most perfect drainage, and have a rush of pure water twice a day. Tollys Nulla, the circular canal, and the river, are most conveniently situated for opening the necessary number of arteries.

15. FLOATING CORPSES.—These form another source of sickness. Though the Hindoos profess to burn the bodies of the dead, and throw the ashes into the sacred Ganges, or any of its million branches, yet the poorer classes either cannot afford fuel for this purpose, or do not incinerate. They are satisfied with singeing the body with a bundle of straw, and sinking it by means of an earthen pot filled with mud, and tied to the neck of the deceased. As soon as decomposition takes place, and the development of gas, the body rises to the surface, and drops down the stream for hundreds of miles, tainting the atmosphere as it floats along, till maceration and birds of prey strip the flesh from the bones, and cause it to sink to rise no more.

Not long ago this Hindoo practice became the subject of a public inquiry; but I believe the evil was thought to be too deeply rooted in native superstition to be put down by the order of the magistrate