Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/464



452 ORISSA. pilgrinage attracts the frivolous. The young are hooked by the novelty of a journey through strange countries. Poor widows catch at anything to relieve the tedium of their blighted existence; and barren wives long to pick up the child-giving berries of the banyan tree within the sacred enclosure, and to pour out the petition of their souls before the kindly god. In parties of thirty pilgrims, more than five men are seldoin met with, and sometimes not more than three. The proportion may be taken at ten per cent. The first part of the journey is pleasant enough. Change of scene, new countries, races, and languages, and a world of strange customs and sights, await the travellers from Upper India. A good part of the distance is now accomplished by railway, and the northern pilgrims can thus get over their first thousand or even fourteen hundred miles, if they choose to travel straight through, in three days. But they generally walk from three to six hundred miles, although within the last two or three years a steamboat service between Calcutta and Orissa has attracted large numbers of pilgrims, which is steadily increasing. Those who keep to the road have spent their strength long before the holy city is reached. The sturdy women of Hindustan brave it out, and sing songs till they drop; but the weaker females of Bengal limp piteously along with bleeding feet in silence, broken only by deep sighs and an occasional sob. The pilgrim-guide tries to keep up their spirits, and insists, with a necessary obduracy, on their doing a full day's journey every day, in order that they may reach in time for the festival. Many a sickly girl dies upon the road; and by the time they reach Purí, the whole party have their feet bound up in rags, plastered with dirt and blood. But, once within sight of the holy city, the pains and miseries of the journey are forgotten. They hurry across the ancient Maráthá bridge with songs and ejaculations, and rushing towards one of the great artificial lakes, plunge beneath its sacred waters in a transport of religious emotion. The dirty bundles of rags now yield their inner treasures of spotless cotton, and the pilgrims, refreshed and robed in clean garments, proceed to the temple. The pilgrim-guide makes over the flock to his priestly employer, and every hour discloses some new idol or solemn spectacle. As they pass the Lion Gate, a man of the sweeper caste strikes them with his broom to purify them of their sins, and forces them to promise, on pain of losing all the benefits of pilgrimage, not to disclose the events of the journey or the secrets of the shrine. In a few days the excitement subsides. At first nothing can exceed their liberality to their spiritual guide. But thoughts of the slender provision remaining for the return journey soon begin to cool their munificence, and the ghostly man's attentions slacken in proportion.