Page:The People of India — a series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan Vol 2.djvu/138

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How the noise ..... High, shrill, and indistinct, of chattering sprites. Communicative fills the charnel ground : Strange forms like foxes flit along the sky. From the red hair of their lank bodies darts The meteor blaze : or from tJieir mouths that stretch From ear to ear thickset with numerous fangs, Or eyes, or beards, or brows, the radiance streams. And now I see the goblin host : each stalks On legs like palm-trees : a gaunt skeleton, Whose fleshless bones are bound by starting sinews, And scantly cased in black and shrivelled skin. Like tall and withered trees by lightning scathed, They move, and as amidst their sapless trunks The mighty serpent curls—so in each mouth Wide yawning, lolls the vast blood-dripping tongue. They mark my coming, and the half-chewed morsel Falls to the howling wolf—and now they fly."—Act V., Scene 1.

The belief in the horrible practices of the Aghoree priesthood is thus proved to have existed at a very remote period, and doubtless refers to those more ancient and revolting rites which belonged to the aboriginal superstitions of India antecedent to the Aryan-Hindoo invasion and conquest of the country. It might be supposed that any such indecent, flagrant, and disgusting customs as are now practised by the Aghorees might be summarily suppressed under the provisions of the new Penal Code of India.