Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/443

 priest repeats some incantations, and makes an offering to Voit[)u]r[)u]nēē, the river over which the soul, they say, is ferried after leaving the body. The relations of the dying man spread the sediment of the river on his forehead or breast, and afterwards, with the finger, write on this sediment the name of some deity. If a person should die in his house, and not by the river-side, it is considered as a great misfortune, as he thereby loses the help of the goddess in his dying moments. If a person choose to die at home, his memory becomes infamous."

This part of the river is flat and uninteresting; anchored a little below Culna, which is sixty-six miles by water, fifty-two by land, from Calcutta. At night the insects, attracted by the brilliant light of the Silvant lamps, came into the cabin in swarms—like the plagues of Egypt they fall into the wine-cups and fill the plates; they are over my hands, and over the paper on which I am writing, and are a complete pest.

16th.—Very hot during the middle of the day; thermometer 86°. Passed the Dhobah sugar-works, seventy-two miles by water from Calcutta; left the Jellingee river on the right, and anchored at Nuddea, eighty-three by water, and sixty-four by land. The steamers generally arrive at the Dhobah sugar-works in one day, but still we think we have come on quickly in the Budgerow! We did not land to visit the long range of temples on the bank of the river. To this place the Calcutta Sircars come, to eat the air.

At Meertulla, half-way between Nuddea and Dumdumma, we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, which made us fancy ourselves in a cooler climate, in spite of the extreme heat. At noon-day it is almost intolerable, and very oppressive, but the early mornings are cool, and the nights also; moored off Dumdumma.

18th.—Lugāoed on a dry sandbank beyond Dewangunge, one hundred and eighteen miles from Calcutta; it has a large mart, and a fine indigo factory.

19th.—Arrived early in the day off Cutwa, situated on the right bank of the Bhagirathī, five miles from Dewangunge; anchored to procure fowls, fish, and vegetables; it has a coal depôt for steamers. Cutwa is on the Adgar-nālā: found nothing