Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/478

 Sanotie." All the difficulties and dangers, monkeys and all, we have passed to-day, without being conscious of their existence; the monkeys and temples I was sorry I did not see,—we passed without observing them. The river has been very uninteresting, nothing to look at, and very few vessels: moored on a most solitary and insulated sandbank.

"Thirty miles above Ghazipūr by Kucharee, on the left bank, is a difficult channel with a dangerous sunken reef. Six miles above it is Seydpūr, a large native town, with a tahsīldār and a dārogha: and two miles above Seydpūr is the junction of the Goomtie river, that goes up to Lucnow, said to be a very intricate and rocky stream, too shallow for the smallest boats in the dry season. The Ganges, from above Kucharee reef, past Seydpūr, up to the Goomtie, a distance of eight miles, is a very difficult passage, with various bad patches of kankar rock, on which native boats and budgerows split instantaneously.

"Five miles above the Goomtie is Chandroutī, with a white temple. In mid-channel is a very dangerous pakka platform, on kankar, with the ruins of an old temple on it, and no passable channel on its north-west or Zinhore side, and very dangerous for downward-bound boats, as the current sets directly upon it." At Seydpūr is a very elaborately carved mandap or Hindū temple, of elegant form.

FUNERAL RITES.—BURNING THE DEAD.

As our boats passed slowly along, we had an opportunity of witnessing the funeral rites of the Hindūs: the burning of a corpse was being performed just at the base of the cliff on the edge of the river. The nearest relative, as is the custom, was stirring up the body, and pushing it well into the flames with a long pole: much oil and ghī must have been expended and poured over the wood, as it burnt fiercely. The face of the corpse looked cold and pale and fixed, as the wind blew aside the flames and smoke, and enabled me to behold a scene that shocked me: in all probability the son was performing the ceremony. We read of the Romans burning their dead, regard it in a classical light, and think of it without disgust,—but when