This view of the reason (in part) for the prevalence of Kālīi-worship is, I think, borne out elsewhere than in Bengal. Kālīi was the tutelary goddess of Chitor. She has her blood-blackened shrines still on the deserted plateau where only the crumbling temples and palaces remain. No legend of Chitor is better-known or more impressive than that which tells how a giant form was seen between the pillars of the rāṇā's house. 'I am hungry,' said the goddess: and demanded that twelve who bore the crown of Chitor must perish. And (we are told) eleven of the king's twelve sons and the king himself assumed brief rule and perished in battle. The world has never seen more devoted soldiers than the Rajputs of Chitor. But their history shows that they despaired very quickly. A walk round their astounding defences, in one spectator at least—who had seen a good many battles—raised admiration for the skill and courage that could take such a fortress. against such defenders. Nothing but the conviction, that some Power was crying for their blood, and that they were doomed, could have brought them to such a resolved helplessness as made them three times send their women to the funeral-pyre and themselves to death outside the walls.
But it is not political distress alone that makes men's minds gloomy. After many years' residence in the poorest district in Bengal, I have felt there is some sorrow deeper and more permanent; the peasant is fighting a losing battle. One year the heavens are shut and there is drought. The rivers are empty sands. Famine follows; and incalculable misery. The next year it rains in excess, and the vast watercourses swell with huge floods. The streams feel their way along their banks till they come to the sandhead which blocks an old course—Bengal is full of these 'blind rivers,' as they are called. Here the water checks a moment, like a darkened mind groping and feeling. Some dim memory stirs that once, it may be a century ago, the way was here; then the waters gather together, and plunge through. A
