Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/262

attending the expiring moments of their nearest relatives or friends. Frequently, only a few yards from a crowded ghaut thronged by the inhabitants of some neighbouring village, who are laughing, singing, and following their ordinary occupations with the utmost gaiety, a dying person may be seen stretched upon a charpoy (bedstead) close to the river's brink, surrounded by a groupe of three or four individuals, who look upon the sufferer without the slightest appearance of interest. As soon as the breath has left the body, the corse is thrown into the river, death being often precipitated by stuffing the mouth and nostrils with mud. Strangers, attracted by some superb lotus floating down the stream, are disgusted by the sight of a dead body rapidly descending with the tide, the ghastly head appearing above the surface of the water. Every Hindoo is anxious to draw his last sigh on the banks of the Ganges, or some equally sacred stream flowing into its holy waters; the relatives therefore of expiring persons fulfil the last offices of humanity in the manner most desirable to them, by bringing a dying friend to the edge of the river, and consigning the body, when the vital spark has fled, to the hallowed stream. Like the Moosaulmauns, the followers of Brahma are all predestinarians, and make up their minds as easily to the endurance of any inevitable misfortune: wherefore, however strong their affection may be to the living, few, if any, ever think of grieving for the dead.