It made the Americans shudder when their guides told them about it
more in detail than when it was described in the lecture.
Passing by the cemeteries of the English and the Mussulmans on their return
to the city, they halted at the Hindu Burning-Ground, on the shore of the
Back Bay. Here the natives are burned to ashes. For some distance they had
noticed funeral processions on their way to this place. The remains are
borne on open litters. A granite platform is the base of the funeral pyre,
and the bodies wait their turn to be reduced to ashes; and the cremation is
far more repulsive than that in our own country.
Dealers in wood for the combustion sell the article to the relatives. Some
of them are cutting up fuel and arranging the pyre, while others seated on
the walls play a lugubrious strain on the native instruments. The disposal
of the body of an old man was in process while the tourists looked on; and
the corpse was placed on the pile, the friends covering it with bits of
wood till it was no longer in sight.
Then the eldest son came to the scene, howling his grief and beating his
breast. Grasping a torch prepared for him, he set fire to the corners of
the pile that covered the remains. The flames rose high in the air, and the
attendants fed the fire by throwing on oil. Soon the body reappears, a
blazing mass, which is soon reduced to ashes.
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