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sion of these sins, and they will immediately be forgiven." And "bathing in the Ganges, accompanied by prayer, will remove all sin." Millions of the Hindus, at a great expense of time, health, and morals, perform pilgrimages to the Ganges. Multitudes travel from five hundred to a thousand miles, and are absent from their home and business five or six months at a time. The Rev. Mr. Thompson, a Baptist missionary, informed me that, on one occasion, he saw more than three hundred thousand pilgrims assembled at Hurd war, to bathe at the place where Brahma, the creator of the world, is said to have performed his ablutions. At two o'clock in the morning, when it was announced by the Brahmins that the propitious time for the ceremony had arrived, the immense multitude rushed down a flight of steps into the Ganges. Those who first entered the water and bathed, attempted to return, but the passage continued to be wedged up with the dense mass of those who were still descending. There were, indeed, other passages by which they might have returned, but that would not do; it was not the custom. To return by another way would diminish the merit of the bathing. They endeavored, therefore, to force their way upward. Consequently a scene of great violence took place, which resulted in the death. of six hundred persons.

Engraving, No. 41 is a view of the junction of the Ganges and Jumna. It is believed that every person, of either sex, who, immediately after being shaved, bathes at the point of land where those two rivers unite, will be permitted to dwell in heaven as many years as the number of hairs removed by the razor. То obtain immediate admission there, many thousands of the pilgrims have drowned themselves here.

The strip of land extending from the point at the junction of the rivers to the Fort of Allahabad, on the right of the engraving, is a desolate waste; but during an annual festival, which I witnessed here, it was crowded with tents, and huts, and more than one hundred thousand pilgrims. On entering this vast encampment, I saw several missionaries, who, in a small shed by the wayside, were preaching the gospel and distributing tracts. A little beyond was the bazaar, or market, where food and various kinds of merchandise were exposed for sale. In a conspicuous place, near the bazaar, was a man seated upon a mat, and surrounded by roots, herbs, lizard-skins, and dried snakes; professing the ability, lia the empirics of more enlightened lands, to

cure incurable diseases, and set death at defiance. In another part of the encampment were about three hundred religious mendicants.

In the engraving, a barrier or fence is to be seen extending from the Ganges to the Jumna. Soldiers were stationed there, to prevent the pilgrims from passing it, until they had purchased of the East India Company tickets granting permission to bathe. Near the barrier, I saw three devotees, who had held the left arm elevated above the head until it had become immovable, and the finger nails had grown to the length of six or eight inches. A portrait of one of them is to be seen on page 11, of the first lecture. As I approached the point, I saw two or three hundred barbers employed in shaving the heads and bodies of the pilgrims preparatory to bathing. I also witnessed a very shrewd method. of getting rid of sin. The person who wished to become perfect took in his right hand some money and a few blades of a particular grass, esteemed sacred. Then, with the same hand, he grasped the tail of a cow, while a Brahmin poured on it some water from the Ganges and repeated an incantation. The money as a matter of course, was given to the Brahmin, the sins were reputed to pass along the tail of the animal, the grass and the deception remained to the pilgrim. Cows were stationed at six or eight places for the convenience of performing this ceremony.

I next visited the point, and found the water, for a considerable distance, crowded with the pilgrims. To bathe at this particular spot was the great object of the pilgrimage.

No. 42 is a sick man, brought to the Ganges to die. His friends have carried him into the sacred stream, and are performing the last fatal rite. It consists in pouring a large quantity of water down his throat; filling his mouth and nostrils with mud; repeating the names of the gods, and shouting, "O mother Ganges, receive his soul!" Thus the sick, instead of receiving medical treatment, kind nursing, and appropriate nourishment, are, in many cases, hurried away to the Ganges, to be purified from their sins, by dying on its banks or in its waters. In Calcutta alone, nineteen hundred sick persons have, in the course of one month, been brought to the Ganges to die. Some are suffocated by filling the mouth and nostrils with mud; others are left where the rising tide will sweep them away.

It is a remarkable fact, that when the sick are brought to the river-side to die, they cannot legally be restored to health. They are regarded by the Hindu law as already dead. Their prop

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