ficial day, a kid is brought into the house, and all the
family sleep round him. Next morning, the reception hall in the lower
story is made ready for the ceremony. The floor is thickly covered with
cow-dung, and, right in the middle of the room a square is traced with
white chalk, in which is placed a high pedestal, with the statue of the
goddess. The patriarch of the family brings the goat, and, holding him
by the horns, lowers his head to salute the goddess. After this, the
"old" and young women sing marriage hymns, tie the legs of the goat,
cover his head with red powder, and make a lamp smoke under his nose,
to banish the evil spirits from round him. When all this is done, the
female element puts itself out of the way, and the patriarch comes again
upon the stage. He treacherously puts a ration of rice before the goat,
and as soon as the victim becomes innocently absorbed in gratifying his
appetite, the old man chops his head off with a single stroke of his
sword, and bathes the goddess in the smoking blood coming from the head
of the animal, which he holds in his right arm, over the idol. The women
sing in chorus, and the ceremony of betrothal is over.

The ceremonies with the astrologers, and the exchange of presents,
are too long to be described. I shall mention only, that in all these
ceremonies the astrologer plays the double part of an augur and a family
lawyer. After a general invocation to the elephant-headed god Ganesha,
the marriage contract is written on the reverse of the horoscopes and
sealed, and a general blessing is pronounced over the assembly.

Needless to say that all these ceremonies had been accomplished long ago
in the family to whose marriage party we were invited in Bagh. All these
rites are sacred, and most probably we, being mere strangers, would
not have been allowed to witness them. We saw them all later on in
Benares--thanks to the intercession of our Babu.

When we arrived on the spot, where the Bagh cere-mony was celebrated,
the festivity was at its height. The bridegroom was not more than
fourteen years old, while the bride was only ten. Her small nose was
adorned with a huge golden ring with some very brilliant stone, which
dragged her nostril down. Her face looked comically piteous, and
sometimes she cast furtive glances at us. The bridegroom, a stout,
healthy-looking boy, attired in cloth of gold and wearing the many
storied Indra hat, was on horseback, surrounded by a whole