away.
Hindoos do not want daughters, because their weddings make such a ruinous
expense; but they want sons, so that at death they may have honorable
exit from the world; and there is no honor equal to the honor of having
one's pyre lighted by one's son. The father who dies sonless is in a
grievous situation indeed, and is pitied. Life being uncertain, the
Hindoo marries while he is still a boy, in the hope that he will have a
son ready when the day of his need shall come. But if he have no son, he
will adopt one. This answers every purpose.

Meantime the corpse is burning, also several others. It is a dismal
business. The stokers did not sit down in idleness, but moved briskly
about, punching up the fires with long poles, and now and then adding
fuel. Sometimes they hoisted the half of a skeleton into the air, then
slammed it down and beat it with the pole, breaking it up so that it
would burn better. They hoisted skulls up in the same way and banged and
battered them. The sight was hard to bear; it would have been harder if
the mourners had stayed to witness it. I had but a moderate desire to
see a cremation, so it was soon satisfied. For sanitary reasons it would
be well if cremation were universal; but this form is revolting, and not
to be recommended.

The fire used is sacred, of course--for there is money in it. Ordinary
fire is forbidden; there is no money in it. I was told that this sacred
fire is all furnished by one person, and that he has a monopoly of it and
charges a good price for it. Sometimes a rich mourner pays a thousand
rupees for it. To get to paradise from India is an expensive thing.
Every detail connected with the matter costs something, and helps to
fatten a priest. I suppose it is quite safe to conclude that that
fire-bug is in holy orders.

Close to the cremation-ground stand a few time-worn stones which are
remembrances of the suttee. Each has a rough carving upon it,
representing a man and a woman standing or walking hand in hand, and
marks the spot where a widow went to her death by fire in the days when
the suttee flourished. Mr. Parker said that widows would burn themselves
now if the government would allow it. The family that can point to one
of these little memorials and say: "She who burned herself there was an
ancestress of ours," is envied.

It is a curious people. With them, all life seems to be sacred except
human life. Even the life of vermin is sacred, and