ll the pots, pans, shells, trumpets, pistols, and
muskets that they could muster. All opened at once about one o'clock;
and, had there been any virtue in discord, the cholera must soon have
deserted the place, for such another hideous compound of noises I
never heard. The disease, which seemed to have subsided with the
silent procession before I went to bed, now returned with double
violence, as I was assured by numbers who flocked to my house in
terror; and the whole population became exasperated with the leaders
of the noisy faction, who had, they believed, been the means of
bringing back among them all the horrors of this dreadful scourge.

I asked the Hindoo Sadar Amin, or head native judicial officer at
Sagar, a very profound Sanskrit scholar, what he thought of the
efficacy of these processions in checking epidemic diseases. He said
that 'there could be nothing more clear than the total inefficiency
of medicine in such cases; and, when medicine failed, a man's only
resource was in prayers; that the diseases of mankind were to be
classed under three general heads: first, those suffered for sins
committed in some former births; second, those suffered for sins
committed in the present birth; third, those merely accidental. Now,'
said the old gentleman, 'it must be clear to every unprejudiced mind
that the third only can be cured or checked by the physician.'
Epidemics, he thought, must all be classed under the second head, and
as inflicted by the Deity for some very general sin; consequently, to
be removed only by prayers; and, whether silent or noisy, was, he
thought, matter of little importance, provided they were offered in
the same spirit. I believe that, among the great mass of the people
of India, three-fourths of the diseases of individuals are attributed
to evil spirits and evil eyes; and for every physician among them
there are certainly ten _exorcisers_. The faith in them is very great
and very general; and, as the gift is supposed to be supernatural, it
is commonly exercised without fee or reward. The gifted person
subsists upon some other employment, and _exorcises_ gratis.

A child of one of our servants was one day in convulsions from its
sufferings in cutting its teeth. The Civil Surgeon happened to call
that morning, and he offered to lance the child's gums. The poor
mother thanked him, but stated that there could be no possible doubt
as to the source of her child's sufferings--that the devil had got