We saw one carried to mid-stream
and thrown overboard. He was sandwiched between two great slabs of
stone.
We lay off the cremation-ghat half an hour and saw nine corpses burned.
I should not wish to see any more of it, unless I might select the
parties. The mourners follow the bier through the town and down to the
ghat; then the bier-bearers deliver the body to some low-caste natives
--Doms--and the mourners turn about and go back home. I heard no crying
and saw no tears, there was no ceremony of parting. Apparently, these
expressions of grief and affection are reserved for the privacy of the
home. The dead women came draped in red, the men in white. They are
laid in the water at the river's edge while the pyre is being prepared.
The first subject was a man. When the Doms unswathed him to wash him, he
proved to be a sturdily built, well-nourished and handsome old gentleman,
with not a sign about him to suggest that he had ever been ill. Dry wood
was brought and built up into a loose pile; the corpse was laid upon it
and covered over with fuel. Then a naked holy man who was sitting on
high ground a little distance away began to talk and shout with great
energy, and he kept up this noise right along.
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