Yesterday he was telling me in what great reverence people of this
locality hold the sacred river Ganges. If one of their relatives dies, he
said, and they have not the means of taking the ashes to the Ganges, they
powder a piece of bone from his funeral pyre and keep it till they come
across some one who, some time or other, has drunk of the Ganges. To him
they administer some of this powder, hidden in the usual offering of
_pan_[1], and thus are content to imagine that a portion of the
remains of their deceased relative has gained purifying contact with the
sacred water.

[Footnote 1: Spices wrapped in betel leaf.]

I smiled as I remarked: "This surely must be an invention."

He pondered deeply before he admitted after a pause: "Yes, it may be."




ON THE WAY.

_February_ 1891.


We have got past the big rivers and just turned into a little one.

The village women are standing in the water, bathing or washing clothes;
and some, in their dripping _saris_, with veils pulled well over
their faces, move homeward with their water vessels filled and clasped