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hair, cut in the most fantastic fashion, noisy gabble, lively 
gesticulation, and almost primeval nudity. 
* After we passed Diamond Harbour, the scene became 
more interesting. The tide usually rises from tweiity to 
twenty-four feet, and the current, during the reflux, runs 
down at the rate of eight miles an hour. The effect of this 
prodigious rise and fall, so often repeated, was highly curious. 
During low-water, the ship floated at the bottom, as it were, 
of a broad canal, confined by high muddy banks, sloping at 
an angle of twenty degrees; but at full tide, she was buoyed 
up above the level of these banks; and we could see the 
water bursting over them, and inundating the adjacent plains. 
Over this space were scattered numerous small islands, 
covered with groves of Mango-trees, and of Palmyra, and 
Cocoa Palms, shading with their rich foliage the hamlets of 
the peasantry. The inundated ground bore a crop of rice, 
the stalk of which growing in proportion as the flood rises, 
the ear is kept above the surface, and spreads a soft verdure 
over the plain. . pA ases 
* From this rich and delightful scenery, our eyes were 
often attracted to objects of a very different nature. When 
a Hindoo lies at the point of death, his relatives carry him 
to the bank of the river, where they lay him along, and in 
order to accelerate his departure, stuff his mouth and nostrils 
with mud. . As soon as he has expired, the body is committed 
to the stream, where it floats up and down with the tide, 
until it is either swallowed by an alligator, or runs aground, 
and becomes a prey to the jackals and vultures. = — . 
...* This horrible practice, founded on the principles of the 
Hindoo religion, renders the passage from Diamond Harbour 
to Calcutta extremely disgusting to Europzeans, and entirely 
destroys the pleasure they are so well disposed to enjoy, after 
a tedious voyage, in surveying the beauties of the surround- 
ing country. They cannot cast a look upon the passing 
stream. without being shocked at the sight of numberless 
human bodies bleached by the sun, buoyed up by their own 
corruption, and devoured by the carrion crows that perch 
on them as they float along; and should they glance their 
