462 Voyage of the Novara. 



mitted to cross the threshold of the pagoda, the door of which 

 always stands wide open, and the minor apartments of which, 

 so far as we could discern at a little distance away, were quite 

 empty. We could just descry a few sculptures on the walls. 



The whole village contains at present about 400 inhabitants,* 

 who reside in eighty small dwellings. Of these, three, built of 

 bricks and with tiled roofs, belong to the caste of Brahmins, 

 thirty to the Parias, five to families occupied in fishing, and two 

 mere hovels of palm-wood to the Willis, the lowest and most 

 wretched caste of all. The families of stone-cutters reside 

 outside the village. One remarks here that the walls of the 

 houses are hidden by heaps of cow and horse-dung, which the 

 inhabitants, as in Egypt, use for fuel, and which they pile up 

 to dry against those of the walls which are most exposed to the 

 sun. The "peon of the settlement, by name Randghajaneik, a 

 sort of overseer, gave us a drawing of the various groups of 

 houses, their inhabitants, and also the names of the various 

 castes in Tamil, engraved as usual with an iron tool upon palm- 

 leaves, and very elegantly rolled up in a small envelope. Among 

 the customs and fashions of the inhabitants which attracted our, 

 notice, we were informed that they always burn their dead from 

 four to five hours after life has departed — usually four hours and 

 forty minutes — alleging that the released soul takes that length 

 of time to reach heaven ! The bones are collected and thrown 

 into the sea. Widows are no longer required, on the death of 



* Of tliese inliabitants 50 belong to the Brahmin caste, 250 to the Malabai-, Sentu, 

 and Siva castes, and 100 are Pariahs. 



