202 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
countless multitudes which the grave shall cast forth 
at the final gathering, when they of all nations, and 
kindreds, and tongues, shall stand before the everlast- 
ing presence, to hear the doom of their eternity. 
As soon as the body has been carefully laid in the 
“ house appointed for all living,” the priest makes an 
oration, adorned with every exaggeration of Eastern 
hyperbole, in which he retraces the past life of his 
departed brother, recounting the good actions and ma- 
nifold virtues of a man tinged perhaps with crimes of 
the blackest dye — for this is not at all uncommon — 
thus showing how worthy he was of the divine honours 
to which he has been called, and giving the surviving 
relatives the easy assurance of a similar condition 
hereafter upon the most satisfactory terms. At the 
conclusion of the priest’s rhapsody, a sort of dirge is 
chanted, in which all the assembly vociferously join, 
mixed with the din of tomtoms, the braying of trum- 
pets, and the yells of mourners ; then the perpen- 
dicular hole is filled with branches of the banyan-tree 
and a blessing pronounced by the officiating Bramin 
over the corpse, which is solemnly recommended to 
the guardianship of Siva. The grave is finally closed 
up with earth, when the ceremony concludes with 
a feast provided only for a certain number spe- 
cially invited to partake of it, who, however, dare 
not presume to dip their unsanctified fingers into the 
mess, until the Bramin has first satisfied the longings 
of an unappeased appetite, and received his burial fee 
from the relatives of the deceased. 
It happened, while we were at Agra, that the cele- 
brated Scindia, who has proved one of the most for- 
