250 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
entering Aries — for the Hindoos are greatly influ- 
enced in their religious observances by the movements 
of the heavenly bodies — at which times from one 
to two millions of persons have been known to assem- 
ble,, and it was at the last but one of these periods 
that the dreadful accident occurred which has just 
been described. 
One morning, as I was walking near the end of the 
town, with my head turned and gazing at some 
object which had struck my attention, I happened to 
run against an old woman, who instantly fell from 
the force of so sudden and unexpected a collision. I 
immediately raised her, and never during my existence 
had I beheld any thing akin to humanity so perfectly 
hideous. Every feature of her face was frightful. 
Her hair, matted and grizzled, fell upon her withered 
shoulders in long thin wisps, like the dull wiry grass 
which occasionally hangs from the crest of a sun- 
scorched rock. Her forehead appeared as if it had 
been crimped ; the wrinkles were so near together 
that a needle’s point could scarcely have been inserted 
between them. The skin clung so close to her cheek- 
bones as to develop the grim anatomy of her visage 
with a minuteness almost appalling. Nose she had 
none, but the slight indication of it which remained 
showed that such a member had once a local habita- 
tion upon her now revolting countenance. Her eyes 
were so deeply sunk in her head, and the lids ap- 
proximated so closely, that the dim lurid orbs were 
scarcely discernible.* The moment I had raised this 
* The Hindoo women are very beautiful when young, but 
become perfect hags in their old age. 
