176 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
night, and with no eye but that of the casual passen- 
ger to behold them, they have been known to drag 
on shore human carcasses that were floating down 
the stream, and, like the hungry vulture, satisfy the 
longings of a morbid appetite upon this unnatural 
provision, while in a state of the most disgusting 
decomposition. 
It is indeed shocking to think that such horrors are 
to be witnessed in a highly civilized country, the 
people of which are often eminent for their mildness 
and humanity. But revolting as is the very contem- 
plation of such a humiliating fact, it will nevertheless 
appear that this description of cannibalism is not 
confined to the poor despised pariah. 
“ I will go a step further/’ says Mr. Moore, “ and 
say that not only do Hindoos, even Brahmins, eat flesh, 
but that at least one sect eat human flesh. I know 
only of one sect, and that I believe few in number, 
who do this, but there may, for aught I can say, be 
others, and more numerous. They do not, I con- 
clude, (in our territory assuredly not,) kill human sub- 
jects to eat, but they do eat such as they find in or 
near the Ganges, and perhaps other rivers. The name 
of the sect I allude to is, I think, Paramahansa, as I 
have commonly heard it named ; and I have received 
authentic information of individuals of this sect being 
not very unusually seen about Benares, floating down 
the river upon a human body, and feeding on it. 
Nor is this a low despicable tribe, but, on the con- 
trary, esteemed, by themselves at any rate, a very 
high one. Whether this exaltation be legitimate or 
assumed by individuals, in consequence of penance or 
