superintendant sent additional soldiers to guard the inner gate, and afterwards informed our author that such tumultuous irruptions were no novelty to him, and that numbers had been crushed to death on such occasions. And, assuredly, there is not another scene on earth, where a spectator would be so likely to regard fatal accidents as of trivial account. The multitude of human beings, or rather, waste quantity of human being,the inexpressible debasement in which, in point of reason and moral sentiment, they are all sunk and equalized,--the perfect indifference about one another's life or death, prevailing to the exclusion of all the combining sympathies of charity throughout so vast and condensed an assemblage, and letting the individual atoms appear, by this selfish disjunction, in a littleness and insignificance exactly in inverse proportion to the vastness of the mass;-the indifference, too, which many of them shew as to their own lives,-the immense quantity of useless and vile action brought into one view, by the convention of so many myriads of befooled living creatures,-the personal squalidness of a large proportion of them, and the offensiveness of the place to all the senses :-All this together must, beyond any other exhibition within the reach of even Satanic contrivance, tend to make human nature, (at least the Hindoo portion of it) both in its physical and moral part, appear a worthless thing, little better than a nuisance in the creation. A cultivated, but irreligious European, obliged to behold this spectacle a few years successively, would come to regard the bodies and souls of such people as of little more value than the weeds and shell-fish thrown on the beach, near which this hideous fane is built; and the estimate of the most pious one, would involuntarily and perpetually utter itself in the expression, Hast thou made all men in vain ?'

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Two days later, June 14, our author writes,

I have seen Juggernaut. No record of ancient or modern history can give, I think, an adequate idea of this valley of death.' The idol called Juggernaut has been considered as the Moloch of the present age; and he is justly so named, for the sacrifices offered up to him by self-devotement, are not less criminal, perhaps not less numerous, than those recorded of the Moloch of Canaan. Two other idols accompany Juggernaut, namely Boloram and Shubudra, his brother and sister.' They receive equal adoration, and sit on thrones of nearly equal height.

This morning I visited the temple; a stupendous fabric, and truly commensurate with the extensive sway of the "horrid king" As other temples are usually adorned with figures, emblematical of their religion, so Juggernaut has representations (numerous and various) of that vice which constitutes the essence of his worship. The walls and gates are covered with indecent emblems, in massive and durable sculpture.—I have also visited the sand plains by the sea, in some places whitened by the bones of the pilgrims; and another place a little way out of the town,

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called by the English the Golgotha, where the dead bodies are usually cast forth; and where dogs and vultures are ever seen. The vultures generally find out the prey first, and begin with the intestines; for the flesh of the body is too firm for their beaks immediately after death. the dogs soon receive notice of the circumstance, generally from seeing the Hurries, or corpse-carriers, returning from the place. On the approach of the dogs, the vultures retire a few yards, and wait till the body be sufficiently torn for easy deglutition. The vultures and dogs often feed to. gether, and sometimes begin their attack before the pilgrim is quite dead. There are four animals which are sometimes seen about a carcase, the dog, the jackal, the vulture, and the Hurgeela, or Adjutant, called by Pennant, the Gigantic Crane.'

The precincts of the god's habitation are so intolerably noisome from filth, putrefaction,* and various loathsome sights which our author briefly mentions, as to compel the English gentlemen who are stationed here, and whom he names, to reside on the shore, at the distance of more than a mile from the temple. Their refined society was peculiarly grateful to him, under the oppression of spirits caused by the scene. In this point, however, they had no sympathetic feeling. I was surprised,' he says, to see how little they seemed to be moved by the scenes of Juggernaut. They said they were now so accustomed to them, they thought little of them. They had almost forgot their first impressions.'

The 18th of June was the grand day. At twelve o'clock this day, the Moloch of Hindostan was brought out of his temple amidst the acclamations of hundreds of thousands of his worshippers. When the idol was placed on his throne, a shout was raised by the multitude, such as I had never heard before. It continued equable for a few minutes, and then gradually died away.' After an act of worship by a party of men who presented themselves before the idol with green branches, there was another prodigious shout, or rather, as our author says, 'yell of approbation, united with a kind of hissing.' This latter part of the sound was made by the women, with the lips circular, and the tongue vibrating, as if a serpent would speak by their organs.'

And what, at last, is that transcendant object which can attract rational beings from all parts of a vast region, bring them to a concentrated mass of many hundreds of thousands, and, by presenting itself to their sight, elevate their spirits to a most ardent universal, frenzy, in spite of the exhaustion from their toilsome pilgrimages, and of the famine and death prevailing with hourly aggravation among them? Probably the

* Dr. B. thinks, that only the vicinity of the sea could prevent such a contagion, as would make a sacrifice to the god in a style surpassing all preceding offerings.

whole creation may not contain, on so prodigious a scale in point of numbers, within such narrow local limits, another instance of such a power of delusion-of such perversity of intellectual natures. The object which excites to delirium more, perhaps, than half a million of minds at one moment in one place, is a clumsily carved log of wood!-While however the god, taken distinctly, seems formed in defiance of all the principles according to which we shold calculate on a grand and irresistible impression on the imagination, it must be acknowledged that some of the secondary parts of the exhibition are tolerably well adapted to command at least a Hindoo's imagination, to which nothing is so sublime as huge bulk. It is with great propriety, that this lord of the world' comes out on a chariot which fairly beats out of comparison the state coaches of all other gods and potentates.

The throne of the idol was placed on a stupendous car or tower about sixty feet in height, resting on wheels which indented the ground deeply, as they turned slowly under the ponderous machine. Attached to it were six cables, of the size and length of a ship's cable, by which the people drew it along. Upon the tower were the priests and satellites of the idol, surrounding his throne. The idol is a block of wood, having a frightful visage painted black, with a distended mouth of a bloody colour. His arms are of gold, and he is dressed in gorgeous apparel. The other two idols are of a white and yellow colour. Five elephants preceded the three towers, bearing towering flags, dressed in crimson caparisons, and having bells hanging to their caparisons, which sounded musically as they moved.' p. 25.

As the idol advanced, Dr. B. moved on with the crowd, under an impression of horror at the diabolical character of the scene. The car repeatedly stopped, to allow an interval for the priests and other ministers of the god, stationed aloft near his throne, to recite verses and perform rites, the nature of which our author could not do more than hint in general language. He felt, he says, some degree of guilt in continuing a spectator. There will probably appear no just cause for this sentiment, when the importance is considered of our having an intelligent Christian evidence to the real and exact nature of this religion,' the projects for attempting to enlighten and withdraw the votaries of which, have recently excited such a burst of rage in this country; a rage that has left all its malice still smouldering, amidst the mortification from defeated effort and falsified prediction. A partial and temporary suspension of the customary laws of decorum, both. in beholding and relating, if ever permissible, would have been so for the purpose of placing in broad European daylight, that which is, confessedly, the most sacred' and triumphant exhibition, within the whole compass of a system,

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which has obtained among us so many avowals of veneration, and for applying to which even the plain scriptural terms concerning idolatry, Christian missionaries have been called bigots and madmen. But the propriety of having a witness, who has qualified himself by a full and recent inspection, will be still more obvious, when a fact is mentioned which Dr. B. states most explicitly at the close of this account of Jaggernaut, and which we shall take a future occasion to remark upon.

The impression of horror, and the sense of guilt, grew se strong on our observer, that he was on the point of getting away, when he was arrested and detained by a new turn in the worship.

After the tower had proceeded some way, a pilgrim announced that he was ready to offer himself a sacrifice to the idol. He laid himself down in the road before the tower as it was moving along, lying on his face, with his arms stretched forwards. The multitude passed round him, leaving the space clear, and he was crushed to death by the wheels of the tower. A shout of joy was raised to the god. He is said to smile when the libation of the blood is made. The people threw cowries, or small money, on the body of the victim, in approbation of the deed. He was left to view a considerable time, and was then carried by the Hurries to the Golgotha, where I have just been viewing his remains. How much I wished that the proprietors of India Stock could have attended the wheels of Juggernaut, and seen this peculiar source of their revenue.' p 27.

There can be no doubt that they would to a man, Mr. Twining not excepted, be eager for the reduction of their Dividend, by so much as might be found to accrue from this and the similar sources of their revenue..

It should seem that former travellers, and other describers of Indian customs, have exaggerated the number of these self-devoted victims; unless it may be supposed, that some of the returns of the frantic season are much more profuse of these offerings than others. Dr. B. who staid, indeed, only part of the time of the anniversary, recounts only this instance and another-that of a woman, who placed herself under the wheels the following day, in so ill-adjusted a manner, that she was but partially crushed, and continued alive several hours. Nothing but her bones remained next morning, when Dr. B. passed the receiving place for the dead. The same place the next day presented another spectacle :

I beheld another distressing scene this morning at the "Place of Skulls; a poor woman lying dead, or nearly dead, and her two children by her looking at the dogs and vultures which were near. The people passed without noticing the children. I asked them where was their home. They said "they had no home but where their mother was.” It is probable that this spectacle multiplied a hundred or

a thousand fold, would not have excited the smallest emotion of compassion in the infinite host of demoniacs. And this perfect abhorrence of the kinder sympathies, taken in connection with that ardent delight with which our author says they beheld the most indecent rites of the idolatry, may be, as he partly remarks, very fairly assumed as a correct illustration of the state of their 'private manners, and their moral principles,'-and, we will add, a correct illustration, we do not say of the manners, but certainly of the moral principles, of those persons in Europe, who, while knowing the actual practice at the temples, and among the people of India, have vociferated, in a strain perfectly accordant to the hideous noise at Jaggernaut, against the mischief that was attempting to be inflicted on the gentle, the amiable, the virtuous Hindoos, by means of missionaries and bibles.

Dr. B. declines making a conjecture of the number of people assembled, but mentions the saying of the natives that a lack of the people (100,000,) would not be missed.' A Brahmin, of whom he inquired on the subject, professed his total inability to judge. But surely the British Collector, who receives the aggregate of the payments for entrance through the gates, could at least give some reasonable guess.

The very remarkable fact of the abrogation or suspension, at this place, during the festival, of the otherwise insuperable distinction of Castes, by virtue of such a sovereign greatness in the god as to reduce all things to a level before him, was particularly observed by our author, who saw the Brahmins with their heads uncovered in the open plain, falling down, in the midst of the Sooders, before the "horrid shape," and mingling complacently with that polluted cast.' He should have asked some of the Brahmins, whether this god is really a favourite with them; for if he is, it is one of the strongest illustrations ever recorded of the power of superstition to reverse the natural laws of human feeling.

Our author's mind was so oppressed with the constant view of the enormities before him, that he hastened away before the termination of the festival. We wish he had made a vigorous effort against his feelings, and resolutely staid to witness and record all the scenes of the infernal opera. There could rarely happen a worthier occasion for self-denial. For, his is to be the statement which, superseding in a great measure all former accounts, is to hold up to the people of this country an out-spread and glaring picture of what pagan nations can act, as one of the most exalted services of religion, and what a professed