Were you standing on the banks of the Ganges you might, perhaps, in one place see two or three young men carrying a sick female to the river.  If you should ask what they are going to do with her, perhaps they would reply, We are going to give her up to Gunga, to purify her soul, that she may go to heaven; for she is our mother.  In another place you might see a father and mother sprinkling a beloved child with muddy water, endeavoring to soothe his dying agonies by saying, “It is blessed to die by Gunga, my son; to die by Gunga is blessed, my son.”  In another place you might see a man descending from a boat with empty water-pans tied around his neck, which pans, when filled, will drag down the poor creature to the bottom, to be seen no more.  Here is murder in the name of religion.  He is a devotee, and has purchased heaven, as he supposes, by this his last good deed.  In another place you might see a person seated in the water, accompanied by a priest, who pours down the throat of the dying man mud and water, and cries out, “O mother Gunga, receive his soul.”  The dying man may be roused to sensibility by the violence.  He may entreat his priest to desist; but his entreaties are drowned.  He persists in pouring the mud and water down his throat, until he is gradually stifled, suffocated—­suffocated in the name of humanity—­suffocated in the name of religion.

It happens, sometimes, in cases of sudden and violent attacks of disease, that they cannot be conveyed to the river before death.  Under such circumstances, a bone is preserved, and at a convenient season is taken down and thrown into the river.  This, it is believed, contributes essentially to the salvation of the deceased.

Sometimes strangers are left on the banks to die, without the ceremony of drinking Ganges water.  Of these, some have been seen creeping along with the flesh half eaten off their bones by the birds; others with their limbs torn by dogs and jackals, and others partly covered with insects.

After a person is taken down to the river, if he should recover, it is looked upon by his friends as a great misfortune.  He becomes an outcast.  Even his own children will not eat with him, nor offer him the least attention.  If they should happen to touch him, they must wash their bodies, to cleanse them from the pollution which has been contracted.  About fifty miles north of Calcutta, are two villages inhabited entirely by these poor creatures, who have become outcasts in consequence of their recovery after having been taken down to the Ganges.

At the mouth of the river Hoogly, which is one of the branches of the Ganges, is the island Sauger, which I saw as we approached Calcutta after having been at sea for one hundred and twenty-eight days.  Now, my dear children, if you come out to India as missionaries, you will have to sail nearly one hundred and thirty days before you can reach it.  Sauger island is the island where, formerly, hundreds of mothers