A Wail From India's Coral Strand

I'm weary of the loin-cloth,

And tired of naked skins; I'm sick of filthy, knavish priests

Who trade in human sins: These millions of the great unwashed

Offend both eye and nose; I long for legs in pantaloons

And feet concealed in hose.

A wail of human misery

Is ringing in my ears; The sight of utter wretchedness

Has filled my eyes with tears; The myriad huts of mud and straw

Where millions toil and die Are blots upon this fertile land

Beneath an Orient sky.

I'm weary of the nasal rings

And juice-discolored lips; I cannot bear these brown-skinned brats

Astride their mothers' hips; I loathe the spindling Hindu shanks

With dirt encrusted hard; I'm nauseated by the hair

That reeks of rancid lard.

I'll ride no more in little cabs

That serve as railroad-cars, Each barely twenty feet in length

And swayed by countless jars; My bones are racked by traveling

In India's jerky way: Far better weeks in Pullman cars

Than one night in Cathay!

I'm sick at heart (and stomach too)

Of India's vile hotels, Whose rooms are drearier and less clean

Than many prison cells; Where servants swarm like cockroaches

Yet nothing can be had, And where your private " boy " alone

Prevents your going mad.

I'm weary of the sun-hats too

Like toad-stools made of pith; I'm sick of Buddha's " sacred tooth "

And every other myth. Good-bye to whining mendicants

Who show their loathsome sores! - I'm glad to take the steamer now,

And sail for other shores.

It was with great relief that we left Kalighat and its horrors, and made our way to the Botanical Garden, in the suburbs of Calcutta, to view its celebrated banyan tree, the largest in the world. Who can forget this marvelous phenomenon, which furnished one of the illustrations in our school-books twenty-five years ago? It looked larger than I expected; though I should have remembered that it is steadily increasing, year by year, for its vitality seems to rival that of the earth itself. The circumference of its outer tendrils now sweeps through a circuit of one thousand feet!

Not without awe did we approach and stand beneath its mighty roof. Though the main trunk is fifty feet in circumference, it was not that which most astonished me. What filled me with amazement was its horizontal branches, stretching out on every side for more than one hundred and fifty feet. These drop to the ground hundreds of tiny filaments, which, taking root, become themselves subordinate trees, send up nourishment to the parent stock, hold up its sturdy limbs, and allow them to advance till they can let fall other grappling-irons to the earth and put forth new leaves to the sun. We walked beneath this banyan tree as in a grove, and, sitting within its shade on benches placed for weary travelers, admired this marvelous growth, which, nevertheless, seems here so natural and easy that we involuntarily asked ourselves why other trees do not adopt this system of indefinite expansion, - this secret of arboreal immortality.

A Young Banyan.

Going To Cremation.

As we were returning from the Botanical Garden, we met two natives carrying, in a kind of sling suspended from a pole, the body of a man.

"Where are they taking him?" I asked. "To the river Hugli," was the reply. "Is he dead?"

"Not yet; but he will die soon, and they are anxious that he may expire beside the sacred stream." "What will become of his body then?" "It will be cremated at the Burning Ghat." "Let us go thither! " I exclaimed.

On reaching it, we were introduced to its Hindu superintendent, who is appointed by the English Government to examine all bodies brought there, to ascertain the cause of death and to inform the police if he has reason to suspect a murder. Cremation is one of the characteristic features, not only of Calcutta, but of the whole of India, and in such an over-populated and unhealthy land it is almost a necessity. What I object to, therefore, is not the act itself, but the coarse, brutal way in which it is usually performed.

The enclosure of the Burning Ghat is an ill-kept, dirty area, bounded on one side by a grimy portico. In this we stood to watch the ceremonies. At one end was a kind of cattle-pen, where mourners wait until a vacant space for burning can be given them. I think I can say without much exaggeration that any respectable dog would, after taking one look at that waiting-room, have walked out immediately.