LETTER VIII - ABOUT THE HINDOO CHARACTER; WITH DIGRESSIONS HOME

Summary

Calcutta, April 17, 1863.

Dear Simkins,–One morning, at the beginning of this month, as I lay between sleeping and waking, near the open window, I began to be aware of a hideous din in an adjacent street. At first the sound of discordant music, and a confused multitude of voices, impressed me with a vague idea that a battalion of volunteers were passing by in marching order, headed by their band. This notion, however, was dispelled by the appearance of my bearer with the tea-tray, who informed me that this was the festival of Cali, the goddess of destruction, and that all the Hindoo people had turned out to make holiday. I immediately sallied forth in the direction of the noise, and soon found myself amidst a dense crowd in the principal thoroughfare leading to the shrine of the deity. During a few minutes I could not believe my eyes; for I seemed to have been transported in a moment over more than twenty centuries, to the Athens of Cratinus and Aristophanes. If it had not been for the colour of the faces around, I should have believed myself to be on the main road to Eleusis in the full tide of one of the Dionysiac festivals. The spirit of the scene was the same, and at each step some well-known feature reminded one irresistibly that the Bacchic orgies sprung from the mysterious fanaticism of the far East.