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itself at length to its fate, received the piercing wounds of the lances without resistance, and finally died without a struggle. Thus terminated with success an attack upon a whale, which exhibited the most uncommon determination to escape from its pursuers, seconded by the most amazing strength of any individual whose capture I ever witnessed. After all, it may seem surprising that it was not a particularly large individual; the largest lamina of whalebone only measuring 9 feet 6 inches, while those affording 12feet bone are not uncommon*. The quantity of line withdrawn from the different boats engaged in the capture was singularly great. It amounted, altogether, to 10,440 yards, or nearly six English miles. Of these, 13 new lines were lost, together with the sunken boat; the harpoon connecting them to the fish having dropt out before the whale was killed.

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Captain Scoresby.

OCCUPATIONS AND CEREMONIAL OBSERVANCES OF A GRIHASTHA BRAHMIN.

A GRIHASTHA Bramin should rise in the morning an hour and a half before the sun. On getting up, his first thoughts should be directed to Vishnoo. About an hour before sun-rise, he walks out of the village, intent upon a business of great importance to a man of his cast, that of attending to the calls of nature. The place is chosen with great circumspection, and decency requires of him to put off his clothes and slippers. The demands of nature being discharged, he washes himself with his left hand, which, on account of the impure use of it, is never employed in eating, nor allowed to touch the food. The number of times they must wash, and what particular parts of the body, with a kind of water

It has been frequently observed, that whales of this size are the most active of the species; and that those of very large growth are, in general, captured with less trouble.

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and earth they must use in purifying, and many other observances which decency, prevents us from enumerating, are detailed in the ritual of the Brahmins. After having attended to this business, the next use of the Grihastha is to wash his mouth. This to him is no trifling matter. The care with which he must select the small bit of wood with which he rubs his teeth; the choice of the tree he must cut it from; the prayer he must address to the deities of the wood for permission, and many other ceremonies prescribed for the occasion, make a part of the education of the Brahmins, and are explained at great length in their books of ceremonies. The scrupulous attention with which they perform this operation every morning, with a piece of wood, always cut fresh from the tree, leads them to make a comparison very unfavourable to Europeans, many of whom altogether neglect the practice; and those who most regularly adopt it add to the horror of the Hindoo, when he sees them rubbing their teeth and gums with brushes made of the hair of animals, after being soiled with the pollution of the mouth and saliva. Happy is he, who, after cleansing his mouth, can wash himself in a running stream. It is more salutary to the soul and the body than any water he could find at home, or in a standing pool. An affair of so much importance is necessarily accompanied with many rites, as frivolous in our eyes as they are indispensable in theirs. One of the most essential is, to think at that moment of the Ganges, the Indus, the Krishna, the Caveree, or any other of those sacred rivers, whose streams possess the virtue of effacing sin; and then to implore the gods that the bath they use may be no less available to their souls than one of those nobler floods would be. While in the water, it is necessary to keep their thoughts stedfastly fixed upon Brahma and Vishnoo; and the bathing ends with the ceremonial of taking up hands full of water three several times, and with their faces towards the sun, pouring it out in libations to that luminary.

When he comes out of the water, the Grihastha Brahmin puts on his clothing, which consists of one

piece of cloth, uncut, of about a yard in width, and three yards in length. It has been already soaked in the water, and thus made pure from all the stains it had contracted. He then completes his dress by rubbing his forehead with a little of the ashes of cow-dung, or with the paste made of sandal-wood. He then drinks a small quantity of the water which he has taken out of the river; and the remainder he sprinkles around three times, in honour of all the gods, mentioning several of them by name, with the addition of the earth, the fire, and the deities which preside over the eight cardinal points; and he concludes the ceremony with a profound reverence to the whole circle of the gods. It would be tedious to describe the variety of gestures and movements which the Brahmin exhibits in such cases; but we may select one particular, the signs of the cross which he distinctly makes as a salutation to his head, his belly, his right and left shoulders: for after saluting all external things, he commences with the particular salutation of himself in detail. Every member has its particular salutation; even his fingers are not forgotten, as he touches them all round with his thumb. All these actions are accompanied with prayers or matras, solemnly appropriated to the oc

casion.

It would now seem time for the Brahmin to go home, after his leisure has been so long occupied with ceremonies; but he has still a prayer to offer to the tree Ravi, consecrated to Vishnoo. He implores the tree to grant him remission of his sins; and then walks round it seven, or fourteen, or twenty-one times, always increasing by seven. He orders dinner about mid-day; this is provided by the women, though the ordinary Brahmins value themselves on their skill in cookery. The great object here is absolute cleanliness in the preparation. Many precautions are necessary for this. The clothes of the women employed must be newly washed, and their vessels fresh scoured. The place must be neat and free from dust, and the eyes of strangers must not pervade it. While dinner is pre

paring, the Brahmin returns a second time to the river. He bathes again, repeating almost all the ceremonies in the same order as in the morning. But the anxious care is in returning home, lest he should happen to touch any thing on the way that might defile him; such as treading on a bone, or a bit of leather, or skin, on an old rag, broken dish, or any thing of that nature. Upon these points, however, it must be allowed that they are not all equally scrupulous.

The Brahmin being seated on the ground, his wife lays before him a banana leaf, or some other leaves sewed together, and, sprinkling them with a few drops of water, she serves the rice upon this simple cover, and close by it, on the same leaf, the different things which have been provided, consisting of the simple productions of nature, or of cakes. The rice is seasoned with a little clarified butter, or a kind of sauce so highly spiced, that no European palate could endure its pungency. The manner of serving up all this would appear very disgusting to us, as it is entirely performed by the hand, unless where the woman, to save her fingers, is obliged to take a wooden spoon. But this rarely happens, as the Hindoos generally love their meat cold, and their drink hot. The viands being laid before him, the Brahmin, before he touches them, sprinkles some drops of water round his plate; but whether to attract the dust that might blow over his rice, or as a sacrificial libation to the gods, I know not. But, before he puts a morsel into his mouth, he lays upon the ground a little of the rice, and the other things set before him; and this is an offering to his progenitors, and their portion of the meal. The repast is quickly finished, as in swallowing they have neither the bones of fish, nor of flesh to dread. He rises immediately, and washes both hands, although one only has been used; for the left being reserved for other purposes, as we have already mentioned, cannot even be employed in washing the right; and the lawful wife of the Brahmin can alone pour water over it for that purpose. After washing his hands, he rinses his mouth

twelve times. He never uses a tooth-pick, at least he never uses one twice, thinking that none but such as are inured to filth and beastliness could put up for another occasion a thing that had once touched their mouths, and been polluted with saliva. When the man has finished his repast, the wife begins hers, on the same leaf which had served him. As a mark of his attention and kindness, he is expected to leave her some fragments of his food; and she, on the other hand, must show no repugnance to eat his leavings.

About half an hour before sun-set, he returns a third time to the river, and goes through nearly the same ceremonies as on the two preceding occasions of that day. He then goes home, offers the sacrifice of Homan, and reads the Bhagavata (a book written in honour of Vishnoo, metamorphosed into the person of Krishna), and other books of that nature.

ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S
EXHIBITION.

AND thou hast walk'd about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted Dummy,
Thou hast a tongue-come let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect,

To whom should we assign the sphinx's fame ?

Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either Pyramid that bears his name?

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