ORISSA. 457 to overflowing, and every night thousands have no shelter from the pouring rain. Miserable groups huddle under trees. Long lines, with their heads on their bundles, lie among the carts and bullocks on the side of the road. It is impossible to compute, with anything like precision, the number that thus perish on the homeward journey. Personal inquiries among the poorer pilgrims lead to the conclusion that the deaths in the city and by the way seldom fall below one-eighth, and often aniount to one-fifth, of each company; and the Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal confirms this estimate. Among the richer devotees, who travel in bullock carts or by palanquin, the losses, so far as can be ascertained, do not exceed the ordinary contingencies of a loi journey performed in the most trying scason of the Indian year. But, on the other hand, outbreaks of cholera take place, which, although now controlled to some extent by science, spare neither rich nor poor. Indeed, few pilgrims from the distant Provinces of Upper India attend the great Car Festival in mid-summer, except the very fanatical, who first make their arrangements for dying on the road. While the population of Lower Bengal Rocks to this ceremonial, the northern devotees content themselves with a cold-weather pilgrimage to the Swinging Festival in March; and even then, the deadly hot season catches them before they regain their native villages. It is impossible to reckon the total number of the poorer sort who travel on foot at less than $4,000. It is equally impossible to reckon their deaths in Puri and on the road at less than one-seventh, or 12,000 a year. Deducting 2000 from these for the ordinary death-rate, we have a net slaughter of 10,000 per annum. It may rrell be supposed that the British Government has not looked unmoved on this appalling spectacle. Nothing but a total prohibition of pilgrimage would put a stop to the annual massacre. But such a prohibition would amount to an interdict on one of the inost cherished religious privileges, and would be regarded by every Hindu throughout India as a great national wrong. The subject has come up from time to time for official discussion ; and, in 1867, a grand effort was made to enlist the educated classes against so homicidal a practice. Circular letters were sent to every Division of Bengal, and the utmost influence of the higher officials was brought to bear. But the answers which came in from every part of Bengal admitted of no hope. All that remained was to institute a system of sanitary surveillance and quarantine, which should reduce the inevitable loss of life to a minimum. Such measures are of three kinds,—the first being directed to lessen the number of pilgrims; the second, to mitigate the dangers of the road; and the third, to prevent epidemics in Purí. Anything like a
