like a sea: started at 4 P.M. and arrived at the Kurum-nassa river; it is a shallow, melancholy-looking, small stream, with nothing to be seen on its banks but fishermen's nets. Hilsā fish are here caught in great numbers, and the rahū also; I purchased one of the latter, and some quail, which were twenty-five per rupee.
Lugāoed at Barrah, a small village on the right bank: climbed the cliff in the evening; a fisherman who resided there showed me two satī mounds on the top of it,—the one built of stone sacred to a Brahmān, the other of mud in honour of a Kyiatt. A kalsā is the ornament on the top of a dome; there were two of stone, without any points on the satī mound of the Brahmān; and two of mud, decorated with points, and one small image, on that of the Kyiatt[1].
I gave a small present to the people, and took away one of the kalsās of mud as a curiosity: a number of broken idols in black stone had been dug up, and placed on the satī mound of the Brahmān,—I was anxious to have two of them, and determined to ask the fisherman to give them to me. The old man told me with great pride that one of his family had been a satī, and that the Brahmāns complained greatly they were not allowed to burn the widows, as such disconsolate damsels were ready and willing to be grilled; he told me that a great number of mounds are on the left bank of the river, just opposite at Beerpūr, and that there are several about two miles higher up the stream.
The Brahmānī ducks are calling to one another from the opposite banks of the river,—there must be several pairs of them from the ā'o! ā'o! that I hear; this is only the second time during this voyage that I have heard the chakwā. The wind is down, there is a soft and brilliant moonlight,—the weather is really charming, and the moonlight nights delicious; from the high bank by the satīs one can see the stream of the Ganges below, glittering in its beams.
"Eight miles above Buxar, on the right bank of the river, is
- ↑ See the Plate entitled "Kalsās," Fig. 3.
