The third day is spent in discharging the rockets. The figures were fixed on carriages, and the rocks were fastened to strong ropes by rattan loops, in such a manner that being passed between the legs of the animals, “so that when discharged, they, sliding on the ropes, ran along the ground.” In the evening there is another grand display of fireworks. The next day the corpse is burnt in a temporary house by small rockets, which, sliding down on to the coffins along ropes in rings of rattan, set the coffin on fire. Sometimes, as we are informed by Crawfurd,[128] the body is blown from a cannon to convey it more quickly to heaven! What can be said of such puerility and solemnity joined together? How melancholy is the aspect of such things, and what can we think of the moral or religious condition of a nation who made such seeming fun (for under what other term can a large portion of the ceremony be comprehended?) of the solemnest moment of existence, and that, too, in the burial of a minister of that God to whom, in humility and reverence, they lifted up their hearts in prayer. Very often, however, the most solemn and the most trivial are mingled in very remarkable proportions. We have one example of that, at least, in religion, nearer home. The Buddhist religion is remarkable in many points, but decidedly the most curious circumstance connected with it, is the vast numbers of believers which own its influence. That the religion is ancient, perhaps more ancient than any other form of eastern worship, except Brahmanism, can scarcely be doubted; but that it extended so far over the earth as some would have us believe, is scarcely credible. Reuben Burrow, a long time ago, called Stonehenge a Buddhist temple; and since then the notion has been revived by Higgins in his Celtic Druids, as well as in another work.[129] Mr. Pococke, too, the author of India in Greece, would persuade us that the early Greeks were Buddhists, and that Pythagoras, correctly written (according to him) Buddha-gooroos (Buddha’s spiritual teacher), was a Buddhist missionary!