The Hindūs are extremely anxious to die in sight of the Ganges, that their sins may be washed away in their last moments. A person in his last agonies is frequently carried on his bed, by his friends or relatives, in the coldest or in the hottest weather, from whatever distance, to the river-side, where he lies, if a poor man, without a covering day and night, until he expires. With the pains of death upon him, he is placed up to the middle in water and drenched with it; leaves of the shrub goddess, the sacred _tulsī_ plant, are also put into his mouth, the marks on the pebble god, the _Salagram_ are shown to him, and his relations call upon him to repeat, and repeat for him, the names of Rām, Hurī, Ganga, &c. In some cases the family priest repeats some prayers, and makes an offering to Voitŭrŭnēē, the river over which, they say, the soul is ferried, after leaving the body. The relations of the dying man spread the sediment of the river on his forehead and breast, and afterwards with the finger write on this sediment the name of some deity. If a person should die in his house, and not by the river-side, it is considered as a great misfortune, as he thereby loses the help of the goddess in his last moments. If a person choose to die at home, his memory becomes infamous. If these unfortunate people recover, after having been exposed by their relatives to die on the banks of the river, they take refuge in the village of Chagdah on the left bank of the Matabangah, forty-six miles from Calcutta, of which people who ought to be _corpses_, are the sole inhabitants. They are considered to prefer a debased existence to a righteous end, agreeing therein with the highest authorities. Pope’s Homer makes Achilles in the Elysian fields say:— “Rather I’d choose laboriously to bear A weight of woes, and breathe the vital air, A slave to some poor hind that toils for bread, Than reign the scepter’d monarch of the dead.” Solomon deems it better to be a live dog than a dead lion; and Job, called by Byron “the Respectable,” says, “Why should a living man complain?” to which Byron adds, “For no other reason that I can see, except that a dead man cannot.” In the face of these grave authorities the Hindostanī proverb is of a different opinion, which asserts “it is better to die with honour, than live with infamy.” The passage in the Psalms, “They shall be a portion for foxes,” appears obscure; but give it the probable rendering, “they shall be a portion for jackals;” and then the anathema becomes plain and striking to an Hindū, in whose country the disgusting sight of jackals, devouring human bodies, may be seen every day. The dying who are left by the side of the Ganges, are sometimes devoured alive by these animals in the night.