Immediate communication was made to the relations of the defunct, that the deity of Somnat had heard the prayers of his relict, and he that was transported to a higher region, to be subjected to a change in the course of his transmigration that would bring him nearer to the final bliss of absorption into the universal Bhrim. The various connexions of the deceased were all summoned, and the neighbourhood immediately resounded with cries of lamentation, and those frantic ululations invariably heard at Hindoo funerals. The women stood screaming over the body with dishevelled hair, beating their breasts and rolling themselves upon the floor like so many wild beasts, whilst the disconsolate widow sat apart, abstracted by the thoughts of her own approaching sacrifice. She moved not; her eye was fixed on the ground, but the fountains of her grief were dry. Not a tear came to her relief--not a sigh escaped her bosom. The one awful image of death, in its most appalling form, absorbed her whole mind. The Brahmin, before spoken of, appeared to officiate upon this melancholy occasion. He whispered in the widow’s ear words of consolation and hope, but she heard him not. He talked of her rescue from the fiery death about to be prepared for her; she disregarded him, and turned from the aged sensualist with an expression of disgust. His eyes gleamed in their hollow sockets with a deep leaden glare, and the blood rushed a moment to his flaccid cheek. He turned from his anticipated victim to proceed with the obsequies. When everything had been provided, the spiritual functionary, having previously bathed, took a narrow slip of a certain herb, and binding it round one of the fingers of the deceased, sprinkled upon the floor a quantity of lustral water, obtained from the sacred river,[5] a libation to the gods, whom he invoked with numerous prostrations, and a variety of wild gestures. The people assembled joined in a prayer for the future repose of their relative’s soul. When this part of the ceremony had been performed, in the strictest manner prescribed by their formularies, fire was brought from the temple, where it had been purposely kindled, and certain herbs, consecrated to this solemn purpose, were disposed near the body in four different places. Some relatives of the deceased cast into the fire a quantity of dried cow-dung pulverized. During this portion of the preparatory rites, the officiating Brahmin was occupied in prayer, but paused in the midst of his orison, to perform an essential part of the funeral solemnities. A cow, adorned with flowers, was introduced at this auspicious juncture, and presented to the minister to prevent the defunct from being unhappy in his mutation, which the venerable hierophant promised, without any reservation, that he should not be, in consequence of the Brahmin’s prayers. Several offerings of a different kind, but no less valuable, were made to this disinterested priest before the obsequies were completed.