It is therefore not surprising that in the very harbor where American and European flags are waving from hundreds of mast-heads lies Nimtoolaghat, a Hindoo place of cremation, from which the whole day long dense clouds of smoke arise, scattering the vapors of burning human bodies. It is a large brick building which is divided into two apartments by a brick wall. The apartment which is next to the street is covered by a roof, but the one next to the harbor is open at the top. The floor is made of clay, excepting the spots under the funeral pyres, where it consists of large flagstones. I have often stood at this place, and it always seemed to me that our cemeteries with their monuments, grass plots, trees, and flowers are dear places which, to some extent, reconcile man to stern death, while here everything seemed dead and hopeless. I will describe for the reader what I saw at one of my visits to this place of desolation. On the flagstones in the roofless apartment were six separate pyres, two of which were already reduced to ashes when I entered, two others were about half consumed by the fire, only a few bones being visible among the fire-brands; but on each of the other two was a naked corpse, the outside of which was scorched by the flames, while blood and water were slowly oozing out of mouth and nostrils, while the burning flesh hissed and sputtered where the heat was most intense, so that the whole presented a shocking sight. A score of half-naked Brahmins were busy around the pyres muttering prayers and making signs over the dead, while the nearest relatives walked around the corpses uttering cries of lamentation. Particularly violent was the grief of a young woman whose mother had just been laid upon the pyre, deep sorrow and heart-rending lamentations testifying to the love she had borne the deceased. [Illustration: NIMTOOLAGHAT--PLACE OF CREMATION.]