But to return to the thread of my narrative, the sick man dies after a stay of four days at the Ghaut, suffering perhaps the most excruciating pangs and agony generally attendant on a deat-bed. The names of his gods are repeatedly whispered in his ears, and the consolations of religion are offered him with an unsparing hand, in order to mitigate his sufferings, and if possible to brighten his last hours. The corpse is removed from the resting place to the burning Ghaut, a distance of a few hundred yards, and preparations for a funeral pile are speedily made. The body is then covered with a piece of new cloth and laid upon the pyre, the upper and lower part of which is composed of firewood, faggots, and a little sandalwood and ghee to neutralize the effects of effluvia. The _Marooyapora_ Brahmin,[117] (an outcast) reads the formula, and the son or the nearest of kin sets fire to the pile; the body is consumed to ashes, but the navel remaining unburnt is taken out and thrown into the river. Thus ends the ceremony of cremation; the son putting a few jars of holy water on the pile, bathes in the stream, and returns home with his friends, changing his old garment for new white clothes, called _uttary_, on one end of which is fastened an iron key to keep off evil spirits. It is worthy of remark here, that providence is so propitious to us in every respect that in a few hours the son becomes reconciled to his unhappily altered circumstances caused by the loss of his father; instead of bemoaning his loss in a despondent frame of mind, he is soon awakened to a sense of his new responsibility. On reaching the gate of the house, all persons touch fire, and putting _neem_ leaves and a few grains of _kalie_ (a kind of pulse) into the mouth, cry out as before "Hurrybole, Hurrybole" and enter the house. The lamentation of the females inside the house, which was suppressed for a while through sheer exhaustion, is instantly renewed at the sound of "Hurrybole," as if fresh fuel were added to the flame, and every voice is drowned in the overwhelming surge of grief. Their melancholy strain, their pointed, pathetic allusion to the bereavement, the cadence of their plaintive voices, the utter dejection of their spirit, their loud, doleful cries reverberating from one side of the house to the other, the beating of their breasts, and the tearing of their hair, are too affecting not to make the most obdurate shed tears of sorrow.