The veneration paid to Talapoins during their lifetime accompanies them after their death. Their state is considered as one of peculiar sanctity. It is supposed that their very bodies too partake of the holiness inherent in their sacred profession. Hence their mortal remains are honoured to an extent scarcely to be imagined. As soon as a distinguished member of the brotherhood has given up the ghost, his body is opened, the viscera extracted and buried in some decent place without any particular ceremony, and the corpse embalmed in a very simple manner by putting ashes, bran, and other desiccative substances into the abdominal cavity. It is then swathed with bands of linen, wrapped round it many times, and a thick coat of varnish laid upon the whole. On this fresh varnish gold leaves are sometimes placed, so that the whole body is gilded over from head to feet. When the people are poor and cannot afford to buy gold for the above purpose, a piece of yellow cloth is considered as the most suitable substitute. The body, thus attired, is laid in a very massive coffin, made, not with planks, but of a single piece of timber hollowed in the middle for receiving the earthly frame of the deceased. A splendid cenotaph, raised in the centre of a large building erected for the purpose, is prepared to support a large chest wherein the coffin is deposited. The chest is often gilt inside and out, and decorated with flowers made of different polished substances of various colours. Pictures, such as native artists contrive to make, are disposed round the cenotaph. They represent ordinarily religious subjects. In this stately situation the body remains exposed for several days, nay several months, until preparations are completed for the grand day of the obsequies. During that period festivals are often celebrated about it, bands of music play, and people resort in crowds to the spot for the purpose of making offerings to defray the expense to be incurred for the funeral ceremony. When the appointed day for burning the corpse at last arrives, the whole population of the town will be seen flocking in their finest dresses to witness the display of fireworks which takes place on the occasion of burning the corpse. A funeral pile of a square form is erected on the most elevated spot. Its height is about fifteen feet, and it ends with a small room made for receiving the coffin. The corpse having been hoisted up and laid in the place destined for its reception, fire is set to the pile in a rather uncommon way. An immense rocket, placed at a distance of about forty yards, is directed towards the pile by means of a fixed rope guiding it thereto. Sometimes the rocket is placed on a huge cart, and pushed in the direction of the pile. In its erratic and uncertain course it happens occasionally that it deviates from its course, and plunges into the ranks of the crowd, wounding and killing those it meets. As soon as it comes in contact with the pile,