Her great temple, called Kalee Ghaut, is near Calcutta. There is a great
feast in her honor once a year at that temple. Early in the morning
crowds assemble there with the noise of trumpets and kettle-drums. See
those wild fierce men adorned with flowers. They go towards the temple. A
blacksmith is ready. Lo! one puts out his tongue, and the blacksmith
cuts it: that is to please Kalee: another chooses rather to have an iron
bar run through his tongue. Some thrust iron bars and burning coals into
their sides. The boldest mount a wooden scaffold and throw themselves
down upon iron spikes beneath, stuck in bags of sand. It is very painful
to fall upon these spikes; but there is another way of torture quite as
painful--it is the swing. Those who determine to swing, allow the
blacksmith to drive hooks into the flesh upon their backs, and hanging by
these hooks they swing in the air for ten minutes, or even for half an
hour. And WHO all these cruel tortures? To please Kalee, and to make the
people wonder and admire, for the multitude around shout with joy as they
behold these horrible deeds.

THE CASTES.--The Hindoos pretend that when Brahma created men, he made
some out of his mouth, some out of his arms, some out of his breast, and
some out of his foot. They say the priests came out of Brahma's mouth,
the soldiers came out of his arm, the merchants came out of his breast,
the laborers came out of his foot. You may easily guess who invented this
history. It was the priests themselves: it was they who wrote the sacred
books where this history is found.

The priests are very proud of their high birth, and they call themselves
Brahmins.

The laborers, who are told they come out of Brahma's foot, are much
ashamed of their low birth. They are called sudras.