The day after our arrival in Astrakhan we were taken to the house of some Hindu brahmins, where we were to be present at the evening prayers. We were received by the chief among them in the most courteous and obliging manner. The room into which he led us looked to the west, and had no other furniture than large Turkish divans, and the only thing capable of attracting our attention was a little chapel let into the wall, and which two priests were in the act of arranging for the ceremony. One of them kept his eyes constantly turned towards the west, watching with religious attention the descent of the sun's disc to the horizon. These brahmins were dressed in long brown robes, crossed in front by a white scarf, the two ends of which swept the ground. Their bronzed and antiquely moulded visages were surmounted by white muslin turbans with large folds. The leader, who was much less absorbed in his devotions than the rest, was continually smiling upon us, and waving a monstrous Persian fan that had the effect of a smart breeze. Meanwhile the sun was fast declining; at last its total disappearance was announced by the harsh sound of a conch-shell, whereupon one of the priests lighted several tapers and placed them before an image in the chapel. Another began to wash curiously-shaped vessels, filled them with water of lustration, and prostrated himself before them with great unction. A large grey stone set in the wall, appeared to be the principal object of their adorations. According to the explanation given to us by the chief priest, the soul of a celebrated saint, grown weary of the world and of men, had retired within that mystical covering; hence the stone is sacred in the eyes of the Hindus, and the mere sight of it, as they declare, is capable of working miracles. After worshipping in silence for some minutes, the chief priest began to burn perfumes, and the room was soon filled with a cloud of smoke, seen through which every object assumed a vaguer and more mysterious form, the pungent aromatic odour, combined with the heat and the strangeness of the scene before our eyes, acted so strongly upon us that we were soon unable to distinguish what was real from what was fantastic. In fact, our semi-ecstatic condition was in remarkable accordance with the moral state of our brahmins. Their religious enthusiasm soon ceased to content itself with mere prostrations. Hitherto every thing had passed in complete silence, but at a given signal two priests knelt down before the holy stone and recited a prayer, in slow and guttural accents. Another with his arms crossed on his breast, stood a few steps off from the chapel, and now and then blew upon a shrill whistle. The fourth, armed with a conch-shell, stood upon one of the divans, and added his voice to the sounds which his companions gave out with increasing loudness. Presently their eyes kindled, the muscles of their frames grew tense, the conch vibrated, a bell was rapidly agitated by the leader, and then began so strange and infernal a din, a scene so grotesque and wild, that one would really have thought the brahmins were all possessed by devils. Their attitudes and frantic gestures conveyed the idea of exorcism rather than of prayer. What we felt it would be impossible to describe; it was a mixture of surprise, curiosity, disgust, and fright. Had not fatigue compelled the actors in this sabbat to stop after ten minutes' exertion, I doubt that we should have been able to support a longer continuance of such a spectacle. One would almost be disposed to say that men take pains to worship God in the least religious manner possible. I have seen the whirling and howling dervishes at Constantinople, whose strange and frightful performances can be compared only to those of the medieval convulsionaries. The religious music of the Kalmucks is not behind-hand with these aberrations of the human mind; and here is the Hindu, worship, which seems to vie with whatever is most demented and extravagant in other religions.
When the abominable concert was ended, the leader took a handful of yellow flowers, like marigolds, dipped them in Ganges water, and presented one to each of us. Then he kneaded a piece of dough in his hands, and gave it a symbolic form, stuck seven small tapers in it, waved it in every direction before the chapel, and then turning towards us, repeated the same ceremony. Lastly, he took a small white shell, which had been lying until then on the sacred stone, filled it with sacred water from the Ganges, and sprinkled us with it very devoutly. Meanwhile, his companions were setting out a table with a collation of fine fruit and pastry, of which the leader did the honours to us with much politeness and gallantry. So ended a scene as difficult to describe well as to forget.
Now let us leave the Indians and their odd ceremonies, and recur to the European usages, which, to our great surprise we found in many salons of Astrakhan.