574 A SPRING FESTIVAL
carried in procession, to the sound of music, to the place where the cattle have again been collected. The temple dancing-girls, who are to be found at all feasts and public ceremonies, are not absent on this occasion; they march at the head of the large concourse of people, and from time
to time pause to delight the spectators with their lascivious dances and obscene songs.
The feast terminates with a performance which, I believe, has no other object than simple amusement. The crowd
forms itself into a big circle, in the middle of which a hare is let loose, which in its efforts to escape runs round and round, from side to side, exciting much laughter amongst the spectators, till at last it is caught.
The idols are then carried back to the temples, the cows are led back to the sheds, and thus ends the most popular of all Hindu feasts.
The Pongul, as I have said, is intended to celebrate the period when the sun is about to recommence its course.
There would have been nothing blameworthy, nothing
astonishing in the people hailing with joy the appearance of this great fertilizing luminary in their hemisphere, and rendering praise and thanks to the Almighty as the Creator
of it; but when we see a nation which professes to occupy the first place amongst the civilized races of the world
treating this as an occasion for the most idle ceremonies, surely we ought not to attribute it simply to the weakness
of the human mind. Ought we not rather to recognize in
it the prompting of some evil spirit seeking to seduce men by the empty pomp that accompanies these insane
practices I We should not hesitate to regard them as folly in a single individual; are they therefore less unreasonable or more excusable when an entire nation practises them? Our astonishment ceases when we carefully
consider the causes that keep the Hindus enchained to degraded forms of worship like these. The fact is, the laws and customs, both religious and civil, of the Hindu
people are so closely bound together, that it is impossible to attack the one without equally injuring the other. Custom, prejudice, and national predilection have all served to establish their belief that religion and polity are inseparable; and they are thoroughly convinced that