The effect is
startling, and brilliant; the sunlight glances upon the white robes of
the men, in alternate stripes of soft shadow and dazzling brightness,
the wind plays round their feet as they march heavily along, in a whirl
of dust which robs the leaves of their morning freshness; whilst the
scarlet robes of the children light up the grove as with a furnace, and
the rush of voices disturbs the air. On they come through the quiet
country fields, hot and dusty with their long march, the foremost priest
holding his head high, and doing his routine work manfully--never
wearying of repeating the same words, or of opening and shutting the
dark-bound volume in his hand; and the children, not yet quite weary of
singing, and of swinging incense-burners--keeping close together two and
two in line; the people following being less regular, less apparently
enthusiastic, but walking close together in a long winding stream up the
hill.
What does it all mean? Why, that these simple people want rain on the
land, and that they have collected from all parts of the country to
offer their prayers, and their money, to propitiate the Deity. Could we,
but for one moment, as onlookers from some other sphere, see this line
of creeping things on their earnest errand, the sight would seem a
strange one. Do these atoms on the earth's surface hope to change the
order of the elements, to serve their own purposes? If rain were needed,
would it not come?
But we are in a land where we are taught, not only to pray for our
wants, but to pay for their expression; so let us not question the
motive of the procession, but follow it again in the evening, into the
town, where it becomes lost in the crowded streets--so crowded that we
cannot see more than the heads of the people; but the line is marked
above them by a stream of sunset, which turns the dust-particles above
their heads into a golden fringe.
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