"Upon the Ganges' overflowing banks, Where palm trees lined the shore in graceful ranks, I stood one night amidst a merry throng Of British youths and maidens, to behold A witching Indian scene of light and song, Crowds of veiled native loveliness untold, Each streaming path poured duskily along. The air was filled with the sweet breath of flowers, And music that awoke the silent hours, It was the BEARA FESTIVAL and feast When proud and lowly, loftiest and least, Matron and Moslem maiden pay their vows, With impetratory and votive gift, And to the Moslem Jonas bent their brows. _Each brought her floating lamp of flowers_, and swift A thousand lights along the current drift, Till the vast bosom of the swollen stream, Glittering and gliding onward like a dream, Seems a wide mirror of the starry sphere Or more as if the stars had dropt from air, And in an earthly heaven were shining here, And far above were, but reflected there Still group on group, advancing to the brink, As group on group retired link by link; For one pale lamp that floated out of view Five brighter ones they quickly placed anew; At length the slackening multitudes grew less, And the lamps floated scattered and apart. As stars grow few when morning's footsteps press When a slight girl, shy as the timid halt, Not far from where we stood, her offering brought. Singing a low sweet strain, with lips untaught. Her song proclaimed, that 'twas not many hours Since she had left her childhood's innocent home; And now with Beara lamp, and wreathed flowers, To propitiate heaven, for wedded bliss had come"
To these lines Mrs. Carshore (who has been in this country, I believe, from her birth, and who ought to know something of Indian customs) appends the following notes.
"_It was the Beara festival_." Much has been said about the Beara or floating lamp, but I have never yet seen a correct description. Moore mentions that Lalla Rookh saw a solitary Hindoo girl bring her lamp to the river. D.L.R. says the same, whereas the Beara festival is a Moslem feast that takes place once a year in the monsoons, when thousands of females offer their vows to the patron of rivers.
"_Moslem Jonas_" Khauj Khoddir is the Jonas of the Mussulman; he, like the prophet of Nineveh, was for three days inside a fish, and for that reason is called the patron of rivers."