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Who is that other great angel, with dark and overshadowing brow? That is the one who in one night, by one flap of his wing, turned one hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib's host into corpses. Who are those bright immortals near the throne, their faces partly turned toward each other as though about to sing? Oh, they are the Bethlehem chanters of the first Christmas night!
It was the psalm, "O Lord, open thou our lips!" and the chanters were expiators of the sin of Intemperance in Meats and Drinks. They were condemned to circuit the mountain, famished, and to long for the fruit and waters of the tree in vain. They soon came up with the poets a pallid multitude, with hollow eyes, and bones staring through the skin.
We were fortunate, for just before coming to the tank and temple, a christening party of Hindoos in their best clothes, with yellow flowers in black hair, and priests with long chanters and tom-toms playing, came out of some houses as we were passing. In a loosely formed procession they proceeded very slowly to the temple, the principals in a closed brougham in the middle.
For a second there was a confused roaring on the long drones; then the shrill chanters broke clear away into the wild reel; and presently the boys and girls, who were at first laughingly shy and embarrassed, began to make such imitations of the reel figure, which they had seen often enough, as led to a vast amount of scrambling and jollity, if it was not particularly accurate.
Ballad-singers, or rather chanters or croakers, are often to be met with in the streets, but hand-organ players are not more frequent than in our cities. I still observe little girls and other children barelegged and barefooted on the wet sidewalks.
That exalted monarch then entered his own palace, worshipped by exalted Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas, eulogised by chanters of panegyrical hymns and congratulated by the citizens.
A singer with a thundering voice a man certainly picked out from all the voices of France, as was the drum-major of the imperial guard from all the giants of the empire escorted by four other chanters, who appeared to be there only to serve him as an accompaniment, made the air resound, and the windows of the houses vibrate.
By the grave was the dog, as the man had said, and up the winding path came the priest and his young chanters, who sang with shrill, clear voices "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." "Come and live with me, now your old master is gone," said the young man, stooping over the dog. But he made no reply. "I think he is dead, sir," said the grave-digger.
Girding up their skirts a little way, the whole body of clerics awaited their turn in silence, while the captain of the singing-boys cast the ball into the air, as high as he might, along the vaulted roof of the central aisle to be caught by any boy who could, and tossed again with hand or foot till it passed on to the portly chanters, the chaplains, the canons themselves, who finally played out the game with all the decorum of an ecclesiastical ceremony.
The divine service is celebrated in it according to the ceremony of bishops; our priests, our seminarists, as well as ten or twelve choir-boys, are regularly present there. On great festivals, the mass, vespers and evensong are sung to music, with orchestral accompaniment, and our organs mingle their harmonious voices with those of the chanters.
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