Without entering into the origin and cause of this dreadful practice so deeply seated in the system of Hindooism itself, to do full justice to which would require a treatise instead of a short essay, we wish now merely to notice some of the most obvious circumstances which attend it. Among these let us consider for a moment who those are, who are doomed to undergo these agonies, unpitied, because never beheld. They are, the most amiable part of the Hindoo race! In most cases they are females possessing some degree of wealth, for the very poor seldom thus devote themselves to death: they are not worth the labour requisite to work up their minds to a sufficient-pitch of delusion. If the term be applicable to any female in the present state of Hindoo society, they are in general persons of education: and whatever be the degree of polish and delicacy which accompany opulence, whatever the ideas included in a superior mode of living; they are in general possessed by those whom this dreadful custom marks for its victims. It follows, therefore, as a matter of course, that if among the higher ranks of society in this country there be any delicacy of feeling, it is possessed by these who may be said almost from their birth to be devoted to the flames.-And if there be any thing to be found of conjugal fidelity, it resides among these, since an extraordinary degree of conjugal affection, either real or ascribed, is made the lure by which these unhappy victims are betrayed to death; the enjoyment for numerous ages of the highest felicity with their deceased husbands, being held out as the bait to draw them on till they make the irrevocable declaration, that they will commit themselves to the flames. It is probable, therefore, that those who are thus cruelly murdered year by year, are in most instances the best educated, the most amiable, and the most virtuous, of the Hindoo race.*

If we turn from the wretched victim to the unhappy offsprings whom she abandons, what do we behold, but a sight of still deeper woe! -Scarcely recovered from the blow inflicted on them by the death of their father, they are hurried from their once peaceful home to the funeral pile, to witness the death of their mother! In other countries, the loss of paternal protection is, in some measure, compensated by the increased exertion of maternal kindness and solicitude: but under the influence of this system, their children are deprived of both parents in one day. A state of the deepest misery succeeds to a state of the highest happiness with such rapidity as almost to deprive them of the exercise of their mental faculties.-The family compact is destroyed with the suddenness of an earthquake. The corpse of the father is scarcely cold before their only living parent is bound to it, and consumed in their presence. But there are circumstances of still greater enormity attached to this system: The funeral pile must be lighted by the eldest son! Had this deed of darkness been consigned to some unconcerned spectator, to the brahmun who officiates on these occasions with such lively pleasure, or even to some distant and unaffected relative, this might have been some re

* Friend of India, (mon. ser.) Vol. ii. page 319-322.

lief to the feelings; but it must be performed by the eldest son-the extinction of the hopes of the family is consigned to him. He ac companies his mother from his home to the banks of the Ganges, he stands by in all the agonies of grief during the performances of those tremendous rites by which she devotes herself to destruction, nor does he dare to lift an arm for her relief: he beholds his mother, endeared to him by the recollection of a thousand acts of kindness, thrown on the funeral pile like a beast of sacrifice, and inhumanly bound to the dead body of her husband with all those indications of brutal satis faction which shed a tenfold horror on the scene; and surrounded by his weeping brothers and sisters, he lights up the pile which con sumes the living parent with the dead, and extinguishes all their hopes of future tenderness and protection. Every circumstance which can aggravate this scene of woe is here combined; nor is it possible to conceive of any thing which could add a deeper tinge of barbarity

that has been omitted.

If we would form an adequate idea however of the effects of this system on social happiness, we must not overlook the state of prospective misery which each family suffers long before the painful moment of separation arrives. The family in which it is known that the mother must, through the tyranny of custom, devote herself to the flames, is subjected for years to the most painful and afflictive anxiety. The happiness which they enjoy may be suddenly annihilated; a single day may reduce them from a high state of domestic felicity to the situation of the most wretched orphans. They feel that the death of the father will be only a signal for the more horrid death of their endeared moth

er.

The anguish which such a state of suspense and anxiety must involve, may be more easily conceived than described. The longer they are indulged with the endearments of maternal affection, the longer is the state of misery prolonged, and the keener does that stroke become of which they are held in dreadful expectation: thus, that which under a milder institution is a source of joy, is here turned into an aggravation of expected wretchedness. The continuance of their social happiness is removed even from the common chance of mortality, and placed at the disposal of a merciless superstition; even the cup of bliss is mixed with the bitterest gall, and that season of life when, from the absence of care, the mind is disposed to the utmost gaiety and cheerfulness, is in many instances consumed in almost insupportable anxiety and distress.

The influence of this system is scarcely less destructive to the general happiness of society. It aggravates every natural calamity, and gives additional horror to every disease. In other countries the prevalence of an epidemic only serves to increase the energies of benevolence. In this country, however, there are no attempts made either to stem the current of disease, or to console the afflicted and bereaved. Those of the family whom the disease has spared, are only reserved for accumulated misery-the survivors, instead of receiving assistance, are cruelly deprived of that parent who could most effectually have afforded it. Every epidemic therefore assumes an aspect of ten-fold

horror. This dreadful practice is not suspended during a period of general distress; in vain do the wretched offspring demand the life of their mother at a time, when from the universal prevalence of disease, her's is the only hand that can minister relief to them; this superstition is inexorable as death itself. When therefore the country is afflicted, as during the past year, with a destructive epidemic, the numerous victims to disease, the augmented number of female immolations, the number of relatives who tremble for their sisters or their daughters, added to the number of children who stand exposed by the ravages of superstition and death, to the loss of all parental aid or consolation, form a consummation of misery, to which no other country on earth presents a parallel.*

BY WHOM this crime is perpetrated, is worthy of the strictest inquiry. With the victims themselves it can scarcely be said to originate; for, a few days previously, they are often as void of all desire to destroy themselves, as to destroy others; and they are generally averse to the deed till their minds are completely deluded by fallacious representations, and their heads turned with dreams of future happiness, impossible to be realized. But whatever delusion may reign in their minds, without the concurrence of the husband's relatives it would be perfectly harmless. The deed is constantly encouraged by the relatives of the husband; those of the wife on the contrary, being generally on the side for which nature pleads; although her own son, if old enough, is obliged to kindle the pile prepared for his mother's destruction. It is therefore on the husband's relatives that the fate of every female of respectability and opulence is suspended, however young she may be, the moment her husband dies: and when it is considered, that they are bound to her by none of the ties of consanguinity, it will not appear strange if some one or all of the following reasons should, in general, so preponderate, as to doom to the flames one for whom they can have little or no personal feeling.

The honour of the family. This is supposed to arise in proportion to the number of unhappy victims, who can be mentioned as having devoted themselves to the flames. The husband's relatives of course claim to themselves a certain degree of credit for having surmounted feelings of affection, which they never possessed, as they generally regard the poor unhappy relict with the same apathy with which they view a log of wood intended for fuel; while the number of widows in their families devoting themselves to the flames apparently from love to their husbands, gives rise to the idea that these relatives of theirs possess that excellence of character which rendered it impossible to survive their loss. That when the unhappy widow is regarded with the most perfect indifference, this alone should so weigh as to make them prefer her dying to her living, will create no surprise in those who are thoroughly acquainted with the native character.

The wish to get rid of a burden. A widow, though only twelve years of age, can never marry again. If her own relatives therefore be unwilling to support her, or not sufficiently opulent, she must live * Friend of India, (mon. ser.) Vol. i. page 302–304.

with the surviving relatives of the husband to the end of her life. And although her life is far from being a plenteous and affluent one, yet a certain degree of expense is thus entailed on the family, and this possibly for a considerable number of years when she is left in the bloom of youth. The consideration of an expense therefore, though small, yet scarcely terminable within the space of their own lives, added to the trouble and vexation often arising from female relatives living together who can scarcely be expected to have any affection for each other, may possibly make them wish to rid themselves at once of a heavy burden, when it can be done in a way which, instead of being esteemed dishonourable, or any proof of the want of affection, on the contrary reflects a high degree of lustre on the character of the family. At least this is a temptation which humanity would not throw in the way of a Hindoo who sets so little value on human life.

This is heightened by another consideration. It has been just observed, that these widows, however young, can never marry again. Now while impurity reigns among these very relatives of the husband, perhaps in such a degree as to attach to itself no kind of disgrace, a deviation from purity of conduct in a widow, would, in the public estimation, fix an indelible stain on the family of the deceased husband. When therefore the hazard of this dishonour through perhaps a long life, is present to minds, in which no natural affection towards a brother's widow is supposed to exist, it will excite little surprise that men who, (if report may be credited), in some instances make no scruple of hewing in pieces a wife of their own on a mere suspicion of inconstancy, should, on the death of her husband, decide also on the death of his unhappy relict, who, should she live, instead of contributing to the support or the honour of the family, would entail on it a constant burden of expense, and might possibly involve it in disgrace, when her death, while it frees them from all expense and anxiety, tends to heighten in no inconsiderable degree its general reputation.

To this may be added another circumstance which humanity will still more strongly regret. The death of the mother deprives her children of their natural guardian, their tenderest, most faithful and watchful friend, who can never see them injured with apathy, and who is ready to hazard life itself for the sake of preserving to them what is their own. It sometimes happens that a man who is opulent, dies and leaves children in a state of mere infancy. That their wealth should never be desired by the surviving relatives, is what no one will expect who is acquainted with the history of human nature, and much less those who are aware with what earnestness one brother among the Hindoos, will labour to supplant another even while living. That, in cases of infancy an affectionate mother, whom no cunning can elude, and no sum can bribe, should stand in the way of the surviving relatives of her husband, is only what might be naturally expected. Were she removed, there would be no one, at least with her feelings, to call them to account for the expenditure of the yearly revenue of these helpless orphans; nor possibly for the dilapidation of

B

their whole property. The history of orphans, even in Christian countries, sufficiently shews us, how dangerous in the hands of presumptive heirs, would be such a power of removing, under a religious pretence, the mother of rich but helpless orphans. All these therefore, are so many temptations to the destruction of a widow, which through this dreadful practice, may be accomplished without the least suspicion being excited of the real views of those interested in her death; and were these suspected, still without that public virtue being excited in the country which would urge any one to step forward and save the widow from death, and the orphans from oppression and poverty. Whoever considers all these circumstances, and reflects that a mother may thus abandon, to the mercy of those who are presumptive heirs to all his possessions, however great, an infant son only two years old, will cease to wonder that so many widows are encouraged to destroy themselves; particularly as this dreadful practice is not confined to brahmuns, but extends itself to the writer cast, and even as low as to those who practise the trade of a barber!

Whatever be the delusive ideas which may apparently urge a widow to self-destruction, as the hope of her enjoying numerous ages of felicity in company with her husband;-of expiating the offences of her late husband and his ancestors, and those of both her father and mother's race, with other things of this nature, there are other considerations which cannot but come still nearer to the mind of the unhappy widow. She cannot but be aware, that those who have encouraged her in these fond hopes, are either those in whose power she is completely for the rest of her life, or such as are intimate with them; for although the husband's relatives affect to dissuade her from the deed, it cannot be difficult to discern which way their minds really lean. From these then, even the slightest hint, that they wish her to die, must operate on a widow of delicacy and sensibility, like a sentence of death pronounced by a judge. With what feelings could she commit herself for life to the mercy of those who had discovered this wish in the slightest degree, and felt in the least disappointed by her refusing to precipitate herself into the flames, particularly when the laws of the country provide her so little relief against any unkindness or barbarity she might hereafter experience from them? The law itself indeed insists that, while she is never to marry again, she is also to lay aside every thing like ornament for the rest of her days, and every sign of cheerfulness; that she is never to make a full meal, and that one day in every week she is to devote wholly to fasting and grief to the end of life. In these circumstances it is almost impossible that any degree of ill-treatment which the resentment of her husband's relatives might dispose them to inflict on her, could interest her neighbours in her sufferings so as to procure her redress; particularly when the interior of a Hindoo habitation, surrounded as it often is with walls, is nearly as impervious as an ancient castle, and the female relatives are scarcely more in the public view, than were formerly the unhappy inmates of its dungeons. In these circumstances, therefore, it is not strange, if, at the most distant intimation of this nature from those on whose kindness depends every future mitigation