merit of this act, she shall take her deceased husband and seven generations of his family and seven generations of her family with her to the heaven of Indrů, the king of the gods, where they shall reside during 30,000,000 of years. Seduced by these promises, and having the prospect, should she not burn, of nothing but domestic slavery and perpetual widowhood, multitudes annually perish on these funeral piles.

The following facts will shew more of the nature and effects of this part of the Hindoo system: Capt. now in England, but who resided in India for a very long period, while resident at Allahabad, saw, as he sat at his own window one morning, sixteen females drown themselves. He sat till a thrill of horror seized him, which nearly reduced him to a state of sickness, otherwise he might have continued longer, and seen more of these immolations. Each of these women had a large empty earthen pan slung by a cord over each shoulder; a bramhun supported each as she went over the side of the boat, and held her up till she, by turning the pan aside, had filled it, when he let her go, and she sunk, a few bubbles of air only rising to the surface of the water. While Dr. Robinson, late of Calcutta, resided at the same place, twelve men went in boats to drown themselves in the same spot. Each of these men had a piece of bamboo

fastened to his body, at each end of which was suspended a large earthern pan. While these remained empty, they served as bladders to keep them upon the surface of the water, but each man, with a cup, placed now in one hand and then in the other, kept filling the pans from the river, and, as soon as full, they dragged their victim to the bottom. One of the twelve changed his resolution, and made to the shore; the bramhuns who were assisting in these immolations plied their oars with all their might, and followed their victim, resolving to compel him to fulfil his engagement, but he gained a police station, and disappointed them.

By a statement, containing the returns of the magistrates under the Presidency of Bengal to the Supreme Native Court at Calcutta, of the number of widows burnt or buried alive under that Presidency in the years 1815, 1816, and 1817, it appears, that in the year 1817 not less than Seven Hundred and Six widows were thus immolated in that part of India. The probability is, that several times that number thus perished, for these returns depended entirely on the will of the families thus immolating their widows, and on the vigilance of the native officers.*

Human sacrifices and self-immolation are inculcated in the Hindoo writings.

Such are the baneful effects of the second part of the Hindoo system: it leads the infatuated devotee to a useless life, or to a terrible death.

Still, to ascertain the effects of Hindooism on the great mass of this people, we must examine the last part of the system, which takes in ninetenths of the Hindoo population, and refers entirely to the practice of the popular ceremonies. These consist in daily ablutions connected with the worship of a person's guardian deity, or of the stone called the shalgramů, or of the lingů; service paid to a person's spiritual guide, and to the bramhuns; the worship of different deities on special occasions, monthly or annually; recitations of sacred poems; repeating the names of the gods; pilgrimages; duties to deceased ancestors; funeral rites and offerings to the manes, &c. &c. &c. This examination of the popular superstition will enable us to answer the question What is a Hindoo, as we see him on the plains of Hindoost'han?

The Hindoo is unquestionably as susceptible of that improvement which is purely intellectual as the inhabitant of Europe. He may not be capable of forming plans which require great and original powers, nor fitted for bold and daring enterprizes; and yet who shall estimate the capacity of minds which have exhibited great

powers so far as they have been called forth, but which have never been placed in circumstances of tremendous trial, which have never been kindled by the collisions of genius, the struggles of parties, which have never been called into action by the voice of their country, by the plaudits of senates, by the thunders of eloquence, and which have never been enlarged by the society of foreigners, and by voyages and travels into distant realms. The European mind, it must be recollected, has attained its present vigour and expansion by the operation of all these causes, and after the illumination of centuries; while we find the Hindoo still walking amidst the thick darkness of a long long night, uncheered by the twinkling of a single star, a single Bacon.

Before we can be said to have become thinking beings, we have acquired so many impressions from surrounding objects, and there is in our minds before that time so much of half-formed thought, that we have become reconciled to a thousand things, which had they first met us in a state of greater maturity of mind, would have excited either our contempt or abhorrence. This is true of men in that society which may have attained the highest improvement; how much more true where the grossest superstitions have destroyed all the energies of the mind. The Hindoo, for instance,

becomes deeply attached to a variety of objects because they are connected with his first and most powerful impressions: had he first seen them at the age of fifteen or twenty, they would perhaps have been rejected as revolting to his reason. But it will not perhaps be an uninteresting investigation, if we endeavour to ascertain the nature of that apparatus by which the character of the Hindoo is formed:

Almost all the first impressions of mankind are derived from the objects around them; and in this way the characteristic features of every order of human society are formed. Hence we can plainly trace the varying features of society as belonging to the town or village, to some peculiar profession, or to the scenery, or the popular manners of a country.

And it is thus that the Hindoo mind and character are formed at home or abroad, this youth hears certain books spoken of with the highest reverence, either as being from everlasting, or as having proceeded from the lips of deity; as having descended through unknown periods to the present times; and as being so sacred that none but the priests are permitted to peruse them, or even to hear them read. These books then, having regulated the speculations of the wisest sages of