ls and all her
clothes, distributing them among her parents or relations; when, putting
on a cloth, that she may not be seen naked by the people, she throweth
herself into the river, saying, O! wretches wash away your sins. Coming
out of the water, she rolls herself up in a yellow cloth, fourteen yards
long, and again taking the nearest kinsman of her husband by the hand,
they go together to the pinnacle at the funeral pile. From this place
she addresses the people, to whom she recommends her children and
relations. Before the pinnacle it is usual to place a mat, that she may
not see the fierce fire; yet there are many who order this to be
removed, as not afraid of the sight. When the silly woman has reasoned
with the people for some time, another woman takes a pot of oil, part of
which she pours on the head of the devoted victim, anointing also her
whole body with the same, and then throws the pot into the fire, which
the widow immediately follows, leaping into the fiercest of the fire.
Then those who stand around the pile throw after her many great pieces
of wood, by the blows from which, and the fierce fire in which she is
enveloped, she quickly dies and is consumed. Immediately the mirth of
the people is changed to sorrow and weeping, and such howling and
lamentation is set up as one is hardly able to bear. I have seen many
burnt in this manner, as my house was near the gate where they go out to
the place of burning; and when a great man dies, not only his widow, but
all the female slaves with whom he has had connection, are burnt along
with his body. Also when the baser sort of people die, I have seen the
dead husband carried to the place of sepulchre, where he is placed
upright; then cometh his widow, and, placing herself on her knees before
him, she clasps her arms about his neck, till the masons have built a
wall around both as high us their necks. Then a person from behind
strangles the widow, and the workmen finish the building over their
heads, and thus they remain immured in one tomb. Inquiring the reason of
this barbarous custom, I was told that this law had been established in
ancient times as a provision against the slaughters which the women were
in use to make of their husbands, poisoning them on every slight cause
of displeasure; but that since the promulgation of this law they have
been more faithful to their husbands, reckoning their lives as dear to
them as their own, because after the death of their