of his great-grandfather in a
former birth, and would become so again after this sacrifice. When
the "sraddh", or funeral obsequies, were performed after the
prescribed intervals,[18] the offerings and prayers were regularly
made for _six souls_ instead of four; and, to this day, every member
of his family, and every Hindoo who had heard the story, believed
that these two serpents had a just right to be considered among his
ancestors, and to be prayed for accordingly in all "sraddh".'

A few days after this conversation with the Principal of the
Jubbulpore College, I had a visit from Bholi Sukul, the present head
of the Sihora banker's family, and youngest brother of the Brahman
with whose ashes the Lodhi woman burned herself. I requested him to
tell me all that he recollected about this singular suttee, and he
did so as follows:

'When my eldest brother, the father of the late Duli Sukul, who was
so long a native collector under you in this district, died about
twenty years ago at Sihora, a Lodhi woman, who resided two miles
distant in the village of Khitoli, which has been held by our family
for several generations, declared that she would burn herself with
him on the funeral pile; that she had been his wife in three
different births, had already burnt herself with him three times, and
had to burn with him four times more. She was then sixty years of
age, and had a husband living [of] about the same age. We were all
astounded when she came forward with this story, and told her that it
must be a mistake, as we were Brahmans, while she was a Lodhi. She
said that there was no mistake in the matter; that she, in the last
birth, resided with my brother in the sacred city of Benares, and one
day gave a holy man who came to ask charity salt, by mistake, instead
of sugar, with his food. That, in consequence, he told her she
should, in the next birth, be separated from her husband, and be of
inferior caste; but that, if she did her duty well in that state, she
should be reunited to him in the following birth. We told her that
all this must be a dream, and the widow of my brother insisted that,
if she were not allowed to burn herself, the other should not be
allowed to take her place. We prevented the widow from ascending the
pile, and she died at a good old age only two years ago at Sihora. My
brother's body was burned at Sihora, and the poor Lodhi woman came
and stole one handful of the ashes, which she placed in her bosom