fort and part of
the town stands upon this wall, which, according to tradition, was
built by a wealthy merchant of the Banjara caste.[2] After he had
finished it, the bed of the lake still remained dry; and he was told
in a dream, or by a priest, that it would continue so till he should
consent to sacrifice his own daughter, then a girl, and the young lad
to whom she was affianced, to the tutelary god of the place. He
accordingly built a little shrine in the centre of the valley, which
was to become the bed of the lake, put the two children in, and built
up the doorway. He had no sooner done so than the whole of the valley
became filled with water, and the old merchant, the priest, the
masons, and spectators, made their escape with much difficulty. From
that time the lake has been inexhaustible; but no living soul of the
Banjara caste has ever since been known to drink of its waters.
Certainly all of that caste at present religiously avoid drinking the
water of the lake; and the old people of the city say that they have
always done so since they can remember, and that they used to hear
from their parents that they had always done so. In nothing does the
Founder of the Christian religion appear more amiable than in His
injunction, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them
not'. In nothing do the Hindoo deities appear more horrible than in
the delight they are supposed to take in their sacrifice--it is
everywhere the helpless, the female, and the infant that they seek to
devour--and so it was among the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian
colonies. Human sacrifices were certainly offered in the cities of
Sagar during the whole of the Maratha government up to the year 1800,
when they were put a stop to by the local governor, Asa Sahib, a very
humane man; and I once heard a very learned Brahman priest say that
he thought the decline of his family and government arose from this
_innovation_. 'There is', said he, 'no sin in _not_ offering human
sacrifices to the gods where none have been offered; but, where the
gods have been accustomed to them, they are naturally annoyed when
the rite is abolished, and visit the place and people with all kinds
of calamities.' He did not seem to think that there was anything
singular in this mode of reasoning, and perhaps three Brahman priests
out of four would have reasoned in the same manner.[3]

On descending into the valley of the Nerbudda over the Vindhya range
of hills fr