in the preservation of the poor boy, implored him not to set out, lest Devi, who presides over small-pox, should become angry.  It was all in vain.  He would set out with his household god; and, unable to carry it himself, he put it into a small litter upon a pole, and hired a bearer to carry it at one end, while he supported it at the other.  His brother, Khushhal Chand, sent his second wife at the same time with offerings for Devi, to ward off the effects of his brother’s rashness from his child.  By the time the brother had got with his god to Adhartal, three miles from Jubbulpore, on the road to Benares, he heard of the death of his nephew; but he seemed not to feel this slight blow in his terror of the dreadful but undefined calamity which he felt to be impending over him and the whole family, and he trotted on his road.  Soon after, an infant son of their uncle died of the same disease; and the whole town became at once divided into two parties—­those who held that the children had been killed by Devi as a punishment for Ram Kishan’s presuming to leave Jubbulpore before they recovered; and those who held that they were killed by the god Vishnu himself, for having been so rudely deprived of one of his arms.  Khushhal Chand’s wife sickened on the road, and died on reaching Mirzapore, of fever; and, as Devi was supposed to have nothing to do with fevers, this event greatly augmented the advocates of Vishnu.  It is a rule with the Hindoos to bury, and not to burn, the bodies of those who die of the small-pox; ‘for’, say they, ’the small-pox is not only caused by the goddess Devi, but is, in fact, Devi herself’, and to burn the body of the person affected with this disease is, in reality, neither more nor less than to burn the goddess’.

Khushhal Chand was strongly urged to bury, and not burn, his child, particularly as it was usual with Hindoos to bury infants and children of that age, of whatever disease they might die; but he insisted upon having his boy burned with all due pomp and ceremony, and burned he was accordingly.  From that moment, it is said, the disease began to rage with increased violence throughout the town of Jubbulpore.  At least one-half of the children affected had before survived; but, from that hour, at least three out of four died; and, instead of the condolence which he expected from his fellow citizens, poor Khushhal Chand, a very amiable and worthy man, received nothing but their execrations for bringing down so many calamities upon their heads; first, by maltreating his own god, and then by setting fire to theirs.

I had, a few days after, a visit from Gangadhar Rao, the Sadar Amin, or head native judicial officer of this district, whose father had been for a short time the ruler of the district, under the former government; and I asked him whether the small-pox had diminished in the town since the rains had now set in.  He told me that he thought it had, but that a great many children had been taken off by the disease.[12]