’No doubt; we all believe that they were called and supported by the Deity; and that no tender beings like women could otherwise voluntarily undergo such tortures—­they become inspired with supernatural powers of courage and fortitude.  When Duli Sukul, the Sihora[14] banker’s father, died, the wife of a Lodhi cultivator of the town declared, all at once, that she had been a suttee with him six times before; and that she would now go into paradise with him a seventh time.  Nothing could persuade her from burning herself.  She was between fifty and sixty years of age, and had grandchildren, and all her family tried to persuade her that it must be a mistake, but all in vain.  She became a suttee, and was burnt the day after the body of the banker.’

’Did not Duli Sukul’s family, who were Brahmans, try to dissuade her from it, she being a Lodhi, a very low caste?’

’They did; but they said all things were possible with God; and it was generally believed that this was a call from Heaven.’

‘And what became of the banker’s widow?’

’She said that she felt no divine call to the flames.  This was thirty years ago; and the banker was about thirty years of age when he died.’

‘Then he will have rather an old wife in paradise?’

’No, sir; after they pass through the flames upon earth, both become young in paradise.’

’Sometimes women used to burn themselves with any relic of a husband, who had died far from home, did they not?’

’Yes, sir, I remember a fisherman, about twenty years ago, who went on some business to Benares from Jubbulpore, and who was to have been back in two months.  Six months passed away without any news of him; and at last the wife dreamed that he had died on the road, and began forthwith, in the middle of the night, to call out “Sat, sat, sat!” Nothing could dissuade her from burning; and in the morning a pile was raised for her, on the north bank of the large tank of Hanuman,[15] where you have planted an avenue of trees.  There I saw her burned with her husband’s turban in her arms, and in ten days after her husband came back.’

’Now the burning has been prohibited, a man cannot get rid of a bad wife so easily?’

’But she was a good wife, sir, and bad ones do not often become suttees.’

‘Who made the pile for her?’

’Some of her family, but I forget who.  They thought it must have been a call from Heaven, when, in reality, it was only a dream.’

‘You are a Rajput?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do Rajputs in this part of India now destroy their female infants?’

’Never; that practice has ceased everywhere in these parts; and is growing into disuse in Bundelkhand, where the Rajas, at the request of the British Government, have prohibited it among their subjects.  This was a measure of real good.  You see girls now at play in villages, where the face of one was never seen before, nor the voice of one heard.’