had issued a
proclamation prohibiting any one from aiding or assisting in _sati_,
and distinctly stating that to bring one ounce of wood for the
purpose would be considered as so doing. Subsequently, on Tuesday,
24th November, I had an application from the heads of the most
respectable and most extensive family of Brahmans in the District,
to suffer this old woman to burn herself with the remains of her
husband, Umeid Singh Upadhya, who had that morning died upon the
banks of the Nerbudda. I threatened to enforce my order and punish
severely any man who assisted; and placed a police guard for the
purpose of seeing that no one did so. The old woman remained by the
edge of the water without eating or drinking. Next day the body of her
husband was burned in the presence of several thousand spectators,
who had assembled to see the _sati_. The sons and grandsons of the
old woman remained with her, urging her to desist from her resolve,
while her other relatives surrounded my house urging me to allow her
to burn. All the day she remained sitting upon a bare rock in the bed
of the Nerbudda, refusing every kind of sustenance, and exposed to
the intense heat of the sun by day and the severe cold of the night,
with only a thin sheet thrown over her shoulders. On the next day,
Thursday, to cut off all hope of her being moved from her purpose,
she put on the _dhujja_ or coarse red turban and broke her bracelets
in pieces, by which she became dead in law and for ever excluded from
caste. Should she choose to live after this she could never return
to her family. On the morning of Saturday, the fourth day after the
death, I rode out ten miles to the spot, and found the poor old widow
sitting with the _dhujja_ round her head, a brass plate before her
with undressed rice and flowers, and a cocoanut in each hand. She
talked very collectedly, telling me that she had determined to mix her
ashes with those of her departed husband, and should patiently await
my permission to do so, assured that God would enable her to sustain
life till that was given, though she dared not eat or drink. Looking
at the sun, then rising before her over a long and beautiful reach of
the Nerbudda, she said calmly: 'My soul has been for five days with
my husband's near that sun; nothing but my earthly frame is left,
and this I know you will in time suffer to be mixed with the ashes
of his in yonder pit, because it is not in your nature wantonly
to prolong the mis