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.'

'But still those who have them grumble, and say that the Government
which caused them to be preserved should undertake to provide for
their marriage. Is it not so?'

'At first they grumbled a little, sir; but as the infants grew on
their affections, they thought no more about it.'[16]

Gurcharan Baboo, the Principal of the little Jubbulpore College,[17]
called upon me one forenoon, soon after this conversation. He was
educated in the Calcutta College; speaks and writes English
exceedingly well; is tolerably well read in English literature, and
is decidedly a _thinking man_. After talking over the matter which
caused his visit, I told him of the Lodhi woman's burning herself
with the Brahman banker at Sihora, and asked him what he thought of
it. He said that 'In all probability this woman had really been the
wife of the Brahman in some former birth--of which transposition a
singular case had occurred in his own family.

'His great-grandfather had three wives, who all burnt themselves with
his body. While they were burning, a large serpent came up, and,
ascending the pile, was burnt with them. Soon after another came up,
and did the same. They were seen by the whole multitude, who were
satisfied that they had been the wives