1 lord and husband, were ascending tins funeral pile with daUn
2 despising intrepidity; they cowered round the corpse, and were
3 covered with reed mats, oil which oil was poured in profusion.
4 Tins done, fire was set to the funeral pile, so that the poor
5 creatures became suffocated hy the smoke and flames before they
6 could litter a cry. In order not to give the reader a false notion
7 of the customs and manners of the Hindoos, it is necessary to
8 observe, that no woman is compelled to be burnt with her
9 husband; they do it by their own free will, and it is a charac¬
10 teristic trait, that only those women d< vote themselves to that
11 dismal ceremony whose fate had derived them not to be mothers.
12 Perhaps they follow their husbands to the other world, in the
13 hope of obtaining there what was denied them in this sublunary
14 on,e. lint it is not the custom for men to be burnt, either
15 with their wives or with other men; nevertheless, the.minister.
16 Rajah Dyan Sing, insisted upon being burnt with his lord and
17 his wives; put the Welfare of the country depending at that
18 time solely on liiin, he was prevented from undergoing this ter¬
19 rific ceremony. Bunjeit Sing, a short time before his death,
20 ertgaged this minister to assist his son, liurrek Sing, whom he.
21 made heir to the throne, although he must have been persuaded
22 of his incapacity; and if Kum.k Sing had followed the prudent
23 advice of his father, and had not yielded to the insinuations of
24 his tutor, Sirdar Chet Sing, every thing would have proceeded
25 in a prosperous manner.
26 Before I proceed in my relation of the late eventful occur¬
27 rences at Lahore, I must give some more details to such of my
28 readers as may wish to know the particulars of that abominable
29 ceremony of burning the living with the dead, which at present
30 occurs but rarely in places under the English government, bv
31 whom it is strictly forbidden. I witnessed the above-mentioned
32 self-sacrifice, of which the following are the details
33 Early in the morning subsequent to that on which the death
34 of the maharajah happened, I went down theTukht (coronation
35 square), accompanied by Cnl. Henry Steinbach (lately in the
36 service of the maharajah, Gl.olab Sing, in Cashmere, now