pulchral, hollow tone, the sounds breaking forth in the most distressingly unnatural resemblance of the human voice I ever heard. Her Brahmin friends were now undisguisedly apprehensive of a failure of her courage, and vociferously comforted her with loud applauses, and earnest ejaculations, exhorting her to fear nothing; assuring her that she was a perfect and most blessed suttee, a pure spirit, and at the gate of heaven; that her soul would rise with the first flame, before the fire could approach her body; that she would know no pain, and only drop placidly to sleep for earth, to awake in heaven! She must have been nearly stunned with these applauses, exhortations, and benedictions. Their apprehensions respecting her firmness were, however, quite unnecessary; she recovered herself before they had shouted themselves hoarse, or deafened her and one another; and they ceased their outcries the moment they observed that they were not needed. She had quite recovered herself; and, having arranged the flax about her, bent forward to take leave of them with smiles, and the most perfect composure; which done, she most composedly laid herself down full-length by the side of the corpse, upon its right, and on her left side, with her right hand over it. In this position she was stretched along, as if comfortably in bed, well cushioned in on every side, and well pillowed with loose flax. At this moment the assistants were very busy, as it were, on the sly; and, when unobserved, casting in, and thrusting in, among the flax, by handfuls at a time, the white powder mixture of camphor, and resin, and nitre; whilst others, outside, were flinging it in handfuls over the whole outside of the pile. As the last act, they threw into the vault, and upon the dying and the dead, two or three handfuls of chips of the sacred wood, malyagar,* a black sandal-wood, dedicated only to religious uses; finally, they, with much solemnity, placed, betwixt her and the corpse, the illshaped balls and cakes of dough, prepared, as above-described, for the messengers of the Judge of the Dead; and, this done, they commenced the work of closing up the pile.

There was no measured step, or slow and leisurely proceeding now; all seemed wrought up to enthusiasm, and hurried on their work with an indescribable zeal and alacrity. Two enormous blocks of wood were fitted to the orifice into which she had crept, and they completely blocked it up; over this faggots of brushwood were firmly jammed in, and strongly tied, and the whole was thatched over, like the rest of the pile, with hemp-stalks. She was most completely secured; a wild beast could not have broken out; and, however voluntarily she might have entered, she certainly had not the slightest possibility of escaping, had she wished it, on feeling the torture of the flame.

Malyagar, or black sandal-wood, named from Malya, the mountain-range answering to the Ghauts of Malabar and Agaru, is used by Hindoos solely for religious purposes, and is sold by weight at a high price. I consider it to be the almug of the Hebrew, as it is the only wood we know more durable, more fragrant, and more precious than the cedar of Lebanon. The Hebrew scholar may trace a greater similarity betwixt the Shunscrit Malyagaru and the Hebrew word than at first appears to the ordinary reader. Perhaps the Greek scholar, too, may think of the mythological legend of Meleager, and the tragedy of his death. Can he be named from the sacred billet of the funeral-pile? I am not aware whence the black sandal-wood is obtained, or where it is indigenous. No doubt, if the seeds were planted, it might be reared in any part of India. The white sandal is a beautiful sub-arboreous tree, and hardy.

During these, the concluding steps of these strange proceedings, a Brahmin standing close to her, on the eastern side of the pile in which she was now encaged, continued addressing her in a loud, sonorous chaunt of earnest, ejaculatory, soothing, and encouraging addresses and prayers; and I heard her voice from within repeating her own funeral cry, and responding to his solicitations for her last benedictions; but, when her demeanour had ceased to be visible to her friends, her support, from the sense pride, may have given way, or she was, probably, half-smothered, for she was really buried in flax, mingled with powdered resin and camphor: whatever the cause, her voice again became the appalling, most unnaturally-unhuman sound I have described; and her cry of "Ram! Bhaie! Ram!" was uttered in a rapid, and most painfully agitated manner, as if she were at last entirely overcome, and struggling in vain with the horrors of her mental agony, and quite conscious of the misery of her situation. I was at this time within half a yard of the pile, close to her head, and my object was to ascertain, as far as circumstances would permit, how long, and to what extent her self-possession remained with her, and how far nature could go under so wretchedly severe a trial.

In about ten minutes after the victim had entered the pile (which had been spent in blocking up the entrance, and heaping brushwood over the top, and casting over it and against every side of it large handfuls of the powdered resin and gullollee powder, and the dingy, reddish-yellow, ochry substance used for funerals,) all was ready; and her son, taking a small wick of twisted cotton dipped in oil, lighted it at the consecrated fire, and, falling on the ground in adoration, and bowing his forehead to the earth, he placed the lighted wick at the north end of the pile, under the feet of his parents. He was now, poor boy! dreadfully agitated; he stood up with difficulty, and his trembling hand was guided by a Brahmin on each side of him. The fire had no sooner been applied, and a smoke seen to rise, than at least fifty similar wicks were instantaneously applied all round, by the assistants. They had been prepared in small bundles of al out a dozen each; and, being lighted together, were rapidly separated, and in a very few seconds had been inserted, within half a foot of each other, completely round the pile; and the whole mass of combustibles, in less than two minutes, became one sheet of clear, white flame, blazing up, and crackling with the hollow sound of powerful combustion, produced by the current of air, like the distant sound of the sea, and with a fierceness of rapidity of which I could have formed no idea.

The Brahmins, before the pile was lighted, advised me to stand further off, saying that I should be scorched, in a manner so pregnant with meaning, that I asked if there was any gunpowder concealed in the wood, but they assured me there was not, and I remained. Those who applied the fire did it in tremulous anxiety, and instantly hurried themselves away to a distance of about thirty yards, as though they dreaded an explosion. This was partly, no doubt, to avoid hearing any shriek of suffering or alarm from within the pile, which is considered most disastrously ominous; but, in addition to this, they very evidently knew what was coming. I could not have believed that such a vehement heat could have been created by any ordinary means in so short a time; it was so intense that it continued scorching me as I retired backwards, and was like

an acute sensation of scalding on my face and hands, even at the distance to which they had retreated.

I stood within half a yard of the pile when it was lighted, and heard her cry of "Ram! Bhaie! Ram!" when it was on fire on every side; but, long ere any flame could have reached her I was obliged to fall back; yet I retired as slowly as I could, and I think I should have heard any unrestrainable shriek of the extreme agony had it been uttered; and observed any convulsive movement, or desperate attempt to break forth, had it been made. I do not think that either took place. I saw her last lying down, and embracing the corpse, and I heard her voice to the last, as if she had never changed her position; and I confidently believe she did not change it. Her death must, I think, have been by suffocation, either from the dense smoke, or from the heated air in the vault, when the flax and resin were blazing all about her. I was not five yards from the pile at a time when I should consider it quite impossible for the actual fire to have reached inside; but, even then, the heat was quite intolerable, and the interior must have been converted in a moment into an atmosphere, or, rather, a vacuum of atmospheric air, which must have extinguished life at once, and probably without a struggle. The flax-stalks, covered with the powdered resin, burnt with explosive rapidity, and the work of destruction of life must have been most instantaneous.

The exclamations of the assistants and spectators were by no means so deafening or dissonant as I had been prepared to expect from previous descriptions of similar scenes. The Brahmins and their musicians made very little more clamour than at an ordinary funeral, and the spectators, on the lighting of the fire, raised no shout, but simply clapped their hands, precisely like our applauses at a theatre; this, in the open air, and not more than five hundred people present, spread over a lofty bank of the river, at fifty or a hundred yards distance, made very little report. This is not the usual mode of native expression of approbation, but it was intended for it on this occasion.

In less than five minutes the thatch and brushwood of the pile were destroyed, and its blackened and burning frame-work, and solid basement of tall, massive beams, and logs of wood, appeared enveloped in flames. At this moment, could I have endured the heat, and approached the fire, I might probably have seen the bodies, and witnessed the process of combustion; but the flame shot forth such intense heat that it felt as if it actually pierced the skin at the distance to which I had been compelled to retreat.

The mob now dispersed and departed: the entertainment was over! and those who had no part to act had no further excitement to enjoy, and betook themselves to their several homes, no doubt highly edified and gratified. My thoughts were with the female relations of the deceased, and the child, her daughter-in-law. They remained seated where the poor victim had left them, in a state of bewilderment and sorrow; but no voices were heard in the desolate group, and the public gaze upon them appeared to have controlled and checked their feelings. No one, however, can doubt, but that Nature would resume her sway when they re-entered the familychambers, where the place which had known the deceased a few hours before, would know her no more!

The concluding ceremonies required the assistants to remain on

the spot until midnight; the funeral fire continues to be fed with ghee, whose unctuous substance causes the last relics to be calcined, and thoroughly reduced, with the wood-ashes of the pile, to a very small heap of the lightest, grey powdery ashes; these are sprinkled with the Ganges water; and, finally, the relics are either carefully gathered up, and conveyed in pilgrimage to the Nerbudda, or to the Ganges, and cast upon the holy stream, or a shallow grave is scooped out on the spot the pile had occupied, and the ashes are scraped into it, and covered over with sand, over which offerings of ghee and flour, with grains, spices, and flowers, are made, to the shades of the deceased, and to all their ancestors. These are left there, to be soon carried off by birds and wild-dogs, - a hungry pack of the latter being always in attendance, to fight for, and devour the offering the instant it has been abandoned.

On the following day, a small altar, of an octagonal form, about three feet high, and two feet in diameter, was built on the spot, of earth and clay, of a neat form, and well whitewashed; and a shrub of the toolsee (fragrant basil) was planted over it. The first flood after the next rain carried it away; but the memory of the dead would be preserved, and their names reverently mentioned, in all the domestic religious exercises; more particularly at the monthly shraddu for all deceased ancestors, when those who have honoured or benefited their descendants are never forgotten. In wealthy families an annual shraddu, or religious festival in honour of the deceased parents, is renewed through life by the heir, on the anniversary of the decease, and great sums are spent on the occasion; it being necessary to summon every person of the caste within reach, and every hungry Brahmin who will come.

Wealthy people will, also, sometimes raise a pagoda, or temple, over the site of the pile, or in its vicinity; or a tomb, whose pretensions, as respects taste, size, and solidity, are of course dependent on circumstances. There are numerous hieroglyphic symbols, varying in every part of the country, to mark the character of the building. A female hand and arm, bent at the elbow, and the fingers spread, the palm presented to the spectator, and the wrist, and arms above the elbow, plentifully adorned with the matrimonial bracelets and armlets, form the usual sign through Guzerat. A warrior armed, on horseback, and this arm over him, on a monumental stone, indicates that the soldier has died in battle, and his widow performed suttee with him. These tombs are painfully numerous in some sites, and apparently of the most remote antiquity. The heart bleeds to think of the scenes of human suffering and wretchedness they commemorate,—the bloodshed and the wrongs,-all man's violence and cruelty, and woman's faithfulness! Let us hope that a new day has dawned on India, and that these wretched sacrifices may be spoken of by future generations as things that were, before British dominion enlightened India; and may the beneficent rule of the young Island Queen of the West be made memorable in her eastern dominions by those blessings of moral, and political, and physical improvement, which, once established, may go on conquering and to conquer, until every dark recess of the Cavern of Error shall have been enlightened, and every stronghold of cruelty and superstition been overthrown!

A MORE exhilarating cordial than" the fine fresh gallop over dewy downs" could scarcely be prescribed by the College of Physicians; and, far be it from a kindly lover of horses and horsemanship to insinuate that the musical pack, and emulous brother pinks, and echoing high woods, and the Swift-orama of a green, open country, are not accessories to equestrian delight, at once dulcet and exciting. Still, some stress must be laid on the somewhat apprehensive fancy, that one's cravat and its contents may possibly become disarranged, or one's occiput tapped of what current intellect it carries, in the harem-scarem of the chase.

A Missourium now, or a Megalomegisto-therium, or, to descend a little, your African elephant, Bengal tiger, Sloane's rhinoceros, or flock of lions, these, indeed, would be worthy of so valiant a venture: but, when the tame stag is quietly uncarted, and, after a canter of twenty miles, as quietly boxed up again, the scatheless captive for next week's run; or, when "sportsmen brave, in leather breeches, leap over five-barred gates and ditches, and hair-breadth 'scapes and perils dare, to hunt that furious beast, the hare;" or, when from the portals of Europe's premier college sally forth in blushing vestments the noblest and the gentlest of Britain's gallant youth, wantonly intent on following even to the death the trail of a red herring; when, I say, these things are done in the name of hunting, surely it were better even to go a-fishing with Marc Antony; and, when Cleopatra's divers have diligently hung on our hook the last of their dead tunnies, to put up for the rest of the day with unlimited sport from a tub of pickled sprats.

Once more; a country ramble, in rude health and fine weather, is thoroughly delightful, an innocent pleasure, not seriously diminished by fowling-piece and pointers. But there be many to confess, that on a cold, drizzly morning in November they do not like to find themselves up to the knees in drenching turnip-tops; and still less, on a roasting September noon, to be toiling over dusty fallows, with a heavy iron tube upon their shoulders. There be many who are weak enough to acknowledge that the scream of a wounded hare makes them feel as if they had shot a child; and to fear the probable possibility of a friend's trigger, pulled by some demon twig, conveying to them the unwelcome compliments of a Mr. Joseph Manton. In fact, we have heard more than one true country lover, in speaking of capital covers for game, maintain the respectable opinion, that the best in life is a tin one; and as to the birds being in good condition, they can scarcely be in a better than when frothily cooked, and served up with bread-sauce.

But-that BUT must be in capitals, printer, for it is as pregnant of nice fancies as a butt of Muscatel,-commend me, dear fauns, nymphs, and dryads, to "the contemplative man's recreation."

I have many things to say of that same sweet sport,—so many, that

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