SECT. XXXI.-Dying under the Wheels of Jugunnaťhé's Car.

AMONGST the immense multitudes assembled at the drawing of this car, are numbers afflicted with diseases, and others involved in worldly troubles, or worn out with age: and neglect. It often happens that such persons, after offering up a prayer to the idol, that they may obtain happiness or riches in the next birth, cast themselves under the wheels of the car, and are instantly crushed to death. Great numbers of these cars are to be seen in Bengal; and every year, in some place or other, persons thus destroy themselves. At Jugŭnnat'hŭ-kshétrů, in Orissa, several perish annually. Many are accidentally thrown down by the pressure of the crowd, and are crushed to death. The victims who devote themselves to death in these forms have an entire confidence that they shall, by this meritorious act of self-murder, attain to happiness.

I beg leave here to insert the following extract of a letter from an officer to a friend, to confirm the facts related in this and the two preceding sections: 'I have known a woman, whose courage failed her on the pile, bludgeoned by her own dear kindred. This I have told the author of "The Vindication of the Hindoos.'-I have taken a Gentoo out of the Ganges: I perceived him at night, and called out to the boat-men.-'Sir, he is gone; he belongs to God.' 'Yes, but take him up, and God will get him hereafter.' We got him up at the last gasp: I gave him some brandy, and called it physic. 'O Sir, my cast is gone!' 'No, it is physic.' 'It is not that, Sir! but my family will never receive me. I am an outcast!' 'What! for saving your life?' 'Yes.' 'Never mind such a family.'-I let above one hun

dred men out of limbo at Jugŭnnat'hu: there were a thousand dead and dying;-all in limbo starving, to extort money from them *.

SECT. XXXII.—Infanticide.

THE people in some parts of India, particularly the inhabitants of Orissa, and of the eastern parts of Bengal, frequently offer their children to the goddess Gunga. The following reason is assigned for this practice:-When a woman has been long married, and has no children, it is common for the man, or his wife, or both of them, to make a vow to the goddess Gunga, that if she will bestow the blessing of children upon them, they will devote the firstborn to her. If after this vow they have children, the eldest is nourished till a proper age, which may be three, four, or more years, according to circumstances, when, on a particular day appointed for bathing in any holy part of the river, they take the child with them, and offer it to this goddess: the child is encouraged to go farther and farther into the water till it is carried away by the stream, or is pushed off by its inhuman parents. Sometimes a stranger seizes the child, and brings it up; but it is abandoned by its parents from the moment it floats in the water, and if no one be found more humane than they, it infallibly perishes. The principal places in Bengal where this species of murder is practiced, are, Gunga-Sagŭrů, where the river Hoogly disembogues itself into the sea; Voidyŭvatēē, a town about fourteen miles to the north of Calcutta ; Trivénēē, Nudēēya, Chakdůh, and Prŭyagů.

* I have not the authority of this gentleman for inserting this extract; but I rely on his known benevolence to excuse the freedom I have thus taken.

The following shocking custom appears to prevail principally in the northern districts of Bengal. If an infant refuse the mother's breast, and decline in health, it is said to be under the influence of some malignant spirit. Such a child is sometimes put into a basket, and hung up in a tree where this evil spirit is supposed to reside. It is generally destroyed by ants, or birds of prey; but sometimes perishes by neglect, though fed and clothed daily. If it should not be dead at the expiration of three days, the mother receives it home again, and nurses it: but this seldom happens. The late Mr. Thomas, a missionary, once saved and restored to its mother, an infant which had fallen out of a basket, at Bholahatů, near Malda, at the moment a shackal was running away with it. As this gentleman and Mr. Carey were afterwards passing under the same tree, they found a basket hanging in the branches containing the skeleton of another infant, which had been devoured by ants. The custom is unknown in many places, but, it is to be feared, is too common in others.

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In the north western parts of Hindoost'hanŭ, the horrid practice of sacrificing female children as soon as born, has been known from time immemorial. The Hindoos ascribe this custom to a prophecy delivered by a bramhun to Dweepŭ-singhů, a rajŭ-pootŭ king, that his race would lose the sovereignty through one of his female posterity. Another opinion is, that this shocking practice has arisen out of the law of marriage, which obliges the bride's father to pay almost divine honours to the bridegroom: hence persons of high cast, unwilling thus to humble themselves for the sake of a daughter, destroy the infant. In the Punjab,

y At the time of marriage the girl's father, taking hold of the knee of the boy, worships him, by presenting offerings of rice, flowers, paint, &c. and promising to give him his daughter.

and neighbouring districts, to a great extent, a cast of Sikhs, and the raju-pootus, as well as many of the bramhŭns and other casts, murder their female children as soon as born. I have made particular enquiry into the extent of these murders; but as the crime is perpetrated in secret, have not been able to procure very exact information. A gentleman, whose information on Indian customs is very correct, informs me, that this practice was, if it is not at present, universal among all the raju-poots, who, he supposes, destroy all their daughters: he expresses his fears, that, notwithstanding their promises to the Government of Bombay, made in consequence of the very benevolent exertions of Mr. Duncan, the practice is almost generally continued. He adds, the custom prevails in the Punjab, in Malwa, Joud-poorů, Jesselmere, Guzerat, Kutch, and perhaps Sind, if not in other provinces.

A friend at Ludhana, in a letter writen in the year 1812, says, "The horrible custom of murdering female infants is very common among the raju-pootus. One of these fellows had been induced, by the tears of his wife, to spare the life of a daughter born to him. The girl grew up, and had arrived at the age of thirteen; but, unfortunately for her, had not been demanded in marriage by any one. The rajŭ-pootŭ began to apprehend the danger of her bringing a disgrace upon the family, and resolved to prevent it by putting the girl to death. Shortly after forming this atrocious design, he either overheard, or pretended to have overheard, some of his neighbours speak of his daughter in a way that tended to increase his fears; when, becoming outrageous, he rushed upon the poor girl, and cut her head off. The native magistrate confined him for a year, and seized all his property. But this was only because the girl was marriageable; infants are murdered with perfect impunity,'

The Jatus, a people who abound in these parts,' says a friend, in a letter from Agra, dated May, 1812, 'destroy their female children as soon as born; but being now afraid of the English, they remove their pregnant women before the time of delivery into the district of the raja of Bhŭrůtůpoorů, that they may there commit these horrid murders with impunity. Oh! the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty! In these parts there are not many women burned with their husbands, and when they do burn, they are not held down with bamboos, but left to themselves and the fire; but if any one run away or jump out, they cut her down with a sword, and throw her into the fire again. This was done at a flight of steps just by, a little before the English took this place; since which time I have not heard of any such events occurring.'

SECT. XXXIII.-Ascetics devoured in Forests by Wild Beasts.

BESIDE the dreadful waste of human life in practising superstitious austerities, great numbers of Hindoo devotees, who visit forests as an act of seclusion from the world, perish by wild beasts. The author, when on a visit to Sagără island in the year 1806, was informed by a yogee that six of his companions had been devoured there by tygers in the three preceding months; that while absent in the forest gathering sticks, he heard their cries, and looking over the wall of the temple yard in which they lived, he saw the tygers dragging them by the neck into the forest. Other forests infested by wild beasts are visited by these yogees, many of whom are devoured every year. Numbers