Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/124

 92 THE PRACTICE OF SUTTEE fire like the others; but they lay themselves by their dead husband on a pile of wood, even as they would go to rest beside him; and when they have lain down by him, then is a great mass of wood piled upon their body. This being done, they kindle the wood at the head, where some oil is poured that the wood may catch fire the better. Oh, inhuman cruelty! Who is not hor- rified at such horrible things, which, nevertheless, be true and customary in these places? So soon as the wife is laid in the pit and covered with wood, wailing and lamentation ariseth from certain women, the which stand as in a ring and cry and beat upon their breasts like desperate creatures; but what they mean hereby I cannot say, for I myself have never investigated it. It seemeth, in sooth, a wondrous thing that the women can let themselves be persuaded to such extreme pain, and to plight their word thereto; but it cometh to pass through the leasing tongues of the Bramines, who not only set before them the examples of them that have done this, but also say that they can do much good thereby to their husbands whom they held dear; since if, for love and single affection, they let them- selves be burnt with their dead husbands, not only shall this tend marvellously to their weal in the world to come, but they shall also release their husbands, even were they godless, from the pain of hell. They also persuade the women that if they do this for single love, they will not feel the pain of the fire so much; and who can bear them other testimony herein, since they have spoken to none who have told them how they fared