Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/128

 96 THE PRACTICE OF SUTTEE ing to compare with the accounts, given above, by the Greek writers of nearly two thousand years before. It reads as follows: 1 Although the ancient and barbarous custom which imposes on widows the duty of sacrificing themselves voluntarily on the funeral pyre of their husbands has not been expressly abolished, it is much more rare nowadays s than formerly, espe- cially in the southern parts of the Penin- sula. In the north of India and in the provinces bordering on the Ganges, how- ever, women are only too frequently seen offering themselves as victims of this terri- ble superstition, and, either through mo- tives of vanity or through a spirit of blind enthusiasm, giving themselves up to a death which is as cruel as it is foolish. The Mohammedan rulers never tolerated this hor- rible practice in the provinces subject to them; but, notwithstanding their prohibition, wretched fanatics have more than once succeeded in bribing the subordi- nate representatives of authority to give permission A GROUP OF CHILD WIDOWS.