, 352 ON" SOME EXTRAORDINARY FACTS, CUSTOMS, 



grey of the morning by his brother Adher, they 

 called out aloud to the people of the village, thai: 

 although they would overlook the assault as an act 

 which could not be remedied, the forty rupees must 

 be returned. To this exclamation no answer was 

 received ; nor is there any certainty that it was even 

 heard by any person ; and Beechuk without further 

 hesitation drew his scymetar, and at one stroke se- 

 vered his mother's head from her body, with the pro- 

 fessed view, as entertained and avowed both by parent 

 and son, that the mother's spirit, excited by the beat- 

 ing of a large drum during forty days, might for ever 

 haunt, torment, and pursue to death Go wry and the 

 others concerned with him. The last words which 

 the mother pronounced were, that she would blast the 

 said Go wry and those connected with him. 



The violence assertedtohavebeencommitted by the 

 emissaries of Gowry, in forcibly entering thefemale 

 apartments of B e e c i-i u k and Adher, might be deemed 

 an indignity of high provocation; but they appear 

 to have considered this outrage as of less importance 

 than the loss of their money, which might and would 

 have been recovered with due satisfaction, by applica- 

 tion to the Court of Justice in Benares. The act 

 which they perpetrated had no other sanction than 

 what was derived from the local prejudices of the 

 place where they resided : it was a crime against 

 their religion : and the two brothers themselves quoted 

 an instance of a Brahmen, who six or seven years be- 

 fore had IcteC his cast and all intercourse with the other 

 BrahmenSi for an act of the same nature. But in 



truth 



