421 



expressed the wish, that I was enjoying a primrose bank and haw- 

 thorn hedge in my native country. With gratitude I acknow- 

 ledge my wishes have been granted; and few, perhaps, have tasted 

 the rural pleasures and vernal delights of this happy island, for 

 near thirty years, more than myself, to whom they possess addi- 

 tional zest from having been so long deprived of them. 



The umbrageous banian trees and the sacred groves at Pul- 

 parra shared the same fate as those in the surrounding country, 

 during the late storm. I revisited those brahminical seminaries 

 which had formerly afforded me so much delight. A long and 

 more intimate intercourse with the brahmins and higher classes 

 of Hindoos had rather lessened them in my esteem, since I re- 

 ceived my first impressions in this sanctuary; in that respect, as 

 well as in its shady honours, I found Pulparra had lost many of 

 those charms with which twelve years before I had been so cap- 

 tivated. The lives of the luxurious priests, the ignorance of the 

 worshippers, and the penances of the devotees, now appeared not 

 only superstitious, but useless and absurd. The unhallowed fires 

 were still kindled for the innocent female victims; the temples 

 still open to the higher castes of Hindoos, still shut against the 

 poor ehandala and humbled pariar. But as the Surat government 

 is now no longer divided, and the English laws, properly blended 

 with the Hindoo and Mahornedan codes, are now established, we 

 may hope that many flagrant abuses in the corrupt durbar of the 

 nabob will be remedied, and the cremation of Hindoo widows 

 be no longer permitted. No woman has burnt herself on the 

 island of Bombay for these last fifty years, to my knowledge; 

 nor do I believe this species of suicide has been allowed of 



