98 
SCENES IN INDIA, 
the process, the less the chance of rescue or escape. 
The moment her voice was raised, it was drowned 
in the mingled clamour of tom-toms, pipes, and the 
shouts of hundreds of half mad fanatics, who had 
assembled to see the horrid issue of a devoted fana- 
ticism. Her struggles were now unavailing, she was 
soon dragged to the pile and forced upon it ; at this 
time she appeared exhausted by her continued exer- 
tions. When seated on the faggots, her husband’s head 
was placed upon her lap, the straw, which had been 
plentifully strewed underneath the wood, was fired, 
when the flames instantly ascending, enwrapt the 
beautiful Hindoo, at once shutting her out for ever 
from human sight and from human sympathy. Lest 
in her agonies she should leap from the pile, she was 
kept down upon it by long bamboos ; the ends being- 
placed upon her body by the officiating Bramins, who 
leaned their whole weight upon the centre of the pole 
with which each was furnished, and which each zea- 
lously applied to this holy purpose, so that she could 
not rise. Her sufferings were soon terminated, as 
the wood burned with extreme rapidity and fury. 
Thus ended this infernal holocaust ! 
What can we think of the advocates and abettors 
of a religion which lends its sanction to such a 
barbarous rite as that of human sacrifice ? It is in 
truth a strange anomaly in the moral organization of 
man, that extremes should be so apt to meet — that 
some of the best qualities of the human heart, by 
being forced to an unnatural extension, should so often 
gradually advance towards deformity until they partake 
of those very qualities which are diametrically opposed 
