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house, we were informed that the suttee (the name given to these 
female victims), had passed by; and we soon traced her route by 
the gulol, or rose-coloured powder, she had thrown around her, and 
the betel-leaf, which, as is usual on these occasions, she had 
scattered. 
“ She had reached that part of the river set apart for religious 
ablutions, before we arrived, and, having performed her last cere- 
mony of this kind, was sitting on the margin of the stream: over 
her was held an aftabgheer, or state umbrella; an attendant fanned 
her with a waving veil, and she was surrounded by her relations, 
friends, and select brahmins, the populace being kept aloof by a 
guard from the government. In this situation she distributed two 
thousand rupees among the brahmins, and the jewels with which 
she was decorated to her friends, reserving only the nose-ring, 
called bulawk, and the bracelets on her wrists. 
6C My position prevented my seeing more of her than her hands, 
the palms of which being joined, they were uplifted in an attitude 
of invocation: quitting therefore this place, I removed to an emi- 
nence, which gave me an opportunity of observing the construction 
of the funeral pile, and commanded the path-way by which I un- 
derstood she would approach it: the spot chosen for its erection 
was about forty yards from the river, directly in front of her as she 
sat: when I came up, the frame alone was raised; it consisted 
of four uprights, each about ten feet high. Its length was about 
nine, and the breadth of it under six; from near the top of the 
uprights was suspended, by ropes, a roof of slender rafters laid 
lengthwise, parallel with each other; on this were soon placed as 
many billets as it seemed capable of bearing, while beneath, a pile 
