" "The Country about (Calcutta) being overspread with Paganisms, the Custom of Wives burning themselves with their deceased Husbands, is also practised here. Before the Mogul's War, Mr. Channock went one time with his Ordinary Guard of Soldiers, to see a young Widow act that tragical Catastrophe, but he was so smitten with the Widow's Beauty, that he sent his Guards to take her by Force from her Executioners, and conducted her to his own Lodgings. They lived lovingly many Years, and had several Children; at length she died, after he had settled in Calcutta, but instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a Proselyte to Paganism, and the only part of Christianity that was remarkable in him, was burying her decently, and he built a Tomb over her, where all his Life after her Death, he kept the anniversary Day of her Death by sacrificing a Cock on her Tomb, after the Pagan Manner."—Ibid. [ed. 1744], ii. 6-7. [With this compare the curious lines described as an Epitaph on "Joseph Townsend, Pilot of the Ganges" (5 ser. Notes & Queries, i. 466 seq.).]
1774.—"Here (in Bali) not only women often kill themselves, or burn with their deceased husbands, but men also burn in honour of their deceased masters."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, 170.
1787.—"Soon after I and my conductor had quitted the house, we were informed the suttee (for that is the name given to the person who so devotes herself) had passed...."—Sir C. Malet, in Parly. Papers of 1821, p. 1 ("Hindoo Widows").
" "My Father, said he (Pundit Rhadacaunt), died at the age of one hundred years, and my mother, who was eighty years old, became a sati, and burned herself to expiate sins."—Letter of Sir W. Jones, in Life, ii. 120.
1792.—"In the course of my endeavours I found the poor suttee had no relations at Poonah."—Letter from Sir C. Malet, in Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 394; [2nd ed. ii. 28, and see i. 178, in which the previous passage is quoted].
1808.—"These proceedings (Hindu marriage ceremonies in Guzerat) take place in the presence of a Brahmin.... And farther, now the young woman vows that her affections shall be fixed upon her Lord alone, not only in all this life, but will follow in death, or to the next, that she will die, that she may burn with him, through as many transmigrations as shall secure their joint immortal bliss. Seven successions of suttees (a woman seven times born and burning, thus, as often) secure to the loving couple a seat among the gods."—R. Drummond.
1809.—
"O sight of misery!
You cannot hear her cries ... their sound
In that wild dissonance is drowned; ...