[* Poor Aga Ahmud was put into gaol, for defalcation, at the end of the season; but Girdhara Sing was received with great favour by the Court. The government of the district, for the next season, was confirmed, and the usual dress of honour was conferred upon him, but the Resident deemed it to be his duty to interpose and insist upon his not being sent out. The government of the district was, in consequence, taken from him, and made over to Rajah Maun Sing.]
A respectable young agricultural capitalist from Biswa, Seetaram, rode along by my side this morning, and I asked him, "over whom these suttee tombs, near Biswa, and other towns were for the most part raised."—"Sir," said he, "they are chiefly over the widows of Brahmins, bankers, merchants, Hindoo public officers, tradesmen, and shopkeepers." "Are there many such tombs in Oude, over the widows of Rajpoot landholders?"—"I have not seen any, sir, and have rarely heard of the widow of a Rajpoot landholder burning herself." "No, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "how should such women be worthy to become suttees? They dare not become suttees, sir, with the murder of so many innocent children on their heads. Sir, we Brahmins and other respectable Hindoos feel honoured in having daughters; and never feel secure of a happy life hereafter till we see them respectably married. This, sir, is a duty the Deity demands from us, and the neglect of which we do not believe he can ever excuse. When the bridegroom comes sir, to fetch our daughter, the priest reads over the marriage-service, and the parents of the girl wash her feet and those of her bridegroom; and, as they sit together after the ceremonies, put into her arms a tray of gold and silver jewels, and rich clothes, such as their condition in life enables them to provide; and then invoke the blessing of God upon their union; and then, and not till then, do they feel that they have done their duty to their child. What can men and women, who murder their daughters as soon as they are born, ever hope for in this life or in a future state? What can widows, conscious of such crimes, expect from ascending the funeral pile, with the bodies of their deceased husbands who have caused them to commit such crimes?" "And you think that there really is merit in such sacrifices on the part of widows, who have done their duties in this life?"—"Assuredly I do, sir; if there were none, why should God render them go insensible to the pain of burning? I have seen many widows burn themselves in my time, and watched them from the time they first declared their intention to their death; and they all seemed to me to feel nothing whatever from the flames: nothing, sir, but support from above could sustain them through such trials. Depend upon it, sir, that no widow of a Rajpoot murderer of his own offspring would ever be so supported; they knew very well that they would not be so; and, therefore, very wisely never ventured to expose themselves to the trial: faithful wives and good mothers only could so venture. The Rajpoots, sir, and their wives were pleased at the prohibition, because others could no longer do what they dared not do!" "What do you think, Seetarum?"—"I think, sir, that this crime of infanticide had its origin solely in family pride, which will make people do almost anything. These proud Rajpoots did not like to put it into any man's power to call them salahs or sussoors,* (brothers-in-law or fathers-in-law).
[* These are terms of abuse all over India. To call a man sussoor or salah, in abuse, is to say to him, I have dishonoured your daughter or your sister!]
"I remember an instance of a woman burning herself at Lasoora, six miles from Biswa, when I was fifteen years of age, and I am now twenty-five. She certainly seemed to suffer no pain. One forenoon she told her husband that in a former birth she had promised him that when he should be born a maha brahman at Biswa, she would unite herself in marriage to him, and live with him as his wife for twelve years; that these twelve years had now expired, and that she had that night received intimation from Heaven that her real husband, Rajah Kirpah Shunker, of Muthura, had died without having been married in this birth; that she was in reality his wife, and had already burnt herself five times with his body, and would now mix her ashes with his for the sixth time, and he must forthwith send her to the village of Lasoora, where she would become a suttee. The husband was astounded, for they had always lived together on the best possible terms, and out of the four children they had had two still survived. He and all their relations did all they could to dissuade her, but she disregarded them, and ran off to the Sewala (temple) in Biswa, which was built by my father. Thence she sent a Brahmin, by name Gokurn, to call me and my elder brother, Morlee Munohur, then seventeen years of age. We went, and she told us that she had been our mother in a former birth, and wished to see us once more before she died; she blessed us, and prayed that we might have each five sons, and then told us to arrange for her funeral pile at Lasoora, as all her former five suttees had been performed at that place.
"We thought she was delirious, and no one supposed that she would really burn herself. She, however, left the temple and proceeded towards Lasoora on foot, followed by a party of women and children, and by her husband, who continued to implore her to return home with him. He had a litter with him to take her, but she would not listen to him or to any one else. We reached Lasoora about an hour and a half before sunset, and she ordered the people to collect a large pile of wood for her, and told them that she would light it with a flame from her own mouth. They seemed to regard her as an inspired person, and did so. She mounted the pile, and it soon took fire, how I know not! Many people said they saw the flame come from her month, and all seemed to believe that it did so. The flames ascended, for it was in the month of March, and the wood was dry, and she seemed to be quite happy as she sat in the midst of them, and was burnt to death. Her husband told us, that she had lost one son some years before, and another only four days before she burnt herself, and that she had been much afflicted at his death. Whether there really had been such a person as Rajah Kirpah Shunker, no one ever thought it necessary to inquire. Her suttee tomb still stands at Lasoora among many others. Our mother was alive, though our father had been dead many years, and she used to say that the poor woman must have become deranged at the death of her child. The people all believed that she told the truth, and the husband was obliged to yield, though he seemed much afflicted. Her two sons still live, and reside at Biswa." *
[* Moorlee Monowur, a very respectable agricultural capitalist, tells me, that all that his younger brother, Seetaram, told me, about the suttee, if strictly true, and can be proved by a reference to the poor woman's husband and sons, who still survive, and to the people of Bilwa and Lasoora.]
I asked the Amil, "How he fed, clothed, and lodged his prisoners?" He said, "We always take them with us in our marches, secured in stocks or fetters. We cannot leave them behind, because we have no gaols or other places to keep them in, and require all our troops to move with us. As to food and clothing, they are obliged to provide themselves, or get their families or friends to provide them, for Government will not let us charge anything for their subsistence and clothing in the accounts."
"I understand that you and all other public servants who have charge of prisoners not only make them provide themselves with food and clothing, but make them pay for lamp-oil, whether they have a lamp burning at night or not?"—"When they require a lamp they must of course pay for it, sir; prisoners are always a source of much anxiety to us, for if we send them to Lucknow, they are almost sure to be let out soon, on occasions of thanksgiving, or on payment of gratuities, and enabled to punish all who have assisted us in the arrest; and with hosts of robbers around us, we are always in danger of an attempt to rescue them, which may cost us many lives." "If the gaol darogahs at Lucknow had not the power to sell his prisoners, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "how should he be able to pay so much as he does for his place? He is obliged to pay five hundred rupees or more for his place, and is not sure of holding it a month after he has bought it, so many are the candidates for a place so profitable!" "But he gets a share of the subsistence money, paid for the prisoners from the Treasury, does he not?"—"Yes, sir; of the four pice a-day paid for them by the King, he takes two, and sends them to beg through the city for what more they require." "If they get more than what he thinks they require from the public or their friends, he takes the surplus from them, I am told?"—"It is very true, sir, I believe. Fellows, sir, who have no substantial friends, and cannot and will not beg, soon sink under this scanty supply of food."
February 27, 1850—Sutrick, sixteen miles west, over a plain of muteear soil, tolerably well cultivated, and very well studded with trees of the finest kinds, single, in clusters and in groves. The mango-trees are in blossom, and promise well. The trees are said to bear only one season out of three, but some bear in one season, and others in another, so that the market is always supplied, though in some seasons more abundantly than in others. A cloudy sky and easterly wind, while the trees are in blossom, are said to be very injurious. A large landholder told me that they never took a tax upon any of the trees, not even the mhowa-trees, but the owner could not, except upon particular occasions, dispose of one to be cut down, without the permission of the zumeendar upon whose lands it stood. He might cut down one without his permission for building or repairing his house, or for fuel, on any occasion of marriage in his family, but not otherwise. A good many fine trees were, he said, destroyed by the local officers of Government. Having no tents, they collected the roofs of houses from a neighbouring village in hot or bad weather, cut away the branches to make rafters, and left the trunks as pillars to support the roofs, and under this treatment they soon died. He told me that cow-dung was cheaper for fuel than wood in this district, and consequently more commonly used in cooking; but that they gathered cow-dung for fuel only during four months in the year, November, December, January, and February; all that fell during the other eight months was religiously left, or stored for manure. In the pits in which they stored it, they often threw some of the inferior green crops of autumn, such as kodo and kotkee; but the manure most esteemed among them was pigs' dung—this, he said, was commonly stored and sold by those who kept pigs. The best muteear and doomut soils, which prevail in this district, are rented at two rupees a kutcha beegah, without reference to the crop which the cultivator might take from them; and they yielded, under good tillage, from ten to fifteen returns of the seed in wheat, barley, gram, &c. There are two and half or three kutcha beegahs in a pucka beegah; and a pucka beegah is from 2750 to 2760 square yards.
Sutrick is celebrated for the shrine of Shouk Salar, alias Borda Baba, the father of Syud Salar, whose shrine is at Bahraetch. This person, it is said, was the husband of the sister of Mahmood, of Ghuznee. He is supposed to have died a natural death at this place, while leading the armies of his sovereign against the Hindoos. His son had royal blood in his veins, and his shrine is held to be the most sacred of the two. A large fair is held here in March, on the same days that this fair takes place at Bahraetch. All our Hindoo camp followers paid as much reverence to the shrine as they passed as the Mahommedans. It is a place without trade or manufactures; but a good many respectable Mahommedan families reside in it, and have built several small but neat mosques of burnt bricks. There is little thoroughfare in the wretched road that passes through it.