once to burn, and, even in advance of being asked, they have, in the first spasm of their bereavement, uttered the fatal and irrevocable cry, “Suth! suth!” Orders are at once issued for the erection of the fatal pile, and the accustomed ceremonies; the widow, too, has to be prepared. Friends sometimes, with more or less sincerity, try to dissuade her from her purpose; but all her religious convictions and priestly advisers urge on the poor, infatuated—perhaps intoxicated—woman to her doom. On the banks of the sacred river, while she bathes in the Ganges, a Brahmin is coolly reading the usual forms. She is now arrayed in bridal costume, but her face is unvailed, and her hair unbound and saturated with oil, and her whole body is perfumed. Her jewels are now added, and she is adorned with garlands of flowers. Thus prepared, she is conducted to the pile, which is an oblong square, formed of four stout bamboos or branches fixed in the earth at each corner. Within those supports the dry logs are laid from three to four feet high, with cotton rope and other combustibles interlaced. Chips of odoriferous wood, butter, and oil are plentifully added, to give force and fragrance to the flames. The ends above are interwoven to form a bower, and this is sometimes decked with flowers. The husband's body has been already laid upon it. In the south of India the fire is first applied, and the widow throws herself into the burning mass; but the more general way is not to apply the fire till she has taken her position. The size of the pile is regulated by the number of widows who are to be burned with the body. Cases are well known, like the one at Sookachura, near Calcutta, where the pile was nearly twelve yards long, and on it eighteen wives, leaving in all over forty children, burned themselves with the body of their husband.
When the widow, thus prepared, reaches the pile, she walks around it, supported if necessary by a Brahmin. She then distributes her gifts, including her jewels, to the Brahmins and her friends, but retains her garlands. She now approaches the steps by which she is to mount the pile, and there repeats the Sancalpa, thus: “On this month so named—that I may enjoy with my husband the
