It is always a near relation who gives the first wound with the kris, but never father or son. Sometimes dreadful spectacles occur ; such was one at which Mr. K. was present. The woman had received eight kris stabs, and was yet quite sensible. At last she screatned out, impelled by the dreadful pain, Cruel wretches, are you not able to give nie a stab that will kill me I ' A gusti who stood behind her on this pierced her through and through Nvith his kris.
The native spectators, whom, he adds, I had around ine, saw in this slaughter which took place before our eyes, nothing shocking. They laughed and talked as if it was nothing. The man who had given the three last stabs wiped his kris, and restored it to its place in as cold-blooded a manner as a butcher Nvould have done after slaughtering an animal.
Only the wives of the more considerable per sonages of the land allow themselves to be burned. They make a very high platform of bamboo, the woman ascends after many ceremonies, Mid when the fire is tit its ireatest heat, she springs into the middle of the flames. 31r. K. thinks that they do not suffer much, because during the leap they are stifled, and at all events the fire, strengthened by fragraut resins, is so fierce that death must speedily ensue.
Anugamana, in Brahmanism, is the perform ance of sati by a woman alone, Nvliose husband has died in a distant country. A sandal, or any article of his clothes, may then represent hint.
Arundhati, the wife of the Rishi Vaisistlia, a resident of Swarga, is the spirit whom the devoted eati woman invokes, before mounting the pile.
China.—The Scythic practice is still followed by races of Tartar origin. The emperor Chun-Tche died at midnight (A.D.1662?), and at dawn of day all the Bonzes and their adherents were chased from the palace. Towards noon the deceased was placed in his coffin, and wept for by an immense multitude who had witnesused the ceremony. As soon as the ceremony of taking the oath of allegi ance to young Kiang-hi W118 concluded, that of the funeral of Chun-Tche was commenced in a style of magnificence surpassing anything of the kind that had hitherto been witnessed. To the solemn and sumptuous pomp of the Chinese rites, were added the barbarous ctustoms of the Tartar& Tragic scenes took place, in which many of tho attendants of the late emperor put themselves to death, that they might proceed to the other world, and continue their accustomed services to their master. It is stated in the annals of China, that the empress-mother, perceiving a young prince, who had been the intimate friend and favourite of Chun-Tche, expressed to him, with strong emotion, her grief and astonishment at finding him alive. Is it possible,' said she, that you are still alive? My son loved you, is doubtless now waiting for you ; hasten then to join him, and prove to him that your affection was sincere and generous! Run and bid adieu to your parents, and then have the courage to die I Your friend, my son, is stretching out his arms towards you.' According to the historian, these Nvords, uttered in a tone at once affectionate and severe, caused great distress to the young man. He loved Chun-Tche, but he lovedlife also, and could not think of death Nvith out a terrible shudder. He was surrounded by his afflicted family, who were urging him to escape by flight from so frightful a sacrifice, when the empress-mother sent to him a present of a box ornamented with jewels, and containing a bowstring for him to strangle himself. The un fortunate young man still hesitated, for he WAS at the happiest time of life, and could not resolve to die of his own accord, as the barbarous pre judices of his nation required; but the two officers who had brought him the fatal present had orders from the empress-mother to help him out of this perplexity, and give a little assistance to his courage, should he be unable to put himself to death, and they helped him accordingly. The coffin of the deceased emperor was transported to the burial-place of the new dyna.sty, at twenty four leagues north of Pekin, and never probably was there such a proce,ssion as that which accom panied the remains of Chun-Tehe to Manchuria. The immense multitude made the whole country resound with the voice of weeping and lamenta tion, for this prince, of Nvhom in his latter days the people had seemed exceedingly tired, Nvas now clamorously, and perhapa sincerely, regretted. ' For my own part,' Nvrote Father Schall to his friends in Europe, owe an especial mourning to the memory of the emperor. For the seven teen years of his reign he never ceased to bestow on me many marks of kindness and regard ; at my request he did much for the welfare of his empire, and would doubtless have done much more if a premature death had not thus carried off, at the age of twenty-four, this certainly in telligent and highly-gifted young MAIL' A correspondent supplied All the Year Round with the following narrative of a tragedy enacted before his own eyes in the neighbourhood of Fu ehu-fu:--' The first notification I had,' says he, 'of what was about to take place, was the parading I of a handsome wedding chair about the suburb of the provincial capital in Nvhich our foreign settle ment is situated. The chair was accompanied by all the pomps and gaieties of a wedcling,—music, gay streamers, and so forth. There was, however, one thinff most unusual in this procession. The occupant'of the chair was exposed to public gaze, instead of being, a,s in weddings is invariably the case, closely screened. On making inquiry among our Chinese servants as to what this extraordinary departure from established customs might portend, I was informed that the lady was no bride, but a disconsolate widow, recently bereaved, who, find ing herself unprovided for and unprotected, and having, moreover, neither father nor mother, son nor daughter, father-in-la,w nor mother-in-law, was determined on following her husband to the unknown world, where she might serve and wait upon him as became his dutiful and loving wife.
Having accordingly made known her intention to her friends, and having fixed the day for her departure, she was now taking leave of all she knew, and parading the streets as a pattern to her sex. The object of her death being to rejoin her husband, the ceremony was a sort of wedding. She WM arrayed and adorned as a bride, and seated in' a wedding chair. On the morning of the 16th January, I proceeded, accompanied by two friends, to a spot some four miles distant from Nantae, the seat of the foreign settlement mid -southern suburb of Fu - chu - fu. We found ourselves in a stream of people, chiefly women and girls, the greater part of whom were small-footed, and were hobbling along, leaning one against another for support, or assisting their tottering footsteps by means of the shoulders of dutiful sons or brothers. We arrived only just in time to see the chair of the victim carried on the ground, and herself ascend the scaffold which had been-prepared for her. The chair was the bridal chair in which she had been carried about the streets, and the scaffold consisted of two stages, one raised a few feet from the ground, and the other a, few feet higher. The whole was covered with a dark cloth canopy, supported by a frame work of bamboos, within which was set a gallows of one very thick cross-piece of bamboo, fastened at either end to a strong upright pole. From this bamboo, under the canopy, and exactly in the middle of the scaffold, hung the fatal rope, covered with a red silk napkin ; beneath it was set a chair to enable the devotee to reach the noose. On the lower platform was a table of choice meats and vegetables at which she was to take her last meal in the land of the living. The table was surrounded by the woman's friends, dressed in holiday costumes, and wearing the red cap of Chinese officials: In former times it was the custom for two district magistrates to be in attendance on all these occasions, but since the higher authorities were hbaxed some years ago by a lady whose courage failed her at the last moment, they have refused to be present at such exhibitions, and now despatch an inferior officer to superin tend the arrangements. The chief actress appeared at first to be far less excited than any one in the vast concourse assembled. She was dressed in red bridal robes, richly embroidered with coloured silk, and her bead was adorned with a. handsome gilt coronet. Her decidedly plain face betrayed not the slightest emotion, and she sat down at the table with as much apparent goodwill as if it had been her bridal rather than her funeral feast. After the lapse of about half an hour, the poor wonian, having apparently satisfied her appetite, rose from her seat, and still standing on the lower platform addressed the surrounding crowd in a, set speeCh, thanking them for their attendance, and explaining why she acted as she did. When she had finished speakina, she took from a bowl on the table several handfuls of uncooked rice, which she scattered among the crowd, and eager was the scramble to get a few grains as her virtuous blessino-. This done, she fondled her baby nephew, and bade an affectionate farewell to her brother, who stood by her on the scaffold ; then, stepping upon the upper stage of the platform, she bowed ,gracefully to the surrounding multi tude, and addressed to them a few last words. She was helped to mount the high chair placed under the rope, but the rope proving to be still beyond her reach, her brother stepped forward and held her up in his arms, while she with her own hands passed the fatal noose over her head, and adjusted the cruel slip-knot to the back of her neck. The red silk napkin was then placed over her face, and a handkerchief fastened to her right hand. At a signal given by herself, her brother stepped back and left her suspended in mid-air. She then, shaking her joined hands before her breast, chin-chinned' the crowd, her own weight causing her to turn round and round, so that persons on all sides received her parting salutations. The spectators had, up to the fatal moment, been laughing and chattering as if assembled at a village fair, but now there was perfect stillness, as every ear was strained and every eye intent. In two or three minutes the action of the hands, at first decided and regular, grew weaker and weaker, and finally ceased altogether • then followed a convulsive shudder of the tiny'feet (not above three inches in length), and all was over. The body -was allowed to remain suspended for about a quarter of an hour, when it was cut down and placed in a common covered palanquin which was in waiting, the bridal chair having been removed. The rope which had been the instrument of death was now cut into small pieces, and distributed among the friends on the scaffold, all struggling violently to obtain a portion. The chair and the corpse were carried to a Small temple about a hundred yards from the spot, followed by a terrific rush of people anxious to obtain another glimpse of the lifeless clay.—History of the Panjab, p. 170, ii. p. 169 ; Huc's Christianity, ii. p. 401; Cunningham's Sikhs, p. 364; Elphinstone's India, pp.189,190 ; llf. Polo, iii. p. 20 ; Viaggio di Gaspar° Balbi, p. 83 ; Vincenzo, p. 322 ; Lettres Edifantes, ed. Lyon, 1819, vii. pp. 73-75 ; Yule, .Cathay, p. 80 ; Cole brooke in As. Res. on the Duties _of a Faithful TVife ; Vigne, p. 87 ; Dr. Vaughan, p. 192 ; Herod. iv. p.71, v. p. 5 ; Coleman's Myth. Hind. p. 82; nerat's Voyages, p. 43 ; TVard's Hindoos, p. 19, p. 25 ; Wilson's Hindu Theatre ; Tod's _Rajas than, i. pp. 633-35.