The inhabitants of Sinde consist mostly of Rajputs, Banians, and Baloches, the governors of the cities and large towns being Moguls. The country people are rude; going naked from the waist upwards, and wear turbans quite different from the fashion of the Moguls. Their arms are swords, bucklers, and lances; their bucklers being large and shaped like bee-hives, in which they are in use to give their camels drink, and their horses provender. Their horses are good, strong, and swift, and though unshod, they ride them furiously, backing them at a year old. The Rajputs eat no beef or buffalo flesh, even worshipping them; and the Moguls say that the Rajputs know how to die as well as any in the world. The Banians kill nothing, and are said to be divided into more than thirty different casts, that differ somewhat among them in matters of religion, and may not eat with each other. All burn their dead; and when the husband dies, the widow shaves her head, and wears her jewels no more, continuing this state of mourning as long as she lives. When a Rajput dies, his wife accompanies his body to the funeral pile in her best array, attended by all her friends and kindred, and by music. When the funeral pile is set on fire, she walks round it two or three times, bewailing the death of her husband, and then rejoicing that she is now to live with him again: After which, embracing her friends, she sits down on the top of the pile among dry wood, taking her husband's head on her lap, and orders fire to be put to the pile; which done, her friends throw oil upon her and sweet perfumes, while she endures the fire with wonderful fortitude, loose not bound. I have seen many instances of this. The first I ever saw was at Surat, the widow being a virgin of ten years old, and her affianced husband being a soldier slain in the wars at a distance, whence his clothes and turban were sent to her, and she insisted on burning herself along with these. The governor refused to give her permission, which she took grievously to heart, and insisted on being burnt; but they durst not, till her kindred procured leave by giving the governor a present, to her great joy. The kindred of the husband never force this, but the widow esteems it a disgrace to her family not to comply with this custom, which they may refrain from if they choose: But then they must shave their heads, and break all their ornaments, and are never afterwards allowed to eat, drink, sleep, or keep company with any one all the rest of their lives. If, after agreeing to burn, a woman should leap out of the fire, her own parents would bind her and throw her in again by force; but this weakness is seldom seen.