'Some of her family, but I forget who. They thought it must have been a call from Heaven, when, in reality, it was only a dream.' 'You are a Râjpût?' 'Yes.' 'Do Râjpûts in this part of India now destroy their female infants?' 'Never; that practice has ceased everywhere in these parts; and is growing into disuse in Bundêlkhand, where the Râjâs, at the request of the British Government, have prohibited it among their subjects. This was a measure of real good. You see girls now at play in villages, where the face of one was never seen before, nor the voice of one heard.' 'But still those who have them grumble, and say that the Government which caused them to be preserved should undertake to provide for their marriage. Is it not so?' 'At first they grumbled a little, sir; but as the infants grew on their affections, they thought no more about it.'[16] Gurcharan Baboo, the Principal of the little Jubbulpore College,[17] called upon me one forenoon, soon after this conversation. He was educated in the Calcutta College; speaks and writes English exceedingly well; is tolerably well read in English literature, and is decidedly a _thinking man_. After talking over the matter which caused his visit, I told him of the Lodhî woman's burning herself with the Brahman banker at Sihôrâ, and asked him what he thought of it. He said that 'In all probability this woman had really been the wife of the Brahman in some former birth--of which transposition a singular case had occurred in his own family. 'His great-grandfather had three wives, who all burnt themselves with his body. While they were burning, a large serpent came up, and, ascending the pile, was burnt with them. Soon after another came up, and did the same. They were seen by the whole multitude, who were satisfied that they had been the wives of his great-grandfather in a former birth, and would become so again after this sacrifice. When the "srâddh", or funeral obsequies, were performed after the prescribed intervals,[18] the offerings and prayers were regularly made for _six souls_ instead of four; and, to this day, every member of his family, and every Hindoo who had heard the story, believed that these two serpents had a just right to be considered among his ancestors, and to be prayed for accordingly in all "srâddh".' A few days after this conversation with the Principal of the Jubbulpore College, I had a visit from Bholî Sukul, the present head of the Sihôrâ banker's family, and youngest brother of the Brahman with whose ashes the Lodhî woman burned herself. I requested him to tell me all that he recollected about this singular suttee, and he did so as follows: