8. All the places named are in the Central Provinces. Ratanpur, in the Bilâspur District, is a place of much antiquarian interest, full of ruins; Mandlâ, in the Mandlâ District, was the capital of the later Gond chiefs of Garhâ Mandlâ; and Sambalpur is the capital of the Sambalpur District. If the story is true, the selection of a Brahman for sacrifice is remarkable, though not without precedent. Human sacrifice has prevailed largely in India, and is not yet quite extinct. In 1891 some Jâts in the Muzaffarnagar District of the United Provinces sacrificed a boy in a very painful manner for some unascertained magical purpose. It was supposed that the object was to induce the gods to grant offspring to a childless woman. Other similar cases have occurred in recent years. One occurred close to Calcutta in 1892. In the hill tracts of Orissa bordering on the Central Provinces the rite of human sacrifice was practised by the Khonds on an awful scale, and with horrid cruelty, It was suppressed by the special efforts of Macpherson, Campbell, MacViccar, and other officers, between the years 1837 and 1854. Daring that period the British officers rescued 1,506 victims intended for sacrifice (_Narrative of Major-General John Campbell, C.B., of his Operations in the Hill Tracts of Orissa for the Suppression of Human Sacrifices and Female Infanticide_. Printed for private circulation. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1861). The rite, when practised by Hindoos, may have been borrowed from some of the aboriginal races. The practice, however, has been so general throughout the world that few peoples can claim the honour of freedom from the stain of adopting it at one time or another, Much curious information on the subject, and many modern instances of human sacrifices in India, are collected in the article 'Sacrifice' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd edition, 1885. Major S. C. Macpherson, _Memorials of Service in India_ (1865), and Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 3rd edition, Part V, vol. i (1912), pp. 236 seq., may also be consulted. 9. Bernier vividly describes an 'infernal tragedy' of this kind which he witnessed, in or about the year 1659, during Aurangzêb's reign, in Râjputâna. On that occasion five female slaves burnt themselves with their mistress (_Travels_, ed. Constable and V. A. Smith (1914), p. 309). 10. Hinduism is a social system, not a creed, A Hindoo may believe, or disbelieve, what speculative doctrine he chooses, but he must not eat, drink, or marry, save in accordance with the custom of his caste. Compare Asoka on toleration; 'The sects of other people all deserve reverence for one reason or another' (Rock Edict xii; V. A. Smith, _Asoka_, 2nd edition (1909), p. 170).