the Mussulmans, whose histories seem really very much like those of Europe, and whose poetry, so far as I am yet able to judge, has hardly had justice done to it in the ultra flowery translations which have appeared in the West.”
Bishop Heber’s account of his visit to the Sanskrit college at Benares is strikingly characteristic of the system of public instruction described in the above extract. It presents a picture which would be highly amusing, if the mental and moral darkness which must be the result of such a system were not calculated to excite feelings of the deepest melancholy.
“Suttees are less numerous in Benares than many parts of India, but self-immolation by drowning is very common. Many scores, every year, of pilgrims from all parts of India come hither expressly to end their days and secure their salvation. They purchase two large Kedgeree pots, between which they tie themselves, and when empty these support their weight in the water. Thus equipped, they paddle into the stream, then fill the pots with the water which surrounds them, and thus sink into eternity. Government have sometimes attempted to prevent this practice, but with no other effect than driving the voluntary victims a little further down the river; nor indeed, when a man has come several hundred miles
