friend of Shakspeare, and buried near him, and whose monument is similarly deformed. Further, should the funds admit of it, to restore the ancient roof, and painted windows of the chancel; to clear the walls of unnecessary white-wash, and to secure the foundations.

prospect bursts upon the eye, and contrast gives to the whole scene the effect of enchantment. A lake spreads its silvery waters to the right, and the road winds over an undulated surface, splendidly clothed with nature's most luxuriant products. A second lake, equally beautiful with the If practicable, a portion of the money obtained first, but of smaller dimensions, skirts the city of will be vested in public securities, the yearly in- Oodipore, which rises in all the fantastic pomp of terest to be applied to the perpetual preservation oriental architecture-its pagodas, minarets, and of the chancel, and especially of Shakspeare's towers, of the purest marble, gleaming like pearls tomb, and in case of a sufficient amount being in the sun. The palace of the rana, also of marsubscribed, the committee would extend their ble, is built upon a ledge of rocks, and has rather care to the preservation of the house in which the appearance of a fortress than a royal resiShakspeare's father resided, in Henley street, the dence; the design is heavy, but some of the depresumed birth-place of Shakspeare; and to the tails are very beautiful, and the whole has an imhouse still remaining at Shottery, near Stratford, posing appearance from a distance. The lake, which was the residence of Anne Hathaway, af- which extends its bright mirror immediately beterwards the wife of Shakspeare; and even to low this natural terrace, seems fitted for the resithe purchase of the site of New Place, the house dence of the fairy queen; numerous small islands in which Shakspeare passed the last three years glitter like emeralds upon its shining bosom, each of his life, and in which he died;-a spot which, embellished with some beautiful pavilion formed being yet unencroached upon, they are most de- of lattice-work of marble, perforated in the most sirous of guarding from new erections, and con- elegant and elaborate patterns. The palmyras, secrating to the memory of him whose name has which wave their lofty coronals amid foliage of rendered it, in their estimation, hallowed ground. unrivaled hues, are the finest to be found in InWe need only add, that donations will be re- dia, and it is scarcely possible to imagine a fairer ceived by Messrs. Smith, Payne and Co., bank-assemblage of leaf and flower than that which ers, London: and that a book is prepared by the shades the light pavilions of this lovely spot. committee, in which the names and places of gorgeous is the scene, that even those artists, abode of the donors will be carefully preserved. whose fanciful pencils have luxuriated in delineaThis register, it is observed, will for ever remain tions of imaginary beauty, have not exceeded the a gratifying proof of the general interest excited, splendour which nature has lavished on this fain the nineteenth century, by a proposal to do late voured spot. The insects and the birds are as honour to the only mortal remains of one whose radiant as the blossoms, and none of the repreworks have cast an unfading glory over the lite-sentations of fairy-land have outdone the bright rature of England. realities to be found amid the groves and gardens of Oodipore. The rocks which encircle this beautiful valley have all the appearance of some precious substance; they are a species of quartz, somewhat resembling spar, of brilliant polish, and shine like silver geologists consider them to be Had the central provinces of India been as very curious, and when glittering in the full blaze well known in the days of Dr. Johnson as at pre-of a tropical sun, they become too dazzling for the sent, it might have been said that the learned author of Rasselas had borrowed his idea of the

From the Asiatic Journal.

OODIPORE.

human eye.

So

The beauty of Oodipore is, however only, on the "Happy Valley," from one of the most beautiful surface; happiness has not chosen her dwelling and interesting of the districts of Rajpootana. in this valley, apparently so well fitted to receive The city of Oodipore, the capital of the princi- so fair a guest. Notwithstanding the strength pality, is situated in the midst of a rich country, which nature has imparted to its defences, it has bounded on all sides by an amphitheatre of rocky often become the prey of invading foes, and the mountains. This barrier is perfectly impene- misgovernment which has prevailed, during many trable, excepting by a single pass, winding through centuries, has entailed misery and suffering upon a narrow defile, only affording sufficient space to a population doomed to submit to a system of opadmit one carriage at a time. The area thus en- pression, which will in all probability continue closed is of very great extent; besides the city, until the whole country shall be placed immethere is a vast number of small towns and vil-diately under the British rule. The family of lages scattered over the interior, and nothing can exceed the splendour of the landscape. The aspect of the country beyond the rocky barrier is barren and dreary, and while traversing the ravines which intersect these sterile hills, the traveller is perfectly unprepared for the richness and fertility of the valley to which they lead. Bare peaks rise above the head on every side, the view is circumscribed by an apparently impenetrable wall of stone, and there is absolutely nothing to invite the footsteps to proceed. Upon passing the last angle, a new and unexpected

Oodipore, or Mewar, are the most ancient of any now existing amongst the Hindoos; they boast their descent from the sun, and claim superiority over all other Rajpoots. During many long and arduous struggles with the invading Moslems, they maintained the high character bequeathed to them by their chivalric ancestors, and in no European record can be found deeds more accordant with the romantic notions of knighthood's purest age, than those which are contained in the chronicles of Chitore, the name of the ancient capital. When that devoted city has been sacked and

taken, the conquerors have triumphed over little of the rice with him. The story, however, getsave dead bodies; the men have perished on the ting abroad, she found some difficulty in mainramparts, and the women have sacrificed them-taining her pretended son upon the throne; and selves in the flames, rather than become the had she not secured a strong party in her favour, slaves of foreign masters. There is a cavern in she would have lost the fruits of her stratagem. which the dreadful johur, so well described by An Indian court is the hot-bed of political inColonel Tod, was enacted, where the Princess trigue, and cabals prosper, which in a less conPudmani and thirteen thousand females shut genial atmosphere would not have a chance of themselves up on the approach of Alla-o-deen; success. Unfortunately, the people have not yet vast quantities of combustible materials were learned to despise those who prefer the crooked already prepared for the event; the entrance was to the straight path to wealth and power, no one closed after a fire had been kindled, and the whole deeming it dishonourable to employ every kind of this devout band perished by suffocation, or of artifice to secure private and personal interests. flame. No one has ventured within the precincts The religion which the Hindoos profess, so far since that fatal period. The mouth of the cavern from inculcating any noble precept, or explaining is said to be guarded by evil genii, who will not the duty which man owes to his fellow, encousuffer human footsteps to approach, and those rages the indulgence of every selfish passion; the who could not be deterred by superstitious feel-government has seldom or ever been less corrupt, ings are effectually prevented from examining and hence the strange anomalies which spring up the interior by the monstrous serpents supposed in the Hindoo character, and the difficulty of disto be brooding in every crevice. It is supposed tinguishing between the vices induced by such that this dreadful charnel house, if examined, debasing sources, and those alleged to be inherent would disclose strange secrets. Modern times in the mind. The Hindoos have been alterafford few exploits for knight-errantry, but here is nately depicted as monsters of crime, or miracles one that might arouse the spirit, should it still of goodness; those who have had an opportunity exist in that form which kindled in the souls of of experiencing their attachment and fidelity, our ancestors. To destroy the serpents and ex- and their conduct in all the domestic relations, plore the cave, would be a feat worthy of the best are surprised by the extent to which they carry days of chivalry; nor would it go unrewarded, many virtues; while others, who only know them for doubtles the ladies did not divest themselves through the medium of their public acts, deem of their jewels when they sought to escape by them to be utterly sunk in depravity, and incadeath from the threatened doom. pable of any moral feeling. Vainly have Tod, Malcolm, Munro, and an extensive list of other distinguished men, who have lived long and intimately with the natives of India, afforded their honourable testimony to the personal excellence which has come under their immediate observation; those who judge solely from the effect likely to be produced by the toleration, and even the unblushing countenance, given to conduct which would cover the inhabitants of civilised Europe with disgrace, cannot believe it possible that any virtue can take root amid a soil calculated to foster nothing save vice. They will not give any action the credit of a good motive, and judging only from the surface, stigmatise the whole population as worthless and abandoned to all sorts of iniquity.

Colonel Tod's splendid history of Rajasthan records many similar instances of heroism. The Rajpoot women have been placed in a much more elevated position than those belonging to less favoured districts under Hindoo government. Latterly, in compliance with the prejudices introduced by the Mahomedans, and spreading widely over India, they have withdrawn themselves from the eyes of men; but they still exercise, if not a stronger degree of influence than is permitted to other Asiatic ladies, a more public exhibition of it than would be allowed by the less intellectual portion of the Hindoos, who look down upon the weaker sex with the utmost contempt, imputing to them every sort of folly and vicious inclination, and denying the existence of a single virtue which is not forced upon them by the laws and regulations to which they are compelled to submit. Princesses of Rajpoot families have often ruled openly as regents. Others have not left an unsullied name, and a story is told of a rance of Jeypore, which affords a curious specimen of the arts by which women in India not unfrequently contrive to gain the ascendancy. The reigning prince died without male issue, but the favourite wife, pretending to be about to give birth to a child, smuggled an infant into the zenana, who it was said was the son of a woman of the lowest caste, employed to sweep the floors. Before the imposition was suspected, she contrived to induce the principal nobles of the court to eat out of the same dish with the boy, and though they were subsequently convinced that a surreptitious heir had been introduced, they dared not publicly expose the fraud, as it would have involved the loss of caste to all who had partaken

In no part of India does the native character exhibit more strange and apparently incompatible elements than in Rajasthan. In no place can the notions of honour be more fantastic and extraordinary, or the compounds of vices which appal, and virtues which attract, exist in a stronger degree. It is scarcely possible to describe a single class, or even a single individual, without being involved in apparent contradictions, seeming to applaud one moment what we condemn in the next: so difficult is it to separate the good from the evil, to do justice to the excellence, without rendering homage to the baseness, which meets the eye on every side. With few exceptions, people who have lived long in the bosom of native society, are too much charmed with the amiable points of character coming under their immediate knowledge, to visit those engendered by circumstances and situations with perhaps necessary harshness, and others who have not

had similar opportunities of making themselves acquainted with the better qualities, err in the contrary extreme, and give to all the aspect of demons.

son of weak mind, and easily induced to sanction acts of the most unjustifiable nature. The good sense displayed by this lady, and the character she bore for the possession of all the graces which do honour to the female heart, interested the resident very strongly in her favour, and he left no means untried to divert her from her purpose; but he was unable to effect the only method by which she could be induced to survive her widowhood. The heir of a noble house has it in his power to save one of his father's wives by saluting her with the title of Raje Baee, and thus constituting her the head of the zenana. Unfortunately, it is an expensive act of humanity, for the lady must be maintained in her dignity, and the income required amounts to several thousands a

One of the favourite methods of preventing and of punishing aggressions, is by the voluntary sacrifice of life. The wronged party will either kill themselves, or slaughter one of their nearest relations, in order that the blood of the victim may rest upon the head of the adversary. Amid the less lofty-minded of the Hindoos, a useless member of the family is selected for the purpose; but many instances are recorded in Rajast'han, where the noblest and the best bave stood in the breach, ready to die rather than permit an act of oppression which they were unable to prevent. The defence of a certain boundary to the pro-year. Jaun Singh, the successor to the throne, vince is committed to one family, who dwell on was not inclined to gratify the lady and her nuthe opposite bank of a river which divides it from merous friends at so much cost, and he remained the territory belonging to the sovereigns of Oodi- immoveable by all the different modes of attack pore. Whenever the reigning prince persists in resorted to for the purpose. The ranee was by crossing this river, one of the descendants of this no means idle; she had no wish to die, and she devoted race is bound to kill himself, the weight put every engine in motion to secure her object. of his blood falling upon the invader, and at no Bheem Singh had arrived at a good old age, and period has any unwillingness been manifested to his decease was an event which had long been fulfil the duty imposed by one of the most fan-contemplated: as it is usual among Hindoos, he tastic notions which ever entered into the head was carried out of his apartments in the palace, of man. Sacrifices, however, in Oopidore have to draw his last breath in the open air, and he not always been voluntary; at the death of the lay upon a bed in one of the court-yards, surreigning prince it was usual to deluge the grave rounded by the immediate dependants. Yielding with the blood of numerous victims, and woe be to gradual decay, he expired in the early part of the to the unfortunate traveller who should be found morning, and according to necessary custom, his journeying through the province at the time; obsequies were to take place after the sunset of the strangers were commonly selected in preference same day. The resident repaired immediately to to the inhabitants, who, however, were not spared the palace, in order to prevent the possibility of when the complement necessary to secure a pro- the employment of any improper means, either of per degree of respect to the deceased prince was persuasion or force, to induce the unhappy woincomplete. It is only since British influence men, who mourned the loss of their protector, to has extended over the whole of India, that the immolate themselves upon his body. Upon his blood of human victims has ceased to flow upon arrival, he found that four had signified their inthe altars of Rajasthan, and the abolition of this tention to burn, and amongst them the ranee, abominable method of propitiating the deity is of from whose cultivated mind he had hoped for comparatively recent date. At Jeypore, in a tem- another result. ple of more than ordinary sanctity, dedicated to the destructive power, in ancient times, the murder of a human being was perpetrated daily: the sacrifices became less numerous, yet were continued until a late period; a goat is now the substitute, and though the love of excitement would perhaps, in almost every part of India, render the great mass of the people favourable to any horrid spectacle in honour of the blood-thirsty goddess Kali, they are no longer bent upon the indul gence of the gratification of so fearful a nature.

The manner in which the females of a zenana declare their resolution to accompany their husbands into the other world, is rather singular; the instant that the death is announced to them, those whose minds are made up for the event, unbind their hair, and throw a jar of water over their heads; after this, it is considered very disgraceful to retract. Upon the dissolution of Bheem Singh, an old slave set the example to the other females. It appeared that the only desire which this poor creature felt to survive the man to whom The females of Rajast'han still insist upon the she had belonged during the greater portion of right of performing suttee, and as, in consequence her life, was that she might have the opportunity of the curtailing and non-interference systems, the of displaying her fidelity by dying upon his furesident at the court of Oodipore has been with-neral pile. The ranee, who knew too well that drawn, the chances are that the custom will con- Jaun Singh would remain inexorable, did not tinue for some time longer. At the death of hesitate to exhibit the same fatal determination, Bheen Sing, the late rana, no fewer than four and two others joined them. One of these ladies, women chose to burn themselves upon his fune- deeply imbued with the superstitions and prejural pile. One of these victims deserved a better dices of her country, firmly believed in the transfate; she had been the favourite wife, and, ever migration of souls, positively declaring that she since her union with the reigning prince, had ex-preserved a distinct recollection of a former state, ercised the influence which she possessed over in which she had burned herself, and assuring her him greatly to his own advantage, and that of auditors that she should return into the world and the people whom he governed, for he was a per-burn again. Every word uttered by a suttee is

considered to be oracular, and while the old slave | should be fated to re-enter the world. Appawas settling every point of the ceremonial of the rently she was tired of her present mode of life, approaching sacrifice, and she was amusing her for she expressed a wish to make her third appearauditors with the hallucinations of a disturbed ance upon this sublunary stage in a lower sphere brain, the ranee employed herself in dictating of society, professing to believe that happiness letters and settling all her worldly affairs. She was more frequently to be found in a cottage than was by this time well aware that there could a palace. The character of Bheem Singh was be no hope from the liberality of Jaun Singh; and, not of a nature to excite either esteem or respect however terrible it might be to leave the world in the bosom of a woman who had the power of while in the prime of life and health, with a mind discriminating betwixt good and evil, and the fully capable of taking a prominent part in the ranee did not affect to attribute her present deaffairs of the world, she preferred an immediate termination to any sentiment of regard for him, and cruel death to the prospect of dragging on ex- or unwillingness to survive his loss. Neither did istence in a degraded state-the loss of every bless- she pretend to be actuated by religious motives. ing which could induce a high-souled woman to She despised the superstitious belief of her associstruggle with her fate. Hindoo widows are not ates, and assured the resident that she entertained only debarred from forming a second union, but no expectation whatsoever of obtaining an adthey are absolutely deprived of every thing save mission into heaven for her husband, or for herthe bare necessaries of life. It is expected that, self, by complying with the prejudices of her during the first year after the death of their hus-country or her caste. She determined to burn, bands, they will scarcely eat sufficient food to simply to get rid of an existence which would support existence, and that they will show, by become intolerable, and this resolution was too their emaciated appearance, that they have rigidly firmly fixed to be altered. Evening found her maintained the required abstinence, in private, as with the same feelings; the resident, who had well as in public. Even had Jaun Singh placed hitherto conversed with her through the medium his father's widow at the head of his household, of her personal attendants, or with the intervenshe must have undergone the year of probation, tion of a purdah, now met her at the gate of the and her future respectability would have depended palace, where, together with her associates, she upon her compliance with every established rule. appeared for the first time in public without a The second marriage of a widow, the widow of a veil. It is the custom for suttees to ride with the Brahmin especially, is considered to be only infe- funeral procession, and these women mounted on rior to the crime of killing and eating the sacred horseback for the only time in their lives. The animal. At one time, the women belonging to a ranee, in particular, expressed herself much oblicertain district in the neighbourhood of the Ner-ged by the lively interest her European friend had buddah, took advantage of the remissness of the taken in her welfare; she had already recomBritish government concerning the laws and pri- mended many of her dependents to his protection, vations imposed upon the sex, to enter a second and, after inviting him to witness the approaching time into matrimonial engagements; but such ceremonial, she bade him farewell, leaving him indulgences were of very short duration. Incit- more deeply impressed than ever with respect for ed by the Brahmins, the people petitioned against her talents, and with grief that so noble a creaso great a scandal, and the luckless widows were ture should be driven to such a frightful choice of compelled to submit to the existing regulations in evils. Immediately quitting the spot, he rode off all their severity. in a contrary direction, anxious to get away from The resident of Oodipore, who felt the highest the sound of the shouts of the populace, the disrespect for the character of the ranee, was parti-cordant bray of their barbarous music, and the cularly anxious to dissuade her from the desperate sight of the smoke which would too soon sully act she meditated. The assurance of his pro- the purity of the atmosphere around. tection had operated very strongly upon the inmates of the zenana, reducing the number of victims to four, not one of whom were actuated by the most common of the motives which usually induce women in India to perform the fatal rite. To the old slave it was a termination of a career which she considered to be the most honourable that her destiny could confer. Though never raised to the dignity of a wife, she was greatly respected in the zenana; she was perhaps its oldest inhabitant, and exercised a degree of authority which few persons can imagine who are wholly unacquainted with the strange features of a Hindoo establishment. Two of her companions, though young, handsome, and of high birth, were of little account amid the crowd of women who belonged to the rana, and were neither objects of his affection nor bound to him by any ties save those of duty. The one enjoyed a brief distinction by raving about a pre-existence, and speculating upon the new form in which she

Bheem Singh descended to the grave without a single regret, except from those whom his death left a prey to indigence and obloquy. Too selfish and supine to be aroused to any honourable action, his love of ease, and unwillingness to embroil himself with fiercer spirits, brought about a catastrophe which would scarely be credible were it not authenticated beyond a doubt, the wellknown fate of the beautiful Kishen Kower, or Kishna Komari.

Jaun (or Juvana) Singh, the present rana, and the brother of Kishen Kower, was at that period a mere boy, and incapable of defending his sister. When he grew up, the rajah of Joudpore, having become a widower, made proposals of marriage to a younger daughter of the Oodipore family. The callous-hearted father would have consented; but Jaun Singh indignantly declared, that the man who had occasioned the murder of one sister should pass over his dead body before he brought out the other as a bride. This spirited interfe