could not legally refuse to comply with the application.

"Though polygamy has been constantly practised and universally allowed under all the religions that have obtained in Asia, we meet with very few instances of permitted polyandry, or a plurality of husbands, such as mentioned in the fourteenth section of this chapter: but a gentleman, who has lately visited the kingdoms of Boutan and Thibet, has observed, that the same custom is almost general to this day in those countries; where one wife frequently serves all the males of a whole family, without being the cause of any uncommon jealousy or disunion among them.

"The chapter of justice, in its general tendency, seems to be one of the best in the whole code. The necessary qualifications for the arbitrator, the rules for the examination of witnesses, and the requisites for propriety of evidence, are stated with as much accuracy and depth of judgment as the generality of those in our own courts. In this chapter mention is made of the Purrekeh, or trial by ordeal, which is one of the most ancient institutes for the distinguishing criterion of guilt and innocence that hath been handed down to us by sacred or profane history: fire or water were the usual resources upon these occasions, and they were constantly prepared and sanctified by the solemnities of a religious ceremonial. The modes of this ordeal are various in India, according to the choice of the parties or the nature of the offence; but the infallibility of the result is to this day as implicitly believed, as it could have

been in the darkest ages of antiquity.

"We find a particular injunction and description of a certain water ordeal among the first laws dictated to Moses by God himself; it is contained in the fifth chapter of Numbers, from the twelfth to the thirtieth verse, and is for the satisfaction of jealous husbands, in the immediate detection or acquittal of their wives.

"In, the two succeeding chapters no unusual matter occurs, but such as good sense and a freedom from prejudice will easily develope: but, in the second section of the sixth chapter, a passage appears, which, upon a slight examination, might give the reader a very indifferent opinion of the Gentoo system of government, viz. "A law to regulate the shares of robbers." This ordinance by no means respects the domestic disturbers of the tranquillity of their own countrymen, or violators of the first principles of society, but only such bold and hardy adventurers as sally forth to levy contributions in a foreign province. Unjust as this behaviour may appear in the eye of equity, it bears the most genuine stamp of antiquity, and corresponds entirely with the manners of the early Grecians, at or before the period of the Trojan war, and of the western nations, before their emersion from barbarism; a prac tice still kept up among the piratic states of Barbary to its fullest extent by sea, and probably among many herds of Tartars and Arabian banditti by land. However, the known existence and originality of this savage system will justify the Gentoo magistrate of those ancient

periods

periods in assisting the freebooters with his advice, and participating in their plunder, when, at that time, such expeditions were esteemed both legal and honourable.

"The many rules laid down in the 20th chapter, for the preservation of domestic authority to the husband, are relics of that characteristic discipline of Asia, which sacred and profane writers testify to have existed from all antiquity; where women have ever been the subjects, not the partners of their lords, confined within the walls of a haram, or busied without doors in drudgeries little becoming their delicacy. The Trojan princesses were employed in washing linen; and Rebecca was first discovered by Abraham's servant with a pitcher upon her shoulder to water camels. "Two women shall be grinding at the mill," says the prophet; but the notoriety of this fact obviates the necessity of quotations: it may just be observed, that Solomon, in praising a good wife, mentions, that "She rises while it is yet night," which we must suppose to be before her husband; and we find this to be one of the qualifications for a good Gentoo wife also.

"The latter part of this chapter relates to the extraordinary circumstance of women's burning them

selves with their deceased husbands.

the terms of the injunction as there set forth are plain, moderate, and conditional: "it is proper for a woman to burn with her husband's corpse:" and a proportionate reward is offered in compensation for her sufferings. Notwithstanding the ordinance is not in the absolute style of a command, it is surely sufficiently direct to stand for a religious duty; the only proof that it is not positive, is the proposal of inviolable chastity as an alternative, though it is not to be taken for an equivalent. The bramins seem to look upon this sacrifice as one of the first principles of their religion, the cause of which it would hardly be orthodox to investigate. There are, however, several restrictions with respect to it, as that a woman must not burn herself if she is with child, or if her husband died at a distance from ber, unless she can procure his turban and girdle to put on at the pile, with other exceptions of the same nature, which they closely conceal from the eyes of the world, among the other mysteries of their faith: but we are convinced equally by information and experience, that the custom has not for the most part fallen into disuetude in India, as a celebrated writer has supposed."

THE