LIX. Account of the Burning a Gentoo Woman with her deceased Husband.

MR. URBAN,

Broomhead.

IT being asserted by Mr. Guthrie, in his Geographical Grammar, and some other authors, that the custom of the Gentoo women burning themselves with their deceased husbands was disused in India, I desire you would insert the following Extract of a Letter from Mr. Joseph Wilson, at Azumabad, (lately called Cansbang,) in the kingdom of Bengal, by which it appears that custom is yet kept up and practised, in your next Magazine. I give it in his own words. It is dated March 1, 1777.

Yours,

JOHN WILSON.

"I was last September an eye-witness to a Gentoo woman burning with her husband; and as I stood by all the time, and took notes of all that passed, you may depend upon the following narration to be strictly true; I mean the ceremonies that were used by these people, who had always got their bread by their labour, and indeed were so very poor, that the son was obliged to go from house to house to beg fire-wood to burn them with: the richer people are more curious, and have their piles made of a sweet-scented wood called sandal, and much larger than the people I am speaking of can possibly afford.

"The Account of Jananca, Wife of Otram Gose, who was burnt alive with her Husband, Sept. 2, 1776, at the Head of the Bazaar, at Cansbang.

"As soon as her husband was given over by the Doctor, she sent for a Bramin, and declared her intentions to burn herself, son, and daughter, (which was the whole of the family together,) which some neighbours endeavoured as much as possible to dissuade her from, but all to no purpose, and from that time she refused eating any thing, except a few plantains and betel-nuts. She sent for all her friends, who staid with her all night, and with whom she was very merry. In the morning the man died, and his son came to me to ask leave to burn his father and mother in the Bazaar

for market-place,) as it belongs to the plantation, and is close to my house. I told him, very well; but that I should take care no force was used to make her burn against her will. He told me he was so far from forcing, that he had offered her two rupees a month for life; but yet could not help saying it would reflect an honour on his family for his mother to burn. The man was scarcely cold before he and his wife were carried upon men's shoulders, she sitting by him; and having provided herself with some couries (small shells which go current for money here,) she distributed them amongst the populace, together with rice fried in butter and sugar, very plentifully, as she passed from her house to the place of burning; where, when she arrived, they had not begun to make the pile: so she was set down, together with her dead husband, and gave several orders to the people in making the pile, and was so far from being in the least afraid, that she rejoiced much. I went up to her, and asked her, if it was her own free will and consent? She told me it was, and that she was much obliged to me for giving her liberty to burn in that place, and desired I would not offer to oppose it, as she would certainly make away with herself, was she prevented. She sat there, talking with her friends and neighbours, till the pile was ready, which was above an hour, and then went a little distance off, where the deceased was also carried, and were both washed with Ganges water, and had clean clothes put on them. The son of the deceased then put a painted paper crown, or cap, on his father's head, of the same kind as is usual for them to wear at their marriages; and a Bramin woman brought four lamps burning, and put one of them into the woman's hand, and placed the other three round her upon the ground: all the time she held the lamp in her hand the Bramin woman was repeating some prayers to her; which, when finished, she put a garland of flowers round her head, and then gave the son of the deceased, who was standing close by, a ring made of brass, which she put upon one of his fingers, and an earthen plate full of boiled rice and plantains mixed up together, which he immediately offered to his deceased father, putting it three times to his mouth, and then in the same manner to his mother, who did not taste it. The deceased was supported all this time, and set upon his breech close by his wife, who never spoke after this, but made three selams to her husband, by putting her hands upon the soles of his feet, and then upon her own head. The deceased was then carried away and laid upon the pile, and his wife immediately followed, with a pot under her arm, containing twenty-one couries, twenty-one pieces of saffron, twenty

one pons for betel-nut, and the leaf made up ready for chewing; one little piece of iron, and one piece of sandalwood. When she got to the pile, she looked a little at her husband, who was lying upon it, and then walked seven times round it; when she stopped at his feet, and made the same obeisance to him as before. She then mounted the pile without help, and laid herself down by her husband's side, putting the pot she carried with her close to her head; which as soon as done, she clasped her husband in her arms; and the son, who was standing ready with a wisp of straw lighted in his hand, put the blaze of it three times to his father and mother's mouths, and then set the pile on fire all round, whilst the populace threw reeds and light wood upon them; and they were both burnt to ashes in less than an hour. I believe she soon died, for she never moved, though there was no weight upon her, but what she might have easily overset, had she had any inclination. It was intirely a voluntary act, and she was as much in her senses as ever she was in her life. I forgot to mention that she had her forehead painted with red paint, which she scraped off with her nails, and distributed amongst her friends, and also gave them chewed betel out of her mouth, for which favours every one seemed solicitous. The above, I assure you, is a true account of what I saw."

1777, Dec.

LX. Bergamot Pears recommended for the Stone and Gravel. MR. URBAN,

I HAVE sent you the following case to be published in your Magazine, if you shall think proper.

I had for some years been afflicted with the usual symptoms of the stone in the bladder, when accidentally meeting with Dr. Lobb's Treatise of Dissolvents for the Stone and Gravel, I was induced on his recommendation to try the use of Bergamot pears, and ate a dozen or more every day with the rind, when in less than a week I observed a large red flake in my urine, which, on a slight touch, crumbled into the finest powder; and this was the case for several succeeding days. It is ten years since I made the experiment, and I have been quite free from all complaints of that kind ever since.

Yours, &c.

BENEVOLUS.

If any one should be so happy to receive the same benefit, it is to be hoped that he will publish his case for the good of mankind.

P.S. I do not know whether it may be material to observe that the pears I ate were of the small sort, and full of knots.

1778, Sept.

LXI. Account of Valentine Greatrakes, the Stroker.

MR. URBAN,

IN the year 1666, Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, an Irish gentleman, came to England, being invited thither by the Earl of Orrery, to cure the Viscountess Conway of an inveterate head-ache, and, though he failed in that attempt, he wrought many surprising cures not unlike miracles. He was born Feb. 14, 1628, at Affane, in the county of Waterford, and bred a Protestant in the free-school at Lismore, till he was thirteen years of age; he was designed for the college of Dublin, but, the rebellion breaking out, was forced with his mother to fly into England, where he was kindly received by his great uncle, Edmund Harris, Esq. after whose death his mother placed him with one John Daniel Getsius, a German minister, of Stoke Gabriel, in Devonshire. In five or six years he returned to his native country, which he found in a distracted state, and, therefore, spent a year in contemplation at the castle of Caperquin. In 1649, he was a lieutenant in Lord Broghill's* regiment, then acting in Munster against the rebels; and in 1656, great part of the army being disbanded, retired to Affane, his native place, and was made clerk of the peace for Cork county, register for transplantation, and justice of the peace; but losing his places after the Restoration, he grew discontented. He seemed very religious; his looks were grave but simple, and not like those of an impostor. He said himself, that ever since the year 1662, he had felt a strange impulse or persuasion that he had the gift of curing the King's evil; and this suggestion became so strong, that

* Afterwards Earl of Orrery, above-mentioned.

he stroked several persons, and cured them. Three years after, an epidemical fever raging in the country, he was again persuaded that he could also cure that. He made the experiment, and he affirmed that he cured all who came to him. At length, in April, 1665, another kind of inspiration suggested to him, that he had the gift of healing wounds and ulcers; and experience, he also said, proved that he was not deceived. He even found that he cured convulsions, the dropsy, and many other distempers.* Crowds flocked to him from all parts, and he performed such extraordinary cures, that he was cited into the bishop's court at Lismore, and, not having a licence for practising, was forbid to lay hands on any for the future. Nevertheless, being engaged by the lady above-mentioned to come over to England, he arrived there in the beginning of 1666, and, as he proceeded through the country, magistrates of the cities and towns through which he passed begged him to come and cure their sick. The King, being informed of it, ordered him, by the Earl of Arlington, Secretary of State, to come to Whitehall. The court, though not fully persuaded of his miraculous power, did not forbid him to make himself known. He went every day to a particular part of London, where a prodigious number of sick persons of all ranks, and of both sexes, assembled. He did nothing but stroke them. Pains, the gout, rheumatism, convulsions, &c. were driven by his touch from one part to another, to the utmost extremities of the body, after which they entirely ceased. This occasioned his being called The Stroker. He ascribed several disorders to evil spirits, which he divided into different kinds. As soon as the possessed saw him, or heard his voice, they fell on the ground, or into violent agitations. He cured them, as he did other sick persons, by stroking. He could not, however, convince every one of the reality of his miraculous gift; many wrote violently against him, but he found some zealous advocates, even among the faculty. He himself published, in 1666, a letter addressed to the celebrated Mr. Boyle, in which he gave a succinct history of his life,† from which the above particulars are extracted. He annexed to this pamphlet a great number of

* Among others, Mr. Flamsteed, the famous Astronomer, (then in his 20th year,) went over to Ireland, in Angust, 1665, to be touched by him for a natural weakness of constitution, but received no benefit.

This letter was entitled "A brief account of Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, and divers of the strange Cures by him performed, &c." See also "The Miraculous Conformist, &c." By Henry Stubbe, M.D. Printed at Oxford, 1666.