text: " Such are the peasants of Bengal--a race differing from the natives of Hindustan in language manners food dress and personal appearance; but who from their vicinity to the seat of the English Supreme Government have served as models for the descriptions given by many superficial travellers as applying to all the natives of British India without distinction! The horrible Hindu custom of immersing the sick when considered past recovery in the Ganges and holding their lower limbs under water till they expire [13] excites as may be expected the disgust of the khan; but the reason which he assigns for it "the belief of these people that if a man die in his own house he would cause the death of every member of the family by assuming the form of a _bhut_ or evil spirit " is new to us and appears to be analogous to the superstitious dread entertained by the Greeks and Sclavonians of a corpse reanimated into a _Vroucolochas_ or vampire