376 Dr. Wurre’s Description of a Jaira near Strat. 
enliven the scene. Religious anchorets, of various descriptions and desig- 
nations, were seen strolling about, and a band of pure Gymnosophists 
(Sannyasts) paraded in the crowd without feeling themselves, or exciting in 
the minds of the mixed multitude, the smallest idea of immodesty. Referring 
to European habits of decency, this may be considered asa striking example 
of the influence of manners and education over those associations of senti- 
ment which define the limits of virtue and vice; and here it may be 
remarked, that such instances of Indian customs may have given rise to 
the unfavourable and immoral constructions expressed in the first notices of 
India handed down to us by the father of history, the venerable and vera- 
cious Hrropotus. 
The shops were stored with commodities equal in quality and variety to 
those of the large towns in Gujerat. On some stands were exposed to sale 
grapes brought allthe way from Aurungabad (a distance of two hundred 
miles by the road), in high perfection, and of a delicious degree of 
maturity. 
The hot wells, which are the primwn mobile of all the crowd and celebrity 
above described, though of little external show, and their temperature, are 
now to be spoken of. In the Brahmana Cunda, or tank, which is a place 
faced with stone, measuring about forty feet by thirty, the thermometer 
stood at 111° of Fahrenheit ; but on one side of this space there was a small 
square of wood-work enclosing the chief spring, and here the heat rose to 
115°: the average depth of the Cund‘a was three feet. About twenty yards 
distant was the Dhéra Cund.a, so called from the caste to whose use it was 
exclusively allotted. The size of this was about seventy feet by fourteen ; 
but the heat was 120°, which prevents the visitors from making use of 
it as a bath, and the substitution of ablution by small pot-fulls is had 
recourse to. 
As the religious prejudices of the natives are particularly flattered by the 
belief of miracles, the priests have not neglected the application of this 
principle in the present instance ; for they affirm, and implicit credit is given 
to their ipse dizit, that it is precisely on the day of the full moon of this 
month Chaiira, and on no other in the course of the year, that the water 
becomes diminished in temperature to such a degree, as to admit of the 
performance of the rites of purification by the pilgrims. 
The harmless tendency of this and similar opinions renders their refuta- 
tion neither a matter of moment nor interest. Indeed the imputation of 
