380 Major-General Harpwicrr’s Account of the Sheep-Eater of Hindistan. 
besmeared with blood, as shown at No. 5. He next proceeded to strip off 
the rest of the hide; separate the ribs, disjoint the limbs, and detach the 
head from the neck; and after collecting them together, he rubbed every 
part with a quantity of dust: by this operation, he said, he dried up the 
blood, and enabled himself to tear the meat from the bones and sinews 
with greater ease ; he disregarded the quantity of dust which every portion 
retained, and swallowed one mouthful after another, with all the dirt 
adhering, without the least hesitation. The concluding part of this per- 
formance was the collecting a quantity of the leaves of the plant Maddr,* 
of which he chewed a considerable number, but swallowed only the milky 
juice which flowed from them. While thus employed, which did not 
continue many minutes, he was seated on the ground, as represented at 
No. 6; and in No. 7, he is drawn addressing the spectators, holding in his 
hand a branch of the Maddr, and offering to eat the second sheep: the tall 
aged figure with him is a correct delineation of his spiritual father or guru, 
with whom he had been travelling for many years. They were both Hindts, 
and natives of the province of Rajpuitana. 
The old man was upwards of six feet in height and slender, the muscu- 
larity and fulness of his figure being worn down by age, which, according 
to his own statement, was upwards of one hundred years; he was very dark, 
considerably more so than his protégé : his hair almost white, that of his 
head he wore coiled into the shape of a turban, while his beard, which was 
not the least remarkable peculiarity about his person, reached to the ground 
when flowing loose ; but he generally kept it twisted, and carried the lower 
end in one hand with a rosary of beads, and in the other, a long walking 
cane. 
The notoriety of the ‘* Sheep-eater ” having reached the city of Lucnow, 
an English gentleman, resident at the court of the Nawab, was induced, 
by the report of his extraordinary feats, to send a servant for him to that 
part of the country in which he had for some time sojourned; and where, 
from his savage propensities, he was much dreaded by children and by the 
timid amongst the natives of the place, who believed that when sheep were 
* The Asclepias gigantea of botanists. It is used by the natives of India for many medicinal 
purposes: among the number, it is useful in removing warts and other excrescences. It is the 
milky juice they apply, which flows plentifully from all parts of the plant when broken or 
bruised ; and on the present occasion, the Sheep-eater said he ate it to assist digestion, 
