502 M E M O IR S of the 
them up, and caft them into the Ganges, or the fea : Sometime* 
it happens that the wife of the deceafed party, if /he has no 
children, and is old, and poor, will burn herfelf with the dead 
body ; but this happens very feldom : It is faid that in fuch cafes, 
the iramines give the woman a ftupifying liquor, which, by 
the time that they are in the fire, makes them mfenfible of any 
pain: To know into what body, the foul of the deceaied is tranf- 
migrated, they do thus ^ they ftrew the afhes of the dead upon 
the place, where he was firft laid after his death, and handfuls of 
odoriferous flowers abeut the fame ; and returning again in 44. 
hours, they judge by fome pretended imprefTion or other in the 
afhes, into what body it is gone ^ if the foot of an horfe, dog, or 
ox, or fuch like appears, then they give out, that it is certainly 
gone into fuch creatures 5 but if nothing appear, then they think 
it is certainly gone to the ftarry regions: As for their learning 
and knowledge, it is but little 5 they have indeed ieveral books 
written in divers languages^ but they contain nothing, but a great 
deal of Huff and cant about their worfhip, rites and ceremonies : 
They are ignorant of all parts of the world but their own^ they 
wonder much at us, that take fb much care, and pains, and run 
thro' fo many dangers both by fea and land, only, as they fay, 
to fupport and nourifti gride, and luxury 5 for, they fay, every 
country in the world is iufficiently endowed by nature with every 
thing that is neceffary for the life of man, and that therefore it is 
madnefs to feek for, or defire that which is needlefs and un- 
•neceffary. 
The la(! time Mr. Mar pal was at Modufferpore in Indoftatu 
he had a great deal of talk with a ^r amine, fome what more 
learned than any of the reft, his name was Ramnattfit 5 he told 
Mr. Marfial feveral fecrets in phyfic, as alfo feveral traditions 
and ftories; he faid, that if you bury a piece of money for fome 
confiderable time in the mouth of a live frog, and then dig it up 
again at midnight, that this piece of money, to whomfoever you 
give or pay it, will always return to you again ^ he further faid, 
that if the little worm in the wood Lukerakera be cut in two, 
and that the one part ftirrs, and the other not, if the ftirring part 
be bruifed, and given with half a beetle to a man, the other half 
to a woman, this charm will keep them from ever lying abfent 
one from the other : They have books full of the like abfurdities, 
together with cabaliftic complications of figures 5 as for example, 
if you write thefe following numbers, 28, 35^2* 7 — ^j 3> S^j 
51 -— 54, 2 9> 8, I — 4, 5, 30, 33 — in the fquares of a fquare 
figure, and your enemy's name under it, and we.4r it always about 
you, 
