324 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



as, for example, the keeping the hand clenched till 

 the finger-nails grew through the back or the fastening, 

 a limb motionless till it withered and stiffened. I 

 once saw a fakir who had thus treated his left arm. 

 The effect was horrible. The arm stood up from the 

 shoulder stiff and shrunk, like the dead branch of a 

 tree ; the fingers, pointing in different directions, re- 

 sembled the withered twigs. 



The milder austerities, those not involving permanent 

 injuries, were, oddly enough, occasionally performed 

 for profit and for the benefit of another person. 

 Runjeet Sing, the celebrated sovereign of the Punjaub, 

 whose own habits were anything but ascetic, used, it 

 was said, to keep in his pay devotees of established 

 sanctity thus to perform penances on his behalf. 



Among these minor austerities the sitting within a 

 circle of fire was one, according to tradition, formerly 

 much practised. In the Hindoo fairy tales the Jogee 

 is always represented as thus seated when performing 

 his incantations. The circle of- fire was a large ring 

 of smouldering logs. The devotee sat in the centre ; 

 the heat and the smoke rendered the position one of 

 much discomfort, even of considerable pain. I have 

 a shadowy recollection that I once, soon after my 

 arrival in India, beheld the performance of this 

 penance. It was on the bank of the Kala Nuddee, a 

 small stream that flows past the ruins of the ancient 

 city of Canauje. The circle was about twelve feet 

 in diameter, and the logs were very small and nearly 

 burnt out. 



A painless but almost intolerably tedious form of 



