3o6 GANGETIC IIINDOOSTAN. 



brought luch a difgrace upon their religion; fuch women, I 

 fay, are ordinarily the prey of this kind of men, who are alfo 

 counted infamous in the Indies, and that have nothing to lofe. 

 Faqi/irs. There are in India a fet of felf- tormentors of a very differ- 



ent nature, a fet of Faquirs or fanatics, who profanely ftyle 

 themfelves Togeys, or latited to God. Thefe fellows will vow to 

 Itand on their legs till their limbs fwell as thick, as their bodies ; 

 others on their heads with their feet upwards for hours ; others 

 fuffer their hair to grow till it covers their bodies, and becomes 

 as infedled as the plica polonica ; others again will fuffer their 

 nails to grow till they refemble the claws of wild beafls, or con- 

 tinue with their arms acrofs till the limbs become immoveable. 

 1 cannot relate all the madneffes of thefe people; the various 

 attitudes may be ictn in a plate in Linfcbotten'& voyage, under 

 a great Ficus religiofa, or Banian tree, beneath the fliades of 

 which they acfl their follies. Buc the mofl ferious of all may be 

 feen in Ha7nilton\ voyage, vol. i. 270, who lliews two fellows 

 voluntarily fufpended on hooks fattened to a beam, in honor of 

 the god Jagernaut, and turned about in the air by perfons em- 

 ployed for that purpofe. 



To conclude — Mr. Cambridge forms a very humorous poem 

 out of a ftory told by one of our travellers, who met with a fel- 

 low who fell on a very lingular means of mortification, by 

 riding in a fort of fedan with the bottom fluck full of nails. A 

 rich Indian would perfuade him to quit his feat. The reafon- 

 ing of the Indian, and the moral of the flory, fliall be given in 

 the words of my ingenious friend. 



Can 



