[ 37 1 



II. 



AN 



Account of Two Fakeers, 

 With their Portraits. 



By Jonathan Duncan, Efq. 



I BEG leave to lay before the Society the accompany- 

 ing Pictures of two Fakeers, now living at Benares, 

 which I had drawn there from the life. The firft is named 

 Purana Poori, or (as ufually pronounced in Hindvee) 

 Praun Poory, a Sunyajfy, diftinguifhed by the epi- 

 thet Oordhbahu, from his arms and his hands being in 

 a fixed pofition above his head ; and as he is a very in- 

 telligent man, and has been a great traveller, he con- 

 fented, in the month of May, 1792, to gratify my 

 curiofity, by allowing to be committed to writing, 

 by a fervant of mine, from his verbal delivery in the 

 Hinduftan language, a relation of his obfervations in 

 the various countries into which he has penetrated ; 

 but as his account is too long for infertion in the rffi- 

 a tick Researches, (mould it even be deemed to merit a 

 place in fo refpec'table a repofitory,) I have here ex- 

 tracted the principal parts of it, as an accompaniment 

 to the portrait ; having only farther to premife, that 

 I have the utmoft reliance on our traveller's not dc- 

 ligning to impofe in any part of his narrative ; but al- 

 lowance mull: be made for defects of memory, in a 



C 3 relation 



