46 AN ACCOUNT OF TWO FAKEERS, 



pital of which he was charged by the adminiftration 

 there with difpatches to the Governor General, Mr. 

 Hastings, which he mentions to have delivered in the 

 prefence of Mr. Barwell, and of the late MefTrs. 

 Bogle and Elliott ; after which our traveller was 

 fent to Benares with introductory letters to Rajah 

 Cheyt Sing and to Mr. Graham, who was at that 

 time the refident; and fome years afterwards Mr. 

 Hastings bellowed on him in jagbire, the village of 

 AJfapoor y which he continues to hold as a free tenure ; 

 though he is frill fo fond of travelling, that he annually 

 makes (hort excurfions into different parts of India, and 

 occafionally as far as Nepaul. 



XVIII. The name of the other Hindu Fakeer, or 

 Brdhnzechary, (whofe picture reclining, in his ordinary 

 pofition, on his bed of iron fpikes, accompanies this,} 

 is Perkasanund; and he aflumes the title or epithet 

 of Purrum Soatuntre, which impllesfelf-poffeffion or 

 independence i and as his own relation of his mode of 

 life is not very long, 1 deliver an Englifh tranflation of 

 it, as received from him in Auguft, 1792; only ob- 

 ferving that the Jowalla Mookhi, which he mentions 

 to have vifited, is not the one on the Cafpian, but ano- 

 ther; for there are at the leaft three famous places 

 known to the Hindus under this general denomination ; 

 one near to Naugercote, another (whither Praun 

 Poory went) in the vicinity of Bakee, and the third 

 (as I have been informed by Lieut. Wilford) at Cor- 

 coor, to the eartvvard of the Tigris -, but whether it be 

 the fir ft or laft of thefe Jowalla Mookhis that Per- 

 kasanund vifited, his narrative is not fufficiently clear 

 to enable me to diflinguifh ; neither are his general 

 knowledge and intelligence at all equal to Praun 

 Poory's, which may account for his obfervation as to 

 the difliculty of reaching the Maun Surwur lake, whi- 

 ther not only Praun Poory, but other Fakeers, that I 

 have feen at Benares, profefs to have neverthelefs pe- 

 netrated j fo that my prefent notice of Perkasanund 



to 



