WITH THEIR PORTRAITS. 



4? 



to the Society, is principally on account of the Orange 

 penance he has thought fit to devote himfelf to, in 

 fixing himfelf on his Jer-feja> or bed of fpikes, where he 

 conitantly day and night remains ; and, to add to what 

 he confiders as the merit of this ftate of mortification, 

 in the hot weather he has often burning around him 

 logs of wood; and in the cold feafon, water falling on 

 his head from a perforated pot, placed in a frame at 

 fome height above him ; and yet he feems contented, 

 and to enjoy good health and fpirits. Neither do the 

 fpikes appear to be in any material degree diftrefling 

 to him, although he ufes not the defence of even or- 

 dinary cloathing to cover his body as a protection 

 againft them : but as the drawing exhibits an exadr. 

 likenefs as well of his perfonas of this bed of feeming 

 torture, I mail not here trouble the Society with any 

 further defcription of either, and conclude by mention- 

 ing, that he is now living at Benares, on a fmall pro- 

 vision that he enjoys from government. 



P. S. Had my official occupations, whiift at Be- 

 nares, admitted of my paying due attention to Praum 

 Poory's narrative of his travels, the geographical in- 

 formation they contain, or rather point to, as to the 

 fource of the Ganges, Jumna, and other principal 

 rivers, might have probably admitted of a fuller illu- 

 ftration, and greater degree of accuracy, from a farther 

 examination of that Sunyajfy* aided by the important 

 ailiftance which I might in that cafe have obtained on 

 this part of the fubject from Lieutenant Wilford, 

 who has, through his own unwearied exertions, and 

 chiefly at his own expence, collected a variety of va- 

 luable materials relative to the geography of the north 

 of India ; at the fame time that, by a zealous applica- 

 tion to'the ftudy of Hindu literature, joined to an in- 

 timate acquintance with whatever the Greeks and 

 Romans have left us, on their mythology, or concern- 

 ing the general events of former ages, as far as their 



knowledge 



