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or bed of spikes, where lie constantly day and night remains. 

 " To add to what he considers as the merit of this state of mortifi- 

 cation, in the hot weather he has often logs of wood burning 

 around him; and in the cold season, water falling on his head 

 from a perforated pot, placed in a frame at some height above 

 him; and } r et he seems contented, and to enjoy good health and 

 spirits. Neither do the spikes appear to be in any material degree 

 distressing to him, although he uses not the defence of ordinary 

 clothing to cover his body, as a protection against them." 



In captain Wilford's essay on the Sacred Isles in the west, com- 

 municated to the Society, is a very curious account of some of 

 these devotees, taken from the writings of Ctesias, who accom- 

 panied Cyrus and the ten thousand Greeks, in his unfortunate ex- 

 pedition to Persia. Ctesias was taken prisoner, but being a phy- 

 sician he became a great favourite with Artaxerxes Mnemon. In 

 describing different conn hies in Hindostan, four hundred years 

 before the Christian aera, Ctesias says, ?* beyond the sources of the 

 " Sipa-chora, is a tribe of men, who have no evacuations ; they 

 " however make a little water occasionally; their food is milk 

 " alone, which they know how to prevent from coagulating in their 

 " stomachs. In the evening they excite a gentle vomiting, and 

 •' throw up the whole." " This strange narrative is not without 

 foundation. Many religious people in India, in order to avoid 

 the defilement attending the coarser evacuations, take no other 

 food but milk; and previous to its turning into fasces, as they say, 

 they swallow a small string of cotton; which, on their pulling it 

 back, brings up the milk, or those parts of it which they consider 

 as the caput mortuum. This they make the credulous believe; 



