accounts say, that by looking at a person he deprives him of his 

 senses, and then steals from him something resembling the seed of 

 a pomegranate, which he hides in the calf of his leg; after being 

 swelled by the fire, he distributes it amongst his fellows to be eaten; 

 which ceremony concludes the life of the fascinated person. A 

 Jiggerkhar is able to communicate his art to another by learning 

 him the incantations, and by making him eat a bit of the liver- 

 cake. Those jiggorkhars are mostly women; it is said that they 

 can bring intelligence from a great distance in a short space of 

 time; and if they are thrown into a river, with a stone tied to them, 

 they nevertheless will not sink. In order to deprive any one of 

 this wicked power, they brand his temples, and every joint in his 

 body, cram his eyes with salt, suspend him for forty days in a sub- 

 terraneous cavern, and repeat over him certain incantations." Such 

 is the account given by Abul Fazel, vizier to the great Akber. 



In confirmation of such kind of people having at all times been 

 known in Asia, Pietro dclla Valle mentions many extraordinary 

 anecdotes; I select one, because similar complaints were often 

 occurring in my districts, unnecessary to detail at so remote a time 

 and distance, but which occasioned much trouble and murmuring 

 in the jurisprudence of the smaller purgunnas subordinate to Dhu- 

 boy, especially when they appealed to me for a decision by pan- 

 chaut. 



" This sort of witchcraft, which the Indians call eating the 

 heart, is not a new thing, nor unheard of elsewhere ; many persons 

 practised it formerly in Sclavonia ; and Pliny, upon the report of 

 Isigones, testifies that this species of enchantment was known 

 among the Triballes, and many other people whom he mentions, as 



