92 BRITISH FAKIRS. 



the proportions of the triangle ABC; but whether 

 the tree had leaves or not he could not tell. But he 

 is happy in the consciousness of having performed 

 his duty ; — he has taken a walk, he has been for a 

 " constitutional ". 



deluded and misguided individual ! The walk- 

 ing powers are meant to carry yourself — not only 

 your corporeal body — into other scenes, to give a 

 fresh current to your thoughts, and to give your brain 

 an airing as well as your nose. The mind requires 

 variety in its food, as does the body ; and to obtain that 

 change of nutriment is the proper object of taking a 

 walk. 



That a rational being can condemn himself to walk 

 three miles along a turnpike road, and throe miles 

 back again, at one uniform pace, his eyes directed 

 straight ahead, and his thoughts at home with his 

 books, seems incredible to ordinary personages. 



Yet, such British fakirs may be seen daily in all 

 weathers, on the roads leading from university towns, 

 going at the rate of four miles per hour, their hats 

 tilted towards the back of their heads, their bodies 

 inclining forward at an angle of eighty degrees, their 

 lips muttering polysyllabic language, and their eyes 

 as beaming as those of a boiled cod-fish. 



Now the real use of taking a walk is to get away 

 from one's self, and to change the current of the 

 thoughts for a while, by changing the locality of the 

 individual. 



