A PURRUM-HUNGSE. 
63 
Here we were somewhat amused at the sight of a 
sleek long-bearded Hindoo, called a Purrum-Hungse, 
from a supposed sanctity and presumed austerity of 
life, neither of which is ever realized by these sanc- 
tified hypocrites. The Purrum-Hungse is supposed to 
have descended from heaven, to live entirely without 
food, the chameleon of the human species, and to 
survive under the earth or under the water to the age 
of a thousand years. The man was seated at some 
little distance from the sacred rock, with his back 
supported against the trunk of a tree, and his fat 
shapeless legs thrust out in a direct line with the 
horizon, as if he were calculating the degrees of an 
angle formed by the inflection of his own pampered 
body. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, evidently to 
convey an idea of the devout abstraction of his mind. 
He would have appeared rapt, but for a certain astute 
obliquity of expression, which put the seal of hy- 
pocrisy upon him so indelibly, that no one but a 
blind idolater could mistake it. He was as plain to 
be read as the alphabet in capital letters. His beard 
was long and grizzled, but just enough so to mark a 
vigorous maturity ; while his whole outward man was 
so sleek, as to defy the imputation of his being saint 
enough to starve his body for the benefit of his soul. 
He had evidently adopted the wiser philosophy, that 
as a man must live to be good, so he must eat to live. 
It is, after all, truly surprising with what unreserved 
credulity the monstrous absurdities affected by these 
impostors are believed by the besotted Hindoos. 
