INSURRECTION AT BENARES. 
143 
floated on the bright, unruffled surface of the sacred 
river. He washed the capillary burthen of his huge 
head with great care, and evidently divested it of a 
load which must have been far more sacred than 
agreeable. When he had completed his ablution, ap- 
parently much to his own satisfaction, he quitted the 
water with his long black hair, the living badge at 
once of his beastliness and of his sanctity, carefully 
twisted round his arm to keep it out of the dirt. As 
soon as he reached the top of the steps, he entered the 
left wing of the Shewallah Gaut, which had been 
unoccupied since the flight of the Rajah, for the centre 
only was inhabited by Sir Charles Wilkins, ascended to 
the flat terraced roof, where, placing himself upon his 
back, and resting his head upon the low parapet, with 
his face exposed to the full blaze of an ardent sun, the 
intense heat of which was augmented by the reflection 
from the chunam* plane upon which his body rested, 
he suffered his hair to hang down upon the wall, re- 
maining in that position without the least apparent in- 
convenience until it was completely dry. He did not 
stir from this position until he had succeeded in his 
object, when he gathered up his long black locks as 
before, and disappeared. The hair of this idolatrous 
Nazarite had attained to the extraordinary length of 
twelve feet. 
As the insurrection of Benares, in 1781, was one 
of the most memorable events in the annals of British 
India, from the results to which it led, first in strength- 
ening and extending the Company's government over 
a very populous district of Hindostan, and next in 
* A sort of lime-ash, composed of pounded shells. 
