THE NEWAUB OF LUCKNOW. 
127 
By this time the poor Hindoo, overcome with horror 
at the idea of perishing among a race of beings de- 
graded in his eyes by every moral and personal pol- 
lution, requested the captain to allow him a spar upon 
which he might endeavour to float himself to the 
nearest point of land, which, as far as I recollect, was 
Mangalore. It was at least fifty miles distant. A 
thick spar was accordingly flung into the sea, the 
Hindoo gallantly plunged in, and, bestriding it, com- 
mitted himself to the mercy of the calm waters, 
surrounded by sharks and a host of other perils. 
Whether the unhappy fanatic reached the shore alive 
was never ascertained, but the chances were greatly 
against him. 
The devotion of these people is extraordinary, and 
their capability of endurance incredible. With slight 
frames, and even when labouring under great bodily 
debility, they will undergo privations which would 
destroy the life of a European of much stronger pro- 
portions and constitution, while they appear to suffer 
little or nothing. The chief cause of this may, per- 
haps, be found in the extreme abstemiousness of 
their living, which renders them so little liable to 
inflammatory affections of any kind, that in every 
part of India even the severest wounds heal in an 
inconceivably short time with the simple application of 
a plaister and bandage. I once saw a man in the 
Deckan at work, six days after he had received a se- 
vere fracture of the skull. Owing to his lowness of 
habit, no inflammation, or to a very trifling extent, 
ensued. 
We reached Lucknow just as the Newaub was 
