3°6
F aquirs.
G A N G E T I G H I N D O O S T A N .
brought fuch a difgrace upon their religion; fuch women, I
lay, are ordinarily the prey of this kind o f men, who are alio
counted infamous in the Indies, and that have nothing to lofe.
T here are in India a fet of felf-tormentors of a very different
nature, a fet of Faquirs or fanatics, who profanely ftyle
themfelves Fogeys, or united to God. Thefe fellows will vow to
ftand on their legs till their limbs fwell as thick as their bodies ;
others on their heads with their feet upwards for hours ; others
fuffer their hair to grow till it covers their bodies, and becomes
as infeited as the plica polonica; others again will fuffer their
nails to grow till they refemble the claws of wild beafts, or continue
with their arms acrofs till the limbs become immoveable.
1 cannot relate all the madneffes o f thefe people; the various
attitudes may be feen in a plate in Linfchotten's voyage, under
a great Ficus religiofa, or Banian tree, beneath the fhades o f
which they aft their follies. But the moft ferious o f all may bp
feen in Hamilton's voyage, vol. i. 370, who fhews two fellows
voluntarily fufpended on hooks fattened to a beam, in honor of
the god Jagernaut, and turned about in the air by perfons employed
for that purpofe.
To conclude—Mr. Cambridge forms a very humorous poem
out o f a ftory told by one of our travellers, who met with a fellow
who fell on a very lingular means o f mortification, by
riding in a fort o f fedan with the bottom ftuck full o f nails. A
rich Indian would perfuade him to quit his feat. The reafon-
ing o f the Indian, and the moral o f the ftory, fhall be given in
the words of my ingenious friend.
Can
Can fuch Wretches as you give to madnefs a vogue ? ■>
Though the priefthood of Fd on the vulgar impofe,
By fquinting whole years at the end of their nofe j
Though with cruel devices of mortification
They adore a vain idol of modern creation:
Does the God of the Heav’ns fuch a fervice diredt,
Can his mercy approve a felf-punifhing feit;
Will his wifdom be worlhipp’d with chains and with nails;
Or e’er look for his rites in your nofes and tails ?
Come along to my houfe, and thefe penances leave;
Give your belly a feaft, and your breech a reprieve.
This reas’ning unhing’d each fanatical notion,
And dagger'd our faint in his chair of promotion.
At length with reluitance he rofe from his k it,
And refigning his nails and his fame for retreat,
Two weeks his new life he admir’d and enjoy’d.
The third he with plenty and cfuiet Was cloy’d ;
To live undiftinguiih’d to him was the pain,
An exiftence unnotic’d he could not fuftain.
In retirement he figh’d for the fame givihg-chair,
For the crowd- to admire him, to reverence and ftare:
No endearments of pleafure and eafe could prevail;
He the faintfhip refum’d, and new larded his tail.
Mr. Ricbard/on, irt his Arabic and Ferjian dictionary, gives
the following extraordinary account o f thefe extraordinary re-
ligionifts, under the article Fakyr—U A poor man. A reli-
“ gious order of mendicants thus named by the Arabians,
R r 3 “ by ^