Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/339

 and skeleton-like arm was encircled by a twisted stick, the stem, perhaps, of a thick creeper, the end of which was cut into the shape of the head of the cobra de capello, with its hood displayed, and the twisted withy looked like the body of the reptile wreathed around his horrible arm. His only garment, the skin of a tiger, thrown over his shoulders, and a bit of rag and rope at his waist. He was of a dirty-white or dirty-ashen colour from mud and paint; perhaps in imitation of Shiv[)u], who, when he appeared on earth as a naked mendicant of an ashy colour, was recognized as Mahadēo the great god. This man was considered a very holy person. His right hand contained an empty gourd and a small rosary, and two long rosaries were around his neck of the rough beads called mundrāsee. His flag hung from the top of a bamboo, stuck in the ground by the side of a trident, the symbol of his caste, to which hung a sort of drum used by the mendicants. A very small and most beautifully formed little gynee (a dwarf cow) was with the man. She was decorated with crimson cloth, embroidered with cowrie shells, and a plume of peacock's feathers as a jika, rose from the top of her head. A brass bell was on her neck, and around her legs were anklets of the same metal. Numbers of fakīrs come to the sacred junction, each leading one of these little dwarf cows decorated with shells, cowries, coloured worsted tassels, peacock's feathers, and bells. Some are very small, about the size of a large European sheep, very fat and sleek, and are considered so sacred that they will not sell them.

Acts of severity towards the body, practised by religious mendicants, are not done as penances for sin, but as works of extra-*ordinary merit, promising large rewards in a future state. The Byragee is not a penitent, but a proud ascetic. These people bear the character of being thieves and rascals.

Although the Hindoos keep their women parda-nishīn, that is, veiled and secluded behind the curtain, the fakīrs have the privilege of entering any house they please, and even of going into the zenāna; and so great is their influence over the natives, that if a religious mendicant enter a habitation leaving his