where I stood. I had observed several huge
poles standing at a great height, with ropes
and some apparatus attached to them, the
use of which I knew from report alone.
Here I now remarked a great deal of bustling
activity; a number of attendants were beating
back the crowd in order to clear a space
around one of the loftiest of the poles I have
mentioned. This was a work of much
difficulty, for the mob was both excited and
dense. At length, however, they succeeded
in the task, and finding the ground before me
pretty clear, I advanced close to the scene of
action. Round about the pole were a number
of Fakirs or Ascetics, a sort of self-mutilated
hermits, who hope and firmly believe that,
by distorting their limbs into all sorts of
impossible positions and shapes, they have
ensured the favour of some unpronounceable
divinity, and with that a ready and certain
passport to some future state about which
they have not the most remote idea, which
renders their devotion the more praiseworthy.

There was one miserable object, with his
long matted locks of dirty red streaming
over his shoulders, and one withered arm and
hand held blighted high above his head,
immoveable. It had been forced into that
unnatural position years ago, and what was
then an act of free will, was now a matter of
necessity; the arm would no longer return, to
its true position, but pointed in its thin and
bony haggardness to heaven. Another dark-
eyed, dark-haired ascetic had held his hands
for years so firmly clasped together, that the
long talon-like nails were to be seen growing
through the palms of his hands and appearing
at the back. Some I saw with thick rope
actually threaded through their flesh
quite round their bodies, many times, in
bleeding coils; more than one young woman
was there with her neck and shoulders thickly
studded over with sharp short needles stuck
firmly in the flesh. One man, a young man
too, had forced a sort of spear right through
the fleshy part of his foot, with the thick
wooden handle downwards, on which he
walked, quite indifferent to any sort of
inconvenience. There was no lack of others, all self-
tortured, maimed, and trussed, and skewered,
as though about to be spitted and put down
to the fire.

The object which all by one consent agreed
to gaze at, was a young and pretty-looking
girl, almost a child in manner, who sat upon
the ground so sadly, yet so calm and almost
happy, that I could not persuade myself one
so young and gentle was about to be
barbarously tortured. Yet so it was. It appeared
that her husband had, months since, gone
upon some distant, dangerous journey; that
being long absent, and rumours raised in the
native bazaar of his death, she, the anxious
wife, had vowed to Siva, the protector of life,
to undergo self-torture on his next festival if
her loved husband's life should be spared. He
had returned, and now, mighty in faith and love,
this simple-minded, single-hearted creature
gave up herself to pain such as the stoutest
of our sex or race might shrink from. She
sat looking fondly on her little infant as it
lay asleep in the arms of an old nurse, all
unconscious of the mother's sacrifice, and
turning her eyes from that to her husband,
who stood near in a wild, excited state, she
gave the signal that she was ready. The
stout-limbed, burly-bodied husband rushed
like a tiger at such of the crowd as attempted
to press too near the sacrificial girl: he had
a staff in his hand, and with it played such
a tune on bare and turbaned heads and
ebony shoulders, as brought down many an
angry malediction on the player. The nurse
with the infant moved farther away amongst
the crowd of admiring spectators. Two or
three persons, men and women, pressed
forward to adjust the horrid-looking hooks.
Was it possible, I thought, that those huge
instruments of torture, heavy enough to hold
an elephant, were to be forced into the flesh
of that gentle girl! I felt sick as I saw the
poor child stretched upon her face, and first
one and then the other of those ugly, crooked
pieces of iron forced slowly through the flesh
and below the muscles of her back. They
lifted her up, and as I watched her, I saw
big drops of perspiration starting from her
forehead; her small eyes seemed closed at
first, and, for the moment, I fancied she had
fainted; but as they raised her to her feet
and then quickly drew her up in the air high
above us, hanging by those two horrid hooks,
I saw her looking down quite placidly. She
sought her husband out, and seeing him
watching her eagerly, gave him a smile, and,
waving her little hands, drew from her bosom
small pieces of the sacred cocoa-nut and flung
them amidst the gazing crowd. To scramble
for and obtain one of these precious
fragments was deemed a fortunate thing, for they
were supposed to contain all sorts of charmed
powers.

And now the Poojah was fairly commenced.
The ropes which carried the iron hooks were
so arranged, that by pulling one end—which
passed over the top of the pole—it swung
round a plate of iron which set in motion the
other rope holding the hooks and the living
operator. Two men seized on this rope, and
soon the poor girl was in rapid flight over
the heads of the crowd, who cheered her on
by a variety of wild cries, and shouts, and
songs. Not that she seemed to need
encouragement; her eyes were still bent
towards her husband; I almost fancied she
smiled as she caught his eye. There was no
sign of pain, or shrinking, or yielding: she
bore it as many a hero of the old world would
have been proud to have done, scattering
beneath her flowers and fruit amongst the
busy throng.

I felt as though a heavy weight were off my
mind when I perceived the whirling motion
of the ropes first to slacken, and then to cease