among the East-Indians, a kind of hermits, who generally stand under trees, or near their pagods. Some of them go stark naked, holding their arms across over their heads, and continue in that posture all their lives: others lie on the ground, with one leg higher than the other, and their arms raised above their head; and these wretched penitents insensibly lose the use of their arms and legs: some confine themselves in cages, fet on the top of a thick stake, fixed in the ground; and these cages are so small, that they put the penitent to prodigious torture: some holding a sabre in one hand, and a kind of shield in the other, go up a kind of crane, where hooking themselves to an iron, which runs a considerable way into their backs, they spring forward into the air, flourishing their sabres, and launching out into extravagant praises of their idols: and others plunge into the Ganges, in hopes of being devoured by a crocodile, fancying that by this means they shall obtain the happiness of the next life.

These miserable wretches are considered by the Indians as perfect models of piety and holiness: they are followed by persons of both sexes, who make a vow of devoting themselves to their service, and are wholly employed in soothing their voluntary sufferings by offering them alms and refreshments. They call the pious to their devotions by ringing a little bell; and when they hold their spiritual conversations, they sit close in a ring, and set up a banner, made of several pieces of stuff, fastened at the end of a stick.