plete which did not include a proper description of these Fakirs. They are the saints of the Mohammedan and Hindoo systems. These horrible looking men, with their disheveled hair, naked bodies, and painted breasts and foreheads, are constantly roving over the country, visiting shrines, making pilgrimages, and performing religious services for their disciples. The Sepoys greatly honored and liberally patronized these spiritual guides. The post-office failing them, the chiefs of the conspiracy linked these Fakirs into the enterprise as the medium of communication; and they were so stationed that the orders transmitted, or the information desired, could be forwarded with a celerity and safety that was amazing.
It may be desired, for the sake of the information on this singular topic, to digress a little just here, before proceeding with the narrative. Of all the curses under which India and her daughters groan, it may safely be said that this profession of the Fakirs is one of the heaviest and most debasing. The world has not often beheld a truer illustration of putting “darkness for light” than is afforded in the character and influence of these ignorant, beastly-looking men—fellows that in any civilized land would be indicted as “common vagrants,” or hooted out of society as an intolerable outrage upon decency. But they swarm in India, infesting its highways, crowding its ghats and temples, creeping into its homes, and leading captive its poor, silly women. They hold the general mind of India in such craven fear that the courtly Rajah, riding in his silver howdah on the back of his elephant, and surrounded by his retinue, will often rise from his seat and salaam to one of these wretches as he goes by.
The Law-giver of India, while so jealously providing for the seclusion of the ladies of the land, expressly relaxes the rules in favor of four classes of men—Fakirs, Bards, Brahmins and their own servants—in the following section of the Code: “Mendicants, encomiasts, men prepared for a sacrifice, cooks, and other artisans are not prohibited from speaking to married women.”—Sec. 360. chap. viii. They can exercise their discretion how far they shall unvail themselves before them, though in their intercourse with Brahmins and Fakirs all restriction is usually laid aside. They are
