even hundreds of miles away, though months or years may be required to complete the journey. I had once the opportunity of seeing one of these men performing this feat. When I met him he was on the Grand Trunk Road, over two hundred and forty miles from Benares. He had already accomplished about two hundred miles. A crowd accompanied him from village to village, as men turn out here to see Weston walk. He was a miserable-looking object, covered from the crown of his head to his feet with dust and mud. He would lay himself down flat on the road, his face in the dust, and with his finger would make a mark in front of his head on the ground; then he would rise and put his toes in that mark, and down he would go again, flat and at full length, make another line, rise, and put his toes in that, and so on, throughout the live-long day. When tired out he would make such a mark on the side of the road as he could safely find next morning, and then go back with the crowd to the last village which he had passed, where he would be fêted and honored, and next day would return to his mark and renew his weary way. I could not find out how much progress he usually made. It must have been very slow work—certainly less than one mile per day; and what weary months of hard toil lay between him and Benares is apparent. These wretches thus choose, and voluntarily lay upon themselves, penalties that no civilized government on earth would venture to inflict upon its most hardened criminals.
Some of these Yogees, in view of their supposed sanctity and superiority to all external considerations, hold themselves above obedience to law or the claims of common decency. I have myself seen one of them in the streets of Benares, in the middle of the day, when they were crowded with men and women—a man evidently over forty years of age—as naked as he was born, walking through the throng with the most complete shamelessness and unconcern! And if it were not for the terror of the English magistrate's order and whip, instead of one in a while, hundreds of these “naked philosophers” would scandalize those streets every day in the year, and “glory in their shame.”
