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DEAN MAHOMET
139
chewing betel, and ſmoking tobacco, avoiding every kind of amuſement, and ſpending the time; in prayer, and the perfomance of charitable offices. They are ſo extremlely tenacious of their principles that even under the painful longing of execeſſive thirſt, they will not taſte a drop of water, each day, till ſeven in the evening. As an inſtance of their ſeverity in the obſervance of their religious tenets, I ſhall introduce the following real anecdote. A conſiderable Banyan merchant was on his pallage from Bombay to Surat, in an Engliſh ſhip, and having made ſuch a proviſion of water in'veſſels under his own ſeal, as might ſerve for that ſhort voyage, which was commonly comple-
ted
