On arriving in the vicinity of a village, the whole population turn out to meet and escort him with due honors to the public well or tank; the men beating drums, and the women singing through their noses. Here his holiness unbends, washes off the dust and dirt acquired by perambulating several miles of dusty road; and, after partaking of a slight refreshment, enters into conversation with the assembled villagers just as if he were an ordinary mortal; making very particular inquiries concerning the state of their larders, and slight investigations as to their morals. Of course every one is anxious to have the honor of entertaining a man so holy as to roll to their presence doubled up into a hoop; and disputes get warm as to who is to have the preference. Whereupon the faquir makes a speech, in which
he returns thanks for the attentions shown him and intimates that he intends taking up his quarters with the man who is most capable of testifying his appreciation of the honor. After some higgling, he knocks himself down, a decided bargain, to be the guest of the highest bidder, in whose house he remains, giving good advice to the community, and diffusing an odor of sanctity throughout the whole village. When the supplies begin to fail, he ties his hands to his heels again, gets a fresh tire put on, and is escorted out of the village with the same formalities as accompanied his entrance.
Like other vermin of his class, he is most apt to attach himself to the "weaker vessels" of humanity, with whom he is generally a prodigious favorite. He is not, certainly, indebted to his personal advantages for this favor, for a more hideously ugly race of men is seldom met with. As if nature had not made him sufficiently repulsive, he heightens his hideousness by encircling his eyes with bands of white paint; daubing his cheeks a rich mustard yellow: a white streak runs along the ridge of his nose, and another forms a circle round his mouth: his ribs are indicated by corresponding bars of white paint, which give a highly venerable cross-bones effect to his breast. When I add, that he wears no clothes, and that the use of soap is no part of his religion, some idea may be gained of the effect the first view of him occasions in the mind of a European.
On the afternoon of a very sultry day in June, I had got a table out in the veranda of my bungalow, and was amusing myself with a galvanic apparatus, giving such of my servants as had the courage, a taste of what they called Wulatee boiujee (English lightning), when a long gaunt figure, with his hair hanging in disordered masses over his face, was observed to cross the lawn. On arriving within a few paces of where I stood, he drew himself up in an imposing attitude—one of his arms akimbo, while the other held out toward me what appeared to be a pair of tongs, with a brass dish at the extremity of it.
"Who are you?" I called out.
"Faquir," was the guttural response.
"What do you want?"
"Bheek" (alms).
"Bheek!" I exclaimed, "surely you are joking—a great stout fellow like you can't be wanting bheek?"
The faquir paid not the slightest attention, but continued holding out his tongs with the dish at the end of it.