The strangest people he will see are the Fakirs. They wander about from city to city and from temple to temple, and live entirely on the gifts that are given to them by the devout. Even if a Hindu does not wish to be kind and generous, he will give a gift to a Fakir, because he believes that if the Fakir curses him his rice will wither on its stem, his cattle and his children will sicken and die, and ill-luck will follow him in everything. So the very shadow of a Fakir is held sacred, and no one will cross it lest harm should come to him for his want of reverence. The Fakir wears as little clothes as possible, but he covers his body with mud and ashes, and makes his hair stick out in all sorts of uncouth forms with gum and clay. He wears a rope or some strings of beads round his neck. Sometimes he whitewashes his face, and paints lines on it, and makes himself still more uncanny-looking than he already is with his thin body and his wild hair. He has a boy whom he calls his “Chela” with him, and a brass bowl, and nothing else. The boy goes out with the bowl at breakfast time, and begs till it is full; then he comes back to the Fakir where he rests on the temple steps, or under a cart, or by the wayside, to eat the meal with him. The Fakir himself should never beg, for the gods he worships are supposed to send him all he needs, and if he receives nothing from them, he must starve. Some Fakirs are earnest men who seek to live up to the best they know, and some are only idle loafers who wish to have an easy life, and to get as much as they can by trading on the hopes and fears of other people. Amongst them there are many men who have wonderful powers of conjuring and of second sight. No one can explain the tricks they do, and there is a weirdness about the men that adds to the weirdness of their doings. Many an English child would run home in terror at the mere sight of a Fakir. But the sight of a Fakir is not nearly so eerie as the sight of some of the things he seems to do. One of these men will suddenly appear to climb up into the air going hand over hand on a rope that is not there, till he vanishes into the sky. In a few minutes he will come quietly along the street as if nothing had happened. Another will take a piece of rope, whirl it round his head, and toss it into the air, where it will seem to the onlookers to stand so firm and strong that a man can climb it, though it is not fastened to anything. One of the commonest of these wonderful things is to make a plant grow while the crowd watch. The Fakir takes a mango fruit, opens it, and lifts out the seeds. He has a little tub of earth into which he drops them, and as the bystanders watch, they see a mango tree grow up, and bear fruit before them. The chela sees these things, and gradually learns the secrets that belong to them, so that when his Fakir dies he is ready to take his place and be a Fakir himself.