In front of a beautiful Muhammadan Mosque a group is assembled around an Hindostanī juggler, with his goat, two monkeys, and several bits of wood, made in the shape of an hour-glass. The first piece he places on the ground, the goat ascends it, and balances herself on the top: the man by degrees places another bit of wood on the edge of the former; the goat ascends and retains her balance: a third piece, in like manner, is placed on the top of the former two pieces; the goat ascends from the two former, a monkey is placed on her back, and she still preserves her balance. The man keeps time with a sort of musical instrument, which he holds in his right hand, and sings a wild song to aid the goat: without the song and the measured time, they say the goat could not perform the balance. A grass-cutter is looking on: he has just returned from cutting a bundle of _dūb_-grass: every horse in India has his _sāīs_, or groom, and his grass-cutter. When a beautiful _begam_ (a native princess) is suffering from the pangs of jealousy, she often exclaims, “I wish I were married to a grass-cutter!” because a man of that class is too poor to be able to keep two wives. The man on the right is a religious mendicant, a disciple of Siva. When this portrait was taken, his long black hair, matted with cow-dung, was twisted like a turban round his head: he was dreadfully lean, almost a skeleton. His left arm had been held erect so long, that the flesh had withered, and the skin clung round the bones most frightfully; the nails of the hand, which had been kept immoveably clenched, had pierced through the palm, and grew out at the back of the hand, like the long claws of a bird of prey. His skeleton arm was encircled by a twisted stick, the stem perhaps of a thick creeper, the end of which was cut into the shape of the head of the cobra di capello, with its hood displayed; and the twisted withy looked like the body of the reptile wreathed around his horrible arm. His only garment was the skin of a tiger, thrown over his shoulders, and a bit of rag and rope. He was of a dirty ashen colour from mud and paint; perhaps in imitation of Siva, who, when he appeared on earth as a naked mendicant of an ashy colour, was recognized as Mahadēo, the great god. This man was considered a very holy person. His right hand contained an empty gourd and a small rosary, and two long rosaries were around his neck of the rough beads called _mundrāsī_. Acts of severity towards the body, practised by religious mendicants, are not done as penances for sin, but as works of extraordinary merit, promising large rewards in a future state. The _Byragī_ is not a penitent, but a proud ascetic.