There was one miserable object, with his long matted locks of dirty red streaming over his shoulders, and one withered arm and hand held blighted high above his head, immovable. It had been forced into that unnatural position years ago, and what was then an act of free-will, was now a matter of necessity; the arm would no longer return to its true position, but pointed in its thin and bony haggardness to heaven. Another dark-eyed, dark-haired ascetic had held his hands for years so firmly clasped together, that the long talon-like nails were to be seen growing through the palms of his hands and appearing at the back. Some I saw with thick rope actually threaded through their flesh quite round their bodies, many times in bleeding coils; more than one young woman was there with her neck and shoulders thickly studded over with sharp short needles stuck firmly in the flesh. One man, a young man, too, had forced a sort of spear right through the fleshy part of his foot, with the thick wooden handle downward, on which he walked, quite indifferent to any sort of inconvenience. There was no lack of others, all self-tortured, maimed, and trussed, and skewered, as though about to be spitted and put down to the fire. The object which all by one consent agreed to gaze at, was a young and pretty-looking girl, almost a child in manner, who sat upon the ground so sadly, yet so calm and almost happy, that I could not persuade myself one so young and gentle was about to be barbarously tortured. Yet so it was. It appeared that her husband had, months since, gone upon some distant, dangerous journey; that being long absent, and rumors raised in the native bazaar of his death, she, the anxious wife, had vowed to Siva, the protector of life, to undergo self-torture on his next festival if her loved husband's life should be spared. He had returned, and now, mighty in faith and love, this simple-minded, single-hearted creature gave up herself to pain such as the stoutest of our sex or race might shrink from. She sat looking fondly on her little infant as it lay asleep in the arms of an old nurse, all unconscious of the mother's sacrifice, and turning her eyes from that to her husband, who stood near in a wild, excited state, she gave the signal that she was ready. The stout-limbed, burly-bodied husband rushed like a tiger at such of the crowd as attempted to press too near the sacrificial girl: he had a staff in his hand, and with it played such a tune on bare and turbaned heads and ebony shoulders, as brought down many an angry malediction on the player. The nurse with the infant moved further away among the crowd of admiring spectators. Two or three persons, men and women, pressed forward to adjust the horrid-looking hooks. Was it possible, I thought, that those huge instruments of torture, heavy enough to hold an elephant, were to be forced into the flesh of that gentle girl! I felt sick as I saw the